Copyright Discussion and Debate

[Terthna]

Ideally in a world with moral and ethical corporations? Nothing.

However that's not the world, in a world without copyright, or drastically shortened ones, while the author COULD do that, there's nothing stopping another person from taking their story, printing it as cheaply as possible, and undercutting the nice "author sanctioned" volume among the population. Most authors will never get the notability where a "author sanctioned collector's edition" (which is basically what you're pitching) would be something marketable, rather, their primary income potential will be from the mass market paperback style book that people grab cheaply, and if that is successful, sure they might write sequels to it, but for books especially, notability and popularity are slow to develop unless they somehow get lucky and get a big splash (and in the present media environment, that means they need to be an intersectional darling and somehow writing anti-traditional stories). Myself or @LordsFire? If we can get something published our best hope is a slow and steady buildup of popularity mainly via word of mouth over years, if not decades.

But that's a problem for most authors; whether copyright is twenty years long, or a hundred. Most won't achieve notoriety, no matter how much time and effort they put into it. And I'm sorry, but if you're still relying on the profits made off of a book you wrote over twenty years ago, what exactly have you done in those twenty years? If your job is to write, then you should have written more books in that time frame.

 

[The Name of Love]

...how do you answer ANY breach of physical property if you don't "find out" about it?

You do find out about it, actually, because most private property is exclusive and rivalrous while ideas are the opposite.

...so, if I'm a beggar on the street in winter time and steal another beggar's blanket in order to have a blanket I haven't actually stolen anything at all! How nice.

Dishonesty is unbecoming of you. Clearly, St. Thomas is talking about taking a blanket from someone of property, who won't miss the blanket.

...I find this claim utterly fascinating... and also entirely unproveable. Or for that matter, unfalsifiable, which is basically the same thing.

Most claims are. Including the ones you guys are making about intellectual property.

...You mean medieval peasents DEFINITIVELY did NOT have arguments over which bards telling of King Arthur or Beowulf or which ever story it happened to be was better/more accurate? They DEFINITIVELY did NOT have shipping wars? Really? Wow. Can I see your time machine?

No, fandoms as organized subcultures didn't exist until the 19th century. The Sherlock Holmes fandom was considered to be "the dawn of fandom as we know it."

No, I would equate it to entering into a neighbor's property unknowingly and taking an apple from the apple tree they planted somehow thinking it was completely "natural" for an apple tree to be growing in the woods. In other words, stealing.

Apples are exclusive and rivalrous. Ideas are exactly the opposite of that. Furthermore, ideas are available to pretty much everyone, everywhere, at any time. The apple tree is on a certain person's property.

And this is different from any other form of theft how? I mean, the entire point of being a good thief is to take another's property without them noticing.

You will eventually notice this because the item exists in physical reality. Your story is an idea, so it doesn't. This is the primary distinction I'm relying on.

Perhaps this childish cartoon can demonstrate the concept better than I can.

Yes, as I believe that a person taking and using something produced by another without compensation for their time and labor is, at best, stealing. When a person adds on an entitled attitude and attempts to reframe the matter as people expecting payment for services rendered or goods produced as them somehow being immoral, then they move into being nothing more than a slaver, as they are basically demanding that another person labor for them without compensation.

So I'm a slaver now? But wait, what is this nonsense about patrons being the slavers of artists? Was that just rhetoric, or do really believe it to be true?

I'm honestly not sure how to prove this to you. If you've never come up with stories or ideas on your own in your imagination, it's honestly not something I can explain. Also, you cannot define that of which I believe, which you are doing here. You're basically saying that I cannot believe what I'm outright saying to you, in other words, you are saying I am a liar for saying that I believe there is such a thing as individual creativity. A nice trick, I might add, since it basically makes your position falsifiable. I cannot prove there is original creativity because I'm lying when I say I believe there is such a thing.

So, what evidence is sufficient to prove that someone can create original works? Do they have to invent an entirely new language from the ground up in order to write a story in? Since if they don't you could then argue that, after all, words are ideas and weren't created by them and thus a story told in an already existing language is inherently a communal creation simply because it is told using language. At what point does something qualify as "original" to you?

To prove me wrong, you'd have to prove that Thomas Hobbes and the Romantics were right and the theory of intertextuality as developed by modern literary theorists is wrong.

The idea of the "author" can be traced back to Hobbes, who said "A person is he ‘whose words or actions are considered, either as his own or as representing the words or actions of another man, or of any other thing, to whom they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction.’ When they are considered as his own, then is he called a ‘natural person’; and, when they are considered as representing the words and actions of another, then is he a ‘feigned’ or ‘artificial person.’"

