If we all ignore all copyright it will go away and with it all the nighmares conceived to prop up its rotting corpse. But it won't happen sooner than before majority of creators learn that copyright does not benefit them in any way. We can teach them that by never paying for copyrighted things.
There is one apocalyptic scenario here that everyone ignores: it is monetary compensation that keeps the social norm. Remove that, make it so only the rich or the obsessed write, make music, etc, and they will increasing do so for their own ends, because there is no reason not to. Social alone approval will motivate very few to commit to the amount of work necessary for most creative endeavors. On the surface, of cou…
EU copyright reform: the facts
101–110 of 110 posts
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
If you keep trying to start flamewars, or whatever this is, we'll ban the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is one apocalyptic scenario here that everyone ignores: it is monetary compensation that keeps the social norm. Remove that, make it so only the rich or the obsessed write, make music, etc, and they will increasing do so for their own ends, because there is no reason not to. Social alone approval will motivate very few to commit to the amount of work necessary for most creative endeavors. On the surface, of cou…
This is so ridiculous on so many levels. I will just pick one angle. It's the non-profits like Wikipedia and non-profit-like writers and creators who deliver high quality. Commercial sites and blogs just produce tons of spammy junk.
Yet more than 90% of the work consumed by (pretty much everyone) is commercial in origin. Even those producing news segments and documentaries for PBS are doing so because they are paid to do so.
I'm not saying people won't write things like Wikipedia articles. But if the value for others (a given corporation, for example) exceeds the social capital they generate for themselves, if they just feed a machine for no benefit, expending more and more of themselves in the process, only to watch a Disney, say, become far more well known for it (thus increasing the desirability of mating with the owners and board members and rich directors involved) why would any so-called rational person commit to such? I doubt all those wiki contributors would feel good if if, somehow, all that content were retroactively re-licensed (or more accurately de-licensed) and incorporated into a commercial, subscription-based encyclopedia. Yes, in one sense, everything that's on Wikipedia would remain as always, as available as always, but I cannot see it as having gone untainted after such a move.
True, a certain proof might be found in the uses of the MIT and 2-clause BSD licenses (and their kind), but still, it seems to me, even in those cases (taking note that they exist in veritable islands of copyleft and proprietary software) the social benefits (mainly in their ability to contrast themselves with the aforementioned alternatives) allows either the potential gain of social capital that can be parlayed both in personal relationships and employment (both having their obvious connection with attraction of a mate based on the expression of extended phenotypes) or, alternatively, such software is created purely for person use and released to the wider world because the commodification and distribution of computer technology makes it trivial and cheap to invest in the possibility of acquiring even minimal social capital, and should none come it, of course, the producer is out nothing, so there, relatively, likely only the possibility of gain.
Even our own present conversation falls within this realm, just as, according to the law (of course, I presume your geographical location to likely be somewhere within a country affected by the Berne Convention, though I will admit the possibility of error here) we are automatically granted ownership over our respective words, either collection of phrases walled off from the other in a way, possibly, and ironically, reflecting our respective mental dispositions on this issue, and just as the terms of service for this sight allow its owners to store and serve them unto any who enter.
Spammy junk, bad movies, terrible TV, is the common binding thread of cultural narrative and the mytho-poetic framework (a phrase I have type too many time I think), but, in any regard, it creates and reinforces who we are. Even those who decry it, in doing so, define themselves in relation to it and in its terms. So...long live the new flesh, I guess.
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having called a few of them and spoken to them on the phone about this they are mostly pissed off about the cookie-cutter emails spamming them about this but quite happy to talk about it on the phone.
On the other hand, some of us are much better at typing than talking. And some might have a fit of social phobia at the mere thought of a phone call. The templates might be tedious, but they are there for people who would otherwise post some random flame or rant. Pages encouraging phone calls have scripted templates on them too.
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#105Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is so ridiculous on so many levels. I will just pick one angle. It's the non-profits like Wikipedia and non-profit-like writers and creators who deliver high quality. Commercial sites and blogs just produce tons of spammy junk.
