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Post by Anders on Jun 11, 2011 5:21:53 GMT -8
And thanks to you to Mike!
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Post by Anders on Jun 11, 2011 5:21:33 GMT -8
Thanks Jens! It's been good so far.
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Post by Anders on Jun 6, 2011 10:01:09 GMT -8
I'm going to think some more before I reply again. If it takes a while (or if I don't reply at all) it's only because I don't think I have anything to say that will keep the meaningful part of the discussion alive.
I also want to apologize - to you and everyone else here - for being a hardass. This is exactly the type of behavior I've been trying to get away from: the discussion where I try to win more than get something meaningful said, where the important part is to get the other person to admit they're wrong or just stop talking. I've been the "winner" and "loser" of such arguments and neither is satisfactory or meaningful. I thought I was past that, but apparently not.
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Post by Anders on Jun 6, 2011 7:35:12 GMT -8
Taking away physical inheritances doesn't work, unless you also prevent people from giving gifts or otherwise transfering ownership to their children (or other people).
And it seems the results of your other solution assumes people will do creative things for free... which you otherwise assume they won't.
That's the part I don't get. I understand the desire to let a creator control what happens to his creations after he dies - I don't agree with it, but I understand it. But this insistance that money is the single motivating force behind every creative pursuit, that nobody would do anything if they didn't get money for it, that not having eternal control over your creation somehow means you're being deprived of the meaning of creating that thing... that's alien to me.
In my mind, you create because you want to or because you need to, because you enjoy the action of creation or because you can't not create. Sure, you can do it just for money, but that's rarely connected to caring about what happens to your creation.
I think that's where our real disagreement stems from (though I could well be wrong) so if we should continue the discussion in a meaningful way I think that's a better topic.
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Post by Anders on Jun 6, 2011 3:31:08 GMT -8
Uhm, yeah. Tetris: No (or at least no enforcable) copyright laws at all. Not what anyone here's been arguing. Night of the Living Dead: No copyright notice on the film. The Amen Break: Knowingly didn't enforce the copyright. The Kalashnikov: See Tetris. Karaoke: Didn't file a patent. Smiley face: Didn't copyright or trademark. Yes, Romero got screwed because his distributor was sloppy and the Russians got screwed by their government. The other three didn't even try. None of these are arguments for or against either of our positions. As a sidenote, in the blog post linked to from the bit on the Amen Break, there's this quote: Over-protecting intellectual property is as harmful as under-protecting it. Culture is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, like nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new. Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Over-protection stifles the very creative forces it’s supposed to nurture.
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Post by Anders on Jun 6, 2011 3:17:51 GMT -8
Except that today such works can still be republished. With your indefinite, distributed rights that would be impossible. Because we know that everybody scrupulpously follows the law and there is no such thing as internet piracy. So your solution to setting up bad laws is to also encourage lawbreaking? If you have a system that makes it impossible to legally reproduce a work then a reasonable solution is to reproduce the work illegally? How would that be any different from just reprinting the work without having the rights? That you can get away with it?
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Post by Anders on Jun 5, 2011 8:19:58 GMT -8
Really? You seriously believe that those who write hackwork now would stop because they couldn't use the actual characters? You seriously believe they would sit down and think about the original characters and create something you would consider quality work instead, rather than just the type of hackwork that they were doing all along? Please remain in context, as I believe you were completely aware that I was talking in the context of professionally published work. What makes you think I was talking about anything else? This is even more true with philosophical, political and religious texts, since the rights-holders would be even less likely to agree on if and if so, in what version, the original should be republished. You mean, like what is already happening anyway. Except that today such works can still be republished. With your indefinite, distributed rights that would be impossible.
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Post by Anders on Jun 5, 2011 1:33:41 GMT -8
In other words, yes, I do believe we would lose a lot of low-quality hackwork, and g ain interesting new interpretations of classic ideas. (Emphasis added.) Really? You seriously believe that those who write hackwork now would stop because they couldn't use the actual characters? You seriously believe they would sit down and think about the original characters and create something you would consider quality work instead, rather than just the type of hackwork that they were doing all along? Furthermore, I completely fail to see how the existence of hackwork, originally created or not, is bad. Sure, I'd prefer everything written to be good, but I don't think removing the bad is the best way to do that. Plenty of good works have been inspired by bad works, and one generation's or person's hackwork is another's treasure. As to philosophy, since your system would make it completely impossible to reproduce the original works all we'd have would be commentaries on the commentaries on the commentaries on the commentaries, meaning the original would be lost, just as I said. This is even more true with philosophical, political and religious texts, since the rights-holders would be even less likely to agree on if and if so, in what version, the original should be republished.