After this development in the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century saw a change in the concept of "author." See, prior to this, the "author" was seen as the marriage of two dissimilar concepts from the Renaissance era. First, the author was a "craftsman" who adhered to a body of rules and who manipulated traditional materials in ways that satisfied the audience of the court. Second, the author occasionally was seen to rise above those requirements and to achieve something "higher," something that was attributed to a muse, or even God. As Martha Woodsmansee writes:

Eighteenth-century theorists departed from this compound model of writing in two significant ways. They minimized the element of craftsmanship (in some instances they simply discarded it) in favor of the element of inspiration, and they internalized the source of that inspiration. That is, inspiration came to be regarded as emanating not from outside or avove, but from within the writer himself. "Inspiration" came to be explicated in terms of original genius, with the consequence that the inspired work was made peculiarly and distinctively the product - and the property - of the writer.

This idea of "original genius" replaced the earlier idea of the author being a mere vehicle for ideas. And when you look at the legal battles in eighteenth-century Britain that formalized copyright law, you noticed that they were strongly influence by these Enlightenment notions of what constituted originality, authorship, and ownership. Locke's idea of property rights was (mis)applied to intellectual property as a result of this idea of original genius. Just as one mixes their labor with materials found in nature to create their property, an author's "property" becomes "his" own when he stamps his personality on the work, and "originality" is the deciding factor.

So it seems to me that this idea of "original genius" seems to have been an invention of seventeenth century Europe, one that did not exist before. This premise upon which intellectual property is justified not only completely contradicts how we understood what authors were beforehand but how cultural production operates not only in pre-modern Europe but around the world today! If you can provide some reason to why this theory is wrong besides "well, that's not how my personal subjective experience works," I'd like to see it. Again, I'm basing my theory on contemporary literary scholarship. What are you basing yours on?

See, here's the fundamental problem with you adopting this concept: it's again axiomatic. As others pointed out, it's non-falsifiable based on evidence. You proposed an non-testable academic theory to support your assertion that older works were of higher quality than modern works. I countered that point with a testable theory. Your academic theory quite nicely fits with your axiomatic belief, but outside of that axiom, it in no ways provides actual evidence. You call me out for making a genetic fallacy, but you're actually wrong, you made the first logical fallacy by engaging in an Appeal to Authority. My attacking the Frankfurt school as founded in Marxism and the numerous areas Marxist theory has gotten wrong therefore is not a genetic fallacy, but rather a dismissal of your appeal to authority by me rejecting the authority of the people you are using to support your assertion.

Further, you never even ENGAGED with my proposition of the "Time Filter" as a legitimate explanation for the idea that creative products of the past were of higher quality than modern. Did you even look at the list of 1960's top 40 songs? Have you yet to encounter the time filter in your own life via the nostalgia for certain higher quality media from your youth while forgetting massive amounts of other media you consumed?

Because the idea that the quality of cultural output has gone over time is entirely unfalsifiable! Yes, you can point to certain genres of music going downhill in quality like "pop", but that does not mean that ALL music has gone downhill, that's a single, albeit very dominate, genre. How much of "classical" music from the heyday of it's prime has been lost and forgotten? We have no idea, because we lack records of all the music composed and performed in that era. Likewise we have no idea what the popular music of the Middle Ages even WAS nor how many songs or stories were lost simply because they were not preserved because they were simply not good enough to be. That is, unless you have a time machine you've been holding out on us...

This is wrong on so many levels.

First, you don't know what an axiom is. I argued for both culture industry as being true based on the Marxist theory of commodity fetishization under capitalism, which I did defend earlier when I pointed out a lot of the language used in modern capitalist societies (such as "selling your brand" or whatnot). And if I'm arguing for something, it's not an axiom, because an axiom is something you assume to be true.

Second, I'm not sure what you mean by "falsifiability." Sure, you can't test my hypothesis in a laboratory by looking under a microscope. But my theory is based on general phenomenon that's happening around me as well as contemporary literary theory and philosophy. We're talking about history and philosophy, neither of which are physical sciences. If you have a problem with that, I'd suggest you stop having this discussion.

Third, your theory isn't "testable" in a laboratory. You pointed to one historical phenomenon that took place in the twentieth century, extrapolated it over time, and made a statement that you couldn't have possibly gotten from the data alone. Both of our theories look at the same data and come to different conclusions. If you are going to do this, you need to actually tell me why the historical data

Fourth, your entire argument involving filtration is complete non-sequitur! When I stated that "culture industry is the best explanation of why good things aren't made anymore" and you say "but my theory says bad things from the past have disappeared over time," that's a non-sequitur! Your theory cannot account for why there are no modern Beethovens, no modern Shakespeares, etc.

Fifth and finally, your idea that I don't engage with any of your theories is bogus considering how many mistakes I've had to correct, mistakes in your own reasoning. Like how I corrected you on what I believe about the Enlightenment. Or how you claimed that, because the Enlightenment took place after copyright law was established, I was wrong to attribute it to the Enlightenment. Meanwhile, I've been more than willing to admit every single one of the mistakes in my thinking, as when you corrected me on those songs being folk songs or when I didn't know of a recent copyright victory for public domain in the case of Happy Birthday or when I apologized to @LordsFire and all the others who I've insulted when you pointed that out.

