Should We Abolish Copyright? | Tom Nicholas 

Mmmhh you got a little bit conservative in your conclusion, didn't expect that :p Just remember that property is theft :) This lecture by Richard Stallman is HIGHLY interesting. You should really dig into FOSS, free software and also the copyleft movement, it may change some of your ideas on copyright and intellectual property. Cheers! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eginMQBWII4.html "Every new invention is a synthesis, the resultant of innumerable inventions which have preceded it in the vast field of mechanics and industry. Science and industry, knowledge and application, discovery and practical realization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand, toil of mind and muscle - all work together. Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present. By what right then can anyone whatever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say - This is mine, not yours?” Some bearded man....no, not that one.

I think it's entirely possible to both advocate for large structural change whilst also making the case for smaller changes along the way. If one only makes the case for the latter then that's a different question... I did almost go into some of the stuff about copyleft but it's always a bit of a trade off between covering everything and making the videos not too long and full of deviations!

Should be abolished strictly on youtube within reason.

A pro capitalist libertarian answer to the problem. Just to promote a new economical model based around the plateform effect, wich cultural cocnetration and therefore a greater control over culture. I am disapointed by the answer you bring.

I really really like your videos, they are amazing and thought provoking. However, economists always seem to be made to cartoon villains and ultra-libertarian strawmen. This is simply not true, and you yourself come back to the central problem of information goods, that creators struggle to get paid if there is no copyright. That’s precisely what economists are grappling with, and most of them, including many Nobel laureates are very aware of all the issues you point out. I would really appreciate a bit more nuance here

I almost went into this aspect of things a bit deeper but time, as ever, was an issue. I do find it interesting though how anti-piracy campaigns often focus on "think of the artists" when, as you say, most of the revenue gets pocketed by people who had little to do with the creative process...

@@Tom_Nicholas it's downright deception is what it is. Often the same companies who fund these companies will turn around and screw over artist!

it's ironic, really. all the empirical evidence that consumers _will_ pay their favorite creators and support them is there. the fact that platforms like patreon and twitch even exist is proof of that. with the concept of copyright (and patents) creators are held hostage to big corporations raking in all the profit.

@@BattousaiHBr True to a degree, and then class enters in. One can monetise better when one is pandering to power, or to the crass. That's why clickbait trivial garbage is so attractive to "creators". The system pushes them that way.

Bandcamp is another good example of paying artists directly

Ooh, I hadn't kept tabs on this case actually, really interesting to know!

Phew

that sucks. katy stay stealing and getting away with it

@@terrancehall9762 stealing what?

@@lcg3092 music, culture etc. look at the outfit she is wearing in the thumbnail. a real culture vulture

Well, and also open source game and Linux communities.

Also, that's why many Linux distribution requires game content's (especially open source game) to be inclusive so anyone can use contents freely. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_video_game

Too bad a greedy man in Russia is exploiting copyright in his country to gain profits

And it leads to a shit ton of terrible references and alleged properties of certain SCPs that original authors didn't intend them to have.

How many of those people made any money? Getting rid of copywrite completely gets rid of monetization of artists’ works.

It's particularly interesting I suppose once you start to draw in monopoly rents in certain locations in certain cities which, I guess, could be analogous to a really successful franchise/IP. I'm certainly not an economist though so I may be stretching my knowledge here!

I believe that is more-or-less Adam Smith's argument against the existence of landlords. They aren't really contributing much of anything, they are just making a profit by inducing an artificial scarcity and happening to own the scarce good.

@@thrale You assume that a market is the only way to distribute housing. I am inclined to believe that a market is among the worst possible ways to distribute housing, since it will lock some people out of the housing they need due to the fact that it is not profitable to house them. I am of the opinion that housing should be declared a human right, and a public housing option be made available. I am not opposed to the idea of a market providing larger and more luxurious homes to people who can afford them, but leaving housing purely to the market is not a good idea.

@@thrale It also incentivises artists because they get paid. They'll do another song.

@Franklin Ratliff Good job - calling someone shithead really helps to illustrate that you have a cogent point worth considering. Oh wait, no, that's ass-backwards like you.

Disney can still have the trademarked Mickey Because He, as a mascot, is himself a highly integral part of the company. But the pre-1967 works which he appeared in will definitely become public domain in 2037 for most countries except the US, Mexico and other exceptions.

