This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
As an artist, I like having the ability to tell people they cannot host my commercial works, cannot claim my own writing or characters for themselves, cannot reproduce them for profit, need my permission to sell them.
I think copyright abuse is rampant and favors corporate entities far too much in most countries, but I think the solution is reform not destruction of the system.
I'm more open to burning the whole edifice of copyright law down than you are, but the key reform that I want that maybe we could agree on is that it should be legal to distribute coprighted works for free. No need to to let someone else try to make a profit by undercutting your sales, but if someone is willing to make and distribute copies (or ecopies) of a work to no profit for themselves they should be allowed to. What that would mean in practice if it was legal would be an online content library containing all human art and culture, freely available for download to all comers. It might hurt the income of some creators, but you'd still have a lot of other ways to make money that don't entail depriving people of that library.
You can have that library today (see: Project Gutenberg), just on a delay. The problem, IMO, is that the delay is much too long. If copyright only lasted 10 years, it would be much more useful as a store of human knowledge. We could even allow an application for a longer term for smaller creators who need more time to monetize their works.
That's pretty close to how it used to work in the US, it has just been twisted by large orgs like Disney and the RIAA.
Yeah Project Gutenberg really demonstrates how this is all pretty much already built, just illegal to include recent works in. Though of course that's just books where the post copyright free library could also include all other art and culture such as tv, radio, movies, images, games, etc
Sure, and there's no reason it can't include other art and culture, like TV shows, radio programs, etc. The main issue is the length of time before those become legal to redistribute. It sucks that only movies made in the early 1900s are legal to redistribute, when the most culturally relevant works are still 50+ years away from entering the public domain.
So we should be looking at shortening that time, trying to end copyright entirely isn't going to happen.
Shortening the time is good, and adjusting it while it still does apply to allow for more legal free sharing of the work.
The problem is that copyright owners are concerned about losing sales, they care much less whether you're making a profit on that lost sale.
One thing I think we should do is require stores to allow transfer of copyright. So if I buy a game or movie, I should be able to give that game or movie to someone else. I would no longer have access to it, so it would be like giving a physical disk or whatever.
cannot claim my own writing or characters for themselves
If by "claim" you mean falsify authorship, I suspect this would still be illegal even without all the copyright laws.
I like having the ability to tell people ... cannot reproduce them
Well, this is a problem.
The notion that every person has to somehow protect their works for all of their life and beyond the grave is obviously dumb and purely favors corporations at the cost of pitting artists against themselves and fans.
Let's not forget that copyright enforcement is mostly funded by taxpayers. It's a collectively massive cost to the rest of us.
It probably made sense for a limited time when we (society) were getting something of comparable value (cultural works) in return. But now that it's effectively endless, and dominated by corporations, it looks an awful lot like systematic extraction of wealth... from us.
Well, I guess we'll never see any developments in mathematics or theoretical physics. No copyright there except journals paywalling our work and paying us absolutely nothing. Oh wait...
We live in an era of copyblight - it's an era we won't leave until the caveman mentality of "this mine, no touch or I hurt" fizzles out. Give it another 5000 or so years maybe?
It's just th enclosure continuing in the non-physical space.
Don't the forget the extortionate textbooks gatekeeping who can understand the extortionate journals.
We need more examples?
Seriously, though, there are options in between keeping copyright as it is and removing it altogether. Shortening the term is one. Mandatory mechanical licensing is another (that is, allowing people to make copies for a fee set by the government or a nonpartisan board without requiring permission from the copyright owner, who does, however, receive the fee—the trick is setting the fee at a level that makes it reasonable for the average person making a single copy, but still high enough to make it unattractive for corporations churning out millions of them). We also need to overhaul how derivative works are handled, and some aspects of trademark law.
Another option is to not allow copying of digital copyrighted works, but do allow resale/gifting and require storefronts to offer something like that. I can do that with physical goods, and that's most of the reason I'd want to copy a copyrighted work (e.g. to send to a friend).
I think trademark law is generally fine as-is, but patent and copyright law are atrocious. My proposal:
Well I for one have never heard about anybody doing anything creative without being paid for it.