Overall, I've been about as accommodating and honest as I reasonably could be and have been treated poorly by you in kind. I think easing up on the accusations of "not providing evidence!" and preferably NOT misrepresenting what I say would be a good thing for everyone involved.

'The Name of Love,' I have to point something out now:

The more you argue, the less appealing you make your position. You have had specific points of evidence you raise repeatedly proven to support the opposite of your position, you're blatantly basing argument on 'this is how I personally define things to be' positions, and trying to insist everybody else argue based on those assertions.

And repeatedly ignoring both evidence that runs directly contrary to your assertions, and treating your assertions as unfalsifiable.

In short, you come across as someone who made up their mind, and now comes in with an attitude of 'damn the facts, I've already made up my mind.' I don't think I've once seen you admit that any evidence impinges on your arguments; you just discard the disproven argument, and pick up another like the prior one only mattered so long as it supported your position, rather than worked against it.

Combining that with your authoritarian streak paints a bleak picture of what would happen if you ever got your hands on any significant amount of power over others

I have to point out something now.

You have been ignoring what I've written. I've provided copious evidence from contemporary literature and conceded where I was wrong whenever it has been brought up.

And frankly, you have been rather unfair to me. Calling me a dogmatist when I already pointed out how you were wrong. Calling me an authoritarian when my critique of copyright law has been developed primarily from arguments from libertarians, various Pirate Party-type Leftists, and literary and history intellectuals, none of whom are particularly known for their support of autocracy.

I kindly ask that you apologize. I've already apologized for calling you a rent-seeker in the heat of anger and will do so again here.

I am heartily sorry for calling you a rent-seeker for profiting from copyright.

I hope you realize that what you've written here is also a result of your rage and own up to it.

If you'd like to discuss my politics - whether or not I am "authoritarian" - check out this thread. I created it to talk to others about the differences in what rights or freedoms ought to be allowed to the public. If you continue to be unreasonable, I'll be forced to ignore you, and I don't want to have to do that. Not after I just un-ignored all of the people involved in the pornography debate last year. I'd like to understand you, and I'd like you to understand me.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

You do find out about it, actually, because most private property is exclusive and rivalrous while ideas are the opposite.

I own an orchard, someone sneaks in one night and removes one among dozens of apples on a single tree. They leave no trace of their theft and whatever security measures I've employed were entirely bypassed. How exactly do I even know an apple of mine has been stolen?

Clearly, St. Thomas is talking about taking a blanket from someone of property,

See, if he was, your quote did NOT demonstrate that, there was no statement regarding relative wealth of the individuals involved. On the face of it, to say he meant specifically "when someone poor 'steals' from someone rich for the preservation of their own life it's not stealing" when all he said was "when someone 'steals' from someone else for the preservation of their own life it's not stealing" is absurd and claiming some special power to read the minds of the dead.

Most claims are. Including the ones you guys are making about intellectual property.

See, I have an actual example where you are objectively WRONG, S'task's "Time Filter" is, in fact, an observable thing, and in fact, you CAN test it. How? A few ways, here's one, ask some teachers/professors about which students they remember the work of, odds are, they'll have GRADED lots of papers they don't remember, they'll remember the good ones though, and maybe the especially bad ones. Have another way to see if it holds up, S'task provided you with a Top 40 list, but I'm willing to bet you can find a LOT more such lists if you look, see how many of the things on those lists are generally known today. As for proving that it happened in the past. Just look at the Odyssey, it and the Illiad were NOT the only examples of Homer's work, just the only surviving examples, but we only know about his other works because of other people quoting/mentioning them. For that matter, "Dream of the Red Chamber", a famous Chinese Classic, could EASILY have met the same fate as a number of other Chinese novels of the time that we know existed because they get talked about once or twice in some other surviving work. And, we ALSO know that there were many novels written in China in the same time period, we have basically none of them because China did not have the idea of "publishing" so only a very few such novels were ever so much as copied out a single time, let alone became widespread.

Furthermore, ideas are available to pretty much everyone, everywhere, at any time

I see, I see, CLEARLY the Europeans had easy access to the secret of making Silk and it didn't take centuries before they figured it out... CLEARLY the Russians did not have to send a truly astounding number of spies to get a start on making a Nuke. CLEARLY the ideas of Jann Huss were outright rejected by most of Europe... it's not like Martin Luther didn't basically come up with the same/similar problems as Jann Huss and schismed the Church with them just a few decades later... In this one sentence you reveal how your own conception of "intellectual property" is fundamentally a result of the ease of copying that made Intellectual Property Laws actually needed in the first place.

Perhaps this childish cartoon can demonstrate the concept better than I can.

Cute... Now tell that engineer who spent two years of his life designing that bike that those two years don't bloody matter. Copying isn't theft!

 

[The Name of Love]

I own an orchard, someone sneaks in one night and removes one among dozens of apples on a single tree. They leave no trace of their theft and whatever security measures I've employed were entirely bypassed. How exactly do I even know an apple of mine has been stolen?

