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A comment on Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]. Parent comment

Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by henryfjordan on Monday April 27, 2020 @07:22PM (#23001378)
The exact opposite would happen. No publisher would pay very much for rights to a book that they cannot defend. Once that book hits the shelves, everyone with a printing press will be copying it and selling it at cost, which will undercut the first publisher because they need to include royalties in the price. They certainly aren't going to print a million copies if they aren't sure that they can sell them before someone starts copying them, so that would naturally limit the size of launches, further driving down the value of a manuscript.

There'd be a small first-mover advantage for being the first to print a book and smaller operations not worth copying would still operate but J.K. Rowling wouldn't be a billionaire.

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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by zozbot234 on Monday April 27, 2020 @07:35PM (#23001499)
In this case, the "rights" would not be those of a book publisher but those of a patron/sponsor. Being among the persons or corporate entities who e.g. J.K. Rowling officially acknowledges as the "sponsors" of her work would create a lot of clout, and with that a lot of very real value. Authors used to be funded like that before the current copyright-based system became predominant; it's not just a theoretical model.
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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by henryfjordan on Monday April 27, 2020 @07:44PM (#23001580)
I suppose she'd be able to sell "official copies" or something akin to that, but no matter what she's still not capturing as much of the value she created if she cannot assert a copyright. There's also nothing in copyright law precluding her from also getting sponsors. If anything, copyright law makes it clearer where everyone stands and so makes connecting writers and sponsors (or employers through a work-for-hire agreement) much easier.
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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by zozbot234 on Monday April 27, 2020 @07:47PM (#23001609)
> she's still not capturing as much of the value she created if she cannot assert a copyright

No one's disputing that. But she's also creating a lot more value at the same time. It's a wash.

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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by icebraining on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @04:45AM (#23005008)
It's not a wash for her, though, which may change her decisions to actually produce the work.
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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by megaman821 on Monday April 27, 2020 @11:03PM (#23002880)
If the model is so good, what is preventing her from doing it now? There is nothing in law saying you have to copyright your books, she could simply release it under creative commons. What even qualifies you to know what is best for authors and publishers? I love how so many people love volunteering other peoples work for free or propose they jump through hoop in some byzantine system to make money in a way that is acceptable to you.
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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by icebraining on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @04:44AM (#23005002)
> I love how so many people love volunteering other peoples work for free or propose they jump through hoop in some byzantine system to make money in a way that is acceptable to you.

Yes, that's called democracy. Copyright must be a system that is acceptable to most of us. In fact, copyright itself is more "byzantine" than just having the State issue a stipend to anyone who produces a work of art - yet must we be OK with such a solution?

Similarly, Joseph Galambos considered that people who coined words were due a royalty when they were used. Is is unfair that we decide to use that work for free instead?

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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by danharaj on Monday April 27, 2020 @11:54PM (#23003188)
Copyright has the force of the state behind it obviously it's going to beat out any solution that doesn't.
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Re:Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not cop... by Finnucane on Monday April 27, 2020 @10:37PM (#23002751)
In the days before the Berne convention, US publishers copied British books without paying the authors, which of course made the British authors unhappy. In some cases, because there was a bit of a first mover advantage, publishers would send their agents to London to acquire copies of the plates for popular authors as quickly as possible, and were willing to pay a fee for this.
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