@@SlapstickGenius23 "decades" :/

Disney really knows that given they keep shoving him into everything

One could argue that Disney depletes the Star Wars property with the horrendous Disney Sequels.

@@One.Zero.One101 LK2 Ride or die IMO, but it's not unfair to say they have damaged the value of SW with the new trilogy (The Disney sequel of SW one might say)

Yeah, I think that's the real sticking point at the moment; how do you ensure it's not just an excuse for large companies to rip off unknown creators. In truth, however, I would posit that copyright law works far more in favour of large companies than it does those creators. At present, it is usually by invoking some kind of moral outrage on Twitter or the like that I've mostly seen those who have had their stuff stolen receive some recompense for a company having done so. As copyright infringement tends to be a civil rather than criminal offence, many simply can't afford the court fees anyway.

@@Tom_Nicholas true, but I don't know how much of that can be laid directly at the feet of copyright law and how much comes from our late stage capitalist societies. "And then they got away with it, because they're rich" is the final sentence to MANY scenarios, from crimes great and small to social organization. Public shaming has become the (extremely unreliable) last resort of victims everywhere. Very little usually comes of it. I don't think there is a single elegant solution, we have many entrenched bias, power structures, and traditions to get past. We have to reduce the stratified power of wealth, change all kinds of laws, and we have to never tell artists to give up and "get a real job."

One possible answer is for people to register their copyrights via a cooperative or similar for a small registration fee, which is applied to the maintenance of a legal staff which aggressively pursues infringement.

@Daniel von Strangle yep, a good artist makes good things constantly, it is not so easy to keep stealing without people noticing you are not the one creating the things

@@Tom_Nicholas The shape of copyright law needs to be changed, rather than abolishing it outright. It's gotten bloated and has not been adapted to the modern world.

Another such instance is video game soundtracks. If you aren't selling a CD or digital album, then all people who upload the music are doing is making it possible by _any_ reasonable means to listen to the music in question outside the context of the game. If you ask me, your exclusive right to distribution, if it should exist at all, should be entirely dependent on you making a substantial effort to do so as within your means. That means as a large corporation you either make albums digitally or physically available (ideally both), or people can distribute your music online for free as they please. Copyright should be use it or lose it. Furthermore, this control should require that such things be distributed _reasonably affordably._ in accordance with common market rates. If it looks like you're releasing the album only as a formality to enforce your copyright, you again lose your copyright until you make it reasonably affordable. And this is like, the most reasonable capitalist take that could exist. This is the _far right_ version of it. As in anything further is unacceptable and stupid.

@@FlameUser64Props to you mate, that is a very credible and interesting proposal.

Welcome to our open source field where you are free to graze your cows... Maybe has a bit of a start-up "apply words that normally apply to tech to literally anything" vibes?

Nono, FREE EVERYTHING :p www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.en.html

The future we need

Lets make the constitution open source

@@OjoRojo40 you might want to read the first paragraph of that article.

Interesting. I'm not that knowledgable about Japan at all but I did get the sense that fan-made stuff is considered less of a "problem" there and more of a recognition that people like the thing that's been made. It's interesting how these subtle cultural differences can have such a large structural impact.

@@Tom_Nicholas Ain't it tho?

Do you think it's fair to the creator of those works to have others making money from their creative time and money to develop said work? To simply allow people to cherry pick and create their own stories based on characters and worlds you have created? Imagine if you were in the same situation. One can make the argument, how much money do you need to make off a creative work before it becomes ridiculous...cept that money then allows that creative of literally their own brain to perhaps invest in other works or flesh out more. Inevitably imagine if 50 people started making lots of simpsons shows based on the creative of others and making money from it.In so taking money away from those that would have to pay the actual creator to see new works, and in the way they decide for that creative to be shown. If you want to benefit from something 'creative' then put in the effort to make it yours rather than literally stealing others ideas. Being inspired is one thing...fan fiction is ultimately theft. Accepted because it develops the community that will invest hopefully in the original works. Not every creative is a big company that can afford for their work to be 'used' (stolen).