See, in the case of the orchard, you are losing something physical. The apple in question can't be used by you now. If you had bothered to keep track of all the apples you owned, you'd know if someone had taken them even if you don't know who or when.

In the case of the idea, the idea can still be used by you because it's still in your head. The idea can still be used by you. If someone steals an idea from your head, you'd never be able to know because all the ideas in your head are still there. You'd have to actually go outside of your supply of ideas and see the same idea in another person's work of art!

Your analogy would've been more convincing if ideas were like apples. But ideas aren't like apples. You taking an idea from someone's head doesn't make the idea in their head go away.

See, if he was, your quote did NOT demonstrate that, there was no statement regarding relative wealth of the individuals involved. On the face of it, to say he meant specifically "when someone poor 'steals' from someone rich for the preservation of their own life it's not stealing" when all he said was "when someone 'steals' from someone else for the preservation of their own life it's not stealing" is absurd and claiming some special power to read the minds of the dead.

Well then, that's my bad. I apologize for misleading you then. But you can, you know, read what he said about it. I provided the link and everything.

See, I have an actual example where you are objectively WRONG, S'task's "Time Filter" is, in fact, an observable thing, and in fact, you CAN test it. How? A few ways, here's one, ask some teachers/professors about which students they remember the work of, odds are, they'll have GRADED lots of papers they don't remember, they'll remember the good ones though, and maybe the especially bad ones. Have another way to see if it holds up, S'task provided you with a Top 40 list, but I'm willing to bet you can find a LOT more such lists if you look, see how many of the things on those lists are generally known today. As for proving that it happened in the past. Just look at the Odyssey, it and the Illiad were NOT the only examples of Homer's work, just the only surviving examples, but we only know about his other works because of other people quoting/mentioning them. For that matter, "Dream of the Red Chamber", a famous Chinese Classic, could EASILY have met the same fate as a number of other Chinese novels of the time that we know existed because they get talked about once or twice in some other surviving work. And, we ALSO know that there were many novels written in China in the same time period, we have basically none of them because China did not have the idea of "publishing" so only a very few such novels were ever so much as copied out a single time, let alone became widespread.

I don't doubt time filtration exists. I just disagree that it refutes anything I have said. To restate what I said above:

Fourth, your entire argument involving filtration is complete non-sequitur! When I stated that "culture industry is the best explanation of why good things aren't made anymore" and you say "but my theory says bad things from the past have disappeared over time," that's a non-sequitur! Your theory cannot account for why there are no modern Beethovens, no modern Shakespeares, etc.

So how, exactly, am I "objectively wrong"?

I see, I see, CLEARLY the Europeans had easy access to the secret of making Silk and it didn't take centuries before they figured it out... CLEARLY the Russians did not have to send a truly astounding number of spies to get a start on making a Nuke. CLEARLY the ideas of Jann Huss were outright rejected by most of Europe... it's not like Martin Luther didn't basically come up with the same/similar problems as Jann Huss and schismed the Church with them just a few decades later... In this one sentence you reveal how your own conception of "intellectual property" is fundamentally a result of the ease of copying that made Intellectual Property Laws actually needed in the first place.

This is what passes for reasoning on your part?

I mean, let's look at what I said.

Apples are exclusive and rivalrous. Ideas are exactly the opposite of that. Furthermore, ideas are available to pretty much everyone, everywhere, at any time. The apple tree is on a certain person's property.

In essence, this is my argument:
1. Ideas are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. This effectively means they are a public good, since "individuals cannot be excluded from use or could be enjoyed without paying for it, and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others or the goods can be effectively consumed simultaneously by more than one person."
2. Privatizing a public good amounts to theft.
3. Therefore, intellectual property, which is the privatization of ideas, is theft.

Your argument, meanwhile, seems to be:
1. Copying is easy.
2. Therefore, we need copyright laws.

I don't think you need me to tell you why this is wrong. It assumes certain hidden premises, namely "intellectual property is legitimate" and "intellectual property is threatened by copying." I disagree that intellectual property is legitimate, so to assume that the ease of copying proves we need copyright laws begs the question.

Cute... Now tell that engineer who spent two years of his life designing that bike that those two years don't bloody matter. Copying isn't theft!

If he does appear, I'll do just that, and I'll explain to him why, just as I have you and @S'task.

 

[Morphic Tide]

So how, exactly, am I "objectively wrong"?

...because you say that your concept of mass publication being the reason why recent works are bad is the BEST explanation, and simultaneously accept it's unfalsifiable and/or unprovable "like most claims" yourself, while personally stating that time filtration is a real phenomenon. When it was brought up explicitly in the context of an alternate explanation of the fact that there's a higher observable quality to older periods than there is in the overall state of modern work.

You say your explanation for the decline in observable quality of artistic works over time does not meet standards of theory, and accept that an alternate explanation is a real phenomenon with objective data to back it.

