
We don't need copyright anymore - antidoh
Copyright was never about rights holders making money. That was merely a necessary side effect to ensure the primary purpose: ensure that people write their ideas and make them available and widely read. Copyright was to spread ideas, because a society flowing with ideas is a healthy and growing society.<p>The web proves that people will write high quality ideas (and shit) for free. Other people will read those ideas, and society is healthier for it.<p>So, eliminate copyright. We no longer need individual temporary monopolies to promote the spread of ideas, people have found other ways to make money from their ideas that don't require copyright, and they have found other benefits besides money.<p>We're wasting resources enforcing copyright. It was never about rights holders. We've figured out how to spread ideas without copyright.<p>Kill the copyright.
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cewawa
"Copyright was never about rights holders making money."

Here's a quote from the Statute of Anne:

"Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently
taken the Liberty of Printing... Books, and other Writings, without the
Consent of the Authors... to their very great Detriment, and too often to the
Ruin of them and their Families:"

Also copyright doesn't protect ideas.

Also the "high quality ideas (and shit)" are not free. High quality work is
expensive, but may be free to you because they are subsidised. A model not
without its problems.

~~~
logn
Well, one problem with this is that most authors don't hold the rights to
their works and it's not possible to get their permission. I think if all I
had to do to publish a homemade video to Weird Al song was get Al's
permission, it would be pretty sensible. But he signed away his right to a
corp who will fight to the death to extend and exclusively control the work.
The authors would have a much better sense of whether a derivative work robs
them of income or is reasonable.

Also, high quality work is expensive. And in the old days, it probably took
decades to recoup costs when books were prohibitively expensive. But when a
film these days make 100MM in its premiere, I think we need to seriously
shorten copyright terms.

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EvanAnderson
My apologies for having a very US-centric view-- it's all I know. The US
Constitution says: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and Discoveries."

I have a problem with how the law has been twisted by the copyright industry
to render "limited Times" to mean a virtual eternity. Fix that and I have no
beef with copyright. The public domain is important and needs to be nourished.
The "Founders' copyright", with respect to duration, has been shown by
multiple studies to be more than sufficient to create economic incentive
while, at the same time, not starving the public domain.

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coryl
Not sure I agree with you, copyright laws were created with a profit motive -
to protect author's work from being stolen or inappropriately used.

Without copyrights, what incentive does an author have to produce new work?
Someone will take it and redistribute it, take credit for it, or otherwise
profit from it.

~~~
antidoh
What incentive does a blog author have to produce excellent work? Ego,
satisfaction, reputation, altruism ... Many others, and we have an incredibly
diverse, informative and entertaining collection of work today, much of it
distributed for free. The authors get whatever the authors get.

I think the web is evidence that copyright monopoly is no longer necessary to
promote publication. People figure out how to get paid in some way, or they
get some other benefit.

I've learned at least as much reading blog posts and other web content as I
have from my college texts.

Copyright is not the _only_ way, and I don't think it's even necessary
anymore. People write and converse because they want to write and converse.
Some of those want to make money from it, and they'll figure out a way, either
by selling their work directly or by using their work for reputation to gain
entry to employment and other activity.

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qq66
There are lots of great works produced today which simply would not be
produced without copyright. For example, Pixar movies.

A world with Pixar movies is better than a world without them.

~~~
001sky
Playings devil's advocate: There are many ways to incentivise even complex,
large scale investment absent copyright. From project finance to Kickstarter,
it is well beyond self-evident. On the flip-side, the cost of supressing
academic and sciendific knowledge through academic publishers dwarfs whatever
entertainment value might come from their library (~12 films)[1]. I think your
comments on this are too simplistic.

________

[1] Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3; Monsters, Inc.; Finding Nemo; The
Incredibles; Ratatouille; WALL-E; Brave; A Bug's Life; Cars, Cars 2

