There is no copyright

[stonetools]

Interesting thought experiment

The most strict and vicious DRM still can't get around the dedicated copyist with a keyboard. Books can still be typed in manually. With just slightly less restrictions, they can be screencapped and OCR'd. And the only software DRM that hasn't been broken is a matter of market share; once a type of DRM reaches a certain level of popularity, it gets cracked.

We've no reason to believe this dynamic would change if the law allowed DRM to hide secret viruses. On the contrary, I'd expect dedicated hacker networks to create virtual sandboxes devoted to cracking DRM--especially if the DRM-cracking itself is entirely legal, and the only possible violation is a TOS/contract law issue.

Not going to discuss DRM again on this forum ( Its kind of like discussing cartoons of The Prophet with Muslims). Just want to point out that with no copyright, there's no need for DRM . Can't Manage Digital Rights if there are no Digital Rights.

I suspect recorded music would work much like it does now, where people pay for convenience rather than ownership. "Pay $1 to have this sent to your phone without bothering to get home, connect the USB, open the program & sign into the website" is okay for a lot of people.

Prices on CDs would drop, but could still be profitable if they contained a few things that can't be easily copied. Jewel case inserts with raised or metallic letters or signatures or special paper would make them worth buying, and everyone would know the CD itself was mostly a promo for the band.

Woops , recorded music-what's that? No I take that back. There will be old recorded music in people's record collections-that's it.CDs- for what? Since there won't be record companies, the only CDs produced will be blank CDs . Pre-recorded music CDs will be pointless. Radio and streaming music might continue- but musicians cant make much money out of them, so fewer musicians . The Cynical Musician pretty much laid out the economics of being an independent musician in todays world and it aint pretty

CYNICAL MUSICIAN

In a no copyright world, its worse.

Could TV/Cable survive if it were legal for anyone to copy & share (and broadcast over the internet) the commercial-free version? What would prevent using local community-access channels from just scheduling popular movies, which would be much more popular than the Super Recycling Tricks show?

Movie theatres, I think, could survive just fine with very minor shifts. They've got something that end-users don't: extremely expensive hardware. If you want to see a movie on a 50' wide screen, you need to buy a ticket. Theatres would need to refocus their ads for "watch movies on big screen!" rather than "see the latest releases before anyone else has them!"--because they'd be available digitally almost immediately.

Don't think movie theaters could survive on that model-you need a minimum number of patrons, so they're done, along with cable TV. You may have 1 movie theater per city-playing reruns. Expensive new Avatar-type films-fuhgedhaboutit!!

I suspect that the only way authors could count on making money if copyright were eliminated would be a return to patronage, and attempting to restrict actual copies from anyone who hadn't paid for access. (Which, gee, is what the Agency 6 do with their ebooks.) Tiny print runs with high costs, subscription clubs with strict contract language that mean "if you share this with someone who hasn't paid, you owe the author/distributor a year's income." Pbooks with tracking chips. Streamed ebooks that you can only read through once per payment.

I don't want copyright gone; I just want it returned to something like the 28+28 system. Bring back a way for content to fall into the public domain if nobody's paying attention to it.
Yesterday 09:03 PM

Cosign this.

I think a typical problem of the no- copyright set is that they take creators for granted. They think creators are our bitches, who MUST continue putting out for us, no matter how much we beat them .They'll work for art, or for free, or for charity, but they'll just keep performing, no matter what.WRONG.

Its pretty much an iron law of economics that if you want good stuff and more stuff, you're going to have to provide the financial incentives for someone to create that stuff. The founding fathers understood this, which is why its in Constitution. They didn't get everything right, but this is one they did get right.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Just want to point out that with no copyright, there's no need for DRM . Can't Manage Digital Rights if there are no Digital Rights.

It wouldn't be called DRM, but it would work the same way: "here's some impediments to use to allow us to sell the same thing to someone else." Maybe it'd be called Digital Usage Restrictions or Digital Sales Restrictions. With no copyright, it'd be legal to crack--unless purchasing came with a contract that said you agreed not to, in which case the company could sue you for cracking it, but couldn't prevent other people from sharing the file after you'd handed it around.

Woops , recorded music-what's that? No I take that back. There will be old recorded music in people's record collections-that's it.CDs- for what? Since there won't be record companies, the only CDs produced will be blank CDs.

Would still be record companies. Musicians still won't want the hassle of arranging studio time, learning the technical side of cutting tracks, contacting radio stations, arranging tours and so on. And CDs can be fairly cheap to produce, so $5-10 CDs with specialized jewel-case inserts or hard-to-reproduce artwork on the CDs would be common.

