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156 points rntn | 45 comments | | HN request time: 0.418s | source | bottom
1. ronsor ◴[] No.44407371[source]
Copyright is finally being deprecated as it should be.

I'm still waiting for an update on the final removal timeline.

replies(6): >>44407662 #>>44407723 #>>44407860 #>>44407930 #>>44407946 #>>44408857 #
2. heavyset_go ◴[] No.44407662[source]
> Copyright is finally being deprecated as it should be.

If you hide behind corporations and have millions of dollars, sure, but not for us normies it isn't.

3. kelnos ◴[] No.44407723[source]
That's a dangerous assumption to make. Dropping staffing levels at the US copyright office doesn't change the law. The next administration (or even this one, given how fickle Trump can be) may ramp up enforcement again and go after people committing violations during the current period.

And it's not like copyright outside the US is a wild west; most national and international copyright regimes in the developed world are based on the US's system (often because the US has strong-armed other countries to comply).

replies(3): >>44407850 #>>44408750 #>>44408823 #
4. analog31 ◴[] No.44407850[source]
How does the copyright office enforce the law?
replies(1): >>44408228 #
5. __loam ◴[] No.44407860[source]
Software engineers and tech workers will make their living off producing IP then say shit like this.
replies(2): >>44407995 #>>44408840 #
6. rurp ◴[] No.44407930[source]
It's being deprecated for billionaires. IP laws are one of the most blatant cases I've seen in this country of wealthy connected people being immune from laws that affect everyone else. I know it happens in many other areas, but usually it's much quieter and less in the public's face.
replies(1): >>44409191 #
7. gametorch ◴[] No.44407946[source]
Yes. I am an anti-copyright extremist.

May the best implementation win.

Otherwise, everyone loses out so that one individual can artificially collect rent through a government-enforced monopoly.

Accelerate.

replies(4): >>44407967 #>>44408025 #>>44408127 #>>44409236 #
8. ordinaryradical ◴[] No.44407967[source]
I write novels. What am I supposed to do to earn in this new, copyright-free regime where anyone is free to “implement” my novels?
replies(2): >>44408006 #>>44408148 #
9. idle_zealot ◴[] No.44407995[source]
> You criticize society and yet you participate in it. How curious.
replies(3): >>44408245 #>>44408716 #>>44409208 #
10. idle_zealot ◴[] No.44408006{3}[source]
Attract an audience and ask for patronage or get a job writing on behalf of an employer.
replies(3): >>44408081 #>>44408166 #>>44408441 #
11. hatthew ◴[] No.44408025[source]
Downwards acceleration is free
12. martin-t ◴[] No.44408081{4}[source]
So basically instead of doing real work (positive sum games - producing value), everyone has to either:

a) invest more and more energy into self-promotion, advertisement, etc. (zero- or negative-sum games)

or

b) flat out give a part of their income to people who are already richer than them?

replies(1): >>44408388 #
13. martin-t ◴[] No.44408127[source]
Ever since I learned that my open source work was stolen and is being resold to me (laundered through statistical algorithms) without any credit or compensation, I stopped writing open source.

Any copy-left code is basically free to be used in closed source software, as long as it's not a verbatim copy? Count me out.

LLMs are used to subvert the spirit of GPL, if not the letter.

replies(1): >>44408226 #
14. ◴[] No.44408148{3}[source]
15. heavyset_go ◴[] No.44408166{4}[source]
Leads to a class system where those who actually create for society are parasitically leeched on by a class whose wealth only exists because of another government enforced monopoly.
replies(3): >>44408244 #>>44408446 #>>44410215 #
16. heavyset_go ◴[] No.44408226{3}[source]
That's where I'm at as an author of several popular open source libraries.

That's it, they're in maintenance mode and I'm not releasing anything again in the future.

My model used to be to build products and spin off components into generic open source libraries others could use, and some caught on. Now I'm just keeping them for myself or attempting to monetize them somehow.

replies(1): >>44408356 #
17. Brian_K_White ◴[] No.44408228{3}[source]
They don't have to. youtube and every other company are doing it for them, only without any of that annoying due process or assumption of innocense or burden of proof or right to recourse or any of that stuff a real public legal process should have.
18. logicchains ◴[] No.44408244{5}[source]
> those who actually create for society

If someone's unable to find anyone willing to pay them in advance for their work or purchase a subscription, is their work really creating much value to society?

replies(1): >>44408315 #
19. coderatlarge ◴[] No.44408245{3}[source]
without siding with the perspective being voiced, i feel compelled to point out your comment sounds like you believe there is a real alternative to criticize yet participate. even if you attempt to disengage and decide to go live in a cabin in the woods off the grid, the irs and any number of other agencies will go after you and your loved ones for doing basic human things like having and raising kids in a non-sanctioned way. so is there really any practical alternative to just voicing dissent?
replies(1): >>44410175 #
20. tobias3 ◴[] No.44408315{6}[source]
Why would someone that is somewhat constrained w.r.t. spending pay for something they would get for free?
replies(1): >>44408409 #
21. tobias3 ◴[] No.44408356{4}[source]
Coming to about the same conclusion here. Companies are using my AGPLv3 project without following the license already and enforcing the license seems bleak with not much gain for me.