@@lf1980 see Reese Walton's comment on the failure of copyright

@@HxH2011DRA I'll try and find it thanks. Hard enough finding my own comments on. here lol

I doubt it, new technology should be for all of us to use, a good system might be getting money if you get to patent something, but it shouldn't be for exclusive use

Hell yes we should abolish it. There is more costs than benefits when keeping it. People have always created art and music before copyright law was ever common

I think your point that there is a contradiction between "free market" rhetoric and intellectual property rights is interesting here. However I think it points to a broader contradiction in neoliberal capitalism whereby, though many supporters of neoliberalism say that they favour markets over state control, state power is often required to create markets where they would be unlikely to otherwise emerge. We thus end up with "free markets" that are, in some sense, fictitious.

@Daniel von Strangle Well, you and your "true" free-market capitalist friends might be against intellectual property - but not any _actual_ private business in the _actual_ free-market who owns some IP and who thinks it has something to lose by giving it away, no matter if it is big or small. You already said it, it is all about profits, nothing else. Presumably though, you have nothing against private businesses seeking profit, no? In fact that is an essential ideological aspect, the idea that the profit motive is overwhelmingly good and gracious bc it is supposed to aim at innovation, meeting people's needs, rising living standards, etc. Intellectual property is just one of many cases where there is a _practical_ contradiction with the profit motive though. _Any_ capitalist society, no matter how ideally you imagine it, is inevitably going to trend towards the establishment of intellectual property - bc it is _profitable_ , especially to the richest and most powerful capital interests. More generally there is a practical contradiction within the concept of a free-market itself: The competitors in a given free market, who are a currently on top in terms of capital and market share, ofc almost _never_ actually want a free market. They would much rather have a market which tilts in their favour and against their competitors. Their ideal goal is the very opposite of a free market: a monopoly. And remember, there is _always_ someone on top, as a matter statistical necessity. And it does not matter, which particular corporation it is. It has nothing to do with their inherent ruthlessness. Every other corporation in their place would behave the same. The profit motive demands it of them and if they were not ruthless they would have never reached their top position in the first place. Expecting a free market to subsist long-term in a capitalist economy is like having a competitive game and expecting nobody to ever win in it. This is exactly why leftists reject capitalism as a whole, not just certain aspects of current capitalism that we do not like: It is riddled with contradictions on a _material_ level. It is easy to hold two ideal concepts in your head - for example private property, profit motive, capital accumulation on one side and free markets on the other - but placed in a real world and played out in the long-term they _necessarily_ run into conflict. And in this case monopoly capital inevitably prevails.

Yes, and of course in IT, many popular things, be they word processing programs like _Word_, or architectures like the IBM, succeeded because they were widely pirated with little comeback. If not for the IBM clone, some other architecture might be dominant. And Word was so pirated, people urged their employers to buy it, pretty much shutting down Wordstar or WordPerfect.

The ideas, once created, are not scarce (well some aspects are, but still). Despite this, the number of ideas which are being created at any point is finite and so compared to our infinite desire for more and better ideas, these are scarce resources to create. Remember, scarce = finite.

@@AnyVideo999 Sure, there may be a finitude of unique, original ideas (to the extent we can say those even exist) but there is no conceivable finitude of copied ideas, or even just slightly transformed ones I'd argue. It is the copying of ideas that I was moreso focussing on. I'm not sure that _scare_ strictly means _finite_ rather than "visibly finite" if you will. When we talk about a _post-scarcity_ economy for example, we do not mean literally infinite ressource abundance. Rather we mean a situation in which the prospect of ever running out of unconditional _access_ to resources, to even be realisticly confronted with any limitation in our consumption, would be so unlikely as to be a totally insignificant concern.

Actually, I hadn't thought to bring the discussion back to physical/mechanical inventions. That could've been useful actually as I think we are slightly more open to viewing those creations as building on previous creations than we are to viewing artistic creations as such.

Tom Nicholas don’t patents fall under intellectual property

Yes, and patents as a system are wholey broken in their own way.

Ledabot Capitalism as whole is broken and cannot be fixed

Which bearded man?

Yep and, in practice, most forms of common throughout history have had some kind of collectively-agreed rule structure. Being owned in common doesn’t mean something’s a free-for-all.

@@Tom_Nicholas Kind of challenged their beliefs when they ran into tribal communities where, say, one family was charged by the community with stewarding the commons and making sure everyone got a turn with grazing their herds but not so much as to damage the grazing lands. This tradition had lasted untold generations, the stewards hadn't been bribed to allow one grazing herd to dominate, and so on.

