1/ Any monopoly hinders free flow of information/knowledge/culture.

2/ current copyright regime is used massively to the profit of the intermediaries who exploit the authors (70y after death? srsly? how is that even a thing?!)

3/ current copyright regime is used to control and censor flows of information, like the automated censorshop (“robocop-yright”) of Youtube and others. powerful actors can use copyright from their portfolio to censor anything critical, parodic, or just new works remixing or reusing “their” works

4/ the regime of exceptions to copyright, that is supposed to represent the balance of that pact struck between authors, their intermediaries, the public and the legislator has been skewed, and consistently reduced over they years and through the use of technology. think of the right to lend a book or a physical record in the era of DRM. you cannot lend a game or a DRMed file anymore. etc.

5/ current networks exploiting works “legally” are the ones who rip the artists the most: spotify gives fractions of fractions of cents to the artists for every listen, while giving away billions to the intermediaries, and pocketing huge profits…

6/ all the propaganda about “piracy kills authors” is bullshit. same stuff was heard about (including but not limited to): electric piano, music on the radio, cassette tape recorders, VHS tapes, p2p networks, etc… peer reviewed studies all show on the contrary that people who share the most are actually active participants in culture who buy more cultural goods than the average, who act as prescriptors and recommend concerts, works, etc… to others…

The whole point of copyright law today is thus:

• to allow intermediaries to exploit artists
• to give them control over what is gonna be listened/viewed in order to maximize their returns on investments and minimize their risk-taking (thus empoverishing culture altogether
• to guilt-trip passionate people, the public into NOT participating into culture (sharing is caring!) but instead becoming docile “consumers” of it
• to help powerful actors censor free speech to comfort their power.

The only thing that would seem acceptable and was actually the norm in early 20th century is: a copyright that is solely belonging to the author (not transferable) / for a period of 5 years (eventually renewable once upon explic demand, for a minor fee, by the author… in which line of work are you paid for what you did 10 years ago anyways?) / with a generous regime of exceptions including private use not-for-profit, libraries, lending, remixes, etc.

Copyright is theoretically a good idea but what ends up happening the last few decades is that it’s just become about companies that abuse the system to hoard as much intellectual property as possible. It’s absolutely ridiculous that most of the time an author’s work belongs to a company, and a company will run it into the ground even after the author’s dead (see: Spongebob). And they keep extending copyright dates because Disney keeps whining while owning most of the entertainment industry.

Then you have stuff like Alan Moore’s works. The man has gone insane from how much they milk his works and make bad interpretations of it.

I think intellectual property does not exist and copyright is based on a lie. You can watch this short video on Peertube: https://kolektiva.media/w/fYv5ELRxj1MtQvT5viTCes?subtitle=en

I’m happy to hear that we all agree copyright is trash

I became a copyright abolitionist after watching this Ted Talk.

The more I read about copyright, the more I think that scrapping the whole idea will work better than trying to fix the system.

The most challenging part of the whole concept is always trying to remove people’s knee-jerk assumptions. Copyright abolition does not mean:

• creators shouldn’t get paid
• art won’t get made
• content won’t get hosted
• all creators will be poor

People copy naturally, and copyright laws stop this process, stopping people from creating new works.

Current copyright laws don’t work tremendously well to get money to creators. Code and art ends up owned by corporations, and the actual creators receive very little in many cases. The number of starving artists who self-publish and rake in a good living only due to copyright law represent rounding error.

Industries also have a number of ways to self-police without these laws. Clothing companies will often make money by being first to the table with a new, fashionable line, which will go out of style later, so they don’t need copyright laws. Board games have very little copyright protection, but still make money, partly due to branding (who wants a knock-off Cards Against Humanity, just to save €3?).

After going this route, released my own stuff without copyright. The videos I make are all CC0, and I re-released my TTRPG under the GPL.

IDK about how the big tech corps takes adventage of it, but in general I think that’s an important concept. Here’s an example why:

Let’s say you developed a website that charge some money for a service, obviously you developed a server side and a client side. While the user have access to the client side, he can’t even reach the server side files. If someone would’ve steal your server side files and share them online, no one will use your service, that you worked hard on inventing it and implement it, any more. That’s a theft, and copyrights laws are suppose to help us make sure it’s illegal to do so.

I wish it was controlled more by actual writers than Disney.

But that’s also how I feel about prostitutes.

Consistently making sure the pimp’s cut stays as small as possible seems to be a common difficulty with capitalism.

Like how do you make sure the prostitutes can hire private security without them becoming pimps?

How do you make sure the writers can have someone to distribute their content in a way that gets them paid without that person becoming Disney?

I feel like the answer is increased infrastructure in some way (police that actually do their fucking jobs and internet and computer systems that are functional and widely available) but I don’t have a more complete answer.