Now they can just copyright-wash it through AI models.

22. idle_zealot ◴[] No.44408388{5}[source]
> a) invest more and more energy into self-promotion, advertisement, etc. (zero- or negative-sum games)

How is advertising a book you've written and are selling different than advertising your writing or skills to potential patrons and clients with regard to being negative-sum?

b) flat out give a part of their income to people who are already richer than them?

Who said anything about the relative wealth or patrons and authors? People seem totally willing to subscribe to people whose creative output they value. Sometimes such patronage is barely enough to live, sometimes it's an impressive total sum.

replies(1): >>44409233 #
23. martin-t ◴[] No.44408409{7}[source]
In fact, if _just taking_ someone else's material possessions (rather than intellectual work) was legal, why would anyone build anything they can't physically protect themselves?

A lot of the people bashing on copyright seem to have no concept of the second order effects abolishing copyright would have and no intention to game it out.

Copyright has issues. For example it protects corporations instead of individual creators and workers. But not having it means rich people who own brands and have access to massive advertising can just take someone's work and make money from it while contributing nothing of value by themselves.

24. Cheer2171 ◴[] No.44408441{4}[source]
We had a few very violent revolutions and civil wars to get out of feudalism and patronage, and I can't believe how many techies want to take us back.
replies(1): >>44409366 #
25. Cheer2171 ◴[] No.44408446{5}[source]
It's called feudalism. The lords have a monopoly not just on the means of production, they own the full stack of society and economy in their domain.
replies(1): >>44410020 #
26. __loam ◴[] No.44408716{3}[source]
The alternative is corporations stealing your work with no recourse.
27. tw04 ◴[] No.44408750[source]
> go after people committing violations

At this point it’s a bold assumption they’ll go after people violating anything. It’s become apparent the decade of accusations of “weaponizing government” was a projection and the only people they’ll go after are people they consider enemies, whether they’re breaking any laws or not.

That’s the beautiful part of a puppet Supreme Court, you don’t actually need to worry about the laws, you can just make it up as you go.

28. like_any_other ◴[] No.44408823[source]
> Dropping staffing levels at the US copyright office doesn't change the law.

We see this at the patent office, where overworked patent examiners leads to more junk patents being granted. Which is utterly backwards, and stems from viewing patents as something the applicant has earned and needing a good justification to deny them the fruits of their labor, and not as what they are - an enormous restriction on everyone else.

29. AnthonyMouse ◴[] No.44408840[source]
There are two broad classes of software people write.

One is general purpose software used by significant numbers of people. This is the sort of software that could be, should be, and often already is open source. Enough people use it to sustain a community around maintaining it, and then you don't have to deal with the overhead and rent seeking incentives created by proprietary software. Obvious advantage: No more ads in the start menu.

The other is custom code. Here "IP protection" is pretty worthless, because the company employing you is the only one that wants or uses the thing, or they're a SaaS company not interested in publishing or licensing the code to anyone else anyway.

Neither of these has a strong need for IP laws and moreover either of them would do fine under a regime where copyright terms last 14 years, there is no extrajudicial DMCA takedown process or anti-circumvention law and software patents don't exist, but you can still sue a company that violates the GPL or fails to pay you for services rendered.

replies(1): >>44409920 #
30. Stealthisbook ◴[] No.44408857[source]
The Copyright Office doesn't have much to do with copyright enforcement. That's almost entirely hashed out in court. If anything, the office provides one of the few streamlining mechanisms in an unwieldy system by maintaining registration records so you can track down ownership and at least arrange licensing for works that would otherwise represent an unknown rights minefield.
31. johnnyanmac ◴[] No.44409191[source]
>I know it happens in many other areas, but usually it's much quieter and less in the public's face.

Not as of late. The Executive office and inauguration were full of it on full display, when the year before they were influencing who gets to run for president. They are sucking as much from the nation as possible while eliminating as many jobs as possible (the main way they get defended).

They got away with a lot by being boring an overall boiling the frog. But the suffering is very explicit and immediate as of late.

32. johnnyanmac ◴[] No.44409208{3}[source]
It's more like "you criticize society, but vote for its destruction". It's fine having those views, but it's "curious" how those same views go against the incentive structure for making new technology.

That can be understandable in other communities with diehard FOSS folk. But this place is a a startup incubator. Clearly appealing more to the entrepreneurial side of industry.

