Comment Re:All the more reason (Score 1) 230
So it's okay to generate revenue from property but not from work? Or does work need to be "for hire"? How are creative people supposed to live? Or do you give a fuck? I honestly don't want to consume culture only in the form of branding. Do you?
Obviously copyright law needs a great deal of reform. Obviously it's deeply vulnerable to chicanery. But please don't let's forget that copyright law (like patent law) was originally conceived to protect workers who provide excessively exploitable value. It might be that the vast majority of the evolution of these laws should be gutted and their intent radically reimplemented. It's quite likely. But for fuck's sake, the idea that we should just throw creators and inventors to the wolves because their exploiters are exploitative is just wrongheaded.
It's worth noting that, in music in particular, experiments with less restrictive copyright enforcement (for example the "pay what you want" scheme) have proven to be a wash for the most popular artists—those who have enjoyed the benefit of years of massive corporate marketing exposure! Eliminating copyright entirely as a mechanism for generating revenue from reproduction would utterly destroy creative culture as anything more than a cultish communal phenomenon.
But wait, that's not all. Guess who would be the biggest winners! Corporate sponsors could perpetually hire creative talent as works for hire. By controlling the entire communications and distribution channel, they could reap even more of the profit than they already do. The creative work would command the tiniest fraction of a percent of the actual revenue generated. Without royalties, they would be free to reproduce and exploit a given creative work eternally. Is that better than absurdly long expiration periods in existing copyright law?
Those of us who care about these issues need to find a better way to communicate not just what we hate about the status quo, but what we expect to do that's better. Maybe we should instead start by placing severe restrictions on how copyright is granted and transferred, and eliminate extension? That would be a phenomenal first step. It would drastically reduce the disparity of power between corporations and creative workers immensely. It would preserve a revenue stream for creative workers. And it might actually be achievable.