I think that's an unfair take on the law. If you create something you decide what happens with it. That seems reasonable to me.
Why are the rest of us entitled to your creation?
Why are the rest of us entitled to your creation?
Over the years, because of this system, not just the original creators, but hundreds if not thousands of people have benefited, profited and bettered their lives because of music originally recorded in the 1950's and 60's by people, in many cases, long dead.
Under the north american system, the copyright owner would have made millions of dollars, and entire genres of music would.never have been created in their current form.
The value to humanity in that situation far outweighs the profit of the original creators.
Not the most convincing conjecture when the "loser" in your comparison is one of the biggest music genre-creating powerhouses in the world and its music is rife with sampling, and the "winner" in your comparison is mainly known for a single genre of music.
I think the argument is reasonable that we don't get any of it, at least not in the forms we have now, without Jamaican music. DJ Kool Herc was Jamaican.
on the other hand, it is definitely true that the American music industry with its strict copyright has not exactly been stagnant. but it is different.
What made they come out of poverty? Their creation? Or their distribution? Because how you make it seems, the ones that came out of proverty aren't the creative ones... just like the good old copyright owner in America.... It's the ones that found something good and were able to sell it better. The only difference is that the creative one didn't have a choice but to forgo their ownership... just like in America though, which happens under economic pressure instead of by law, but at least, they can at least refuse that.
> The value to humanity in that situation far outweighs the profit of the original creators.
It does though if the original creator couldn't make money out of his original creation... Your premise depends on the fact that without the original creator, the subsequent creation wouldn't be worth it... You want to scrap what's worth it... for something that can't even exist without it.
It's like lighting a candle. If you create one, you do not have to share it with anybody. But once you do light somebody else's candle from your own, they are now free to light anybody else's without taking anything away from your candle. That's how ideas work.
The only reason IP law exists, is because people have decided that profit might be lost if people share your idea with others. We are artificially stifling the spreading of ideas from person to person, because of profit. This is a tragedy.
IP law exists so people share ideas, because they can do so while still being compensated. Otherwise they might keep them secret, not devote a lot of time and resources into developing them etc.
"You spent a billion dollars to develop a medication for this type of cancer. Now everybody can manufacture it and you're down a billion dollars. Thanks for your generosity!"
How often do you believe that will be said before people stop investing money into development?
There are explicit influences in things that are created, but there are many implicit influences too. That thing that was created, could it have been made without this society or culture? Could it have been made in a different culture? Didn't we all contribute a little bit to it?
So, while I do agree with your general point that people must have incentive to create and profit/control is one way to do that, my concern is that when things are locked up tight they die and our culture does not benefit from their creation. It would be easy to say that if they are forgotten then maybe they weren't of any use, but history of full of art and science that was not appreciated until much later.
Or conversely, a creation that is a clear product of the zeitgeist could be very influential but if no one can use it, then waiting decades for rights to clear will render it useless.
Imagine if cooking were invented today. Only one individual in the world would be allowed to make sausages without paying royalties.
I prefer a middle ground and the original intent (at least as much as is commonly told) around copyright, trade secrets, and patents seemed to be a relatively healthy take on that even if it now needs an update. Depending which path you choose there's a trade-off between how much the creator gets and how much society gets, with varying degrees of control, protection, and communal ownership. The creator gets to choose, but they have a limited set of choices agreed upon by society, rather than individual agreements for every item we buy.
I think this example might serve: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22250260
Many people have a problem with equating "theft" to intellectual property since the concept doesn't map directly. If I make a dining table, I shouldn't have to hand it over to my country after a "limited" time (life of the creator plus 70 years now, isn't it?). But perhaps other people should be able to create similar looking tables after a while, to help advance any new techniques or artistic styles used. Ideas can be used while still belonging to the creator.
If I try to block that cultural evolution with a license of some kind, I think I'm doing a disservice to the culture that helped me create the table.
Anyway, does that still relate to the article? Probably not, I was replying more to the concept that everything is made in isolation so full control should be kept. As a society we already decided that doesn't always apply to IP which books are definitely part of. If we aren't careful in separating the concepts of products and ideas, then we get tractors we aren't allowed to fix.
In return they'll give you <10% of the profits of publishing the book. That seems like a terrible deal today.
On top of that we're also talking about books where the author is dead.
Why is anyone entitled to my creation isn't a valid question to ask of book publishers. They didn't create a thing.
There isn’t an easy answer to this. On one side there are many cases where people give away powerful things for free, which has huge positive implications and on the other hand there I sympathize with the notion of wanting to reap benefits of their work.
The underlying problem may be that you only profit if you demand or enforce it?
Yeah, with the original physical thing you created with your own two hands. Not with a copy of some text or image in a file.
If they posted their photo collection online for all to see, they can't expect people not to make a copy of some of the photos.