Comment by csallen
8 days ago
> The ONLY reason to have any law prohibiting unlicensed copying of intangible property is to incentivize the creation of intangible property.
That was the original purpose. It has since been coopted by people and corporations whose incentives are to make as much money as possible by monopolizing valuable intangible "property" for as long as they can.
And the chief strategic move these people have made is to convince the average person that ideas are in fact property. That the first person to think something and write it down rightfully "owns" that thought, and that others who express it or share it are not merely infringing copyright, they are "stealing."
This plan has largely worked, and now the average person speaks and thinks in these terms, and feels it in their bones.
>the average person speaks and thinks in these terms,
(Trademarks aside) Even more surprising to me is how everyone seems concerned about the studios making enough money?! As if they should make any money at all. As if it is up to us to create a profitable game for them.
If they all go bankrupt today I won't lose any sleep over it.
People also try to make a living selling bananas and apples. Should we create an elaborate scheme for them to make sure they survive? Their product is actually important to have. Why can't they own the exclusive right to sell bananas similarly? If anyone can just sell apples it would hurt their profit.
It is long ago but that is how things use to work. We do still have taxi medallions in some places and all kinds of legalized monopolies like it.
Perhaps there is some sector where it makes sense but I can't think of it.
If you want to make a movie you can just do a crowd funder like Robbert space industry.
> Even more surprising to me is how everyone seems concerned about the studios making enough money?! As if they should make any money at all. As if it is up to us to create a profitable game for them.
Do you want more games (movies, books...)? Then you want studios to make money in that type of game. Because and if they make money they have incentive to do so. Now if you are happy with the number and quality of free games a few hard core people who will do it even if they make nothing then you don't care. However games generally take a lot of effort to create and so by paying people to make them we can ensure people who want to actually have the time - as opposed want to but instead have to spend hours in a field farming for their food.
Now it is true that games often do look alike and many are not worth making and such. However if you want more you need to ensure they make money so it is worth investing.
We can debate how much they should make and how long copyright should be for. However you want them to make money so they make more.
Games:
> "On platforms like Steam, indie games constitute the vast majority of new titles. For instance, in 2021, approximately 98% of the 11,700 games released on Steam were from indie developers. This trend has continued, with indie games accounting for 99% of releases on gaming platforms between 2018 and 2023."
Written content:
> "Every year, traditional publishers release around half a million to a million new books in the U.S., but that number is dwarfed by the scale of independent writing online: WordPress users alone publish over 70 million blog posts per month, Amazon sees over 1.7 million self-published books annually, and platforms like Medium, Substack, and countless personal websites generate millions more articles and essays. While the average quality of traditional publishing remains high due to strict editorial standards, consumer behavior has shifted dramatically—people now spend far more time reading informal, self-published content online, from niche newsletters to Reddit posts, often favoring relevance, speed, and authenticity over polish. This shift has made the internet the dominant source of written content by volume and a major player in shaping public discourse."
Video content:
> "Today, the overwhelming majority of video content is produced not by Hollywood or television studios, but by individuals on the internet. YouTube alone sees over 500 hours of video uploaded every minute—more than 260 million hours per year—vastly outpacing the combined annual output of all major film studios and TV networks, which together produce only a fraction of that volume. Despite questions about quality, consumer habits have shifted dramatically: people now watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube content per day, and platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitch are growing rapidly, especially among younger audiences. While Hollywood still commands attention with high-budget blockbusters and prestige series, user-generated content dominates the daily media diet in both time spent and engagement."
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> Do you want more games (movies, books...)?
Not really. We already have multiple lifetimes of them to enjoy.
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It's been a US-led project for the benefit of American corporations.
If I was running the trade emergency room in any European state right now, I'd have "stop enforcing US copyright" up there next to "reciprocal tarrifs".
Unfortunately we have a bunch of copyright-friendly groups in EU, so this would only work in the "stop enforcing US copyright in retaliation" sense, but not likely in the "stop enforcing copyright because on the net, it's a scam" sense.
Worked for china
In the context of when they want to borrow others' stuff. But then Chinese companies are _more_ than happy to take advantage of Western laws to defend their own IP. It's hypocrisy.
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We were close to your viewpoint being the popular one, but sadly many (most?) independent content creators are so overtaken by fear of AI that they've done a 180. The same people who learned by tracing references to sell fanart of a copyrighted franchise (not complaining, I spend thousands on such things) accuse AI of stealing when it glances at their own work. We're entering a new golden age of creative opportunity and they respond by switching sides to the philosophy of intellectual property championed by Disney and Oracle (except for those companies' ironic use of AI themselves..).
We would prefer a world where we can use the skills we have spent a lifetime honing without having to compete with some asshole taking everything we’ve shared and stuffing it into a machine that spits out soulless clones of our work without any acknowledgment of our existence.
This could a be verbatim quote from a seamstress talking about looms.
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People aren't motivated by principle so much as they are by self interest.
> we were close
Maybe. In my microcosm even before big AI, 100% of my tech acquaintances were against IP laws, 0% of my art acquaintances were, and authors I know had varied opinions based on their other backgrounds.
Artists do seem to have had a mindset shift. Previously they supported IP protection because it was "right" (or they'd at least concede that in practice it's not helping them personally), but with the AI boom most of them are pro-IP laws because of more visceral livelihood fears.
There's also a moral issue at play: To safeguard the interests of a few publishers (sometimes the creators, but they can easily end up with a shitty deal) you remove freedoms to the entire population to copy the same idea.
You need a central structure funded by everyone's taxes which enforce a contract almost nobody of the infringers has signed.
That's appaling, I hope with this AI wave we'll get rid of copyright all together.
Philosophers were waaaay ahead of this game.