Pre-recorded music CDs will be pointless. Radio and streaming music might continue- but musicians cant make much money out of them, so fewer musicians.

If you think "can't make money" would cut down on the number of musicians, you have a warped idea of why people learn to play. There'd be no (or less) mega-star bands, but there'd be no shortage of musicians, because people would still pay for access to live performances.

Don't think movie theaters could survive on that model-you need a minimum number of patrons, so they're done, along with cable TV.

Why couldn't theatres survive? They'd just need to pick movies that appeal to their local patrons--and without copyright getting in the way, that's a lot easier. They'd be able to show a lot more movies for shorter times, and schedule one-day movies to match local events. (The college is having Pride Week? We'll have a weekend marathon festival showing Milk, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Victor/Victoria, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. $8 per person per movie, and the ushers will check tickets between each showing.)

Movie theatres have something unaffected by copyright: expensive physical equipment. It doesn't matter whether the movies get copied; you can't show them at home on a 50' screen. You probably can't pack 75 friends into your living room, either--theatres would be free to offer private event movies.

I think a typical problem of the no-copyright set is that they take creators for granted. They think creators are our bitches, who MUST continue putting out for us, no matter how much we beat them .They'll work for art, or for free, or for charity, but they'll just keep performing, no matter what. WRONG.

They won't, in general, perform for nothing. But some will happily limit their income to that available from live-action performance (musicians especially), and other revenue options, not very feasible in the current system, would show up.

Overall, I agree that abolishing copyright would be a stupid move; it's got problems, but it's better than the alternatives. However, the alternatives aren't "all artistic creation and scientific research would collapse." Academics, paid in esteem and employment offers, may not care how much their works are copied; prolific authors who can blog daily and still produce stories may sell subscriptions to their site instead of ebooks (and yeah, other people could copy the site elsewhere--but you couldn't join in the chats that way); artists who can customize pictures may take commissions.

"The best system currently available" is not the same as "the only system that could allow society to work." There are nations with no copyright laws... and yet they have books, music, art, and research.

[stonetools]

It wouldn't be called DRM, but it would work the same way: "here's some impediments to use to allow us to sell the same thing to someone else." Maybe it'd be called Digital Usage Restrictions or Digital Sales Restrictions. With no copyright, it'd be legal to crack--unless purchasing came with a contract that said you agreed not to, in which case the company could sue you for cracking it, but couldn't prevent other people from sharing the file after you'd handed it around.

Of course, if you make it that difficult for a content creator to make money out of his creation, then he might just stop creating altogether. He does have that option.

Would still be record companies. Musicians still won't want the hassle of arranging studio time, learning the technical side of cutting tracks, contacting radio stations, arranging tours and so on.

Record companies do all that because they hope to make money off sales of content. If they can't do the latter, then there's no incentive for them to do the former. So, no record companies.

Why couldn't theatres survive? They'd just need to pick movies that appeal to their local patrons--and without copyright getting in the way, that's a lot easier. They'd be able to show a lot more movies for shorter times, and schedule one-day movies to match local events. (The college is having Pride Week? We'll have a weekend marathon festival showing Milk, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Victor/Victoria, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. $8 per person per movie, and the ushers will check tickets between each showing.)

Movie theaters are already hurting because of competition from people staying home to watch movies on their 50" TVs. No copyright would be the final nail in their coffin.

Anyway, I would say that the discussion should really move from this thought experiment to a "better copyright". I would argue that we should also be talking about a better DRM, but that's verboten on this forum.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Expensive new Avatar-type films-fuhgedhaboutit!!

Yes, the studios might be forced to go back to making movies based on the quality of the writing, acting, and story, not based on making more and more things go "boom" and paying tens of millions of dollars to have a "big name actor" in the movie! Perish the thought!

Having movie budgets slashed by 90% would be the best thing that could happen to film production.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Just want to point out that with no copyright, there's no need for DRM .

Actually, if everyone respected copyright there would be no need for DRM either.

BOb

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Actually, if everyone respected copyright there would be no need for DRM either.

BOb

How else would they get everyone to buy their content again when they change device?

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Actually, if everyone respected copyright there would be no need for DRM either.

BOb

True, and if everyone respected private property rights, there would be no need for theft laws either. But everyone doesn't, so there ya go.
Anyway, I think we are edging toward the TTCBRD, and you of all people knows what that means, so....

[mjhudston]

Originally Posted by leebase

You replied to an empty discussion?