@@Waywardpaladin Their belief should have been challenged by the mere existence of the very commons they were referencing, right there in England, which had existed for years and years, without running often into this sort of problem. But they don't tend to learn from examples that contradict their assumptions. People aren't rational, and that isn't limited to herdsman sharing a commons.

The tragedy of the commons seems to assume that all the herdsmen live in some sort of vacuum where they never, ever communicate with the other herdsmen

Alternatively a capitalist who sees a reduction in growth as a loss

Um, Mexico has it worse than the EU and Australia combined.

This is the thing though: authors are not entitled to any form of getting rich. Copyright is a purely consequentialist scheme to give the public more works of which they can freely peruse. See www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html.

@@NateROCKS112 maybe they're not entitled, but shouldn't they be able to earn returns from their creation??? I'm very much on the Left, but not everyone can afford to create for free. People certainly have the right to profit fairly from what they created. Key word being fairly, of course.

@@SlapstickGenius23 how so?

@@WindowsXP_logon_sound_25yrsago the copyright term of Mexico was once like parts of the European Union’s in the 1990s. Said term of life plus fifty years after death, was fine, until got replaced somehow by the copyright term of life plus seventy five years after death. In turn, life plus seventy five years after death got replaced, very unceremoniously, by life plus a century after death, just 13 years ago. The current copyright term of life plus a century after death was pretty much made possible primarily by the excessively corrupt Mexican publishers. Going way back to the 1950s; the copyright term in Mexico was much, much shorter than it is now.

Yes, the original paper is basically a thought experiment which jumps to a whole bunch of conclusions yet was taken up by those who wanted to use it to advocate for private property rights.

I think it's a good thought experiment on how maximizing profit affects a finite resource. Especially when you concider that even if a pasture is private property, the earth as a whole is public property. And thus prone to exploitation by competition

@@redlorax5380 maybe, one of the biggest criticisms is that the people in the thought experiment act more like corporations who are only driven by maximizing the profits of their shareholders and not actual people.

@@Disthron exactly. It's a good thought experiment in showing how corporation are not durable with the earth's resources. It shows exactly the opposite they advocate

​@@redlorax5380 I think the problem comes in where people think that it's more than just a thought experiment. Like when people argue that all common property will fall to 'the tragedy of the commons.' When in reality, common land remained stable for thousands of years until it was enclosed by rich aristocrats at the beginning of the first industrial revolution.

Yeah, the Public Domain right?

Thanks! I'm sure it's been used elsewhere before. David Harvey discussed the "urban commons" a fair bit which I think is where I was primarily drawing the idea from but I'd be surprised if no one else has used in with regards to culture. Indeed, I'd imagine CC licences take their name from a very similar notion. I haven't seen those actually but will definitely go and check them out!

Uniquenameosaurus also made some great videos on this topic culminating in "Creators shouldn't own their creations, and heres why". He also goes into sharing ideas on how creators can still be paid for their work via a patreon-like model. (Its not perfect, but it will likely be better).

I’m told you have a great couple of videos on this topic which I’m planning to check out shortly!

I'm watching the video atm, not finished, but one thing IP laws can retain imo is right to being attributed. That IMO is reasonable thing to have in a civilized society. The greater problem is that this whole IP law comes from capitalism and all its problems, namely, under capitalism, money comes from owning things, not from doing work. For art industry, it's crucial you can own the art, otherwise it would be like service industry, low-paid lower class of workers. I think the problem here is about this more fundamental issue of ownership being valued so much higher than doing work, that the idea of losing IP would be so devastating to artists.

the thing is that copyright doesn't protect small artists from this kind of exploitation already. you need to have the resources to get your case in front of a judge before it can be determined that your copyright was actually infringed.

I did have a bit where I discussed how we might approach creating a system of funding the creation of films, books etc (which, to be honest, most countries already to to a significant extent) but with the caveat that any works created through that system would be in the public domain. Even when governments (or whoever else) subsidise the costs of creating films etc in the present, they have a habit of privatising the profits... The video was already 30 minutes long though so I thought I'd leave that for another time!!

