a perennial favorite topic of debate. sound off in the replies.

  • Rottcodd@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think any individual opinion on whether or not copyright should exist is or should be seen to be relevant to anything.

    The simple fact of the matter is that the concept exists. We’re not going to be able to magically make it disappear, so saying that it shouldn’t exist is incoherent at best.

    That said, I can certainly see why people want to see it disappear - because it’s basically become an easily abused way for rent-seeking scumbags to profit from somebody else’s work.

    I think the fundamental problem isn’t that it exists, but that it’s treated as a criminal matter. Up until fairly recently, it was a purely civil matter. Anyone who was so inclined could file suit against someone they believed had infringed on their copyright, and if they could prove that they legitimately had the copyright AND that they had suffered concrete losses, they could collect damages.

    However, at the behest of enormous corporations like Disney who bought enough influence to make it happen, copyright was changed into a criminal matter, so the corporations offloaded the cost of enforcement and no longer have any need to prove that they’ve suffered any actual loss - the purported copyright violation in and of itself is sufficient.

    I think that the creator of a work very obviously has a greater right to it than anyone else can possibly have. And the alternative would be to proactively decree that the creator of a work could NOT claim ownership of it and could NOT seek redress for any losses incurred through someone else’s unapproved use of their creation, and that, IMO, is unconscionable.

    So I support the idea in principle.

    But in my perfect world, it would be a wholly civil matter, and the specifics would depend on the specific case. Broadly, I think that the copyright holder should and likely could only seek redress for specific, demonstrable losses.

    And briefly, regarding the term, I don’t think it should be fixed. I think it should be judged relative to the individual case.

    So if, for instance, someone was seeking damages for the unapproved use of a creation that is wholly obsolete and otherwise entirely out of the public eye, they should have a much more difficult time claiming a loss, even if the thing is only, say, five years old. And on the other hand, if the thing in question is something that the creator is still regularly and successfully marketing, they should have an easier time claiming a loss, even if it’s, say, 70 years old.