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Originally Posted by Andrew H.
Yeah, this is stupid. You can find all sorts of support for stupid arguments on the internet; that lends no credibility to the argument whatsoever. And no one - including Levine - can make any sort of reasonable argument about how artists would get paid if they didn't own their copyright. In fact, he basically admits this, but claims that ripping off the artists would be better for the public at large because - paraphrasing - the public wouldn't have to pay the artist.
Look at J.K. Rowlings: her first HP book had a print run of 5,000. After the books became popular, the publisher put out many more copies, she wrote sequels, there were movies, etc.
In the copyright free world, the publisher puts out 5,000 copies (netting her, maybe, $5-10,000). Because the book is popular, anyone can now reproduce it and sell it; the largest amount of money made from HP would likely be from the printer in china who prints out $1 million copies, sells them, and gives the author nothing. This would result in lower book prices, but it is "better" for consumers in the same way that confiscating and redistributing all income over $100,000 per year is "better" for the consumer.
The fact is that there is very little incentive for JKR to produce another HP book. And making a HP movie would be very risky because you could invest years and millions in making a movie, only to see someone else come out with another movie first. The result of this would not be more consumer choice in movies; the result would be no movies from books at all because of the uncertainty and risk.
Not that there isn't room to improve IP law, but arguments for eliminating IP are economically illiterate and morally bankrupt.
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Gosh, you're right. I guess that's why we didn't have authors or books before copyright and why no one made any money on books until copyright was extended world wide back in the early 1970's.
The problem is the the idea of "IP" (a term that was coined by a lawyer to make the concept that someone could own an idea more palatable to a jury) has been stretched far beyond the basic premise that artists and inventors should get just compensation. Perhaps the idea of copyright should be abandoned, and we should simply go to a model of the artist and inventor getting a share of the net revenue from the use of their work or idea rather than getting control over the use of their work or idea. That would be more inline with the stated justification of copyright and patents.