We don't even need a centrally planned economy. Central planning of the whole of society certainly has benefits over the chaotic dog eat dog system of free market capitalism, but at the end of the day it doesn't solve many more problems than it causes, like the exploitation of the creatives themselves or the fact that centralization means granting a small group power over what even gets financed. After all, as much as the Soviet Union allowed for the funding of arts, even Dziga Vertov and Lev Kuleshov were making propaganda. Central planning doesn't ensure that everyone will be cared for, only that a central authority exists with a responsibility to do that caring, but no real responsibility to do so. Decentralized and collective structures on the other hand allow for individuals to take care of each other while also allowing them to escape oppressive communities or having to go through bureaucratic systems.

If some loser thought there was any money in it they would have hindered Linux with patent infringement lawsuits. There are near infinity vague troll patents of the sort "a software mechanism for reordering messages in a queue based on priority by means of a Central Processing Unit (CPU)"

Ooh, I hadn't come across that before but will check it out. Thanks!

Ahh, thanks Edward! Really glad you enjoyed the video!

Thank you, glad I earned the lengthy video rather than it just seeming like I was just waffling on! Actually, old Nintendo (or similar) games would have been a great example of stuff that might not get rereleased and thus be unplayable as no one else can release it due to copyright law. Dammit, wish I'd thought of that!

@@Tom_Nicholas Japanese companies and copyright claims are quite a topic on their own, you cannot blame yourself for not specifically pointing at this matter especially since exploring EVERY country/Region politics on the issue would take days. You did a great job at questioning things and raising self-reflection in my humble opinion. So what about your Lego Falcon Millennium? Sorry I could not resist- SW France humour I guess!- Take care sir and many thanks for your work!

Almost as if the punk scene grew from an anti-consumerist ideology and has heavy ties with anarcho communists

Wait didn’t you post this after the whole article 13 controversy

@@Tb0n3 That is exactly what the rulers want you to believe.

Yes, most countries fund the "high arts" and actually fund a lot of film and the like too. Obviously there's the problem of who gets to make the decisions over what gets made or not but, paired with a properly accountable and democratic system for doing so, that could be a start.

what this would mean is that only artists with the social capital to successfully crowdfund would have any incentive to create anything for public consumption. somebody else who is better known than you could simply take your work, present it as theirs, and "crowdfund" for it with no recourse or compensation for you. you'd have no rights to enforce if somebody stole your work and monetized it.

@@krjeff What you describe seems like consumer fraud, not because of its lack of compensation to that artist for presented work, but because it is deceptive crowdfunding; those funders are scammed into paying for what was never intended to be delivered, specifically in your described case, I assume, not only for more content by whoever actually created the content being presented, but also to that content creator. This is true regardless of social capital. This could be handled by merely the enforcement of consumer rights, if copyright was abolished.

IP is not property, it is Government violence on peaceful people.

Well, I'm sure this is only one way it could be approached but I hope it threw up some interesting questions!

I find it ironic. So much for greed being a sin.

@@governm3nt697 Rap doesn't have to be all about getting dat pea

He gets all the hi didely hoes

@@governm3nt697 have you heard the origins of Rap? It was mostly protest/street music against capitalism (eg. Public enemy). Of course through Gangsta Rap and Trap the mainstream has shifted more and more towards ‘flexing’ and selfish ends, but there is still some great rap artists using the medium to critique/attack the oppression of capitalism (Jpegmafia, Kendrick Lamar, Run the Jewels, and Kanye West being some of my favourites)

It's an idea with potential, though group creators would make things messy.

'Tis true. You gotta wonder: what happens when every basic melody has been copywriten? When the only way to write an original melody is by composing something so complex, no one can relate to it. This is a real issue, and it's already starting to have serious consequences. There are only so many combinations of notes. And this same concept can be virtually applied to anything within art. It's absolutely going to get worse over time. That is a guarantee.

Haha, no problems at all. That sounds really interesting, what kind of conclusions did you come to?

Thank you, I really appreciate you saying so. Yes, the fact that it relies on the courts is really problematic as, like you say, if someone steals one of my (or another smallish artists') videos, I'm very unlikely to have the funds to go after them in the courts or any of the knowledge of really knowing where to start with that. So, although technically it protects everyone, in practice it doesn't really.