Yet Wikipedia is licenses share-alike. And I would be interested in seeing a non-niche author who consigns their work to the public domain (or as far as is possible in some legal districts). Yet more than 90% of the work consumed by (pretty much everyone) is commercial in origin. Even those producing news segments and documentaries for PBS are doing so because they are paid to do so. I'm not saying people won't write…
Easily more than 10% of what I read has non-commercial origin, like your comment for example.
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#107For EU people who want to take action: call or email your Member European Parliament (MEP) and let them know that don't supper the policy (or support it?!?). You can call them via: https://act.openmedia.org/savethelink-call Or email by finding your MEP details on: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search.html More info on taking action can br found here (scroll a little): https://juliareda.eu/eu-copyright-reform/
Oh yeah, last campaign of the kind worked great. Members of Parliament really appreciated to have their mailbox (and their voicemail) mail-bombed by hundreds or thousands of such spam and reacted super well. No, in fact, no matter which side and party they belonged to, it really pissed them off and turned them against what the spam advocated for. Many thought it was orchestrated by some GAFAM.
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet Wikipedia is licenses share-alike. And I would be interested in seeing a non-niche author who consigns their work to the public domain (or as far as is possible in some legal districts). Yet more than 90% of the work consumed by (pretty much everyone) is commercial in origin. Even those producing news segments and documentaries for PBS are doing so because they are paid to do so. I'm not saying people won't write…
> Yet more than 90% of the work consumed by (pretty much everyone) is commercial in origin. Easily more than 10% of what I read has non-commercial origin, like your comment for example.
I wonder if media consumption is like counting calories. They do say that (due to various factors) it is impossible for consumers to do so accurately.
Interestingly, can you truly know if my post is commercial in origin. Maybe I am some kind of covert influencer, paid to sow any number of memetic seeds. (Perhaps I'm not even a person as such, at least, not a flesh and blood one, but merely a rather limited Markov Generator.)
(Though, it isn't---at least, not the first part---I'm very much not getting paid money for this.) Which is not to say, however, that I am not getting paid. That is to say, without these posts, I don't exist in this environment. My post, like yours and everyone else's here, is our ongoing construction of both the accounts which contain our social assets (assets that extend even beyond this realm) as well as the social assets themselves, that is our identities in our own minds, and each variant of that identity that exists within each reader of each post we submit. (Facebook highlight reals, various forms of virtual signaling in the comment section for news articles, etc would fall into this category. Though, in a way, this in an interesting model for post-capitalist future, in that, baring those who are an such services for business promotion, Facebook, Twitter, etc are all commercial endeavors where users churn-up content for no commercial compensation, ultimately ultimately creating the state in which these entities can acrue capital. And even though it doesn't in the same way as those entities, HN itself (and the social reputations generated on it) are deeply intertwined with combinator as a whole.) But those identities are also backed by copyright, interestedly enough. And I would claim your ownership of this identity (at least so far as it can be owned, that is the specifics of each post) is intrinsic, no matter to what degree you decry copyright. For example, without such, you collective posts could be taken by anyone and edited in any fashion they desired, thus crafting any public version of you they wanted. It might be argued that if keep libel and defemation laws around, that that wouldn't happen, but doesn't that just become a kind of backdoor copyright? A so-called creator could claim that no matter how the work were modified it would be prejudicial against them and that, even, perhaps, that distributing it to unapproved entities would be also be so (though, that likely is stretch).
Also, I think that there is a disparity in, shall we say, length. That is to say, users are, in general, willing to trade effort that raises capital for an entity wholly other for themselves, in exchange for the opportunity for the construction and maintenance of social capital. And we can see that as a fairly textbook value transaction. The question is how far it can be pushed. The rights already granted to entities such as Facebook would, I would argue, if they tried to pursue it, that the user agreements of such entities grant enough leeway for them to employ a large portion of their generated content anyway they wanted, not just the re-serving of it and the cataloging of it. So let's imagine they do so, using such data for say, effectively, crowdsourced filmmaking, or some such. At what point would the user base become dissatisfied with this? That is, at what point does the value of the transaction shift? So the overall question becomes, while users are willing to generate, in exchange for a certain amount of social capital, a few memes and one-liners, and the typical length of a post on HN, are they willing to do so for substantial work (that is to say, would the typical user be willing to give Facebook one or more 80,000 100,000, 200,000 word books with all the result capital flowing, then, to that entity?). And we can extend this to full-length film, etc. Would anyone even want to create a three-minute music video under such circumstances? (And I don't mean this question facetiously.)
