That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. You can have as much as you want. Why would anyone buy copies when making new ones is as easy as copy and paste? Only the original copy must be paid for.
So there is in fact a third choice to buying or not buying data: obtain a copy from someone who already has it. Copyright law is all about getting rid of that choice. It's all about making sure that creators monopolize the means to make copies. Copyright is about the right to make copies.
Making copies of data is a fundamental computer operation. We can find this ability in functions such as memcpy, in programs such as cp and HTTP servers. Making copies is trivial. Anyone who owns a computer can do it. Without compromising our freedom to run these programs, copyright law is unenforceable.
So it's not just ideals. In order to actually enforce copyright law, computers must be made to answer to the copyright industry instead of users. As a computer user and programmer, that's not the future I want.
Except you're not copying an RNG. You're copying someone's carefully crafted work, whose artificial scarcity is the mechanism by which they are compensated for that work. Unless you propose a mechanism for replacing that compensation, declaring "copying isn't theft" is just a fancier version of "I want my movies for free."
Copyright is very expensive scheme of redistributing funds for creative arts. And also has quite specific cultural consequences.
Some part of me keeps wondering if we could build a better society without copyright.
Well, at least you're honest. It isn't about the work. It's about creating an artificial scarcity to profit from is it? Are you a Sackler by chance? Creating artificial scarcity has been a favorite tactic of theirs in the pharmaceutical realm. The fact is, IP was meant to act as a temporary halt or brake to the universalization of the fruits of one's labor. It is no longer that. It is now the means by which people looking to use something that is rightfully theirs by right of First sale is thwarted, or otherwise impeded through the loss of one's right to vote in the case of a felony charge. Something easy enough to make a case for just with legal fees.
People will pay and reward the producers of quality content generously. They should not be forced to toil beneath multi-generational periods of recurrent revenue extraction or encroachment into their everyday lives by an industry with every political incentive to disinclude anyone that would dare question their business model from political consideration.
At this point, and I say this as a creator and bread winner on the basis of furthering other entities IP portfolio, "Creatives" have overshot any semblance of charity and goodwill with the lengths they demand the rest of society bend over and resign to never having the whole of humanity or their countrymen uplifted by the advancements we hew from the rock-hard slab of the collective ignorance of our our species.
So take your deliberate straw man of "I want my movies for free" and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. I want equipment everyone can freely understand. I want no more capacity to hide aggregious ethical violations under the guise of trade secrets. I demand that the artificial ignorance and disadvantage of every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who haven't been able to get a straight answer about how to arrange and utilize their resources in a socially productive way because any privilege of getting a glimpse into how the macro-organism of society works gets shrouded behind legal vehicles intended solely to getter and entrench an edifice against any upset by those that compose it be cast off.
If anyone should be accused of trading other's rights for ideals, it's the copyright holders. They encroached first, and it wasn't good enough. So they've pushed, and pushed, and pushed some more.
Well. No more in my estimation. Work like the rest of us, or get what's coming to you, which sure as heck isn't the rest of society turning over and giving up.
We are only paying for the original copy, but distributing that payment over many people and over time so it doesn't hurt as much - which single person is going to pay $10K or $1M or $50M for a song or movie?
Why not crowdfund those amounts instead? That way, all creators get paid before the work even starts and the result can be safely released into the public domain.
We need to develop alternative business models like this in order to replace copyright. Cultural works must be treated like an investment.
The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft.
No, I said that the choice to "pirate" was always available and that the way the copyright industry was trying to remove that choice was problematic.
> The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft.
Copyright infringement is not theft. Prevention of copyright infringement doesn't justify abusive and invasive DRM technologies either. The copyright industry should not gain full control over what software is allowed to run on people's computers just because they're losing money.
That's just a legal technicality. Either the viewer got to enjoy the work and the rightsholder got the corresponding money in their bank account, or they didn't. Whether a work was ripped before any payment was made, or the work was legally acquired but then the payment was stolen back from the bank account, the end result is functionally the same.
No, it really isn't. The vast majority of copyright infringement isn't even a criminal offence. It becomes a criminal offence if you do it as part of business, or if you distort trade to a significant amount.
Then shouldn't every business have to follow the same rules? Making a "copy" of an iPhone costs $20 or $30, should Apple have to crowdsource their factory and IP then sell iPhones by weight or value of raw material? Why do content creators get screwed because physics doesn't let them attach an atom to their creation? The vast majortiy of what you pay for in any product is the creation, not the material.
No. Physical goods are actually scarce. Making copies costs lots of money and finite resources. Making copies of data is as easy as copy paste.
Copying data actually does cost money due to electricity, storage and bandwidth costs but this is so widely distributed over the general population it might as well be zero.
> Making a "copy" of an iPhone costs $20 or $30
I thought electronics factories cost billions of dollars to set up and operate.
> Should Apple have to crowdsource their factory and IP then sell iPhones by weight or value of raw material?
Not at all.
> Why do content creators get screwed because physics doesn't let them attach an atom to their creation?
Because data is really just a number. Like all numbers, all creations already exist. The creator just happened to somehow find the exact sequence of bits that represents the picture or music being imagined. All intellectual work boils down to this. Even programming.
Trying to sell data is like trying to sell numbers. It just makes no sense.
> The vast majortiy of what you pay for in any product is the creation, not the material.
Yes, but physical products actually lend themselves well to being sold in a free market since they're actually scarce. This allows companies to recoup the costs associated with intellectual work.
This model breaks down when people want to do nothing but intellectual work and sell the resulting data as if it were a physical good. That's when people start coming up with insane ideas such as intellectual property, copyright, patents and god knows what else. It actually worked well for centuries... Until people invented computers, a technology that trivialized the copying and worldwide distribution of data.
We have computers in our pockets and homes which can copy and distribute data worldwide with zero effort and cost on our part. Data simply isn't scarce. Maybe one day we'll invent Star Trek replicators and making physical copies of iPhones will be similarly trivial.
Not nearly as scarce as the price of an iPhone would suggest.
Physical goods have counterfeiting problems as well, for basically the same reason: the marginal cost of a copy is significantly less than the actual cost of development.
> I thought electronics factories cost billions of dollars to set up and operate.
And? Setting up a movie studio probably costs hundreds of millions. Why is it different?
I think you might be off by a factor of ten or so. [0][1]
[0]: https://technology.informa.com/596781/iphone-x-costs-apple-3...
[1]: https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-much-do-iphones-cost-to-...
Indeed. So where is the evidence that any of the alternatives anyone has tried so far can reliably come even close (within an order of magnitude, say) to funding the same quality and quantity of creative work as we support today through copyright?
Even the most technologically lay person can "pirate" music. Most people I know just listen to music on youtube. Rarely if ever do profits from listening to small artists on youtube actually reach them. So, in effect, the product is easily acquired for free and there is no practical incentive to buy the product.
Yet indie artists still sustain themselves through sites like bandcamp, where devoted users can pay what they think the song/album is worth. I do so in the hope that they will create more works that I enjoy. That's the business model.
But, yeah, I think we might find some common ground on legalizing drugs and treating addictions as medical conditions. banning them hasn’t really had fantastic outcomes.
Fair point, yes.
As a better example, I am quite happy to sacrifice slave traders's jobs for my ideals. (As a added bonus, this one is actually ontologically related via the notion that it's possible to have legitimate property interests in (parts of) a person or persons.)
As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That is actual freedom. Be careful making other's choices for them, it is closer to the governmental overreach you are against.