The enforcement of copyright law is really simple.
If you were a kid who used Napster in the early 2000s to download the latest album by The Offspring or Destiny’s Child, because you couldn’t afford the CD, then you need to go to court! And potentially face criminal sanctions or punitive damages to the RIAA for each song you download, because you’re an evil pirate! You wouldn’t steal a car! Creators must be paid!
If you created educational videos on YouTube in the 2010s, and featured a video or audio clip, then even if it’s fair use, and even if it’s used to make a legitimate point, you’re getting demonetised. That’s assuming your videos don’t disappear or get shadow banned or your account isn’t shut entirely. Oh, and good luck finding your way through YouTube’s convoluted DMCA process! All creators are equal in deserving pay, but some are more equal than others!
And if you’re a corporation with a market capitalisation of US$1.5 trillion (Google/Alphabet) or US$2.3 billion (Microsoft), then you can freely use everyone’s intellectual property to train your generative AI bots. Suddenly creators don’t deserve to be paid a cent.
Apparently, an individual downloading a single file is like stealing a car. But a trillion-dollar corporation stealing every car is just good business.
@music@fedibb.ml @technology #technology #tech #economics #copyright #ArtificialIntelligence #capitalism #IntellectualProperty @music@lemmy.ml #law #legal #economics
@lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon i think it depends on type of content. Song, book, film? Whatever.
Software, though? IT moves so fast, and copyright can cripple interoperability so much, that perhaps for software, it should be much shorter.
@chucker @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon The other factor with software copyrights is the issue of legacy software.
There’s a lot of software out there in the world that’s still in use, still under copyright, but no longer sold or supported by a vendor. In some cases, it might not even be clear who actually owns the copyright.
Sometimes it’s for specialist equipment that’s built using obsolete software. (Hello, OS/2 ATM machines.)
Sometimes it’s for large enterprises that still use legacy VAX machines, token ring ethernet equipment, CP/M applications and Windows XP desktops.
Sometimes it’s run by retro computing hobbyists who really loved the Atari ST or Speccy.
There’s a good argument to be made that all abandonware should be released to the public domain. It would certainly make life a lot easier for many people.
@ajsadauskas @chucker @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon The Software Preservation Network is working on this in the US, carving out exemptions for software preservation under the DMCA. https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/core-activities/law-policy/
@ajsadauskas @chucker @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon Share alike is better in many respects than PD. This is purely to make life easier, not for another round of making profits by adding some little modifications here and there.
@forthy @ajsadauskas @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon maybe, but like any license, share alike only works if you continue a work’s copyright in perpetuity
@chucker @ajsadauskas @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon This is work that still has copyright. When doing discussions with authors of abandoned work, they are much more willing to go for share alike than for PD.
Anyways, PD should have been share alike from start.
@chucker @kkarhan @panamared27401 @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon I think that being unable to use nor remix music for years is far too long.
It doesn’t remain broadly relevant for all that long in popular culture anyway. Before the internet that cycle was at the very most decade-long, now it has shrunk dramatically as information travels faster and more broadly.
Copyright also inherently assumes you have a right to control the minds of others, which I deem unconscionable.
@lispi314 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon I think a lot of musicians (cf. R.E.M.) with sizable back catalogs to which they own the rights would disagree with you, and honestly, I don’t know what the right answer is.
That said, if you would, please explain why you mean by “copyright also inherently assumes you have a right to control the minds of others.” I’m not following.
@panamared27401 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon Copyright inherently means you cannot replicate an idea you might have come across before in any way without licensing it (which is profoundly exclusionary due to the economic dynamics involved).
Given that human culture generally involves the sharing of stories and ideas, it turns all culture covered by copyright into cognitohazards that poison any attached material.
@panamared27401 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon Much like patents it also fails to account for the concept of parallel invention, which is made worse by the general way humans assimilate patterns from stories and art with the distinct possibility of reusing some bit without even meaning to (hence the cognitohazard bit).
@lispi314 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon OK. So let’s say there were no such thing as copyright law. How, then, would artists, writers, musicians, etc., make a living?
@panamared27401 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon The same way any other creative labor is paid.
I certainly wouldn’t write code for companies without fair remuneration.
Most other forms of creative work also lend themselves a bit better to crowdsourced patronage & merch than my own craft.
In any case, the value is with the labor, not the resulting work. Mostly only labor can lead to new works or improvements to old ones.
@lispi314 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon Your model for writing code implies that all code writers must be someone else’s employee. But what if they want to be independent? How do those folks get paid?
@panamared27401 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon Well, that’s where the crowdsourced patronage & merchandise models (among two typical options) come in.
Both unfortunately rely on popularity with an audience will & able to pay to really work.
They’re hardly the only options, streamers have found corporate sponsors for example, but I couldn’t call myself an expert in alternative monetization practices.
@lispi314 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon Also, the guy in the video says we should either ban copyright or severely shorten its length. Those are two VERY different things. I have to wonder whether severely shortening its length and streamlining the process for obtaining rights wouldn’t solve most of the problems currently surrounding U.S. copyright while still allowing creative people a chance to make money.
@panamared27401 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon A more long-form and less idiosyncratic take that I mostly resonate with would be found linked here: https://mastodon.top/@lispi314/109918144425104762
@lispi314 @chucker @kkarhan @ajsadauskas @technology @music@fedibb.ml @music@lemmy.ml @senficon OK, I’ll take a look.