MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

gmw · 10-02-2013, 01:45 PM

I know it wasn't directed at me, Ralph Sir Edward, but the point about businesses competing by making exactly the same physical product doesn't compare well with copyright. Manufacture of goods is always governed by many things: quality and availability of the parts, quality and availability of the labour, and so on. It's on these sorts of attributes that such businesses compete. To a certain extent this also applies to paper books as a physical product, but it doesn't apply well to something like the story itself - unless you are suggesting we see many different versions of the same book being produced: here's a copy of Harry Potter with more adverbs, here's a copy of Harry Potter with all the parts I thought were boring cut out of it, and here's a copy of Harry Potter with some sex scenes added.

I guess that might work as a business model (if you can get the parts to sell that way), and the result might be intriguing, but I can't see it offering much incentive to original creators - who would be put off by combined disincentives of lack of financial reward and having their work changed by every one who wanted to have a go at it.

The issue of "real property" was discussed earlier. Our ability to own something as a property, to buy, sell, inherit etc., even physical things, is a privilege we enjoy thanks to society and the law and structure it imposes. Without those, the property belongs to anyone strong enough to take it for themselves (and there is plenty of evidence of that throughout history). Copyright is just another law protecting property. And it is a property. The creator doesn't have to share their creation at all, even without copyright they can sell it to someone without sharing it with others, they could pass it on to their children and so on, all the things you expect of a property. BUT it is difficult to share more widely without giving it away to everyone. So society makes a bargain, share it and we will agree to give you a monopoly on exploitation for some period of time, after which it is available to everyone. The creator gives up their perpetual, but financially unrewarding, ownership of the property, for a limited time but potentially financially rewarding monopoly.

10-02-2013, 01:45 PM	#156
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	I know it wasn't directed at me, Ralph Sir Edward, but the point about businesses competing by making exactly the same physical product doesn't compare well with copyright. Manufacture of goods is always governed by many things: quality and availability of the parts, quality and availability of the labour, and so on. It's on these sorts of attributes that such businesses compete. To a certain extent this also applies to paper books as a physical product, but it doesn't apply well to something like the story itself - unless you are suggesting we see many different versions of the same book being produced: here's a copy of Harry Potter with more adverbs, here's a copy of Harry Potter with all the parts I thought were boring cut out of it, and here's a copy of Harry Potter with some sex scenes added. I guess that might work as a business model (if you can get the parts to sell that way), and the result might be intriguing, but I can't see it offering much incentive to original creators - who would be put off by combined disincentives of lack of financial reward and having their work changed by every one who wanted to have a go at it. The issue of "real property" was discussed earlier. Our ability to own something as a property, to buy, sell, inherit etc., even physical things, is a privilege we enjoy thanks to society and the law and structure it imposes. Without those, the property belongs to anyone strong enough to take it for themselves (and there is plenty of evidence of that throughout history). Copyright is just another law protecting property. And it is a property. The creator doesn't have to share their creation at all, even without copyright they can sell it to someone without sharing it with others, they could pass it on to their children and so on, all the things you expect of a property. BUT it is difficult to share more widely without giving it away to everyone. So society makes a bargain, share it and we will agree to give you a monopoly on exploitation for some period of time, after which it is available to everyone. The creator gives up their perpetual, but financially unrewarding, ownership of the property, for a limited time but potentially financially rewarding monopoly.