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Post by Anders on Jun 4, 2011 8:05:47 GMT -8
Because real events can not be copyrighted. Everyone and anyone can write about real events. They just can't copy each other and have to express it their own ways. If you strictly limit your meaning of history to describing real events, sure. If you want to include the history of ideas, philosophy, literature, art - you know, all the things that make history meaningful instead of a list of dry facts - then not so much. What's the point in knowing that someone named Shakespeare wrote some plays if you have no access to those plays? (And again, this is assuming Shakespeare would have written anything, which, under your system, seems highly unlikely.) You also say that nobody would create anything new if they couldn't draw from the pool of PD.
Again, wrong. Was I being hyperbolic? Yes. But far less so than you when you claimed that nobody would create anything unless they got paid for it and that limited copyright makes creating things meaningless. All of history contradicts you on that. Let me turn it around and ask you: what would really, specifically be gained if Steamboat Willy and Action Comics #1 entered PD? What would really be gained if, say, I could write Mike Hammer novels, instead of having to create my own hardboiled PI to tell the same type of stories? Not much, because those are pretty stupid examples. I wouldn't mind seeing some Superman stories that weren't approved by DC because he's an iconic character that can be used in interesting ways, but Mickey Mouse? Mike Hammer? Who cares? Let's take some good ones instead: What would be lost if nobody could use the character Jesus in their writings? Hamlet? King Arthur? Oddysseus? What could possibly be gained?
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Post by Anders on Jun 3, 2011 13:52:49 GMT -8
What? Do you think that if people can't make money with it, nobody will spread the IP anymore? (Actually, yes, I think so.) Which is weird, since you just said that nobody would bother creating anything if they and their children and their grandchildren couldn't make money off of it. (Yes, I know, I said I was done. I just hate inconsistency.)
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Post by Anders on Jun 3, 2011 8:38:02 GMT -8
I don't think it's so much confusion as strong opinions, honestly. Me and Jens obviously have very different opinions on this and we have both used the examples brought up in ways that may not have been intended to try to illustrate our points, but I don't think we misunderstood you.
I also think I've made my point as clear as I can, so unless someone has any direct questions I'll try to stay out of it now.
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Post by Anders on Jun 3, 2011 7:56:47 GMT -8
Why should someone who created an IP be treated differently from someone who builds a hotel chain? Because ideas are different than things. And that's the crux of our disagreement. For me, ideas are things of no more or less value than any other thing. I'd like to point out that I have in no way claimed that ideas is of lesser value than physical objects. In fact, I hold the opposite position which is why I don't think anyone should be able to hold ideas ransom indefinitely. And so long as the Hiltons (to stick with this example) get to keep their business empire until the xth generation, so long will I argue that the same should go for IP. Because otherwise, there is ABSOLUTELY NO POINT in creating IP, when you can start a construction business (or something else tangible) instead. Because in the latter case, at least your children and grandchildren will be allowed to keep it. Yeah, because nobody did anything creative before there was copyright in place. Your children and grandchildren will get to keep the proceeds of your creative endeavors. They just don't get to decide who can do something with the ideas you've created, because if we allow that we make the whole world a worse place to live. If you consider that fucking over the descendants of creators then fine, I'm all for fucking them. Fuck them with fucking chainsaws for all I care, because I want to live in a rich world much more than I want to live in a fair world. Your way would lead to spiritual poverty and the death of innovation, creativity and history. If preventing that means fucking over some people who have done nothing of value themselves I have no problems whatsoever with that idea. (And please note that I personally don't consider this fucking them over. And yes, I'd rather the Hiltons weren't able to live off of their accumulated wealth generation after generation either, but that hurts the world much, much less than restricting the use of ideas.)
