The key problem is that copyright infringement by a private individual is regarded by the court as something so serious that it negates the right to privacy. It’s a sign of the twisted values that copyright has succeeded on imposing on many legal systems. It equates the mere copying of a digital file with serious crimes that merit a prison sentence, an evident absurdity.
This is a good example of how copyright’s continuing obsession with ownership and control of digital material is warping the entire legal system in the EU. What was supposed to be simply a fair way of rewarding creators has resulted in a monstrous system of routine government surveillance carried out on hundreds of millions of innocent people just in case they copy a digital file.
lmao copyright isn’t important
if copyright were abolished worldwide today, we’d be in a happier place. people who buy things generally want to buy from the official source anyway, those official sources might even have to cut prices or (god forbid!) have to make their services better to compete in the market
Becoming better at technology is the gateway to fucking with copyright. As if they’re going to be able to do shit when I torrent their files over some obscure server in the developing world to over here. Fuck copyright and companies who engage in that. Every game, all kinds of media and intellectual property that these companies own should be stolen from them and distributed freely. This should then be followed by severe cyber attacks on said companies to destroy their infrastructure to the extent that they can never hold creations of artists for themselves. Fuck corporate enslavement of artists and creators. I’d much rather pay $200 a month to be distributed directly to artists than pay a single cent for a game/album provided by Microsoft/Spotify (as an example). Now, some companies are better than others. GOG until recently was something I liked (conceptually anyway, since I don’t play games), and Qobuz and Tidal pay their artists better than most. I am OK with these companies. The likes of Amazon and Spotify and Microsoft should be destroyed so badly that they can no longer function in this space. We should spread the word of piracy and digital freedom away from these bastards.
I know right? The very idea of copyright is so fucking abstract, absurd and far-fetched. For the most part, it amounts to:
“NOOOOO YOU CAN’T PLACE THE ATOMS IN THIS ORDER BECAUSE ANOTHER PERSON DID IT BEFORE YOU!!!11!1!1!” (When it comes to scientific or engineering parents)
“NOOOO YOU CAN’T MAKE A SURFACE REFLECT THE PHOTONS LIKE THAT, OR EMIT THEM IN THAT PATTERN. THE RIGHT TO DO THAT BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE!!!1!!1!” (When it comes to pictoric arts)
“NOOO YOU CAN’T MAKE THE AIR VIBRATE AT THOSE FREQUENCIES IN THAT PATTERN, SOMEONE DID IT BEFORE YOU AND THEY’RE PAYING ME SO YOU CAN’T DO IT TOO!!!” (Music)
“NOOO YOU CAN’T PUT LETTERS IN THAT ORDER!! THAT’S ILLEGAL, ANOTHER PERSON DID IT BEFORE!!” (Text and code)
So yeah, fuck that shit
Copyright protects creators and prevents monopolies from abusing the system. Imagine you write a movie to sell and Amazon steals that exact movie but uses their resources to market it as their own and sell over seas.
You tell me in what world that sounds fair. Only a moron thinks a free market economy actually works.
Another example is assuming companies act in good faith to protect the market. History has shown that not only do corporations NOT care about rules and regulations but they actively act in the interests of investors and profits.
It is up to the courts to fix the abuse of the current copyright system and unfortunately they also act in the interests of profits.
Imagine this thing actually happens because you’re hired for Amazon as a screenwriter and you’re paid a salary of 3k a month making shows that make Amazon 3 million a month, and Amazon, not the screenwriter, owns the rights to the show. Tell me in which world that’s fair.
Thank you, that’s why I’m a communist.
“Copyright rules are necessary because corporations don’t care about rules and regulations” isn’t as solid an argument as you think it is
You don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m not going to respond to your arguments that you yourself don’t even understand. Contracts of employment don’t have anything to do with copyright. In your own example Amazon owns the IP because they bought it. Something your commie brain wouldn’t understand I guess.
Oh I understand it alright, but how is “Amazon owns the IP” a protection of the artist?
If copyright were abolished, all FOSS and Creative Commons licenses would be rendered null and void, since they depend on copyright law to work.
Deal
Aren’t they a bandaid to a copyright problem (certain parts of it)? If the copyright is gone the root of the problem would be gone.
If by “null and void” you mean unnecessary.
Companies could take and steal as much as they want from smaller artists in that case
As they already do, you mean? Like, look at the recent Spotify scandal, with artists complaining that they don’t earn enough and a higher up of Spotify saying that “nowadays content creation is very inexpensive”, basically implying that Spotify deserves to keep most of the money since the artists’ job is super easy. Most musicians already get most of their money through concerts and merchandising. Copyright already de-facto doesn’t protect the artists nor the scientists.
As will small artists to companies.
Shit even the value of art would be intristic to am individual, almost impossible to capitalise on, but totally viable for an individual working directly with people
…and?
Do you want corps just stealing every new idea and product, cloning it, and muscling out the original inventor without paying them a dime? Because abolishing copyright entirely would be an excellent way to do that.
Property rights are the only thing that protects the poor from the rich. Sure.
Copyright is the only thing protecting us from getting absolutely fucked even harder by the rich than we already are, yes.
How does that work? By definition, a rich person owns a lot of property. Therefore, laws that give more power to property owners favor the rich. Copyright is a type of property.
