
Ask HN: Should we abandon copyright? - pasta
This might not be a very popular opinion but the more I think of it the more I believe we should abandon copyright.<p>You can argue for example that someone took a lot of time to create something and that a copycat can profit from this in an unfair manner.
But most of the time a copy is not as good as the original and most people don&#x27;t want a copy but even pay extra for the original.<p>Since there are a lot of smart people on HN I would like to ask this question here: should we abandon copyright?<p>Note: I don&#x27;t believe this will ever happen, but I wonder what the upsides will be.
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CM30
Nah. We shouldn't completely abandon it, but it should go back to being far
more of a temporary thing, where your copyright laws maybe a few decades
rather than life + however many years. That way, there's not only an incentive
to create new works (since you won't be able to ride off the same ones
reputation for years), but the actual 'stopping copycats in the short term'
goal gets achieved without stifling the commons.

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hannasanarion
You are confusing a "copy" (illegal for copyrighted works) with a "clone"
(which often skirts the bounds of legality).

Copyright doesn't save us from knock-offs. The hundreds of "Revengers: Age of
Boltron" DVDs in the bargain bin at Walmart is testament to that. Those are
_legal_.

What copyright prevents is Cinemark buying a copy of Age of Ultron for $20 and
then making hundreds of copies and charging ten bucks a seat to watch them in
hundreds of theaters nationwide, never sending Marvel Studios another penny
beyond that initial $20.

Helping consumers avoid knock-offs is what _trademarks_ are for.

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HenryTheHorse
Which problem exactly are you hoping will go away by eliminating copyright?
There was innovation and progress before copyright and there has been
innovation and progress with copyright.

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veddox
Well, copyright wasn't introduced for no reason...

As you say, I think it's the fair and just thing to do and people justly get
upset when others steal the results of their hard work. (Even if you're not
removing a physical object, violating copyright is still stealing and should
be treated as such.)

To answer your quality objection: unfortunately, I can't agree with your
observation. While some well-to-do people from some cultures may indeed be
willing to spend more money for an "original", that is not the case for many,
many other people I know. Either because they don't [think they] have the
money for the original, or because the original is hard[er] to get, or because
they simply don't care about quality as long as it's "good enough". In many
countries and cultures, the whole concept of copyright and even property is
not as clearly defined in the minds of the people as it is in most parts of
the West.

Why else do you think fake Adidas/Nike/Puma shoes flood the market the way
they do? And in fact, I once saw a Chinese-made lock that was the copy of a
copy of a copy of an originally British brand. If everybody would prefer the
original, how did that ever reach the market?

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veddox
Having said all that - although I believe abandoning copyright would be an
unjust thing to do, it may in fact have positive effects on society as a
whole. This article was posted here some time back:
[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-
copyright-l...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright-
law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html)

The question for me would be whether there are ways of achieving the same
effect without having to completely abandon copyright?

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tinus_hn
Copyright serves an important purpose but has been manipulated into being
excessively broad, powerful and long-lived.

It’s an invention from the era where access to a printing press was limited
and doesn’t really match today’s world where it is difficult or impossible to
participate and avoid making copies, which is the opposite.

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frnkshin
NO, copyright is simply the right to make copies. It has nothing to do with
the right to create derived material of the original copyrighted item.

~~~
detaro
the word "copyright" is about allowing/forbidding all kinds of use of a work,
not just copying. Derivative works are very much part of it.