We have an ongoing series of discussions about copyright -- whether it's a good or a bad thing....at all...not just in it's current implementation.

So, rather than wondering about copyrights effects on 17th century Britain and Germany -- why not use NOW. How hard is it to imagine the world with no concept of intellectual property?

It would surely be all roses and candy canes right? Knowledge would no longer be withheld from the poor. Greedy corporations would go bust practically over night. All of us could get copies of ebooks from "the price fix six" without giving those greedy bastards a dime.

It's all benefit with no drawback -- right?

Lee

Wrong. Because everything is now free, there are nnow next to no jobs, and unemployment has hit 5 billion in the world. There are not enough people paying taxes to support the unemployed. The food chain has collapsed, and healthcare is only available to the rich.

copywrite and intellectual property does more than just protect ideas. Its just one player in the game that protects the current existence.

[carld]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Yes, the studios might be forced to go back to making movies based on the quality of the writing, acting, and story,

There probably wouldn't be any more studios. There might be a small market for big screen pictures, but who is going to buy something or pay for a ticket when you can download it legally off a torrent site the same day it's released? No movie sales = no movie studios.

[Anthem]

Originally Posted by leebase

On and on we go...while never depriving the poor of their due right to having everything for free.

Lee

Haha. It seems you may have over-extended something here in order to satiate the desire for freely available and widely disseminated information and content.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by carld

There probably wouldn't be any more studios. There might be a small market for big screen pictures, but who is going to buy something or pay for a ticket when you can download it legally off a torrent site the same day it's released? No movie sales = no movie studios.

Many people like the theater experience. I don't-- I haven't been "to a movie" in close to 20 years, but many people do. Just like many people like going to a concert when they can just download the CD.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

How is that any different to how it was yesterday when copyright still existed?

Copying books would not be against the law...even if folks easily flout the law now. Imagine how wonderful it would be if we didn't need PirateBay and the like. Just nice and convenient sites like Napster used to be.

Also, no need to pay authors royalties to use their books as material to make movies. Anybody gets to write and rewrite the works as they see fit. George Lucas would no longer have tyrannical control over the Star Wars universe.

Same for music.

Lee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Internet 2.0. Restructuring of the network, an end to anonymity, all work will be traced back to the source, nothing will exist without attribution.

You bring in an interesting fantasy...but the only fantasy we are engaging in this exercise is the abolishing of intellectual property.

[QUOTE=Giggleton;1537750]The authentic site will be one that the most popular creators spend most of their time at, the readers will follow. All other sites will be fully capable of hosting ebooks, attributable as always to the creator, but the authentic site will be where the money is.[/quote

How does this benefit the authors? The moment they try to charge for their work, the "we don't pay authors" site will spring up for folks to get those works for free. And that is all and good because...well...because there is no longer any such thing as copyright or intellectual property.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

NO BOOK WILL BE SOLD, ALL WILL BE FREELY GIVEN.

Exactly. And why, then, will folks spend so much time and energy creating those free books?

Originally Posted by Giggleton

It seems that some think that if I give a book away, another will be able to sell it somewhere else, this is not the case.

Actually, it would be the case. Someone could create a site who's ease and convenience would make some folks willing to pay to join. Just like Penguin Books is able to charge for their "Penguin Classics" by adding notes and professional historical commentary for them. But, well, that was the past when Penguin had a financial motivation to actually make the classics more accessible.

We aren't forbidding the charging for anything in this exercise. Charge away all you like. You just have to realize that you can't own that which you wish others to pay you for.

Lee

[EowynCarter]

Well, admiting there is no copyright.

Meaning, writing books is not something you can do to earn a living anymore. Meaning, people writing books would need to spend time on an actual paid for job. less time to to write, less books.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by leebase

Copying books would not be against the law...even if folks easily flout the law now. Imagine how wonderful it would be if we didn't need PirateBay and the like. Just nice and convenient sites like Napster used to be.

Also, no need to pay authors royalties to use their books as material to make movies. Anybody gets to write and rewrite the works as they see fit. George Lucas would no longer have tyrannical control over the Star Wars universe.

Same for music.

Lee

for this entire thought experiment, LB. It makes it clear that IP laws are necessary to the creation and orderly functioning of a market in intellectual goods, exactly like Real Property Rights are necessary to the functioning of an orderly market in RP. And anyone who doesn't understand how markets work, doesn't understand how the economies of modern society work.

When Elfwreck says this:

There are nations with no copyright laws... and yet they have books, music, art, and research.

I wonder if these nations are known for their great art, outstanding literature or long list of scientific or technical innovations. I suspect not.