There is no copyright

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

I wonder if these nations are known for their great art, outstanding literature or long list of scientific or technical innovations. I suspect not.

Afghanistan's the most well-known nation that has no copyright. Lack of copyright may be part of what makes it possible to rebuild after the destructive efforts of the Taliban.

I'm not arguing that abolition of copyright would be a good thing, especially a technological age where mega-corporations stand waiting like vultures to snap up anything they find useful. But the world managed quite a lot of art & science before copyright was invented, and quite a lot more on very limited copyright terms, and we shouldn't be stuck on the idea that copyright is the only way to allow creativity to flourish and be rewarded.

Mostly, I'd like to see the initial no-registration-necessary term shortened immensely (perhaps to 10 years? 15? That should be long enough to find out if something is financially valuable), and a registration-based term require a substantial fee, possibly increasing fees by length of term.

[carld]

Like I said above, it's not the 1700s any more. Back before the first copyright law (1790 in the US) it wasn't so easy to copy creative works and distribute them, so it was possible to get by without copyright. These days anyone with a computer can spit out enough digital copies to satisfy the western hemisphere. Things are just too different for us to go back to non-copyright times.

[Leyor]

But the world managed quite a lot of art & science before copyright was invented, and quite a lot more on very limited copyright terms, and we shouldn't be stuck on the idea that copyright is the only way to allow creativity to flourish and be rewarded.

Your quite right, historically Germany managed quite well without either patronage and Copyright for some hundred years after Britain introduced it.

It's a funny thing, if you went to an economics teacher 5-10 years ago and said I have a business model, where highly skilled people spend their time for free, making highly innovative and creative work and... this is the interesting part... they GIVE it away rather than sell it. That person would have thought you were mad. But we got wikipedia, google, apache, linux etc. tons of really great innovative products being given away for free.
(Credit goes to RSA animate, kinda borrowed their argument here)

We're kinda clinging to an outdated model here, that to deal with the inherent problems of digital progress becomes even more restrictive and less user friendly. We don't need a revolution, we just need the industry to realize that there's alot of money to be made if you work with the progress.

[stonetools]

Afghanistan's the most well-known nation that has no copyright. Lack of copyright may be part of what makes it possible to rebuild after the destructive efforts of the Taliban.

I rest my case . and I think that establishing IP rights is essential to the rapid rebuilding of Afghan arts and sciences.

But the world managed quite a lot of art & science before copyright was invented, and quite a lot more on very limited copyright terms,

And a hell of a lot more after copyright was established.Copyright isn't a perfect way to foster arts and scientific innovation, but its better than any other way we know.

Mostly, I'd like to see the initial no-registration-necessary term shortened immensely (perhaps to 10 years? 15? That should be long enough to find out if something is financially valuable), and a registration-based term require a substantial fee, possibly increasing fees by length of term.

Well I do find it absurd that stuff published before the start of WW2 is still under copyright. But I think artists should be allowed to be financially secure for their lifetimes for creations they have authored. I would go with 70 years or the life of author plus 20, whichever comes later. And no extensions, unless for reasons of national security.

[carld]

And where would the money be made? Wikipedia's been groveling for donations for forever (as is common for a lot of community and open source projects), Google gets its money selling advertising and buying up other for profit companies. Apache, Linux and more are collaborative works of love that aren't designed to make money.

Where are all these corporations supposed to make money when they stop clinging to that outdated model? Because I really don't see it.

[Leyor]

Well there's multiple ways to do it.

There's the skype model. You take product, you release it for free. Once it's reached a critical point of proliferation, you make alot of money selling associated services. Skype phone, skype-in, skype out, online numbers.
There's google with their advertisement and also additional buy-ons.

I'd like to refer to my previous post though on page 4. the main money would be made by companies being best capable of taking advantage of a free product making it alot more easy to reach a wider audience and create alot of income from derivatives. In terms of dealing with an established fanbase and not being an anonymous use product, the original product, even free, enjoys an advantage. There's the luxury market; leather bound signed editions and official props (some people will always be willing to pay more money if its official). There's the discount market, ads, there's book tours, you can even create an entire ecosystem around the author, online q&a's, ads, endorsements etc.

[Leyor]

Ps. It might have been labours of love, but the people behind creating those programs are all doing alright

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by carld

And where would the money be made? Wikipedia's been groveling for donations for forever (as is common for a lot of community and open source projects), Google gets its money selling advertising and buying up other for profit companies. Apache, Linux and more are collaborative works of love that aren't designed to make money.

Where are all these corporations supposed to make money when they stop clinging to that outdated model? Because I really don't see it.

We can imagine most of the employees relearning new skills, food production comes to mind.

The creation business will become extremely efficient out of necessity, it's just capitalism taken to its logical extreme regarding content distribution. Business does not need copyright.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Well I do find it absurd that stuff published before the start of WW2 is still under copyright. But I think artists should be allowed to be financially secure for their lifetimes for creations they have authored. I would go with 70 years or the life of author plus 20, whichever comes later. And no extensions, unless for reasons of national security.

Stonetools, that's the problem with copyright as we currently know it. It's too powerful and too long. And it isn't going to change!!! Too much money buying too many politicians! You can't successfully argue for copyright without arguing for the current corrupt system. It isn't the people demanding more and more copyright, it's immortal corporations demanding it, and they have enough resources to get it!

