- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
YouTube demonetizes public domain ‘Steamboat Willie’ video after copyright claim::undefined
YouTube demonetizes public domain ‘Steamboat Willie’ video after copyright claim::undefined
I’m all for piracy of greedy corporate media, but copyright is an essential part of ensuring that artists retain control of their creations. If you throw the baby out with the bathwater, you harm independents who might be supporting meager lifestyles on the income from their art.
This is not and never will be a black and white issue.
Yup. If I write a book it wouldn’t be right for a publisher to steal it and sell it as their own.
Current intellectual property laws are fucked, but I’m also tired of people who join the circlejerk of “all IP laws are bullshit and they all need scrapped”
Those are often the same people who say things like, “soon all of our books and movies will be made by AI, so artists will be obsolete” and mean it in a good way.
A great phrase to say but you dismiss potential solutions you may not have heard of (or don’t exist yet).
I suggest we have a universal basic income that supports a minimum existence. Artists having control of their creations can still be argued for but now without the “need money to live” aspect. Some artists already disregard copyright by putting works into public domain, or use a creative commons license which uses copyright to undo the restrictions placed on people by copyright.
If I could do anything I’d reduce copyright time limit to 10 years and see how that goes. I’d only keep copyright till I found another way to enforce copyleft software licenses to ensure software freedom.
Even if it wasn’t about the money, I’d personally still be very pissed if someone would claim my work as their own and there’s no law to prevent it. I’m not saying that today’s system is great, because it sucks in many ways, but some copyright system needs to be in place for the good of everyone.
The intent of Copyright was to give the public the benefit of more works being created in exchange of their right to redistribute the works. Copying physical works is difficult so we were not giving up much then, but in the modern times it’s very easy to copy digital works. I also suspect we’re not encouraging more works to be created with this “long after death” time limit. I have nothing against artists wanting control of their work (my video games would be nothing without them) but this is no longer a good deal for the public.
Artists can use Copyright to control their works in a limited sense but is that the control they want? Would 10 years be enough?