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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Because copyright laws rarely serve small independent creatives, but rather corporations like Disney that are in the business of hoarding and monetizing culture.

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While true, 'rarely' ought not be conflated with 'never.' I am a small, independent creator, and I've used copyright laws many times over the years to stop larger entities from raiding my catalog for content. Of course now Anthropic et al. are gobbling up such catalogs for indirect misappropriation, with no sign of consequences, so perhaps copyright has truly shrunk to a one-way street favoring the major players.

Yeah, I would argue that, just systemically, intellectual property laws can't really do anything but overwhelmingly serve the interests of the wealthy and mega corporations. I also think they're ethically wrong and run counter to the kind of artistic and information culture that I would prefer, but those are arguments more people are likely to disagree on.

I think most people would argue that dismantling intellectual property would mean the end of all new creative endeavors, as if humanity is only driven to create art for practical reasons.

Schopenhauer, on the other hand, would argue that true art must serve absolutely no practical or utilitarian purpose, and that pecuniary concerns only corrupt artistic and intellectual labors leading to mediocrity and dishonesty.

Copyright laws as we know them came into being sometime in the 18th century. The earliest recorded works of art produced by humans are from 40,000-45,000 BC. So it's hard to take the "we'll never have creative output without strict copyright!!" extremism seriously.

The original printing of the King James Bible had copyright protection (and still does, in the UK). 1611.

> Schopenhauer, on the other hand, would argue that true art must serve absolutely no practical or utilitarian purpose, and that pecuniary concerns only corrupt artistic and intellectual labors leading to mediocrity and dishonesty.

As, similarly, would Bataille, one of the philosophers I'm interested in!

Maybe you don't have a clear picture about it. Just because you have nothing to protect, coz you are not creative, it doesn't mean noone should have that capability.

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