You show me a actual shortening of copyright, and we can talk about enforcement. But you will never get it, short of a revolution.

Study the difference between copyright and patent, in length, and why the lengths are different. Then you may grasp why so many people hold copyright in contempt.

(Oh, by the way, most scientists pay thousands of dollars just to get their papers published. It's fact, look it up.)

[carld]

Originally Posted by Leyor

Well there's multiple ways to do it.

There's the skype model. You take product, you release it for free. Once it's reached a critical point of proliferation, you make alot of money selling associated services. Skype phone, skype-in, skype out, online numbers.

Skype isn't a content provider. What associated services are there for writers and other creative people when they can no longer sell their work?

Originally Posted by Leyor

There's google with their advertisement and also additional buy-ons.

Which works for Google, but isn't really viable for anyone else. There's no advertising money when no one is buying your books, or magazines, or tickets to your movies. Google started as a service, not a content provider. That's a different beast.

Originally Posted by Leyor

I'd like to refer to my previous post though on page 4. the main money would be made by companies being best capable of taking advantage of a free product making it alot more easy to reach a wider audience and create alot of income from derivatives. In terms of dealing with an established fanbase and not being an anonymous use product, the original product, even free, enjoys an advantage. There's the luxury market; leather bound signed editions and official props (some people will always be willing to pay more money if its official). There's the discount market, ads, there's book tours, you can even create an entire ecosystem around the author, online q&a's, ads, endorsements etc.

I just don't see any of that working at all. With no copyright there's no viable product to take advantage of. There's are no ads, no book tours (which are money pits anyway), no add-ons, no nothing, because you can't sell your product to begin with. Very few people are going to buy your product when they can get it, with no reduction in quality, for free legally and easily.

I'm sorry, but I think your ideas for making money in a non-copyright world are a bit pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

We can imagine most of the employees relearning new skills, food production comes to mind.

The creation business will become extremely efficient out of necessity, it's just capitalism taken to its logical extreme regarding content distribution. Business does not need copyright.

It won't become efficient, it will cease to exist.

[forcheville]

Even with no copyright as an incentive for writers, readers will still exist with an interest in obtaining new books worth reading. This desire for books will create channels whereby writers will be rewarded for writing.

Publishers as such will disappear to be replaced by book portals run by editors and critics who can assure subscribers of a high quality of content to be obtained therein suited to readers tastes. (I'm assuming all books will be ebooks.)
These will function a bit like book clubs.
Generally portal subscribers will have a negative incentive to share books since this decreases the value of their "club". It is more to their advantage to encourage interested friends to join, or to obtain the same book through cross-posting in another "club".

Some clubs will tend to have readers/subscribers with better ethics in terms of what they will pay and of how much cultural capital they will provide for authors, or editors. There will be great competition amongst "clubs" to attract these high class readers.
This will lead to a resurgence of fiction of a very high literary standard.

One could perhaps view the McSweeney's brand as a move in this direction.

Writers of airplane and beach best-sellers, while still doing well, will no longer get massively rewarded, since people will think less of sharing their products.

[carld]

Originally Posted by forcheville

Even with no copyright as an incentive for writers, readers will still exist with an interest in obtaining new books worth reading. This desire for books will create channels whereby writers will be rewarded for writing.

In what way? We've already seen that donation buttons don't work. Without copyright we're back to relying on rich patrons supporting artists, and mostly keeping that art for themselves.

And book portals won't work. Once one person has a copy of the book portal produced book everyone will have it. There's already a big negative incentive for sharing copyrighted works (the law and fear of punishment) and that doesn't even work all that well.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by carld

In what way? We've already seen that donation buttons don't work. Without copyright we're back to relying on rich patrons supporting artists, and mostly keeping that art for themselves.

Except that they do work, how much money do you need anyway?

[Leyor]

You can't successfully argue for copyright without arguing for the current corrupt system.

I couldn't agree more.

Originally Posted by carld

I just don't see any of that working at all. With no copyright there's no viable product to take advantage of. There's are no ads, no book tours (which are money pits anyway), no add-ons, no nothing, because you can't sell your product to begin with. Very few people are going to buy your product when they can get it, with no reduction in quality, for free legally and easily.

I think your very wrong here, I'd like to point to another thread for an example:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=133249
This is just one example and you can make up all kind of arguments of why this doesn't work, or shouldn't work or can't work. The possibilities are out there though for those being creative.

Alot of industries are faced with similar problems, and its nothing new. In Germany before copyright, publishers faced an extreme amount of plagiarism(sp?), it was easy and cheap to produce big runs of cheap paper copies, they dealt with that by outcompeting them, making different runs and editions.

Customers have different needs, most don't have the need for just a digital copy of a book to read on their ereader or pc. In our market driven society you really don't believe that the industry will come up with ways to make money off this?

To quote someone: "If you can reach people, you can sell them shit". It's just a question of tailoring it to the right demographic, and a good solid fanbase is a great audience.

I think my main objection is, that your argument is the same argument that comes up everytime a market shifts. It's not practical, there's noone going to buy it if you can get it for free/cheap/better/more pink. I am not saying it isn't valid points, but right now we actually have people buying a product they can get similar for free, due to the legality, and a perception of quality. (Else they'd just get free selfpublished books, there's enough out there to last everyone here in this forum a lfietime).