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YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

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Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we? To me the choice is simple: either we abolish copyright, or all computers will eventually be turned into consumer appliances and we'll need programming licenses to write code. It's an easy choice for me. As it should be for anyone who browses Hacker News. In a copyright world we won't be able to hack anymore. So let the creators sort their business out. They'll find a way or go bankrupt. We must not keep inchi…

> So let the creators sort their business out. They'll find a way or go bankrup Absolutely no need to make it technically impossible, or even hard. They'll do just fine suing people who infringe, and/or get criminal conviction. As they have been doing. They'll be just fine, don't worry about copyright holders.

> Absolutely no need to make it technically impossible, or even hard.

Then why do they keep doing it? Get them to stop, please. Make them stop adding DRM to everything. Make them get rid of DMCA anticircumvention laws. Just stop interfering with our computers.

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#132
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world, and most societies at most times in most places in history seem to have done just fine managing “the commons” as a shared resource through social compact and peer pressure.

> Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world. Could you elaborate on how "'inventing money because barter is inefficient' doesn't seem to exist in the real world"? The idea that barter's inefficiency drives demand for money seems to me to be self-evidently true, so…

David Graeber has argued persuasively that there is little real anthropological evidence to support the notion that money arose from the ‘inefficiency of barter’. [1—3]

1. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-on-the.... 2. https://newrepublic.com/article/159227/david-graeber-changed... 3. Graeber D. 2011. ‘Debt: The First 5000 Years'. Melville House, NY

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#133
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really a pity there's no way for people to sue Youtube for abuse of the commons. Many economists like to invoke the tragedy of the commons' as a justification for property rights (real, maritime, or intellectual) but they tend to sidle around the fact that it's almost impossible for anyone to get legal standing to advocate on behalf of the commons.

Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world, and most societies at most times in most places in history seem to have done just fine managing “the commons” as a shared resource through social compact and peer pressure.

This is a very wrong take

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#134

Presumably this will encourage the creator of the 1914 work to create new works.

This argument that dead people's work shouldn't be protected because they can't be encouraged to make more is wrong, even where copyright gets extended afterwards. Predicting future value allows others to pay for it while they're alive, possibly by speculating on future enhanced copyright law. Corporations can persist beyond the life of any humans within them for a good reason. It enables longer term investment and d…

The social contract was: you make a work, society will pretend it's scarce for a few years so you can make money. Then it will enter the public domain.

What was the last movie you've watched that entered the public domain? I bet not a single person on this site will see that happen within their lifetimes.

The fact is copyright monopolists have systematically robbed us of our public domain rights.

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#135
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world, and most societies at most times in most places in history seem to have done just fine managing “the commons” as a shared resource through social compact and peer pressure.

> Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world. Could you elaborate on how "'inventing money because barter is inefficient' doesn't seem to exist in the real world"? The idea that barter's inefficiency drives demand for money seems to me to be self-evidently true, so…

GP may be referring to anthropologist David's Graeber's book: "Debt", which refutes that idea: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#136
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really a pity there's no way for people to sue Youtube for abuse of the commons. Many economists like to invoke the tragedy of the commons' as a justification for property rights (real, maritime, or intellectual) but they tend to sidle around the fact that it's almost impossible for anyone to get legal standing to advocate on behalf of the commons.

The blame for YouTube’s copyright system is largely not YouTube, lest we forget the parties that actually benefit from it. Sadly, it seems like it’s going to be the norm now. I recall hearing the EU wants to legally mandate the mechanism of Content ID, just another nail in the coffin for the open web really.

I might be naive but I think the overzealous copyright strikers are hurting their products as they are limiting the views these musical products receive. Essentially deleting themselves from zeitgeist. I have not heard main stream music in years. Yet I am listening to new music almost everyday.

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#137
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really a pity there's no way for people to sue Youtube for abuse of the commons. Many economists like to invoke the tragedy of the commons' as a justification for property rights (real, maritime, or intellectual) but they tend to sidle around the fact that it's almost impossible for anyone to get legal standing to advocate on behalf of the commons.

The blame for YouTube’s copyright system is largely not YouTube, lest we forget the parties that actually benefit from it. Sadly, it seems like it’s going to be the norm now. I recall hearing the EU wants to legally mandate the mechanism of Content ID, just another nail in the coffin for the open web really.

>I recall hearing the EU wants to legally mandate the mechanism of Content ID, just another nail in the coffin for the open web really.

It already passed. Now we're just waiting for the consequences.

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#138
post #87
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blame for YouTube’s copyright system is largely not YouTube, lest we forget the parties that actually benefit from it. Sadly, it seems like it’s going to be the norm now. I recall hearing the EU wants to legally mandate the mechanism of Content ID, just another nail in the coffin for the open web really.

Thankfully said EU law includes a part that it's forbidden to block content for copyright reasons if the copyright claim is invalid. It includes ways for NGOs and users to go after companies that overblock. How this will actually work in practice is unclear since it's obviously an impossible requirement but some NGOs like the German GFF are already collecting cases and are looking to take legal action (see e.g. https…

That requirement is there so that YouTube can't just block videos in Germany again. It's entirely there just to make sure that Google and other platforms must make a deal with the copyright holders. It's perpetuating the same garbage system and removes tools to fight back against it.

