Somebody would take your car if there wasn't any cops to intervene. And your food. Government enforcing the law that I can't take your stuff doesn't mean that government invented the stuff.
You give government far too much credit. Al Gore may have invented the internet, but government did not invent clothes and food and houses - protecting your stuff doesn't mean they invented it.
For some reason, if you spent a week in an preschool you will hear the cry "he copied me!". Always in an upset tone. The fact is,
Recognizing that, knowing that the fruits of your labors inherently belong to you
Bullshit. But kudos for your novel pro-copyright argument based on selfish preschoolers. That's a new one to me.
Property -- all property -- is either what you can personally defend from others, what you can convince other people to not take, and what you and other people banding together can defend from others.
Why can't I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge? Because if I do it on my own, I'm just some nut. But when it really is me and my army and we can march in and stop anyone from disputing my claim to be able to sell good title, I sure as hell can sell you the bridge.
It's not pretty, but it's how the west was won.
Creative works are ultra-susceptible to copying, and they're non-rivalrous, so copying doesn't lessen the copy you have. As Jefferson pointed out, lighting your torch from his fire doesn't mean he has less fire. That's why for most of history copyright didn't exist at all. Censorship sure did, but not authorial copyright in the way we think of it. That didn't come along until people successfully made the argument that it was in the interest of the public to suffer a little temporary loss of their inherent right to copy things they had access to in order to get more things, on terms that suit the public.
And why would it ever be any other way? Why would I ever voluntarily suffer the indignity of tolerating copyright unless I gained more from it (even accounting for the inherent harm) than I lost? At that point the devil's in the details though; make copyright too onerous and we're better off with less of it. Make it worse still, and we're better off without copyright at all.
I can't rightfully take the fruits of your creative labors, your artwork, because we've known from age three that "he's copying me!" isn't an expression of joy - it's decrying an injustice that we've all understood innately for our entire lives.
Thanks! I will now forever think of copyright maximalists as being three-year-old crybabies. Outstanding work.
make copyright too onerous and we're better off with less of it.
As numerous people who upload videos / stream to the internet are finding out, with the music industry's aggressive stance on enforcing copyright with the blunt tool of the DMCA (in the latest twist, they're even enforcing copyright on sound effects).
Sure, the artists / people who recorded the effects should be credited and probably have some form of compensation, but when the law likely regards someone streaming to an audience of a few dozen the same way as a television station broadcasting to millions,
> Property -- all property -- is either what you can personally defend from others, what you can convince other people to not take, and what you and other people banding together can defend from others.
The old "might makes right" argument, eh?
Well, I guess it's a good thing people don't depend on you to make good arguments, based on justice, or based on the law.
> I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Oh shit. Yeah you'll definitely never be my lawyer, since "might makes rig
The modern core theory of property law is that it's utilitarian (i.e. what people agree to because it's in their own interest) but underlying that is the much messier bit about who the people making the agreements are.
It would be nice if there were a more uplifting basis for it, but we should not delude ourselves as to how it originated and what the foundations rest on. But by all means, show me a counter example of a place where ownership doesn't work like that. It won't be America; we got our land by wipi
[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.
-- Joseph Campbell
Capitalism is a good tool, nothing more. (Score:5, Insightful)
The end result of unfettered capitalism is wealthy organisations eating everything and everyone else.
The power of wealth must be reigned in.
Re: (Score:0, Flamebait)
Weird that you blame "capitalism" for an unnatural right to imaginary property invented by the government.
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Weird that you blame "capitalism" for an unnatural right to imaginary property invented by the government.
It wasn't invented by the government, it is just enforced by it (after sufficient lobbying efforts)
Re: (Score:0, Flamebait)
It wasn't invented by the government, it is just enforced by it
Are you seriously claiming that, in the absence of government, authors would have no problem being compensated for their work?
Copyrights, patents, and trademarks exist only because governments say that they do.
Government invented cars and food? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody would take your car if there wasn't any cops to intervene. And your food. Government enforcing the law that I can't take your stuff doesn't mean that government invented the stuff.
You give government far too much credit. Al Gore may have invented the internet, but government did not invent clothes and food and houses - protecting your stuff doesn't mean they invented it.
For some reason, if you spent a week in an preschool you will hear the cry "he copied me!". Always in an upset tone. The fact is,
Re:Government invented cars and food? (Score:3)
Recognizing that, knowing that the fruits of your labors inherently belong to you
Bullshit. But kudos for your novel pro-copyright argument based on selfish preschoolers. That's a new one to me.
Property -- all property -- is either what you can personally defend from others, what you can convince other people to not take, and what you and other people banding together can defend from others.
Why can't I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge? Because if I do it on my own, I'm just some nut. But when it really is me and my army and we can march in and stop anyone from disputing my claim to be able to sell good title, I sure as hell can sell you the bridge.
It's not pretty, but it's how the west was won.
Creative works are ultra-susceptible to copying, and they're non-rivalrous, so copying doesn't lessen the copy you have. As Jefferson pointed out, lighting your torch from his fire doesn't mean he has less fire. That's why for most of history copyright didn't exist at all. Censorship sure did, but not authorial copyright in the way we think of it. That didn't come along until people successfully made the argument that it was in the interest of the public to suffer a little temporary loss of their inherent right to copy things they had access to in order to get more things, on terms that suit the public.
And why would it ever be any other way? Why would I ever voluntarily suffer the indignity of tolerating copyright unless I gained more from it (even accounting for the inherent harm) than I lost? At that point the devil's in the details though; make copyright too onerous and we're better off with less of it. Make it worse still, and we're better off without copyright at all.
I can't rightfully take the fruits of your creative labors, your artwork, because we've known from age three that "he's copying me!" isn't an expression of joy - it's decrying an injustice that we've all understood innately for our entire lives.
Thanks! I will now forever think of copyright maximalists as being three-year-old crybabies. Outstanding work.
Re: (Score:1)
make copyright too onerous and we're better off with less of it.
As numerous people who upload videos / stream to the internet are finding out, with the music industry's aggressive stance on enforcing copyright with the blunt tool of the DMCA (in the latest twist, they're even enforcing copyright on sound effects).
Sure, the artists / people who recorded the effects should be credited and probably have some form of compensation, but when the law likely regards someone streaming to an audience of a few dozen the same way as a television station broadcasting to millions,
Half a million Creative Commons sound effects (Score:2)
> when the law likely regards someone streaming to an audience of a few dozen the same way as a television station broadcasting to millions,
It doesn't.
> Likely requiring an outlay of several thousand currency units for a license
Here are half a million Creative Commons licensed sound effects. You can find a few million more by spending 5-10 minutes on Google.
https://freesound.org/ [freesound.org]
Re: (Score:2)
+1 informative, thanks for the link.
Re: (Score:2)
> Property -- all property -- is either what you can personally defend from others, what you can convince other people to not take, and what you and other people banding together can defend from others.
The old "might makes right" argument, eh?
Well, I guess it's a good thing people don't depend on you to make good arguments, based on justice, or based on the law.
> I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Oh shit. Yeah you'll definitely never be my lawyer, since "might makes rig
Re: (Score:2)
The old "might makes right" argument, eh?
The modern core theory of property law is that it's utilitarian (i.e. what people agree to because it's in their own interest) but underlying that is the much messier bit about who the people making the agreements are.
It would be nice if there were a more uplifting basis for it, but we should not delude ourselves as to how it originated and what the foundations rest on. But by all means, show me a counter example of a place where ownership doesn't work like that. It won't be America; we got our land by wipi