"But I'm interested. For instance, how would one make a movie without copyright, and how would quality be maximized?"
By means of standard trade secrets and the ability to play it first.
It's not even a novelty since that was the way it started: cinema theatres were owned by studios. Even now most money is earned in the first weeks of exhibition. Allow for the Universal to own their own theatres, make their own marketing campaigns and let them have the premier. Pre-screeners would still be illegal since there were not previous public exhibition and they owning the cinema theatres (and therefor allowed to forbid cameras in the show) they can control quality copycats.
"Because people who take risk should be rewarded for their risk"
That's simply stupidly obnoxious.
We should and do support others adding value to our society and that's explicitly what copyright laws are intended for. Since it's obvious that current copyright laws do a lot of things other that protecting people adding value to society even things directly against people adding value to society, it's time to change them to readapt them to their intended purpouse.
" I'm talking about an author who makes maybe a few thousand dollars off of his writings and uses that income to help support his family. Why should we deprive that family of that income because of the untimely death of the author?"
Because we already have a welfare system that takes care of that, not only for writers but for everybody.
Why a writer's widow should have better welfare cover than the widow of a mason?
"More importantly, why would a 10 page short story about how funny a fish finds humans that took a week to write be capped at the same level as a 1000 page thesis on the human condition that took a decade to complete?"
Because it makes no difference. Or is it anything in current copyright law that makes differences between the two?
"Before copyright we relied on a patronage system."
That's a solution. But it's not the only one.
If you own a theater you want the newest and most exciting plays from the most reknowed artists, so you pay for them.
If you own a newspaper you want the newest novel from the most reknowed writer, so you pay for them.
If you are a singer, you want the best composers writing songs for your next world-wide tour, so you pay for them.
And knowing you can have for free some time in the future means almost nothing: you can see the superbowl final or the last chapter of your favorite series anytime but still they get biggest audiences on their first acting.
"There were far fewer artists (per caipta) as a result."
I don't buy that. Maybe there were fewer people (on percentage) making a live out of entertaiment (and even this is disputable: do you know how many paino players there were up to about 1920? quite a lot; recording industry killed that), but this doesn't mean less artists (how many Mozart, Shakespeare, Velazquez, Rodin...-level artists do you know living today?).
"So to compare copyright to manual labour, you're going to have to explain to me who on Earth is going to spend £5,000 to be the first person to listen to a single song, or £20,000 to be the first person to listen to a novel"
So to compare copyright to manual labour, you don't need to explain who is going to pay to be the first person to listen or read, just who is going to pay to be the first person to *get* it.
I'll tell you who: A newspaper editor or a show manager, that's who. And it's not even as if it were innovative at all. Who do you think that paid Alexander Dumas? Why do you think Shakespeare wrote so many plays?
Do you want the latest and greatest Grisham's hit published weekly in your newspaper? Pay him big dollars. Do you want your artist do jour to have new songs for her next world-wide tour? Pay the composer big dollars. Do you want your channel news to have a smashing head music? ditto.
"**Note- Rick hates the word virii. Exactly why isn't quite clear."
Because it's stupid, that's why.
Trying to argument it over just shows the worst kind of stupidity: wrong pedantry.
The English plural of virus is, as you say, quite accepted by most people and it's "viruses". Of course, if you tried to get the plural for virus in Latin, you'd never get "virii". So, even if it ever were accepted as English usage by custom, "virii" would go into the "smartass that tries to show a culture he completly lacks" category, quite enough for some people to hate it.
"Having a finite amount of currency is important, because it means that money will not be able to be printed!"
But the point is that money *should* be printed. Do you think the overall world wealth is now the same it was by 1800? Since currency is (among other things) a representation of wealth, more wealth requires more currency. In the same vein, a country producing wealth at a higher rate than average can and should safely print money, no problem with that.
