Sorry, but this post is based on a false notion that intellectual property is a beneficial crutch propping up only corporations and piggybacks on the idea that destruction of entrenched interests is always regenerative. That second point is likely so - but the battle isn't about finding new corporate captains to pay creative individuals - it's about how not to pay creative individuals.
I find the irony very sad that we are supposed to move from an industrial to a post-industrial knowledge-based economy - one presumably underpinned by the ability and right of individuals to monetize their knowledge . . . but people have had their free lunch and prefer it instead, perhaps as some salve.
I've said it 1000 times - if you don't like how corporations conduct their business, set something up yourself and if you have a better solution, you'll eventually find yourself a real market. The willy-nilly urge to destroy intellectual property rights for individuals and corporations alike is nothing more than a selfish catharsis - without any sense - neither common-sense, nor business-sense, nor a sense of history. When you take power away, it hurts the weakest first and the strongest last - all the while preserving the existing power structure. That's not a smart solution for anything.
When corporations conduct their business by lobbying for their business model to be legally protected, trying to compete with them in the market is bringing a knife to a gunfight.
But in my conception of copyright reform there is a separation of copyright ownership law vs. legal protection of instances of when that copyright is monetized. The weakness in current copyright law isn't that it exists at all, it's that rights that properly benefit the individual transfer wholesale to the entity able to bring the idea to market. This needn't be the case. And a fix has beautiful consequences that align well with the major needs of the players involved. Though it would take agreement between both public, corporations, and government alike, the prime mover for such a parallel opt-in copyright system would be the individual themselves - which means such a system is both incremental and possible.
Enough with the cowardly and anonymous down-votes. If you've something wrong with what I've written, presumably you have a point to make of your own. Otherwise you are just confirming my point that people don't like any ripple in the construction of their own reality.
I suspect that people view your sentiment as sufficiently--forgive me--old-fashioned and out of touch as to be not worth redressing seriously. (Though to be fair, I don't really like HN's downvote culture either. I didn't downvote you.)
The main reason I'm posting is to direct you to some irony in your phrase "people don't like any ripple in the construction of their own reality." While it might apply to silent downvoters, it also applies to people who haven't realized the futility and cost of holding onto copyright as a legal concept.
I appreciate your sentiments - I really do. From my perspective, the inability of people to involve themselves in discussion both prevents them knowing me and also finding a better solution. My views on copyright are far more nuanced and forward-thinking than the rants against copyright that fill 20% of HN on any given day.
Hum. Well, now I'm on the downvote train. So it goes. Perhaps people view my post as sufficiently idealistic and radical as to be not worth serious redress. ;)
You're saying that we should play by the rules. Part of the game, though, is that we can change the rules.
Intellectual property is more or less dead. This is not a willy-nilly urge, nor a selfish catharsis. It's the outcome of a generation growing up with instant access to their culture, and once such freedom is granted it is not easily revoked.
Go ahead - look through all my comments I've written on IP. When you know what I am saying, you'll know I am not saying one should play by the rules - I never have in my life, that's for sure.
And yes - the current urge is selfish - as you point out it grows out of having taken a freedom - not having worked to be 'granted' anything - and then had that freedom 'revoked'.
There is always a greater good. I am 100% for us building one that benefits us as individuals rather than corporate entities. But the desire to wipe out IP does nothing to put economic power into the hands of creative individuals - what it empowers by a much greater factor is consumption. Last I checked we had enough of that as it was - and this is empty-calorie consumption that flows upward to the new corporate entities that can withstand the pennies to be made on it. It will never devolve power to the individual level.
A better system of IP exists - I have several detailed ideas of how it would function - and it basically revolves around treating the work of corporations differently from that of the individuals - separating ownership and monetization. A system built like this could work as an opt-in model to gradually replace current copyright - but it NEVER will without consumers playing by the much fairer rules. Yes - there are still rules - no system works without them.
If one can't meet the most basic burden of civil society by playing a game, however new, by mutually accepted rules, then there is no recourse - is there? And one can't, won't and shouldn't be taken seriously as a partner for change.
>And yes - the current urge is selfish - as you point out it grows out of having taken a freedom - not having worked to be 'granted' anything - and then had that freedom 'revoked'.
I suppose that is accurate as far as it goes, but labeling that "selfish" seems to be a point of view connotation rather than a necessary one. That is to say, whether or not a thing is a right or an overzealous demand is in the eye of the beholder.