Although I'm not very well versed in this subject, yet; to my current understanding, ourcurrent US copyright and IP law is literally only in existence to benefit sociopath-level corrupt lawyers and of course, the big corporations.... Like everything else specifically legislated for in this country. I find it impossible to believe that any IP law written in the last 45 years was done to promote greater opportunity for the little guy. Who owns this govt??? Who do they bend over and get the kneepads for??? Yeah well you get the idea. Can't even get crumbs after a worldwide pandemic and 10 months after Biden took office. So I may not know the ins and outs of who IP law helps, but I know who the fuck it DOESN'T help, because I know the scandalous good-for-nothings who hold office here. Know the tree, know the fruit.... If you know one, you certainly know the other. Any IP law which protects ordinary creators but limits corporate monopoly and control is one I want to get all up close and personal with. Maybe swap as bodily fluids.... Etc. I don't think the specifics matter as much (altho they matter) as the broad strokes and goals of the law. Is this going to empower and protect the regular guy, or be yet another tool of wrongful accumulation by a business that's already far too large???

when you work for a company in creating a work you consent by contract to surrendering your intellectual property rights in the aspects you work on in exchange for money up front which is independent of the commercial success of the work. nobody is preventing anybody from refusing to work on those terms and just creating their own intellectual property that nobody else has rights over, marketing it themselves and taking responsibility for the risk of commercial unviability.

especially since the only way to enforce it at this point is increasingly malicious/authoritarian measures to prevent/criminalize ALL acts of copying. copyright made [some] sense when it was somewhat difficult and risky to make/distribute copies. it's just not now. but corporations enjoy that power imbalance they've created, including between them and the artists which actually made all the stuff they "own" and lock behind NDAs so even the artists can't use/share/discuss it.

I hate copyright because i play a certain train simulator called Trainz simulator 12, and the DLC creators for that game are (mostly) a bunch of assholes who think it's ok to send an entire law-enforcement SWAT team to arrest a 15 year who posted 'pirated' DLC. (real story btw but the 15 year old was reprimanded on their forums)

Also, closed source and non-free software is also something you have restricted ownership over. But, there are free, open source options out there, where you can own them in all relevant senses of the word.

The book Theft! A History of Music (which is actually an academic book in the form of a graphic novel which I thought was kinda cool) has a lot to say about sampling and particularly the Public Enemy court cases. That’s all made far more complicated by the fact that there’s two copyrights over a sample, that over the music itself and that over the sound recording.

I think copyright should be limited to avoid unauthorized uses for commercial purposes/possible heavy damages to the authors. Creativity and arts should be free to uses,but not for that way.

I think you're right on the first part. I think technological advances have simply made reforming copyright unavoidable (or, at worst, that the laws all stay on the books but are basically unenforceable in practice). Either way, artists are moving away from being able to rely on their exclusive property rights as a sole source of income and I think we'll see alternative cultural economies spring up no matter what happens in terms of the law. The latter part is obviously a much broader question but I'm not particularly in disagreement with you there either.

Individual rights are fundamental rights. It is my responsibility to succeed or fail, not the collective's.

I would recommend 20 years(10 years and another 10 years of extension,optional)but with more freedom in using: -Most non commercial uses/modifications are fair use(except those that can seriously damaged the author in finances) -Only a few uses may require prior permission -Some commercial uses may not required authorization but you have to commission the author -In any case you have to attribute/crediting the author -All rights are non transferable(but those that are used to are still shareable) -The extendable 10 years will requiring extension fee every year