Now, on the other hand, think of this: let's say you own 1% of all world wealth by 1700 and then you go to hibernate with all your wealth transferred into money with you. Fast forward and you awake today. On a fixed wealth-to-currency scenario, you still would own a 1% of today's world's gross product despite the fact that you neither directly nor indirectly did anything to increase it: it's just common sense that your wealth should dilute if you limit yourself to sit atop of a pile of money.
"So unless computers get a very sudden leap in efficiency, the system will work just fine."
This question was already analized and answered by Adam Smith, no less. Just the obvious: what would happen if you wake up tomorrow to learn safe and easy nuclear fusion out of sea water is a reality?
Wrong. Money gives you liquidity with zero rentability. As long as the world becomes more productive (by means of specialization and technical advancement) a given set of currency *must* dilute, or else you would be gaining wealth by just sitting on a pile of money.
"thus discouraging saving money."
That's a good thing. Saving money does absolutly nothing for anybody. Investing money does. Of course, your savings in a bank is not "real savings" (as in hidding the money in your mattrese) but a means for the banks to invest on your behalf and creating more financial money. If you were talking about the ratios between fiduciary and financial money you might have a point.
"The US and other countries don't back their currency, which is why its value constantly decreases."
That's wrong. US and other countries back their currency with their reputation, that is, their percieved ability to produce wealth in the future which is as good as a backing as you can get. And even under a gold currency money value constantly dicreeses too, in a way that it is a ratio of world's GDP (WDP?) and the currency production.
And again, that's only good: you don't want people being richer by just sitting on top of a pile of money.
"As for what they are backed by, what is gold backed by? Its value has been stable for centuries."
Adam Smith has a bunch of chapters on that being false already in his day and it's from the XVIII century.
"No, I pointed out a simple fact. Building a bridge with tax dollars does not create wealth, because it is not being sold for a profit."
No, you pointed a stupid fact. If all you know about economy is thinking that there's no wealth aggregation unless it's directly sold for a profit, there's too much you ignore for this conversation being of any interest.
"You're lucky. I hear the reports on the news. The trains are *constantly* experiencing delays or stopping on the tracks"
No, I'm not lucky. It's only I'm not living in USA.
It's quite difficult to be late when there are rails each direction and all the trains are of the same class, going at the same speed and proper maintenance is in place.
"and during snowstorms? They don't go anywhere, which often leaves people stranded at work."
True. I've been lucky on that. But by the time trains do stop, cars is a long time that weren't able to move.
"As for cars, you can avoid a traffic jam by arriving early, like 6 or 7 am."
Yeah, well, and you can avoid them totally by camping at your office's door. The point is being on time without spending your life in it.
"Mass transport is a highly inefficient means of travel"
Madrid-Zaragoza; about 190 miles door-to-door. I usually do it in about 1:50 hours (cab ride->high speed train->cab ride). You will do it by car in 3:30 hours in a *very* lucky day, usually no less than 4 to 4:30 (traffic jam both at Madrid and Zaragoza, specially the former).
Now you tell me whatever you want about "mass transport" but it takes a bit to beat a train that top speeds 200 miles per hour.
"Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic"
High speed trains are almost stuck-free. They go over they own rails, each way. I used to take it almost weekly and I got only one problem in 6/7 years.
"Also: the global argument is bs. Off-shoring lowers wages over-all, and that hurts everybody... except for the few guys at the top of the economic pyramid."
Also: the self-servicing argument is bs. Letting the customers take their own goods in the supermarket puts people out of job overall, and that hurts everybody... except for the few guys at the top of the economic pyramid.
Also: the industrializing argument is bs. Using machines to do the work put people out of job over-all, and that hurts everybody... except for the few guys at the top of the economic pyramid.
Think about that next time you go to the supermarket or you buy a car made by robots.
"Maybe you should look at some stats about what has been happening in this country then maybe you'll see why this "race to the bottom" leaves everyone but the 1% at the top losers."
A big yes! The problem is not outsourcing. The real problem is the way we, here, in first world countries, allow for our politicians and corporations to behave and that's both our problem and it's in our hands to cope with it.