---

In general, a lot of this is you goalpost-shifting because you bring a pile of unstated assumptions, so others cannot actually debunk your real position. You take the rest of the thread mentioning the generally-agreed dates of the Enlightenment is a mark against the others, because you personally, without saying so in the context of this discussion, consider the Enlightenment to extend considerably earlier.

 

[The Name of Love]

...because you say that your concept of mass publication being the reason why recent works are bad is the BEST explanation, and simultaneously accept it's unfalsifiable and/or unprovable "like most claims" yourself, while personally stating that time filtration is a real phenomenon. When it was brought up explicitly in the context of an alternate explanation of the fact that there's a higher observable quality to older periods than there is in the overall state of modern work.

You say your explanation for the decline in observable quality of artistic works over time does not meet standards of theory, and accept that an alternate explanation is a real phenomenon with objective data to back it.

First, while time filtration is an observable phenomenon, the theory that time filtration explains why modern artistic works have declined in quality is, in fact, unfalsifiable, no less than mine. Theories about history aren't falsifiable in the scientific sense of the term. Of course, if you mean "falsifiable" in the sense that they can be shown to be unfounded, I've already provided you how my theories can be disproven: namely, by disproving that commodity fetishism hasn't occurred under capitalism or by showing that commodity fetishism doesn't lead to the development of a culture industry. It's pretty difficult to do so, however, which is why you lot have been seizing upon this "falsifiable" nonsense.

Second, there's no mechanism by which time filtration theory explains what's happening. The time filtration theory, as stated, says that time filtration weeds out bad works over time such that only good works remain. Thus, we get the impression that good works exist only in the past while bad works exist only in the present. The problem with this theory is simple: even if the bad works of the past were done away with such that we have forgotten them, it would not explain why, in the modern day, there are no good works. That's why I keep telling you guys it's a non-sequitur. My claim is that culture industry explains why there are no more good works in the modern era.

Take note of this, @S'task and @ShadowsOfParadox.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

there are no good works.

...How modern are we talking here? Like, are you claiming that Lord of the Rings is not a good work? Are you claiming that Chronicles of Narnia is not a good work? How about Bruce Quest by LordsFire? Or The Xenocide Mission by Ben Jeapes? How about Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card? Are you seriously claiming NONE of these are good? ALL of these are post WWII.

Define "good work", because if your argument is that The Odyssey is good and nothing made in the last, oh, fifty years or so matches it... I am going to laugh, hard.

Oh also, I should respond to this bit

See, in the case of the orchard, you are losing something physical. The apple in question can't be used by you now. If you had bothered to keep track of all the apples you owned, you'd know if someone had taken them even if you don't know who or when.

Since you seem to think knowing precisely how many apples are in my orchard and precisely how many I harvest is reasonable(are there any orchards that don't track the harvest by weight or volume?), I suppose I should give you a bit of a different example. So, I have a wheat field, it's been harvested and is being packed up, once the packing is done some workers will go out and collect any that got missed or fell off the heads early. While it's being packed up someone sneaks onto the field and gleans a single grain, once again, they leave no traces. How exactly do I know a single grain was stolen?

 

[S'task]

Your theory cannot account for why there are no modern Beethovens, no modern Shakespeares, etc.

What? Firstly, what's your evidence there are none? Yes, both were famous and considered very successful in their day, but the reason they are held up is that their works have withstood hundred of years of scrutiny to continue to be taught and showcased. We cannot know what creators alive and working today will see that kind of success, as we cannot know the future.

That said, if we consider them by the standards of their day, that is, popular with both elites and the masses in their chosen form of creativity (Beethoven in music, and Shakespeare in performance entertainment), then we may well be able to point to various creative figures who may well qualify.

For instance, considering the performing arts (which I am going to include movies in as, let us be honest, if Shakespeare was alive today he'd be working in Hollywood), there are already numerous figures who many would consider similar to Shakespeare. Alfred Hitchcock comes to mind immediately, for movies. If you're more interested in focusing on poetry and pure linguistic writing, I'd make a case that J.R.R. Tolkien may also end up being someone remembered as well as Shakespeare. But these are purely speculative on my part.

As to Beethoven, there are numerous musicians and composers who may well similarly end up withstanding the test of time as well as he did. George Gershwin is one I tend to favor, if you want to limit yourself to more orchestral set ups. If you're going to judge outside that, one may well argue that the band Queen may also qualify... huh... apparently I have a thing for composers who make "Rhapsodies"... (Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue)

But the simple thing is, in their DAY, Beethoven and Shakespeare were not really considered a genius as they are now, there were MERELY highly successful and productive members of their professions.

So yes, my theory DOES account for that, because it holds that we cannot know whom currently producing works future people will elect to be considered geniuses of their craft, as we are living in the present, not the future. As time goes on, the Time Filter will continue to narrow down the field until only a handful remain who are remembered. In point of fact, due to better preservation techniques, I expect that the 20th century will actually see MORE geniuses of culture remembered than any century prior.

