If you had a vote for copyright?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

It patents were eternal, advancement would come to a stop.

More creations have been given to the public during the existence of patent (and copyright) than at any other time in history. Without patent and copyright, there would be a lot less writing and innovation.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

More creations have been given to the public during the existence of patent (and copyright) than at any other time in history. Without patent and copyright, there would be a lot less writing and innovation.

I think the first sentence is true I'm much less sure about the second.

I suspect that what happened was that mechanical copying became possible/easy which lead in turn to both an increase in creation (because more information/culture/invention could spread more widely, more quickly etc) and also made copyright possible/desirable.

In other words, if I'm right, it's a classic case of correlation not equaling causation.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by latepaul

I suspect that what happened was that mechanical copying became possible/easy which lead in turn to both an increase in creation (because more information/culture/invention could spread more widely, more quickly etc) and also made copyright possible/desirable.

I think that it's mostly because there are more people in the world. Relate the number of creations to the 7 billion people in the world.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I think that it's mostly because there are more people in the world. Relate the number of creations to the 7 billion people in the world.

I was assuming Steven was already taking into account population growth, if not then I agree.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by latepaul

I was assuming Steven was already taking into account population growth, if not then I agree.

I don't think that he realizes that the Renaissance happened before copyright. Now we have a higher number of works per year but if you look at an artist-to-consumer ratio we are lower now (and most artistic works are of lower quality than those from those times).

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Sorry: The creation of patent and copyright protection, and guarantee of income, created a spurt of growth in creation that far exceeded natural population growth. IOW, people who otherwise could not afford to halt their daily jobs to create, jumped on the "invention/creation bandwagon" when it was made available to them. We don't have inventions/creations because we have more people; we have them because more people can afford to create.

[latepaul]

And I still think that a major factor is the ability to communicate, interact and swap ideas and it's that as much if not more than the possibility of an income via copyright that causes an increase in the amount of creativity.

Also it's interesting you talk about a "guarantee of income" - copyright provides no guarantee of income, just a legal right to charge a fee. You're still taking a risk that you can sell enough copies. In terms of a guarantee, something you can quit the day job on the basis of, you're much better off with say work-for-hire e.g. finding a patron to commission the project - less creative control perhaps but more of a guarantee. Ironically this was one of the main forms of income for creative artists prior to copyright.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Gods and stars, not another recommendation to go back to the Patronage system! Patronage benefited less than a single percent of potential artists, and left all the rest without means for self-expression, forcing most of them to abandon artistic careers; in short, it was a very inefficient system.

No, copyright doesn't guarantee income. But more importantly, it guarantees that if income is to be made, the creator gets first crack at it, and has protection against his creation being stolen and earning him nothing. That, plus an optimistic belief that an invention would indeed be worth something, was usually all a creator/inventor needed to blow off his day job, create, and hope for the best.

Without it, most potential inventors/creators never got out of their farms or other menial jobs.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

More creations have been given to the public during the existence of patent (and copyright) than at any other time in history. Without patent and copyright, there would be a lot less writing and innovation.

Perhaps, but the key word was "eternal". New inventions are built off what came before. With eternal patents, you can't build off what came before. The purpose of a patent is to give the inventor limited exclusive rights to the invention in exchange for it becoming public domain. You say talk about inventions being "given to the public", but if patent is eternal, nothing is given to the public.

It is the same thing with copyright. Culture and the public domain are the same thing. If copyright became eternal, all of culture would be owned. I do support copyright, but it must be for a "limited time".

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Gods and stars, not another recommendation to go back to the Patronage system! Patronage benefited less than a single percent of potential artists, and left all the rest without means for self-expression, forcing most of them to abandon artistic careers; in short, it was a very inefficient system.

Not a recommendation to go back (though a modern-day equivalent via crowd-sourcing could work better) but pointing out as far as income guarantees go it's a better bet.

No, copyright doesn't guarantee income. But more importantly, it guarantees that if income is to be made, the creator gets first crack at it, and has protection against his creation being stolen and earning him nothing. That, plus an optimistic belief that an invention would indeed be worth something, was usually all a creator/inventor needed to blow off his day job, create, and hope for the best.

This sounds less convincing all the time.

Your argument is that it copyright encouraged creativity because it allows people to believe ("optimistically") that they can quit the day job. In fact in many ways it's more risky to quit the day job on the basis of possible royalties than it is on either receiving a commission or performance pay - where at least if you get the gig(s) you know you'll get paid.

In reality I guess people didn't quit their jobs until the gigs/royalties hit a certain level. You need to show that copyright made this look more likely to potential creators who were put off otherwise.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Sorry: The creation of patent and copyright protection, and guarantee of income, created a spurt of growth in creation that far exceeded natural population growth.

Would you care to back that up with something?

I don't see the spurt of growth caused by the introduction of copyright law in 1710.

[speakingtohe]

Not a very detailed graph number wise, but I see it as an increase of about 1/2 billion more books?

With books published prior to 1700 (around 1000 years) being around 500,000,000 (according to graph) and the addition of approximately the same amount in 100 years seems like a spurt to me.

Helen

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I don't think that he realizes that the Renaissance happened before copyright. Now we have a higher number of works per year but if you look at an artist-to-consumer ratio we are lower now (and most artistic works are of lower quality than those from those times).

Apart from the fact that during the Renaissance most artists relied on support from a few sponsors (and the fact that even at that time they already had copyright for specific books granted on a case by case basis by the king in a number of countries), would you enlighten us how copyright even mattered to the general public before convenient methods of copying the materials were available? In the 1960s how would you get your free books?

Before ebooks, copyright restrictions for books really only mattered to publishers and printers. For music, film, and photography easy access to copies came a little earlier, but we are talking 1-2 decades, not centuries.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Not a very detailed graph number wise, but I see it as an increase of about 1/2 billion more books?

With books published prior to 1700 (around 1000 years) being around 500,000,000 (according to graph) and the addition of approximately the same amount in 100 years seems like a spurt to me.

No, that is just a steady increase. A growth spurt is what happened from the 15th to the 16th century.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Apart from the fact that during the Renaissance most artists relied on support from a few sponsors (and the fact that even at that time they already had copyright for specific books granted on a case by case basis by the king in a number of countries), would you enlighten us how copyright even mattered to the general public before convenient methods of copying the materials were available? In the 1960s how would you get your free books?

What does this have to do with what I said? Copyright was made to protect the authors from publishers, not from consumers.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

What does this have to do with what I said? Copyright was made to protect the authors from publishers, not from consumers.

That is exactly the point -- copyright was not a contract between the author and society (the general public), as so many claim, because back before e-books the general public could not take advantage of PD books. Copyright was really designed to protect authors and their agents (printers/publishers), period.