In Serving Big Company Interests, Copyright Is in Crisis:
We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, addressing what's at stake and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.
Copyright rules are made with the needs of the entertainment industry in mind, designed to provide the legal framework for creators, investors, distributors, production houses, and other parts of the industry to navigate their disputes and assert their interests.
A good copyright policy would be one that encouraged diverse forms of expression from diverse creators who were fairly compensated for their role in a profitable industry. But copyright has signally failed to accomplish this end, largely because of the role it plays in the monopolization of the entertainment industry (and, in the digital era, every industry where copyrighted software plays a role). Copyright's primary approach is to give creators monopolies over their works, in the hopes that they can use these as leverage in overmatched battles with corporate interests. But monopolies have a tendency to accumulate, piling up in the vaults of big companies, who use these government-backed exclusive rights to dominate the industry so that anyone hoping to enter it must first surrender their little monopolies to the hoards of the big gatekeepers.
Creators get a raw deal in a concentrated marketplace, selling their work into a buyer's market. Giving them more monopolies – longer copyright terms, copyright over the "feel" of music, copyright over samples – just gives the industry more monopolies to confiscate in one-sided negotiations and add to their arsenals. Expecting more copyright to help artists beat a concentrated industry is like expecting more lunch money to help your kid defeat the bullies who beat him up on the playground every day. No matter how much lunch money you give that kid, all you'll ever do is make the bullies richer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @10:24AM (2 children)
A good copyright policy should be designed to enhance the public domain, and nothing else. I strongly disagree that it should be designed to generate money, except to the extent that offering money can enhance the public domain by motivating creativity.
"My business model depends on it" is not a good reason for a law.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Sunday January 26 2020, @11:00AM (1 child)
Yes it's a slippery slope.
It's like claiming water from a well damages the industry of bottled water. When actually the likeliest thing to happen is big finance hurting as much as possible free and clean water to sell more refined one.
Copyright is about control of expression, with payment to the creator as a side effect. A honest world could do better with copyright laws, while in this world it is an instrument for the actual pirates against the hobby pirates.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Tuesday January 28 2020, @08:44PM
But... but... but... it's got electrolytes!