Basically, once again, you're premising your argument on an idea that nobody necessarily agrees with. You take it as an axiom that modern works are not as good as past works, and seek a reason for that. As I've tried to explain, perhaps poorly, that I fundamentally disagree with that premise, and further say that you only think that past works are better than modern works because of the Time Filter effect because you are ending up comparing the best of the best of the past, the top 1 percentile of past works, to the modern 100%, so of course the past works look better, your sample is skewed.

Third, your theory isn't "testable" in a laboratory. You pointed to one historical phenomenon that took place in the twentieth century, extrapolated it over time, and made a statement that you couldn't have possibly gotten from the data alone. Both of our theories look at the same data and come to different conclusions. If you are going to do this, you need to actually tell me why the historical data

It's hardly the only example though. We can look a 19th century writers and see similar phenomenons where we have preserved numerous stories and works... but only remember a handful within culture as being critical. You can see this in 20th century music. You can see it happening in real time in regards to cinema. You can even see it happening in video games for goodness sake. Every for of creative expression and entertainment goes through the time filter.

I'd like to see it. Again, I'm basing my theory on contemporary literary scholarship. What are you basing yours on?

Look... I actually have a degree in English, explicitly in Creative Writing. I have done more with "contemporary literary scholarship" than I ever cared to and to be frank it's ALL FUCKING BULLSHIT.

EVERYTHING done in "literary scholarship" is just self important naval gazing that has nothing to do with the actual real world efforts taken in actually creating works. There's a reason English Literature, which is where all those theories are postulated and studied, and English Writing are two different degrees, because none of the "literary theories" and "literary analysis" have jack shit to do with the actual hard work of the creative process, and NEVER had any insight into how creative works are actually produced, just self important naval gazing and ways to demonize past works as whatever X-ist or Y-phobia is popular with the academy at the time.

You can't "disprove" most "literary scholarship" because it's not actually anything else than people thinking they know the motives and inner mind of the author. It's self important bullshit that seeks to actively destroy creative works by destroying enjoyment and fun.

Yeah, I doubt this rant will change your mind, but I long ago got fed up with "literary analysis" and "literary scholarship".

At any rate, it doesn't matter that the "Cultural Industry" theory agrees with your point, because it still is founded on a premise, that past works are superior to present one, that is unproven and unprovable. "These scholars say past works are better than modern ones" is an appeal to authority and thus inherently flawed (and due to their inherent biases against capitalism and mass production, their claim that past non-mass produced works are inherently superior to modern mass produced ones is FURTHER inherently suspect since they had an explicit goal in demonizing capitalism), and when it comes to creative works, much of quality is inherently subjective. Tastes vary, personal preferences play a MAJOR role in if someone considers a work good or not, and that has ALWAYS been the case with people.

Or, to sum up, you need to provide REAL EVIDENCE of your premise that past works are superior to modern ones, and one that doesn't just flail and say "look at these great artists of the past, who alive today is as great as them" when we cannot know who in hundreds of years time alive today will be remembered.

Your argument, meanwhile, seems to be:
1. Copying is easy.
2. Therefore, we need copyright laws.

No, that's not the argument people have been making at all.

To break it down:

1. When you utilize the labor of a crafter, you compensate the crafter for that labor, to do otherwise is theft or slavery.

2. Creating works takes training, effort, and skill; thus creative ideas are a product of labor.

3. Due to the fact ideas are easily copied, in order for the creative worker to be properly compensated for the value of their labor, they should have exclusive right to the distribution of their creative ideas for a limited length of time before they become a public good.

 

[Terthna]

I found this to be an interesting take on the comparison between private property, and IP:

 

[S'task]

I found this to be an interesting take on the comparison between private property, and IP:

See, nobody ever really claims they are ethically the same. In fact, most stealing of private property isn't ethically the same. Most folks see an ethical difference in stealing food than they see in stealing jewelry than they see in stealing a car. I mean, there's a reason we have laws that treat petty theft differently than grand theft after all, because we see petty theft AS less unethical than grand theft, since it does less harm to the person stolen from. Likewise, as we make distinctions between Petty and Grand Theft, we make a distinction between those and Intellectual Property Theft.

In many ways that "point" is a strawman. Nobody truly claims all forms of theft are ethically the same, even when dealing with physical property. Now, they are in a way right that intellectual property is a form of granted monopoly, because in a sense it is, but here's the thing, unlike monopolies in a business sense, the monopoly of intellectual property is MUCH more ephemeral and cannot be leveraged in the same way to inhibit competition that offers similar products that business monopolies can. The argument against monopolies in business is that the monopolistic practices cause harm to the market by allowing the person who controls the monopoly to utilize predatory activities that harm people. You cannot really argue that the monopolization of most intellectual property causes other people harm, as the vast majority of intellectual property is in the form of entertainment productions. A person who cannot get access to their preferred entertainment isn't really harmed, especially as they have a WEALTH of other options from other creators.

