Comment by mobiuscog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mobiuscog | Hacker News Reader

Copyright should be about crediting the creator. Whether that be financially or just as a source to be cited.

What is should not be, is a way to remove the sharing of knowledge, which is detrimental to society as a whole.

Fictional works, editorials, opinion pieces - these may be based upon facts but do not explicity provide knowledge that needs to be shared.

Science should always be open, for the sake of humanity. Those who make the discoveries may gain status and reputation, but those discoveries should not be kept for personal/commercial gain.

Art and music, much like celebrity status, are more difficult to judge. Wanting to make everyone aware of who you are or what you have created, whilst simultaneously demanding that they pay for the privilege, seems at odds. You can create for commission, the payment being from the person that made the request, but then they should be free to keep it private or make it public.

We are obsessed in modern times, that we must be paid for everything we do - largely because governments and businesses have made this so.

We barter our skills for things we cannot ourselves produce, but knowledge should never be kept private for an inclusive society - that is the way towards elitism and power, which is clearly where copyright has travelled.

Should you be given food for free ? No. Should the knowledge of how to grow food be free ? Yes.

Barter the tangible, not the intangible. The 'knowledge' economony is a parasite on humanity.

>Wanting to make everyone aware of who you are or what you have created, whilst simultaneously demanding that they pay for the privilege, seems at odds.

If I could do the latter without the former, I would happily do it. I don't want to be plastered on billboards and on celebrity gossip.

But it's a universal bias of humanity that attaching a face to a product sells more, so turning yourself into a brand is just that, another tactic for more money. Of course, some people want to fame so that can be an incentive. But not everyone. For every Musk, there are a dozen billionaires who stay out of the public eye as best they can.

>We are obsessed in modern times, that we must be paid for everything we do - largely because governments and businesses have made this so

largely because artists barely survive otherwise. Few people want to have a 3 job hustle. Few peopel also want $2000 rent. We only have control of one of these.

There will always be hustlers, but during economy booms you will see less and during recessions you will see a lot more. This isn't limited to art. If you want more generosity from labor, make the artists comfortable instead of fighting for scraps that the billion dollar corportaitons threw out for them. Corps don't do "commissions".

>Barter the tangible, not the intangible. The 'knowledge' economony is a parasite on humanity.

I guess most of this site would be out of a very cushy job in such a mentality.

Not that I disagree exactly, but how do you see the people making the knowledge being rewarded for their work?

"Making the knowledge" gives connotations of fundamental research to me, rather than the further development that private industry more often deigns to pick up the tab of, and ohhh boy...

Scientific publishing is possibly one of the biggest scams there is. The public funds scientists to do research who then haven't to pay the publishers for the privilege of publishing with them (no royalties! just the opposite!) The publishers who then send the papers out to reviewers who do what is essentially the entire point of the process, peer review, for free (reviewers almost never get paid) and then, once accepted for publication, they then charge exorbitant amounts for the same scientists (who want to do research, which requires knowing what your colleagues have done) to read that work.

Honestly, say what you will about Big Pharma, Disney or whoever else people usually complain about when it comes to abusing the state of intellectual property rights, but the sheer brazen balls of charging the people who actually do the work not once but twice, and charging everyone else as well (that's three!) Let's just say I'm glad cOAlition S was launched—and their current plans? Getting rid of APCs as well? *chefs kiss*. But yes, the exact models are something that are still currently being worked on, see PLOS: https://theplosblog.plos.org/2023/06/moving-away-from-apcs-a...

(Also covered, somewhat ironically, behind a paywall at Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03342-6)

Ok, I totally agree that journals are a scam (though, someone has to pay for the editing - should that be publicly funded too?)

I'm not sure I agree that science / fundamental research is the only knowledge that's worth anything through. Making a new product or making a work of art both take time and effort and are trivially copied and it would be a shame for there to be no way to make money from doing those.

(If your answer is that those should be publicly funded as well, that's fair)

> Not that I disagree exactly, but how do you see the people making the knowledge being rewarded for their work?

I don't have the answer. I do know that all of society would need to change.

The simple approach would be that they are provided food and shelter, but this brings in the modern societal desire for 'more' than just needs.

How many people just work to afford to live, and why is that often so expensive... typically because others somewhere, indirectly, are making more than they need to live. Landlords, businesses, etc. Profit and 'growth' all break the basic concept of bartering to live; they take more than they give, in the name of status and power.

I don't think we can go back to a simpler approach, but at the same time I don't belive copyright is fit for purpose even in the simplest forms any more.

What people are willing to pay for seems to have become confused in the modern day compared to what they 'need' to live.

Hell yeah, totally with you here.

Just think we need to get a lot closer to that first before throwing out copyright entirely

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