And I unequivocally support the right of people to their culture, and I'm part of a world where that culture is increasingly free.
>But the desire to wipe out IP does nothing to put economic power into the hands of creative individuals
_Exactly._ It removes economic concern from the art. No more rock stars selected and groomed by the establishment; instead hard-working touring musicians.
The fear that seems to drive any continuation of copyright seems to be that artists will stop making art. The fear that seems to drive patents is similar; that our engineers will stop building things.
You can never stop humans from constructing beautiful things! It's in our nature!
I as an artist and an engineer _don't want my output to be property._
In my eyes, your take on things is very far from the live-and-let-live stance that you appear to want to adopt. It's more like social engineering.
You continue to be free to do your art for free and without concern for profit; in no way does someone else doing their art for profit affect your ability to make your choice. So what gives you the right to champion something that 'removes economic concern from the art'? How does your desire not to have your output be property - totally your choice - square with your desire to deny choice to others?
Another point oft-heard is that 'people won't stop making art' - which is a selfish, parasitic argument if I have every heard one. For years I worked producing independent musicians - you might not pay for art that you experience, but I assure you someone does - there is no free lunch.
I have seen indie musicians burn tens of thousands trying to monetize their art; have seen marriages and relationships end - and careers end. My point here isn't about piracy - a much more important point is for consumers to respect the work that goes into the content they consume. The art you consume 'freely' may appeal to your idealistic side, as though you are removing commerce from art - but all you are actually doing is turning a blind eye to the cost. There is always someone paying a price so that you might have it for 'free'.
Once upon a time, people grew their own foods, hunted them - people worked with their hands -people had an intrinsic sense of the burden of production. I think one bad side-effect of the internet is that it has removed people so far from the means of production that they are incapable of appreciating the work that goes into what appears in front of them.
I am not trying to be too pejorative, but it really is like a child who is used to just stating their urge - whether for food, drink, or sleep - and having a benevolent force [parents] provide those things on-demand.
We have fair-trade products from a to z and yet the work of artists isn't worth .01. Really??
>In my eyes, your take on things is very far from the live-and-let-live stance that you appear to want to adopt.
That's because I want to kill. I want to throw away copyright, I want those musicians that sign up to work with greedy suits--not to cast aspersion on your (former?) line of work which seems to be good-faith and productive--to have to find other ways to express themselves, I want the systems that were _once_ our best effort at promoting artistic expression to die.
I want these things dead because after they're dead the absurd but somehow sometimes true accusations of "selling out" won't have any weight.
I _actually don't care_ that people will lose jobs because copyright is dead.
>I think one bad side-effect of the internet is that it has removed people so far from the means of production that they are incapable of appreciating the work that goes into what appears in front of them.
I think this is the most insightful sentence of your post. It attacks the central barrier to removing copyright with a few swift words.
Thus I think it important to describe the manner in which I find that it misses the mark. The Internet is bringing people into contact with the arts of gardening, cooking, woodworking, electronics as never before.
Absurdly the disconnect between production of food and appreciation for food has grown _so large_ that food production is looked at as an art--that is, just another mode of human expression!
And I couldn't be happier about that. Appreciation of art is the act of appreciating the work that goes into it.
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The problem, of course, is that our economic woes _far_ overshadow our cultural ones. You speak from the side of "There is no free lunch," and we may well be on a course where that is alarmingly and devastatingly true. If the Euro collapses, if America can't afford to keep its carrier fleet's Pax Americana running, it may turn out that the debate over copyright was not important at all.
IP is a huge game, but culture is a tiny speck on the landscape of it. Try selling Äpple computers or Nyke shoes on the street of any Western-ish country, and don't even get me started on patents.
I find the irony very sad that we are supposed to move from an industrial to a post-industrial knowledge-based economy - one presumably underpinned by the ability and right of individuals to monetize their knowledge . . . but people have had their free lunch and prefer it instead, perhaps as some salve.
I've said it 1000 times - if you don't like how corporations conduct their business, set something up yourself and if you have a better solution, you'll eventually find yourself a real market. The willy-nilly urge to destroy intellectual property rights for individuals and corporations alike is nothing more than a selfish catharsis - without any sense - neither common-sense, nor business-sense, nor a sense of history. When you take power away, it hurts the weakest first and the strongest last - all the while preserving the existing power structure. That's not a smart solution for anything.