Now, there ARE a few areas of intellectual property that one CAN argue causes a harm component if monopolistic practices are allowed, most easily coming to mind is in medicine. However, this is a much narrower area of intellectual property and is governed by Patent Laws (which have considerably shorter duration and much more stringent rules governing renewals and issue) rather than Copyright law. They also run into the fact that the cost of developing medicines is considerably higher than that of creating most any other form of IP, a new pharmaceutical drug costs up to $2.5 Billion to develop. This leads to a very nasty combination where without the monopolistic grant of a patent to a drug developer they could NEVER recoup that cost... thus no companies WOULD pursue new medicines. Now, perhaps you feel that government should fun research... but the simple fact is even if government DID, the simple act of allowing patents creates a potential incentive that allows MORE money to be spent on development than JUST government money, and if the trade off is that the people who develop those new technologies or drugs gets to make a profit off of it, I think society as a whole is better off rather than having a single, government run, research train. It allows much more flexibility in research AND also gives research that a government might find politically inconvenient to go forward.

 

[JagerIV]

I'm not sure your actually correct about the first part: the issue is not stealing bread vs stealing jewelry: its stealing $1 dollar of goods vs stealing $5,000 dollars worth of goods. Stealing $5,000 dollars of bread would be, generally, treated as an identical, moral crime as stealing a single $5,000 dollar ring. Thus, stealing bread and stealing jewelry are actually treated as equivalent morally. Your talking about a proportional degree of response, that we punish something that is less harmful less, rather than a different in kind.

The claim, as has been made throughout this thread, is comparing intellectual property to physical property. Shadow of Paradox for example making the comparison between an Orchard above. The entire debate is centered on intellectual property being something very similar to physical property, otherwise we would not constantly reference it in this thread and other arguments.

Edited to add thoughts without double posting.

Which of course can be an issue with how copyright works: figuring out actual damage. This can come from the issue where, well, a lot of the value of a work does actually come from outside the author. Its more obvious in things like songs.

Lets say you wrote a song, published it in a magazine for $25 bucks commission in 1950, where it sat for 10 years before a beetle read the old magazine waiting around bored, saw a lot of potential, changed about 10% of it, and then played it for a couple a year. Maybe you could separate out that song as having made the Beatles $1 million dollars. How much damage was actually done to the original author?

Well, lets do the standard FMV measure: in 1950, it was worth $25 bucks. In revenue, it then made the author zero money for the next 10 years. If the Beatles hadn't "stolen" it, the value would have continued to be... $0. To the degree something was stolen, the object stolen had zero value. The Beatles stole something of literally zero value. In fact, the song only gained value because a beatle played it. Lets say the value of the song went up (for the author) to about $100 dollars a year for 5 years, being able to sell the "original" to a small number of beatle enthusiasts. In that case, the orginal author should be paying the Beatles, based on where the value is flowing from.

And even if one wanted to claim the author is owed some share of royalties for creating most of the song, to how much is he reasonably entitled? Even if the Beatles made a $1 million off the song overall, probably about 90% of that is eaten up by production costs: stage costs, record costs, travel costs, excetera. So, actual proper profit is only at about $100k to the Beatles. And, well, certainly the fact that the Beatles performed it contributed to its value, so why should their labor not be compensated: so that should be reduced by their actual labor. And they did change the song by 10%: who's to say that 10% change wasn't what took the song from being something worth $25 bucks, to something worth several grand?

So often, copyright is used in situations where damages, reasonably calculated, seem to be zero. Which does basically mean its just rent seeking: how much did the author above actually contribute to the value of the work? It certainly seems quite reasonable that the labor the Beatles put into the song represent 99% of the value generation, even if "all" they did was change 10% of it and perform it.

 

[Abhorsen]

The reason behind theft laws and copyright laws are also quite different. The morality of theft laws is based in property rights, and that someone is depriving you of what you produced or own. But copyright violations don't really deprive people of a good. Instead, copyright laws are intended to incentive the creation of a public good. Without them, there would be a much lower desire to create.

 

[Cherico]

speaking on this Sargon went to court and won he wants the person who sued him to pay his legal fees. She says she shouldnt have to pay fees because he got the money for his lawyer through a patron this is the response




an SJW is about to have a bad time.

 

[JagerIV]

The reason behind theft laws and copyright laws are also quite different. The morality of theft laws is based in property rights, and that someone is depriving you of what you produced or own. But copyright violations don't really deprive people of a good. Instead, copyright laws are intended to incentive the creation of a public good. Without them, there would be a much lower desire to create.

This is I think the core issue: are we defending copyright as a defense of private property, or implementing copyright to, as you say, incentify the creation of a public good: which logic your operating under creates extremely different logic's to the laws, because your solving for very different problems.

Right now, I think were sorta operating under a hybrid, compromise system, with "protecting author's property" conception dominating more than "create public goods".