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Post by Anders on Jun 3, 2011 3:36:51 GMT -8
If you don't think you can make a fair judgement of Le Morte, let's take something else. With your form of absolutist copyright we'd have no Tolkien because there would be no Wagner or Eddas for him to be inspired by and base his work on. We'd have no Shakespeare - at least no Romeo and Juliet, no Hamlet, no King Lear, no history plays. We'd have no science to speak of. When you'd need to coordinate the rights of Euclid's and Pythagora's several millions of descendants their works would never be reprinted so we'd have no Newton, no Gauss, no Einstein, nothing. And more importantly, we'd have no new works either. Who would risk writing a new book when someone could show up with a 500 year old story that's similar enough that you'd lose everything you made and probably more, due to copyright infringement? There would be no way for you to even know which books existed. Or rather, Paris Hilton won't bother reprinting it. In order to make money, the heirs will have to take action. They won't get money for nothing. Yeah, that's not helping your case. Once you get past maybe a dozen people, even if you managed to get everyone to agree (and I think we all know enough about how families work to know how well that would work), nobody would make enough money for it to be profitable. Like we've said, nothing would be reprinted. Also, once you get past a couple of dozen relatives it will be a full-time business just keeping track of all the rights-holders to a single creator's work. A few more generations and it will cost more to track the rights-holders than you'll gain from reprinting the books. Why should someone who created an IP be treated differently from someone who builds a hotel chain? Because ideas are different than things. But really, because I want the world to go somewhere. Perpetual copyright would massively stifle all creativity because it would massively limit the access to ideas. As to whether Americans would consider my system Communism, copyright in the US is already limited. The time limit just keeps being extended.
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Post by Anders on Jun 3, 2011 1:00:12 GMT -8
Using language like "exploiters" really isn't helping your argument. Also, while the discussion is actually about two separate issues you're tilting it by only bringing up one. There's a difference between reprinting an existing work wholesale and creating a new work based on an existing one. Your arguments pertain only to the former, while it's the latter that the PD crowd usually talk about (as far as I know; I don't follow the debate closely). I assume this is why you skipped the part about how Le Morte is itself a derivative work. You're also ignoring Mario's argument about profit sharing. By now Mallory's descendants are likely into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, meaning any individual, descendant or not, will receive any measurable profit at all from reprinting Le Morte. The only way it would be reprinted would be through charity... and if we extend this to patents, it would be the same for everything. If we take your argument about houses you have it completely backwards. Who would build a house when you would have to share the profit from selling it (or the house itself) with every single person on the planet? Since everyone is a descendant of the creator, everyone has equal rights to the house. That's how it would be with copyright if it was passed along indefinitely - after a few generations nothing would be reprinted, ever. It would, quite literally, be the death of history. Furthermore, let's compare the "vulture" Paris Hilton to the Mallory descendants in the Le Morte scenario. The descendant does nothing. He owns the rights and will take a share of the profits. Paris Hilton has the book reprinted, meaning others can read it and the descendant gets profits. If she doesn't do it, nobody gets to read the book and the descendant gets nothing. Who is really the scavenger here? You make it sound as if having to pay for exploiting an IP is an act of charity from the exploiter's side. It's not. The argument you present here might just as easily go: "Knowledge should be free for all, so it's immoral to financially compensate the creators and their families for the creator's creation. Let them do some actual work if they want money." Now you're intentionally twisting my words, despite quoting me on how I do want the creators compensated. So let me reiterate with a bit more detail: I want creators to receive fair compensation for what they create (which will basically be "whatever they can get") during their lifetime, and for their descendants to hold the rights for a limited time after their deaths (say, 25 years - enough that any children born right before they die can grow up and get an education). After that I see no moral reason for their descendants to have more rights to their creation than any other member of humanity. If someone wants to reprint a popular book, fine, what's the problem? More people get to read it, the writer got fair compensation during his lifetime and his family had plenty of time to find some other way to make a living.
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Post by Anders on Jun 2, 2011 23:39:30 GMT -8
Let me also add that the analogy of the house is completely false. A house is a limited comodity which a creative work is not. The correct analogy would be that since you invented housebuilding, nobody should be allowed to build a house except for you or your descendants. If anyone wants a house, they'll have to buy it from your family.
Or, perhaps even more closely, that nobody else should be allowed a house, period.
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