Almost all the arguments in this threads are just different ways to lay out the 'broken window fallacy' ans, as such, they are nothing but fallacies themselves: no, there's no benefit in allowing a given task to be done worse or more expensively just because that way it is done here.
"You moron. Are you serious? So your OWN people becoming unemployed and eventually going HUNGRY doesn't bother you? You brainwashed cretin."
Maybe he is a brainwashed cretin. But he is the kind of brainwashed cretin that allowed your country to become what it is now to start with.
The path to grow is the path to achieve productivity which, in turn, is the path of doing more out of less. Did you stop to think that each and every line of code ever produced was there in order for someone to lose his job (or for a job not being made avaliable)?
So you really are asking for stoping all your computers so we can get again thousands of jobs on the handwriting, or bean counting or paper exchanging business? Who's in fact the brainwashed cretin?
"One of the bosses came in one Saturday night, killed the backup (they never took my advice of having multiple backups, including one off-site)"
Then they overlook your advice of having a backup *at all*. If there's not an off-site disconnected copy, then it's not a backup. You can call it "hot copy", "security copy", "near storage", whatever, but don't call it a backup for it isn't (now you obviously know why it is not).
Slashdot Mirror
"The problem is that a 50% reduction is not much. We need to think in terms of orders of magnitude to make real change."
So since 50% is not enough let's do nothing. Good strategy.
"That's very inefficient.
Every studio would need its own chain of theatres."
Or not.
There's nothing preventing studios to coaligate if they see that as a commercial advantage.
"so become Amish and live the life you think you want."
Because, of course, there's no middle ground.
As per wikipedia, average energy consumption per capita in the USA is 1,460W while EU average is 700W, less than half.
It must be that EU average living standard is Amish-like.
"But I'm interested. For instance, how would one make a movie without copyright, and how would quality be maximized?"
By means of standard trade secrets and the ability to play it first.
It's not even a novelty since that was the way it started: cinema theatres were owned by studios. Even now most money is earned in the first weeks of exhibition. Allow for the Universal to own their own theatres, make their own marketing campaigns and let them have the premier. Pre-screeners would still be illegal since there were not previous public exhibition and they owning the cinema theatres (and therefor allowed to forbid cameras in the show) they can control quality copycats.
"Because people who take risk should be rewarded for their risk"
That's simply stupidly obnoxious.
We should and do support others adding value to our society and that's explicitly what copyright laws are intended for. Since it's obvious that current copyright laws do a lot of things other that protecting people adding value to society even things directly against people adding value to society, it's time to change them to readapt them to their intended purpouse.
" I'm talking about an author who makes maybe a few thousand dollars off of his writings and uses that income to help support his family. Why should we deprive that family of that income because of the untimely death of the author?"
Because we already have a welfare system that takes care of that, not only for writers but for everybody.
Why a writer's widow should have better welfare cover than the widow of a mason?
"More importantly, why would a 10 page short story about how funny a fish finds humans that took a week to write be capped at the same level as a 1000 page thesis on the human condition that took a decade to complete?"
Because it makes no difference. Or is it anything in current copyright law that makes differences between the two?
"We no longer live in the kind of society where artists, musicians and authors can labour under noble/royal benefactors."
But they surely can work under industry benefactors (well, or even "moneyfactors" for that matter).
"Before copyright we relied on a patronage system."
That's a solution. But it's not the only one.
If you own a theater you want the newest and most exciting plays from the most reknowed artists, so you pay for them.
If you own a newspaper you want the newest novel from the most reknowed writer, so you pay for them.
If you are a singer, you want the best composers writing songs for your next world-wide tour, so you pay for them.
And knowing you can have for free some time in the future means almost nothing: you can see the superbowl final or the last chapter of your favorite series anytime but still they get biggest audiences on their first acting.
"There were far fewer artists (per caipta) as a result."
I don't buy that. Maybe there were fewer people (on percentage) making a live out of entertaiment (and even this is disputable: do you know how many paino players there were up to about 1920? quite a lot; recording industry killed that), but this doesn't mean less artists (how many Mozart, Shakespeare, Velazquez, Rodin...-level artists do you know living today?).