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#139
post #130
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world, and most societies at most times in most places in history seem to have done just fine managing “the commons” as a shared resource through social compact and peer pressure.

> most societies at most times in most places in history seem to have done just fine managing “the commons” You mean through exclusionary rules, investing in monitoring and punishment etc all of which divert resources from the productive activity solely by the existence of the incentive to overuse the "commons" or others' goodwill. True, while the subgame unique subgame perfect equilibrium of most models is full free…

> You mean through exclusionary rules, investing in monitoring and punishment etc all of which divert resources from the productive activity solely by the existence of the incentive to overuse the "commons" or others' goodwill.

No, I mean through collective policing and social pressure. In villages before privatizaton, free-riders faced social pressure, shame, and other consequences for violating the group trust. This is how most societies operated for the bulk of human history.

> True, while the subgame unique subgame perfect equilibrium of most models is full free-riding, most lab experiments show less than full free-riding. That does not mean the incentives are not there.

The lab experiments show "less than full free-riding" because humans are predominantly a social species, not a value-maximizing algorithm.

> That's a silly statement: No one decided to invent money in a similar process of invention like the lightbulb. Instead, coins, tokens, and other recognized mediums of exchange dominated over barter because barter is inconvenient and inefficient.

Except there's no historical record of that happening anywhere. The two things that look like money are trade goods between distant groups and coinage required by rulers for taxes or tribute. There's no record of money being invented de novo to replace barter in societies which didn't already have it.

> Even animals can learn to use a medium of exchange[1].

Obviously, but I haven't seen any record of chimps spontaneously deciding to coin money, so I'm not sure what the point here is.

Edit for the point I missed:

> Why are dorm bathrooms not as clean as bathrooms in your house?

Because my mother doesn't live in the dorm.

Re: YouTube takes down the Ig Nobel show because of a 1914 recording

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to another comment on this page by the GP, >> ownership of digital products >There is no such thing. Data is just bits. Really big numbers. Asserting ownership over numbers is simply delusional. I'm a musician working on an album at home at the moment. It's a bit odd to hear I'm delusional, or worse, "simply delusional", for thinking that the music I'm making will be in some sense mine! Maybe I should go ba…

Most creators of "intellectual property", or their mentors, grew up in a world where physical scarcity in distribution created artificial scarcity of information. Earning a living under that system makes people ascribe morality and self-evident "correctness" to those business models. Scarcity of information is gone because information isn't tied to physical distribution anymore. Tomorrow's bits will be easier to copy…

> The morality ascribed to old business models probably won't disappear until the people who grew up in earlier times die. (I am reminded of John Philip Sousa railing against sound recordings in a 1906 Congressional hearing).

To expand on the morality point here:

In most areas, we recognize that we need to be careful limiting innovation for the sake of existing markets. For example, we're not trying to ban electric vehicles just because it makes it harder for gas companies to make a profit. The existence of DVDs and CDs lessening profits of movie theaters and concert halls is not a good argument to make the technology illegal. We didn't ban typewriters because they put the illuminated manuscript writers out of business. We do regularly get the government to interfere in some cases where a regulation or restriction clearly helps the market, but we try to be kind of careful about how we do it, and we view it through that lens: as an artificial restriction that is justified because of its social benefit.

However, with copyright it's really difficult to make people even understand that the market and human rights are being restricted in the first place -- it has that moral quality for a lot of people. Part of it is the name: "copyright" implies a right, but it is not a natural right. There is no inherent property/personal right to an idea, there's no way to derive a natural property right that is a restriction over what other people are allowed to talk about or build. It is an extremely modern idea to believe that inventing an idea implies that you own the idea itself, or that inventing a story means that the story can't be morally retold without your permission. So copyright isn't a "right" in the traditional sense, it is a government restriction on an innovation (easy copying), that helps prevent that innovation from disrupting the existing market too much or putting people out of business.

That's not to say copyright is bad or that we should just drop it tomorrow, but we should be looking at it through this lens; copyright is a subversion of natural market forces and a restriction on the natural human right to communicate, copy, and build on information they see in the world. Copying is a fundamental part of culture and a fundamental part of what it means to be human.

As such, we should be highly skeptical of copyright expansion, and we should be constantly evaluating whether or not the market really needs copyright restrictions at their current level. We should be actively looking to evolve the market so we can weaken copyright, because copyright is an artificial restriction on natural human activity, and an artificial restriction on the free market itself.

When people talk about expanding copyright, the burden is on them to justify why it's worthwhile to restrict human rights. Just saying that some businesses will fail isn't good enough, copyright is an extreme measure we're collectively embracing so that we can prevent the collapse of the entire creative market. Unless we're talking on that scale, we probably should be weakening copyright over time, even if it means a few businesses fail or have to pivot. In general, it's OK for the market to evolve and for some old profit-generating ventures to become unprofitable. And many will evolve and transform into other markets -- we don't have illuminated manuscripts now, but we do have mass-produced beautifully illustrated books, so in general the printing press seems to have been a pretty good trade and enabled more markets than it destroyed.

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