from the Pirate Party platform: βCopyright should protect the creator, not the publisher.β
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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Which pirate party is that?
Part of the platform of the Swedish Pirate Party?
Can't find it in the Election Manifesto 2022, that they have in English. Sounds more like they want copyright to serve society, not to protect interests.
Copyright is a good thing in general, but the way it's handled now is incredibly stupid.
The US had it right in 1790. 14 years by default and an additional 14 year renewal. After that it's public domain.
28 years is more than enough time to profit from a creative work before other people can use those ideas freely.
Imagine the creative landscape if every piece of art older than 1995 was free for everyone to use as they saw fit.
One of those rare cases where they got it right on the first try. There was actually a paper a while back that attempted to analyze the total economic utility of various copyright durations and found that the length of protection time that generates the maximum total wealth for a society is somewhere in the range of a flat 15 to 38 years.
It's noteworthy that patent law is 20 years to this day. It has survived with its core fairly intact, the main change being that you can no longer get a patent for bringing an invention into the country. Today that is called piracy (poor China).
I believe that is because patents simply have to work for the whole country in encouraging progress. If cultural production is stifled, well... Who cares? The elites in the copyright industry benefit, and they have an outsize influence on public discourse.
Copyright should exist but not the forever bullshit that Disney made it in the 20th century.
An artist should have the right to copyright their work for a reasonable time to be able to profit from it. Say 25 years, after that is becomes public domaine.
Copyright should not be transferable nor inheritable.
Copyright should not be transferable nor inheritable.
Personally I think it's reasonable for it to be inheritable as long as we're talking about the relatively short timeframe that copyright was originally supposed to last. The prototypical example is the poor artist who creates a much-loved and successful work shortly before death; should their partner not be entitled to live off the proceeds of that?
Personally, my preference would be for 20 years, full stop. But I think a reasonable compromise position would be 20 years or the lifetime of the author, whichever is longer. Corporate-owned works and works-for-hire only get 20 years.
I don't think heritage should exist.
It would solve so many problems.
Why should I inherit, but not someone else? Why should rich people inherit lots, the poor nothing? Where I live, the median age to inherit is 59. Think about it, how is that useful for society?
Otherwise I'm on the same track.
Why should I not get to decide what happens with my stuff? Why should I not be able to leave it to my kids?
Why should dead people have rights that supersede those of living people? I'm all for allowing people to decide who gets their personal belongings, but I'm opposed to anything that could be considered generational wealth, because generational wealth implies generational poverty. I want societal wealth.
Generational wealth is easily tackled by an inheritance tax. If my rights and living wishes as a dead person don't matter with regard to my property, why should some random stranger be entitled to it either?
Who said anything about random strangers? That would just be weird. I'm suggesting something more like a 100% inheritance tax due assets beyond a certain limit.
Well, where do you think it goes once it's taxed away at 100%?
Oh, you're one of those people who doesn't believe in taxes. π
Huh? I asked a simple question.
Public domain literally means "random strangers." I don't see why my child (or whoever else I delegate) shouldn't be able to control the works that I make before I pass. If they did continue my works with full control, then any half-finished book or movie or game or other piece of art would torture them with legal battles and little reward. Banning inheritable copyright is a death sentence for half-finished media.
Because we're all in one society I guess (I mean at least per country). It's a bit like ask why can't super rich people hoard up all the value.
I mean why should some random humans get a head start in society, and others not?
So what do you think someone to do with everything they worked their life for?
Are we not at least entitled to give our children a better Headstart then we had?
Isnβt that the fucking goal?
Well yes obviously!
Why "hoard" it? Why not give it to your kids when they are young, and thus helping them, instead of having the possibility to keep it and give it to your 59 yo child(ren)?
I am giving what I can to them while I can but when I die they deserve the things I work for more than some random.
If they want they can sell it or donate them but they are my items to do with what I please.
If a law like that passes people will just transfer before they die and then let their βchildrenβs assetsβ support them.
I get what you're saying, but today a minority inherits billions, many/most inherit when they're over fifty years old.
I mean if you have kids, of course they should have it all to help them out (with some upper limit in the hundreds of thousands IMO but that's discussable ofc) but do tell me why the vast majority of old-timers should be the ones benefit from inheritance?
You can counteract this with a strict timeframe like 20 or 25 years. If I create something and die a year later, my copyright transfers to whomever and they can hold it for 19 more years. Seems fair all around.
Yeah sure. What about only for family (except if you specifically denies it, and then it would go to the state or go free).
Edit: but why though? If I die tomorrow, my kids won't get a dime from the work I'm no longer doing for the next 20 years, even if I spent lots of time studying etc. I mean, it's not simple.
I donβt think heritage should exist.
It would solve so many problems.
So, if you live in your parents' house and they die, you should be thrown at the street and all properties and assets should go to the state?
If you're 59 years old, maybe you should have planned ahead a bit.
Also, nothing stops them helping you get a good start.
If I lived in my parents house Today and they died, first of all I'd have to share the heritage with 3 other siblings, so no the house isn't magically mine, then again, that country isn't some savage country and I would not be "thrown" out in the streets to live in the gutter.
Otherwise yes, why shall a 59 yo have the right to hoard that wealth? Why shouldn't there be at least a very strong incentive to spread that wealth to their say 20 yo kids instead?
Do you know how inheritance works?
I know how to argument too.
I do see what you mean, but I wouldn't give people an incentive to murder artists ;)
Just imagine Disney hitmen who are killing the copyright owners for prospective Disney movies.
For heritage in general, I do agree with you.
Ha ha ha yeah, let's make an exception for that!
Didn't Disney actually had hitmens or were dabbling with some guerilla or IDK, or is that just another conspiracy?
Intellectual property rights solve the problem that a market requires scarcity to work, but it goes away with something easy to copy. They solve it by creating scarcity artificially, which is dumb.
I'd like to see government subsidies instead. We could even transition into that by gradually buying up and freeing copyrights and patents. (Trademarks are kind of their own thing, because they're ideally just to explain the origin of an item)
I'd like to see government subsidies instead.
How would that really work in practice though? Would Disney get $100 million for making a movie while I only get $100 for making my own independent movie? It'd be really hard to assign a value to things without the associated system that we currently use.
It's a good point another user also made. I'm thinking private patents that the government regularly purchases is probably more achievable. Otherwise, yeah, you'd have to employ people to estimate the value of an IP from rates of consumption, and it would be complicated
First we'd need good answers to the questions of what specifically should be funded and how much money should be spent overall. Copyright has the advantage of letting markets decide, which IMHO is a good thing in most cases (but not for things like drug patents or any research produced with public funding).
Yes, that would be an issue. If you had a hybrid system, markets could still decide prices, at least. Once the government is the only player things get very tricky indeed.
No, because the only defense for its existence is to protect the livelihoods of creators, and if we're talking "should", no one should have to justify their existence through labor.
Sure, and I agree but I've seen people trying to kill copyright entirely before fixing the justify their existence through labor bit. Which is entirely wrong, the current world is as such if you killed copyright you'd put million of people out of work.