/s
This title is actually false under some logical fallacy. It should be "Yet more examples of copyright destroying culture rather than driving it."
On itself, a simple claim (like "copyright destroys culture") cannot be fallacious. It can be only true or false. For a fallacy, you need a reasoning flaw.
Also note that, even if you find a fallacy behind a conclusion, that is not enough grounds to claim that the conclusion is false. A non-fallacious argument with true premises yields a true conclusion, but a fallacious one may yield true or false conclusions.
The issue that you're noticing with the title is not one of logic, but one of implicature due to the aspect of the verb. "X destroys Y" implies that, every time that X happens, Y gets destroyed; while "X [is] destroying Y" implies that this is only happening now.
No, because OP clearly believes all copyright is bad while your corrected title would be at least some/most copyright has proven to be bad.
Exists culture Exists copyright s.t. copyright 'destroys' culture and not copyright 'drives' culture.
I mean, you're putting an implied universal where the author is only offering existential. That one is on you!
"Copyright always destroys culture" would have the universal quantifier you object to.
Of course, both of these results are formally undecided, mostly because 'drives' is not well defined nor decidable in itself!
As a non English speaker, I can't tell the difference. Might be the same for OP.
In English, the simple present often implies a general truth, regardless of time. While the present continuous strongly implies that the statement is true for the present, and weakly implies that it was false in the past.
From your profile you apparently speak Danish, right? Note that, in Danish, this distinction is mostly handled through adverbs, so I'm not surprised that you can't tell the difference. Easier shown with an example:
| Danish | English |
|---|---|
| Jeg læser ofte. | I read often. (generally true statement) |
| Jeg læser lige nu. | I'm reading right now. (true in the present) |
Note how English is suddenly using a different verb form for the second one.
That is a great explanation, thanks! I understand the difference now.
The title isn't a mistake.
It's openly stating that they believe that to be an inherent feature of at least our current legislation.
I don't think that the title is a mistake either; I was focusing solely on what the title says, on a language level, versus what the other user (Kairos) believes to be more accurate.
With that out of the way: yup, copyright was always like this. The basic premise of copyright is to not allow you to share things under certain conditions, and yet this sharing is essential for culture.
Any monopoly incentive does, it's the same in developing countries with monopolized industries - people need them, so they keep paying, people don't have choice, so they don't leave, and no competition arises because of cronyism.
Thus, say, utility companies in Armenia are such crap. Actually any companies in Armenia, it's thoroughly oligopolized to the degree that locals think it's all fine, because it's all the same. Living in Armenia is as expensive as living near Moscow, while wages, eh, are definitely not the same. What I don't understand is the locals' stubborn belief that they can make things better without changing the society where oligopolies, things working via acquaintances, theft being socially acceptable, bendable rules and no responsibility are usual ; I suspect envy for people explaining why they can't is a reason too.
Why did I type this ...
Another concerns equity and accessibility:
removal of more than 500,000 books from public access is a serious blow to lower-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others.
so low-income people in the argument are pretty obvious
how about people with disabilities or rural communities? why are they there? do they have easier access to libraries than bookstore?
and what the hell are lgbt people doing there? do they read disproportionately more more than average non-lgbt population, or why are they singled out?
seems like this whole paragraph is just "lets throw in some minorities, no one can talk back at that" lame argument
Libraries are safe spaces for minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. Books in general spread awareness and raise empathy and can also help struggling young people understand that they are not alone.
That quote isn't saying people of these communities read or use a public library more than those who aren't; it's pointing out that the erasure of public safe spaces and resources affects groups that benefit from their existence more.
All of that doesn't even mention the content that was likely present in those 500,000 books.
Libraries are safe spaces for minorities
this text was primarily about digital archives, so i don't think this applies much
can also help struggling young people understand that they are not alone.
this does make sense, ok then.
rural communities
Online lending allows people in remote or rural places much more economical access to more titles than otherwise, even if they have access to a decent local library
oh right, i totally ignored the "digital" part, even though i mentioned that in nearby reply. my bad.
The argument centers around the equality of access, which is especially relevant in the digital age. Rural & disabled population may have problem accessing content with certain restrictions (e.g. need physical access, lack of accessibility features, only available in some region).