33. martin-t ◴[] No.44409233{6}[source]
re a) For starters, the difference is you already have a product which people can judge vs you claim you're gonna produce something great. Anybody can lie, some people can lie very well. Even ruling out malice (which many people underestimate), people just end up not keeping their promises. Would you pay GRRM for the finished Winds of winter? Would you fall for him asking for money to write it a few years ago?

re b) An employer ("user") is generally richer than the person they're employing ("using"). The reason they can employ people and people are willing to be employed is because they have access to tools such as trademarks, patents, other employees or advertising budgets the employee ("person used") does not. It's a relationship where power is fundamentally imbalanced.

34. johnnyanmac ◴[] No.44409236[source]
That's why I'm not an anti-copyright extremist. I've seen enough examples where the best implementation does not in fact win, but merely the one that put the most money into shoving it into people's eyeballs. Or the most money into scaling up production from a small business' idea.

The rich will still abuse it, but copyright gives smaller creators some channel to fight back with. It's another means to prevent the rich from getting richer without compensating those who helped get them there. It's basically what powers places like YCombinator; Why would someone pay for your pitch instead of hearing it and going to shop for the lowest bidder to implement it?

>Otherwise, everyone loses out so that one individual can artificially collect rent through a government-enforced monopoly.

copyright isn't on ideas, it's on implementation. And experience also tells me there's dozens of ways to skin a sheep. Especially in an industry like tech. You try to rest on your laurels protecting your idea, and someone else will just improve on the idea with a new one.

There can be a few BS copyrighted ideas, but for the most part you are only copyrighting a very small part of how something works. Not the very idea of making a rounded square phone.

replies(2): >>44409389 #>>44410136 #
35. martin-t ◴[] No.44409366{5}[source]
I wonder how many people see themselves as just temporarily embarrassed millionaires so they sympathize with the upper class where they feel like they should belong.

Or they just have no mental model of how incentives work. All this talk about abolishing copyright coming from people whose job literally consists of creating intellectual property. I have never seen one of them try to think it through and come up with the new equilibrium a world without copyright would settle into.

36. martin-t ◴[] No.44409389{3}[source]
> I've seen enough examples where the best implementation does not in fact win, but merely the one that put the most money into shoving it into people's eyeballs.

I thought that was the default?

Are there honestly _any_ examples of the best implementation winning against a solid advertising budget?

Copyright certainly needs improvement but in the direction of protecting individual creators from mass exploitation, not abolishing it to remove one more restriction from what the rich can monetize to get more rich.

37. __loam ◴[] No.44409920{3}[source]
I'm not opposed to reforms to the current system, it's far from perfect.

Both of the cases you mentioned have an important need for IP law.

replies(1): >>44411398 #
38. heavyset_go ◴[] No.44410020{6}[source]
Saying the quiet part out loud usually doesn't play well on HN, evidently
39. gametorch ◴[] No.44410136{3}[source]
Why would I buy the worse alternative? It doesn't make any sense to me. Genuinely curious.
40. Dylan16807 ◴[] No.44410175{4}[source]
> your comment sounds like you believe there is a real alternative to criticize yet participate

You have this exactly backwards. That belief is in a quote. idle_zealot is attributing that bad opinion to __loam, as a kind of paraphrasing.

replies(1): >>44410823 #
41. Dylan16807 ◴[] No.44410215{5}[source]
What class are you talking about here, and what monopoly?

Other than authors, the people I can think of that make money off novels are book printers and occasionally media studios? But those also depend on copyright, and other than copyright nothing makes them a monopoly.

replies(1): >>44410247 #
42. heavyset_go ◴[] No.44410247{6}[source]
The OP is proposing a patronage system. The world has had a long history with that.

I think we can look back on history and see what kind of class system dominated when creators had to rely on patronage to eat.

replies(1): >>44410268 #
43. Dylan16807 ◴[] No.44410268{7}[source]
That has the causality backwards. Patronage does not lead to unequal wealth, it's the unequal wealth that leads to patronage being the only way to fund art. Getting rid of copyright would not give the wealthy more money via government enforced monopoly.

Also they're using the term "patronage" more loosely when they say to attract an audience. There's no horrible class inequality when a bunch of people are paying $1-100 a month.

44. coderatlarge ◴[] No.44410823{5}[source]
thank you for explaining and sorry i totally missed the reference…
45. AnthonyMouse ◴[] No.44411398{4}[source]
> Both of the cases you mentioned have an important need for IP law.

Do they?

BSD licensed software exists even though it waives pretty much all of the IP rights. If that was so important then how does it exist without it?

There is a huge industry of people integrating various business systems together. It's a huge industry because of the combinatorial explosion of interactions between different systems, which means that every integration is different, which in turn means that the whole question of copying is moot because each one is only useful to that specific company. You can't copy it, you have to do another one because the next customer has different requirements. What does it matter whether the law prohibits copying something nobody was going to copy anyway?