Yeah, I totally agree with you. While I'm also on the side of abolishing copyright but also wanting to be changed for the better. This copyright law is broke as fuck and for some reason; nobody seems to be talking about it despite being a very serious issue for me. Like, it caused nothing but chaos and arguments over "who should own this or not", People getting constantly sued for no reason other than using copyrighted characters claiming to steal it (which wasn't anybody's intentions because nobody wasn't stealing anything) and leaving/spreading fear among artists without giving them freedom. This is why I personally like public domain so much because it gives filmmakers, animators, game developers and artists the liberties/freedom to create something new with the IP and show much/some passion on the IP that they or we grow up with. I've seeing many people online how creative they are, wanting to create comics, books, games, shows or movies on the IP we love growing up, coming up with cool pitches and premises that could change entertainment and having many folks who have cool ideas with their own set of vision, Before anyone says something, yes, I'm aware that they're some scumbags out there who might take advantage of this and make an idiotic cash grab so they gain money, I know it's annoying but NOT everyone are like that; they're people out there who wants to make something that they love and I support that. But for some reason, people don't seem to appreciate creativity and brush things off like they meant nothing, which leaves me frustrated as hell. But what angers me the most is that we can have the good stuff because of DISNEY! They extended the timeframe because they were scared of LOSING the rights of Mickey Mouse. Okay, I get Mickey is iconic but he's not THAT iconic and yet, they decided to do something stupid without thinking on how it might affect on other IPs, which is very selfish. People cannot keep something that they created FOREVER! We need to change and abolish Copyright so people can have the freedom and liberties they deserve. If I could change the time frame, personally; I would shorten it down to 4 or 6 years. I know it's very short but at least it seems very much fair to me. But hopefully someday it will change for the better and hopefully people can find a way to do it. I know it will be hard but sometimes I feel tired of seeing shit happen to people. Hope you folks understand what I feel about it.

There's a little more to the original essay itself as he's trying to discuss ecology rather than economics. And private ownership is only one of the suggestions that Hardin uses (although it is his preferred method). There's much I'd question about his essay but I think it's the way that it's been used as leverage by others that's perhaps the real problem.

Even, I was thinking that because the example also includes an aspect of liberalism, capitalism, and individualism where everyone makes a choice for themselves and prefers to do what she/he likes without any interference by the State. I'm thinking, this problem is much more complicated than how most people represent it, simply as a communism-counter argument.

Ben Shapiro Voice: Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there's a common pasture.. And let's say...

Hardins argument would also lead to the prisoner's dilemma especially in a capitalist mindset where each individual farmer would be incentivized to over stock in the assumption that their neighbors won't, but then the individual actions of each cancel out the collective. But on the commons people can talk to each other and collectively plan the best use of space.

Actually, the real anti-socialist gotcha is the fact there are zero historical or current examples of a truly socialist economy working. None. They all operate off the back of capitalism. If you all are so confident in your socialist ideas, go make a commune already. And don't take a single product that was built by copyrights or trademarks. Start from scratch and show the world how it works! If it works, people will come. What are you afraid of?

Yeah, it should have being public domain if it wasn't for this shitty copyright law. Hope someday it gets changed for the better or who knows what type of shit happen.

@@j.e.s.m.4686 I just feel that if you get a tax reduction it shouldn't be for failures but the value you give to the public, so shows like Final Space would not get you a big tax reduction, but something you could sell to a company who can afford content with a smaller audience.

That’s the broader question but was keen to focus in during this video.

Glad I found another comrade to subscribe to

Explaining: The very idea that corporations are allowed to buy ownership over the intellectual property from the original creator and profit over unpaid and uncredited artists is really absurd to me, it is the epitome of the surplus-value. It's baffling to know that no writer, artist, musician, etc have ever made one cent over the copyright claims these corporations orchestrate, and there is basically no way to break into the market without agreeing to hand over the value of our work to a faceless businessman who will raise his fortune over something he never intellectually participated in. Most of the artists working in the entertainment industry are overworked and poorly paid, their jobs aren't secure and they can get fired at any minute because some billionaire isn't capable of paying their employees their fair share. Conclusion: If you are an individual creator or an artist/small businessman working on an indie company, then yes, you should have the rights of your intellectual property secured for you will need to be protected against plagiarism and the uneven competition of the marketplace. Once you have raised to a corporation level, then you shouldn't own the right over something you never produced - although it may not be reasonable to lend ownership rights for all the workers in a big company, it's a fact that those workers SHOULD be paid more and that can be made through a fee charged by the creators referring to their intellectual ownership claim (in the same way some individual professional artists often do when working for a client). Moreover, the whole state of the copy-right law is pretty abusive and works against the free market, the freedom of speech, and the cultural production in our society, so it needs to be rethought.

With Disney’s level of power and money, what’s to stop them from doing that now and drowning you in legal fees?

As if you have the money to sue Disney regardless

Making the point that artists shouldn't necessarily be granted exclusive rights whilst also stressing that they should be rewarded for their work (as you stress here) was something that I was trying really hard to ensure came across in this video. Because to have the former without the latter is perhaps even worse than the present scenario in some senses. I did almost have a whole bit where I discussed the manner in which, as I see it, we tend to perceive the economics of cultural production as an artist being paid for their time even though, as you point out here, they're not; they're being gifted with property rights in lieu of being paid for their labour.

unfortunately there is nearly nobody to pay us for the labour. so we can only get paid from the works.

