Re:Just Enough Piracy Can Be a Good Thing
by Silhouette on Tuesday August 27, 2019 @01:47PM
(#20812501)
I don't see any evidence that lifting IP protections will result in a decrease in quantity or quality of creative works as a whole.
Well, there are millions of people working in creative industries today whose income ultimately derives from selling that creative work under the current IP regime. If removing IP protections is not to result in reduced output, some alternative model must either continue to provide the same incentive for the same people to do that work or provide a sufficient incentive so that others produce at least the equivalent output.
I would argue that many alternative models have been tried in recent years, and that in most cases there is no inherent reason that they could not succeed immediately if they created a more effective incentive than the existing IP regime just because we have that regime operating in parallel. And yet so far, I see little evidence that any known alternative has actually done that. There are some isolated success stories, and even those typically don't raise anything like as much funding as the the top tier of works funded through more traditional models.
Let's make it clear what you're advocating for: continued state action that benefits a minority of the population at the expense of consumers by providing the members of that minority with an artificially enforced monopoly on information.
But that minority of the population is the only group contributing any value here. What you're advocating for is everyone being able to benefit from the work of others without any obligation to give anything back. That might cut it when we're living in a fully automated utopian paradise where money is obsolete and no-one has to work for a living, but until then, the people contributing that value also have bills to pay and families to feed.
Well, there are millions of people working in creative industries today whose income ultimately derives from selling that creative work under the current IP regime. If removing IP protections is not to result in reduced output, some alternative model must either continue to provide the same incentive for the same people to do that work or provide a sufficient incentive so that others produce at least the equivalent output.
I would argue that many alternative models have been tried in recent years, and that in most cases there is no inherent reason that they could not succeed immediately if they created a more effective incentive than the existing IP regime just because we have that regime operating in parallel. And yet so far, I see little evidence that any known alternative has actually done that. There are some isolated success stories, and even those typically don't raise anything like as much funding as the the top tier of works funded through more traditional models.
Let's make it clear what you're advocating for: continued state action that benefits a minority of the population at the expense of consumers by providing the members of that minority with an artificially enforced monopoly on information.
But that minority of the population is the only group contributing any value here. What you're advocating for is everyone being able to benefit from the work of others without any obligation to give anything back. That might cut it when we're living in a fully automated utopian paradise where money is obsolete and no-one has to work for a living, but until then, the people contributing that value also have bills to pay and families to feed.