[vidarh]

Why? Copyright is 1) presented as being there to protect the interests of the general public, not creators, 2) Statute of Anne, the birth of modern copyright law, protected printers - that is "big businesss" over creators anyway, so even that has largely always been a fiction.

But it is also increasingly dubious that the public gets a good deal out of copyright law anyway.

> From artists and authors not publishing their works publicly

The vast majority of creators have never been able to get remotely close to make a living from their creative work, and instead often when factoring in time lose money hand over fist trying to get their works noticed.

[bryanrasmussen]

I generally let it slide because these copyright discussions tend to be about America, and as such it can be assumed American law and what it inherits from British law is what pertains.

>Copyright is 1) presented as being there to protect the interests of the general public, not creators,

yes, in the U.S in the EU creators have moral rights to their works and the law is to protect their interests.

There are actually moral rights and rights of exploitation, in EU you can transfer the latter but not the former.

>But it is also increasingly dubious that the public gets a good deal out of copyright law anyway.

In the EU's view of copyright the public doesn't need to get a good deal, the creators of copyrighted works do.

[vidarh]

> There are actually moral rights and rights of exploitation, in EU you can transfer the latter but not the former.

And when we talk about copyright we generally talk about the rights of exploitation, where the rationale used today is about the advancement of arts and sciences - a public benefit. There's a reason the name is English is copy-right, where the other Germanic languages focuses more on the work - in the Anglosphere the notion of moral rights as separate from rights of exploitation is well outside the mainstream.

> In the EU's view of copyright the public doesn't need to get a good deal, the creators of copyrighted works do.

Most individual nations copyright law still does uphold the pretence of being for the public good, however. Without that pretence, there is no moral basis for restricting the rights of the public the way copyright law does.

But it has nevertheless been abundantly clear all the way back to the Statute of Anne that any talk of either public goods or rights of exploitation for the creator are excuses, and that these laws if anything mostly exist for the protection of business interests.

[bryanrasmussen]

>Most individual nations copyright law still does uphold the pretence of being for the public good, however. Without that pretence, there is no moral basis for restricting the rights of the public the way copyright law does.

I of course do not know all the individual EU country's rules, but my understanding was that the EU's view was what it was because derived at least from the previous understanding of its member nations. So the earlier French laws before ratification and implementation of the EU directive on author's rights in Law # 92-597 (1 July 1992) were also focused on the understanding of creators having creator's rights and that protecting these was the purpose of Copyright law, and that this pattern generally held throughout EU lands (at least any lands currently in the EU, I suppose pre-Brexit this was not the case)

You probably have some other examples but in my experience the European laws have for a long time held that copyright exists to protect the rights of creators and not of the public.

[vidarh]

> So the earlier French laws before ratification and implementation of the EU directive on author's rights in Law # 92-597 (1 July 1992) were also focused on the understanding of creators having creator's rights

French law, similar to e.g. Norwegian and German law, separated moral and proprietary rights.

Moral rights are not particularly relevant to this discussion, as they relate specifically to rights to e.g. be recognised as the author, and to protect the integrity of a work. They do not relate to actual copying and publication.

What we call copyright in English is largely proprietary/exploitation rights.

The historical foundation of the latter is firmly one of first granting righths on a case by case basis, often to printers rather than cretors, and then with the Statue of Anne that explicitly stated the goal of "encouragement of learning" right in the title of the act. This motivation was later e.g. made explicit in the US constitution.

Since you mention France, the National Assembly after the French Revolution took the stance that works by default were public property, and that copyright was an exception, in the same vein as per the Statute of Anne and US Constitution ("to promote the progress of science and useful arts").

Depository laws etc., which are near universal, are also firmly rooted in this view that copyright is a right grants that is provided on a quid pro quo basis: The work needs to be secured for the public for the future irrespective of continued commercial availability.

[klabb3]

> Why? Copyright is 1) presented as being there to protect the interests of the general public, not creators

Doesn’t matter, both the ”public interest” and ”creator rights” arguments have the same impact: you’re either hurting creators directly, or you’re hurting the public benefit when you remove or reduce the economic incentives. The transfer of wealth and irreversible damage is there, whether you care about Lars Ulrichs gold toilet or our future kids who can’t enjoy culture and libraries to protect from adversarial and cynical tech moguls.

> 2) Statute of Anne, the birth of modern copyright law, protected printers - that is "big businesss" over creators anyway, so even that has largely always been a fiction.

> The vast majority of creators have never been able to get remotely close to make a living from their creative work

Nobody is saying copyright is perfect. We’re saying it’s the system we have and it should apply equally.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Defending the AI corps on basis of copyright being broken is like saying the tax system is broken, so therefore it’s morally right for the ultra-rich to relocate assets to the Caymans. Or saying that democracy is broken, so it’s morally sound to circumvent it (like Thiel says).