I do know those who create (16-bit game assets, for example) and release those creations under the terms of CC0, being as close to public domain as possible, though don't even think that is close enough, but I still can't help from wondering how they would feel if those works were consistently used in multi-billion dollar grossing games without even mention of their name (unless we are going to retain moral rights from copyright, that is). Considering the actual reactions of many people when they found out their creative commons material was used by corporations, rather than purely 'the community', it does lead me to believe that people aren't thinking of even these licenses (again, all of them backed explicitly and only possible because of copyright) in terms of the whole of the world, the actual world.
What we have to keep in mind about the post-copyright world is that it doesn't start from zero. Every media company that exist today, will still exist with their accrued capital in the post-copyright tomorrow. To be sure, they would take many hits (and I would not say otherwise), but just in size alone they will continue over every solitary self-publisher.
And I do not doubt that people will make things. It is the things that they do make that I do question. In such a world where only the actual of social capital could exist (an impossibility, I obviously state, at least under any circumstances the human race has ever known) it might tend towards mass appeal, but even then, why would anyone go wide (except in the case of the most megalomaniacal) when instead they could concentrate their efforts on fewer and more likely targets of localized social acceptance? But, to be honest, I don't know if that question could even be answered. But the more concrete question, at least in my view, is: if all the so-called creator gains in the social capital aspect (and even that is up for question, as if Disney makes a version of it, everyone will know it from Disney), but that is all the so-called creator gains, and they repeatedly watch as others raise themselves within the social order capital accrued from being based on these works and their own social capital accrued from the wider distribution of the works (remember the reaches and assets of those established companies will be larger), repeatedly watching this transference, how long are such individuals going to last? And I will repeat that I cannot see any rational person doing so (or at least what we call rational). So it remains for (except for the few exceptions that will most likely arise in any system (as do the Stephen Kings and J K Rowlings in this one) and those workers who would operate within, perhaps, my previously imaged theatre system, though even they might not amount to much, merely stitching together garments from pre-existing public domain properties based on the tastes of the audience, or maybe even replaced altogether my sufficiently advanced Markov Generators (there's already one that can write passages from 50 Shades of Gray)), so it rests with either the insane or the driven (and driven here has to refer to artistry driven, the ones most likely to create so-called 'weird' stuff, simply for the fact that being a commercial entity and doing things that aren't 'hip' weird, is the road to obscurity or penury, though not necessarily without critical acclaim, but one eat critical acclaim unless that social reputation can be traded in on (ala, we get a lot of creative writing instructors).
(But, of course, that is only my view from my experiences within the related communities.)
*edit communities, not communists
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm also wondering what the implications of this are for brexit We're well into "who knows?" territory, but what would definitely happen is the UK would lose any say over the EU rules. The UK isn't really large enough to be its own market for startups (unlike the EU and US), so we'd mostly end up using companies hosted in one or the other and obliged to follow their rules. (Safe Harbour is probably a more interesti…
If the EU continues down the regulatory path, the UK could become the startup capital of Europe if they market correctly
Re: EU copyright reform: the facts
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
>To clarify: I find the UK’s knife ban stupid, and it affects me personally (I often cook at friends’ places and, if these friends have no proper knives, I bring my chef’s knife There's nothing in UK law that prevents you from doing this. Bring along a cook book and store the knife securely (and keep it in your bag) and you're going to be fine. If you get stopped by the police mention it straightaway and move from th…
Broad discretion in such laws is the problem . It puts you at the mercy of an individual police officer's whim. More broadly it facilitates discrimination. This isn't a theoretical problem: I know people in London who, due to stop and search, would never dare to carry knives, no matter the reason.
This is also true, I certainly think if you're a white middle class person taking a knife to a friends you're going to get off easier than an someone from a ethnic minority in Tower Hamlets.
It also results in insane things like this [1]. I'm not sure if there's a better way though, it seems much like democracy it's the best of a bad bunch.
1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3165489/Gardener-arr...