Re:Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library Harms Authors
by krapp on Sunday March 29, 2020 @09:54AM
(#22719003)
>There must be rules concerning intellectual property.
Why? Human societies created plenty of art and innovation just fine for thousands of years without the concept of intellectual property being a thing.
We tend not to believe that being the first person to write some specific code gives the author the right to restrict any party from editing or redistributing it under any circumstances, or that the author deserves any compensation at all for their work. Why should that freedom be considered fundamental and inalienable only when applied to software, but not all creative works? Particularly since most such works are now distributed as software.
I can understand paying for the physical manufacture of a book or other distribution medium, or maybe paying to cover server costs and hosting, but I can't see a strong argument for the premise that expression itself can or should be owned, if for no other reason than, in modernity, the ownership of media is also the ownership of culture, and corporate ownership of media is also corporate ownership of cultural expression.
Like as not, Disney's versions of old fairy tales are the canonical representation in most of the world. Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, the DCU, etc, are no less components of modern culture than Shakespeare, Byron, Dickens, Homer, etc.
Yet while anyone can tell a story using Romeo and Juliet, or ancient gods, no one can or will ever be allowed to legally tell stories in the Star Wars, Disney or Harry Potter universes without permission from the IP owners. Those copyrights will be extended and enforced indefinitely. Regardless of your beliefs about whether and how an artist should be compensated for their art, this commoditization of free expression to a form which is only legitimate if it generates revenue (often for a corporation and not the creator,) is damaging to society as a whole.
At best, maybe, the term for copyrights should be extremely limited, and there should be laws preventing the extension of copyright beyond a certain time. But not forever.
>Laws are the rules our society lives by, and when a prominent public organization decides to willfully break copyright law in this manner it harms everyone.
The obvious rebuttal to this is that it is not only our right but our obligation to break unjust laws, and many people consider copyright and IP laws to be unjust.
Of course, the obvious counter-rebuttal to that is that most people who claim the moral high ground for piracy really just want free stuff.
Why? Human societies created plenty of art and innovation just fine for thousands of years without the concept of intellectual property being a thing.
We tend not to believe that being the first person to write some specific code gives the author the right to restrict any party from editing or redistributing it under any circumstances, or that the author deserves any compensation at all for their work. Why should that freedom be considered fundamental and inalienable only when applied to software, but not all creative works? Particularly since most such works are now distributed as software.
I can understand paying for the physical manufacture of a book or other distribution medium, or maybe paying to cover server costs and hosting, but I can't see a strong argument for the premise that expression itself can or should be owned, if for no other reason than, in modernity, the ownership of media is also the ownership of culture, and corporate ownership of media is also corporate ownership of cultural expression.
Like as not, Disney's versions of old fairy tales are the canonical representation in most of the world. Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, the DCU, etc, are no less components of modern culture than Shakespeare, Byron, Dickens, Homer, etc.
Yet while anyone can tell a story using Romeo and Juliet, or ancient gods, no one can or will ever be allowed to legally tell stories in the Star Wars, Disney or Harry Potter universes without permission from the IP owners. Those copyrights will be extended and enforced indefinitely. Regardless of your beliefs about whether and how an artist should be compensated for their art, this commoditization of free expression to a form which is only legitimate if it generates revenue (often for a corporation and not the creator,) is damaging to society as a whole.
At best, maybe, the term for copyrights should be extremely limited, and there should be laws preventing the extension of copyright beyond a certain time. But not forever.
>Laws are the rules our society lives by, and when a prominent public organization decides to willfully break copyright law in this manner it harms everyone.
The obvious rebuttal to this is that it is not only our right but our obligation to break unjust laws, and many people consider copyright and IP laws to be unjust.
Of course, the obvious counter-rebuttal to that is that most people who claim the moral high ground for piracy really just want free stuff.