I think a major sticking point of this argument is this conception also of "properly compensated" as raised in @S'task : mostly you and other's on your side of the argument have focused on the need to properly compensate the artist. But, what proper compensation is changes pretty heavily if your thinking of this as guarding the artists property, vs giving them enough income to incentive creation for the public good. In which case, you don't really don't need much compensation at all it seems: purely amateur work (in the full sense of totally unpaid, hobby/gentlemen way) produces a whole lot of cultural goods. See fanfiction.net and our own site. Many great authors probably fall in this category, or at least would. Tolkien for example did not seem particularly motivated by the money.

Second, low pay per work encourages authors to produce a lot even if paid: see the models of Comics and periodicals: if 90% of your income comes from a subscription service where you lose most of the value of the work the hour after its distributed, then that encourages good authors to constantly keep up production to keep magazines, streaming services, and commercials going. That's a whole bunch of media right there that would be mostly uneffected (generally) by copyright concerns: TV, magazines, and streaming: those old soap operas probably do not have a long tail: no one is buying to rewatch an episode of days of our lives from 1984. But, the value of seeing it, in a modern context, 2 hours before a pirate rips it off would probably provide enough add revenue to keep that kind of project going.

Finally, in a more controversial push a little further than some might be comfortable with, if the main concern is the public good, then one might not wish writing and such creative pursuits to be too artificially lucrative, lest it divert resources from more... productive ends. A good writer who isn't actually all that good of a storyteller may serve society better writing clearer corporate memos rather than fretting away years pursuing the great dream of that lucrative smash hit story that makes him a fortune. A mildly charismatic and pretty girl may be better off putting her skills to being a good saleswoman of chicken or finding a good husband in her town rather than darting off to Hollywood with dreams of striking the lottery of fame and fortune in movies. Perhaps such a concentration of wealth like a Hollywood for such unproductive ends is not socially desirable. And even if you had a true genius, perhaps such genius would be better spent on inventing new things or running some grand company.

Perhaps, if the goal was the public good, less production of works would be a more culturally optimal outcome.

 

[MrBirthday]

are we defending copyright as a defense of private property, or implementing copyright to, as you say, incentify the creation of a public good

Hmm. Let's consult the authority that all discussion of copyright law in the United States must bow to; the United States Constitution. Article I, Section 8, reads as follows: "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" There you have it; nothing whatsoever about property rights, it's strictly about incentives.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

To me this discussion raises an important question. If someone writes a book, designs a piece of technology, films a movie, codes a game, creates a rare pepe, coins an interesting jingle, etc. How are they supposed to be compensated for their work? Surely someone who creates something of value, even if it is negligible should receive numeration for their work. No one should work for free. So then what are we going to replace it with? It hardly seems just that someone can create something and then receive nothing in return. And wouldn't that in a sense be slavery? Or an expectation of slavery? That someone is expected to create something or labour towards an end without receiving compensation.

@The Name of Love I mean how would you replace copyright then? I am not sure that you have proposed anything, and if so I have missed it. To me, your argument seems that people should simply give up the fruit of their intellectual labours for free, and not be allowed to reap their own crops so the speak, because of this lack of arguing for a replacement. If you do have a replacement, then what is it? And how is it superior to copyright, because to reiterate as much difficulty as I see with the system, it still allows people to profit or be compensated for their own hard work.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Copyright should persist till death of author, or a couple decades after at most. Then everything should be public domain.

 

[Terthna]

Copyright should persist till death of author, or a couple decades after at most. Then everything should be public domain.

I'd argue death of the author is far too long. The exact number would probably be a matter for negotiation, as I'm sure everyone has a different idea on what would be fair, but personally my position is somewhere between twenty, to thirty years. That aside though, to my mind there is no justification for extending it beyond the lifespan of the original author, beyond base corporate greed.

Thing is, your right to own your own ideas must be balanced against the rights of others to own what they build off of said ideas, as well as the speed with which we are allowed to iterate on what came before. Otherwise you get our current system, which essentially allows corporations to hold monopolies on ideas for as long as they want; ideas that often they have no hand in creating in the first place. Quite frankly, if the copyright system hadn't been perverted to the degree that is has, I'd argue we would be far more technologically advanced than we are now.

 

[Arch Dornan]

speaking on this Sargon went to court and won he wants the person who sued him to pay his legal fees. She says she shouldnt have to pay fees because he got the money for his lawyer through a patron this is the response




an SJW is about to have a bad time.

How's the salt?

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

I'd argue death of the author is far too long. The exact number would probably be a matter for negotiation, as I'm sure everyone has a different idea on what would be fair, but personally my position is somewhere between twenty, to thirty years. That aside though, to my mind there is no justification for extending it beyond the lifespan of the original author, beyond base corporate greed.

Thing is, your right to own your own ideas must be balanced against the rights of others to own what they build off of said ideas, as well as the speed with which we are allowed to iterate on what came before. Otherwise you get our current system, which essentially allows corporations to hold monopolies on ideas for as long as they want; ideas that often they have no hand in creating in the first place. Quite frankly, if the copyright system hadn't been perverted to the degree that is has, I'd argue we would be far more technologically advanced than we are now.

If you write something, you should own it till you die. No one else gets it, it is literally your possession.