"So to compare copyright to manual labour, you're going to have to explain to me who on Earth is going to spend £5,000 to be the first person to listen to a single song, or £20,000 to be the first person to listen to a novel"
So to compare copyright to manual labour, you don't need to explain who is going to pay to be the first person to listen or read, just who is going to pay to be the first person to *get* it.
I'll tell you who: A newspaper editor or a show manager, that's who. And it's not even as if it were innovative at all. Who do you think that paid Alexander Dumas? Why do you think Shakespeare wrote so many plays?
Do you want the latest and greatest Grisham's hit published weekly in your newspaper? Pay him big dollars. Do you want your artist do jour to have new songs for her next world-wide tour? Pay the composer big dollars. Do you want your channel news to have a smashing head music? ditto.
"**Note- Rick hates the word virii. Exactly why isn't quite clear."
Because it's stupid, that's why.
Trying to argument it over just shows the worst kind of stupidity: wrong pedantry.
The English plural of virus is, as you say, quite accepted by most people and it's "viruses". Of course, if you tried to get the plural for virus in Latin, you'd never get "virii". So, even if it ever were accepted as English usage by custom, "virii" would go into the "smartass that tries to show a culture he completly lacks" category, quite enough for some people to hate it.
"Having a finite amount of currency is important, because it means that money will not be able to be printed!"
But the point is that money *should* be printed. Do you think the overall world wealth is now the same it was by 1800? Since currency is (among other things) a representation of wealth, more wealth requires more currency. In the same vein, a country producing wealth at a higher rate than average can and should safely print money, no problem with that.
Now, on the other hand, think of this: let's say you own 1% of all world wealth by 1700 and then you go to hibernate with all your wealth transferred into money with you. Fast forward and you awake today. On a fixed wealth-to-currency scenario, you still would own a 1% of today's world's gross product despite the fact that you neither directly nor indirectly did anything to increase it: it's just common sense that your wealth should dilute if you limit yourself to sit atop of a pile of money.
"So unless computers get a very sudden leap in efficiency, the system will work just fine."
This question was already analized and answered by Adam Smith, no less. Just the obvious: what would happen if you wake up tomorrow to learn safe and easy nuclear fusion out of sea water is a reality?
"Good money does not lose its value over time."
Wrong. Money gives you liquidity with zero rentability. As long as the world becomes more productive (by means of specialization and technical advancement) a given set of currency *must* dilute, or else you would be gaining wealth by just sitting on a pile of money.
"thus discouraging saving money."
That's a good thing. Saving money does absolutly nothing for anybody. Investing money does. Of course, your savings in a bank is not "real savings" (as in hidding the money in your mattrese) but a means for the banks to invest on your behalf and creating more financial money. If you were talking about the ratios between fiduciary and financial money you might have a point.
"The US and other countries don't back their currency, which is why its value constantly decreases."
That's wrong. US and other countries back their currency with their reputation, that is, their percieved ability to produce wealth in the future which is as good as a backing as you can get. And even under a gold currency money value constantly dicreeses too, in a way that it is a ratio of world's GDP (WDP?) and the currency production.
And again, that's only good: you don't want people being richer by just sitting on top of a pile of money.
"As for what they are backed by, what is gold backed by? Its value has been stable for centuries."
Adam Smith has a bunch of chapters on that being false already in his day and it's from the XVIII century.
"No, I pointed out a simple fact. Building a bridge with tax dollars does not create wealth, because it is not being sold for a profit."
No, you pointed a stupid fact. If all you know about economy is thinking that there's no wealth aggregation unless it's directly sold for a profit, there's too much you ignore for this conversation being of any interest.
"You're lucky. I hear the reports on the news. The trains are *constantly* experiencing delays or stopping on the tracks"
No, I'm not lucky. It's only I'm not living in USA.
It's quite difficult to be late when there are rails each direction and all the trains are of the same class, going at the same speed and proper maintenance is in place.