Thank you!

I hadn't actually come across his stuff prior to a few months back when he put out this video. I used to do quite a lot of music (less so now) but really enjoy his stuff and his way of making technical aspects of music theory really engaging!

sampling is theft. Out and out. It's equivelant to ripping out paragraphs of many books and copying them into a new book. 'sampling' is exactly that of music. If you want to use something pre-existing, pay for it...otherwise use it as inspiration and come up with your own. Probably comes down to intent doesn't it? Like anything. To prove someone maliciously copied something is difficult. I wonder how copyright works in the culinary world. Dishes. Food products etc

@@lf1980 actually, "ripping paragraphs out of a book and using them in your own" is pretty normal in both the publishing world (writers cite and reference other writers all the time) and the art world (there are artists whose entire body of work is all appropriated pieces of writing from other writers, repurposed and remixed), and the jurisprudence on fair use goes into alot of depth about when appropriation is legal. Intent is a major factor, yes, but more important is recognizability: would a customer mistake the sample for the original, or choose to purchase the sample instead of the original? Proper attribution is key, as is the size of the sample. And there is no copyright for food, or clothing. You can copyright a recipe, but not the implementation of the recipe. This is mostly because copyright does not cover any functional item; that's the purpose of patents. And patents provide a much stronger, but much, much narrower scope of intellectual property protection.

sampling is not theft, you do not own ip, IP is illegitmate, it is not property.

@@voluntarism335 I actually think IP (medical patents aside) is the only ethical kind of property

The idea that copywrite is useless in a communist society is founded on the assumption that financial capital is the only thing to be gained from owning IP. There is also a matter of recognition and reputation, social capital if you will. If I were to write a book and release it, and you took a copy of that book, changed the name on the cover and releases it as your own, it would hurt my standing within the community and diminish any recognition I receive for my work. This doesn't just apply to direct copies either, but also derivative works. If I were to release a novel with well foreshadowed events and clearly established plot points leading to a sequel, and you were to read that novel and think "I know where this is heading" and write a release your own version of that sequel before I have finished my own, that would also impact on the recognition of my own work, and depending on the quality of you work, could be detrimental to my reputation. In short, copywrite isn't just about money, but also attribution.

@@matthewparker9276 Authorship is not the same as copyright, and Authorship would still exist.

Someone else said this recently but I haven't actually seen any Thoughty2. Perhaps I need to check their stuff out.

The issue is that the present system doesn't pay people for their work, it gifts them (or, in many cases, a record company or film studio) exclusive rights over what they created which is not quite the same.

How does it incentivize the improvement of things that our society feels are important when it bans people from improving upon anyone else's ideas? That invention/idea becomes the exclusive property of one person or company to do whatever they want with, and as a result, no one else has any right to use it. So... even if someone has a genius idea about how to improve something, they can't do it unless the copyright holder says it's okay. And if someone else is going to improve something that may harm the copyright holder's profits, then the copyright holder is never going to say it's okay. Improvement cannot occur then. Seems entirely counterproductive to innovation and competition in the market, if you ask me. As well as simply being a barrier to free speech and expression, but that's a different argument altogether.

@@shadow_of_thoth Well said. It's a good point. Granting monopolies are thought to be a necessary evil, but I agree that we should probably dial it down in a lot of markets. We're really seeing how it's gone too far in music, but even on the flip side, we can see how having zero restrictions has allowed open source projects to flourish. It turns out that innovation doesn't even need to be incentivized in some markets.

It depends can you pay thousands of dollars in court fees if not no

Yeah it’s not like corporations strong arm people out of there copyright or anything or just steal it while the artist is unable to get it back without an army of lawyers yeah that doesn’t happen

@@jmurray1110 Not really relevant to what I said. Also not the norm. Evidence of my position is all around us.

Potentially. I think it's an interesting remedy to some of the problems of copyright as it exists in the present though and potentially an interesting transitional stage. And the manner in which it allows someone to protect their right to attribution for that particular expression of a work is in some regards useful.