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Comment by charlesdm | Hacker News Reader

One could argue if you made something, you're entitled to the rights.

If a painter makes a painting, he'll be able to pass those down to his children. But if a musician makes a song, it'll end up in the public domain after X years.

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The painting itself. But the right to reproduce the painting is covered by copyright, and ends up in the public domain 70 years after the painter's death, same as everything else. (Such a long time! It was originally 14 years with an optional 14 year extension period.)

https://www.arsny.com/copyright-basics/

So a (freelance) painter gets two things: the physical piece of art, and the right to reproduce it. A musician can get concert revenue, plus the rights to reproduce their music. I don't have a good sense about how the values of these things compare.

Why should I have to pay for the state enforcing an artificial monopoly on a recording your (great grand)father made?

The natural state is no such enforcement. Copying the original is essentially zero marginal cost.

P.S. Pro musician here.

The intellectual rights on the painting (can anyone reproduce it, in say, print, without the rightholder's agreement) are quite separate from the property rights on the physical embodiment of the painting.

Literature is closer to music in this aspect, as neither has any physical property. Copyright on both is limited.

And if someone invents a way of creating nominally perfect three dimensional reproductions of paintings, such copies would be legal.

The physical vs non-physical aspect makes it more complex, but I think the situation is ultimately the same..(?) A painter like a musician can keep and pass down a physical representation of the original image (a canvas vs a gold disc/master) but the rights to the image/song itself can enter public domain and be reproduced (a print vs an MP3).

It's kinda interesting to me that in art the physical object is revered above the image itself, whereas I can't imagine there are many people who spend millions on gold discs or masters of culturally significant songs.

But they do pay the original artist to come to their show and play their original hits. Meanwhile other people pay less to see a cover band.

Apples and oranges. You're comparing a physical thing to 'intellectual property'.

No this not about Copy Right it is that the Artist doesn't receive money ONLY the corporate rights owners currently make money on music before 1971. The way the contracts were written back then the artist didn't own their songs the record labels did. Look at Credence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty.

"CCR's catalogue of songs has frequently been used or referenced in popular culture, partly because John Fogerty "long ago signed away legal control of his old recordings to Creedence's record label, Fantasy Records." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creedence_Clearwater_Revival#L...

> But if a musician makes a song, it'll end up in the public domain after X years.

I WISH!!!!! I blame Mickey Mouse for that. Copy Right is different and is in perpetual renewal since 1976. This is why Sherlock Holmes is locked into only the first half of his timeline since the second half is still under copyright protection and owned by the family.

The rights to humanity far exceeds the locking up of works for people to use as leverage to gain money on 0.01% of the works that are of any monetary value. I have always proposed that if you want to extend your copyright you are charged a fee of say $10,000 that way 99.9% of the items become Public Domain.

> If a painter makes a painting, he'll be able to pass those down to his children.

What painter doesn't sell his work? Those painting rarely ever stay in possession of artist.

EDITED for my poor spelling

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