That already happens. People who research normally do it under a wage and the invention goes to the company paying the wage. If not, a small inventor doesn’t have the financial means and the lawyers to fight a big company copying their idea. The small person is never defended.
Someone has never seen Aliexpress…
I don’t want to see a end to copyright. I want it restored to what it was. Where the creator had a copyright for limited amount of time then everyone had a copyright to the work.
Now that time is beyond the amount of time that someone inspired by a copyrighted work could create some derivative of it. Unless you think someone inspired as a child would feel like bringing that inspiration to fulfilment as an elderly adult is going to happen often.
Copyright was never about defending the creators, its origin is the industrial revolution and it was a tool of companies to protect “their” inventions (the ones of their workers actually). It was NEVER about defending the small person who actually creates things.
I disagree. It was put in place so the creators of works and inventions had exclusive rights to that work or invention for 14 years with one renewal for a total of 28 years. Then the copyright passed into the public domain. It was always about protecting the creators. The companies dominance of it came later. Just who came up with the laws and when do you think it was put in place? Just a hint look at the faces on US currency.
I think you’re mixing copyright which protects works and patients which protect inventions as well as the timelines.
My ideal copyright would be 15 years or death of the creator or the end of sale/support, whichever is earlier. That would mean that Portal 2 has copyright and Portal doesn’t, which sounds about right.
How about an exponentially increasing fee to retain copyright?
So Disney and Nintendo can keep doing what they are doing but also the same companies can steal the work of smaller artists almost immediately?
No thanks.
After 30 years not even Disney or Nintendo will pay a billion for exclusivity.
Let’s make copyright non-transferable. For a company to retain copyright it must employ the creator.
In October 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion.
To keep episode IV in copyright would cost $2^47 = $141.737 trillion
Nah. I’d even call 15 years too long.
You don’t pay a plumber every single time you use his work 15 yrs after his death.
To retain copyright:-
$2^n for year n
$1 for year 1
$2 for year 2
$4 for year 3
$1k for year 10
$32k for year 15
$1m for year 20
$1bn for year 30
Why, though? It still pointlessly favors people who already have money. Just get rid of it.
Humanity as we know it existed for ten of thousands of years without copyright. Copyright is the anti-thesis to creation. Everything humans create is iterative. Copyright along with the rest of intellectual property seeks to pervert creation for personal gain.
Art does not need copyright to survive and I would argue that intellectual property is not needed to promote the arts or science. It is designed to do the opposite which is limit creation to the benefit of the individual.
What makes this worse is the individual is now the corporation. Do you know that a lot of successful artists, particularly musicians, don’t even own their own works?
Corporations benefit disproportionally by copyright. They have lobbied for decades to further pervert the flawed intention of copyright and intellectual property to the breaking point. Simply put, going down the road of trying to prove who created what was first is wrong.
Creation does not happen in a vacuum. Pretending that we create is isolation is farcical. We are great because of all those that came before us.
The telephone was invented by multiple people. The Wright brothers had European counterparts. These issues around intellectual copyright are a lot more complex than we are ready to admit.
We have billions of people now. Stop trying to pretend any idea, drawing, tune, or writing is unique. Rude wake up call, it is not.
Art 100% needs copyright. There is a reason forgery is a crime. Copyright is meant to protect small creators. Yes it is being abused by corporations but the idea that we don’t need it is absurd. Stealing someone’s work and selling as your own is fraud. Plain and simple.
I don’t see the predictable effects of dropping IP laws as more harmful than the current reality. The idea is to protect small creators but the implementation does the opposite.
The solution, as is with so many societal issues, is UBI.
Authentication of the author is not the same as copyright.
First, how do you account for all the art made before copyright existed. Second, what about all the art created everyday where the creator does not pursue copyright let alone try to enforce their rights in a court of law. These two scenarios disprove your assertion that art needs copyright.
Perhaps you are under the misconception that artists need to make a living. Art is an expression of our culture and it is not inherently tied to making money. How many people are creating art right now without the intention to sell it. I will clue you in, there is a lot of people, millions who do this everyday.
The amount of art created for personal use dwarfs that of commercial use by a thousand fold. Copyright does not need to protect these artists at all. Read that, the majority of artists do not need or ever use copyright.
All art is iterative. This means every piece of art is built upon the art that came before it. Copying is literally how it is done. You know Led Zeppelin just copied a bunch of old blues songs? Oh you didn’t because you think artists create stuff out of thin air apparently.
Stealing is depriving someone of their property. Copying does not do this at all. You are pushing a false narrative to prop up your flawed argument. Plain and simple.
A take. Presented to you by an edgy teen.
Lol yeah.
Good luck spending time and money investing in something that you know will have zero legal protection as ‘yours’ after you go to market.
I personally feel that a copyright does give confidence to product developers to actually develop products. If they felt they weren’t going to get anything for their work they just wouldn’t bother and our tech advancement would stall significantly.
You need money to defend your copyright in court, otherwise it’s pretty meaningless
But the thing is, we don’t need to develop products. New products are just further resource usage, more greenhouse gasses, more “infinite growth”. Also, a company or individual having “an edge” in competition by developing something first is simply waste of resources. Now only they are allowed to improve upon it, make it more efficient, whatever. If this didn’t exist, yea they’d be incentivized less to create it in the first place, but also now everyone could take it and make it better.
We have to go away from thinking as individuals in the direction of thinking as humanity.