"and during snowstorms? They don't go anywhere, which often leaves people stranded at work."
True. I've been lucky on that. But by the time trains do stop, cars is a long time that weren't able to move.
"As for cars, you can avoid a traffic jam by arriving early, like 6 or 7 am."
Yeah, well, and you can avoid them totally by camping at your office's door. The point is being on time without spending your life in it.
"Unless they no longer have the money to do that because it was taken from them to build the roads."
Do the numbers.
100 entrepeneurs with 1,000$ each.
A basic service costs 10,000$ so no entrepeneur will do it; they can't.
Now you tax them 10%. You now have 100 entrepeneurs with 900$ each *and* a basic service they all will use to their's and society's benefit.
"Until you can actually sell that Brooklyn Bridge that tax money paid to build you aren't creating wealth, you are using other people's money."
Wow, with this you jumped the shark, sir.
"...because it's one of the ONLY Postgres books ever."
Uh!? What's that "Practical PostgreSQL" (the mammoth) from O'Reilly that I own since 2002, then?
"Mass transport is a highly inefficient means of travel"
Madrid-Zaragoza; about 190 miles door-to-door. I usually do it in about 1:50 hours (cab ride->high speed train->cab ride). You will do it by car in 3:30 hours in a *very* lucky day, usually no less than 4 to 4:30 (traffic jam both at Madrid and Zaragoza, specially the former).
Now you tell me whatever you want about "mass transport" but it takes a bit to beat a train that top speeds 200 miles per hour.
"Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic"
High speed trains are almost stuck-free. They go over they own rails, each way. I used to take it almost weekly and I got only one problem in 6/7 years.
"Also: the global argument is bs. Off-shoring lowers wages over-all, and that hurts everybody... except for the few guys at the top of the economic pyramid."
Also: the self-servicing argument is bs. Letting the customers take their own goods in the supermarket puts people out of job overall, and that hurts everybody... except for the few guys at the top of the economic pyramid.
Also: the industrializing argument is bs. Using machines to do the work put people out of job over-all, and that hurts everybody... except for the few guys at the top of the economic pyramid.
Think about that next time you go to the supermarket or you buy a car made by robots.
"Maybe you should look at some stats about what has been happening in this country then maybe you'll see why this "race to the bottom" leaves everyone but the 1% at the top losers."
A big yes! The problem is not outsourcing. The real problem is the way we, here, in first world countries, allow for our politicians and corporations to behave and that's both our problem and it's in our hands to cope with it.
Almost all the arguments in this threads are just different ways to lay out the 'broken window fallacy' ans, as such, they are nothing but fallacies themselves: no, there's no benefit in allowing a given task to be done worse or more expensively just because that way it is done here.
"As an early Supreme Court observed, a law that is unconstitutional is not a law. And never was."
True. But you don't get to know it for a fact... after it's a fact.
Till then, it's still 'dura lex sed lex'.
"You moron. Are you serious? So your OWN people becoming unemployed and eventually going HUNGRY doesn't bother you? You brainwashed cretin."
Maybe he is a brainwashed cretin. But he is the kind of brainwashed cretin that allowed your country to become what it is now to start with.
The path to grow is the path to achieve productivity which, in turn, is the path of doing more out of less. Did you stop to think that each and every line of code ever produced was there in order for someone to lose his job (or for a job not being made avaliable)?
So you really are asking for stoping all your computers so we can get again thousands of jobs on the handwriting, or bean counting or paper exchanging business? Who's in fact the brainwashed cretin?
"It's all about knowing the right people and having the right qualities (being electable)."
Well, you could run for the public office in China over exactly that same standards.
"One of the bosses came in one Saturday night, killed the backup (they never took my advice of having multiple backups, including one off-site)"
Then they overlook your advice of having a backup *at all*. If there's not an off-site disconnected copy, then it's not a backup. You can call it "hot copy", "security copy", "near storage", whatever, but don't call it a backup for it isn't (now you obviously know why it is not).