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Comment on Former Valve writer says PlayStation killing physical discs is no conspiracy: "You, the consumer, have made your choice, and the choice is for digital"

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WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

You do not own a creator’s code, film, or digital ecosystem, and you never did.

Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit.

Art is the common property of all mankind. Art is the human soul. The very idea that you can restrict the creativity of another human being is an affront to the human spirit. You know what is truly a modern anomaly? Copyright and all IP law. For 99% of human history, artists would laugh in your face if you suggested that a musician had some God-given right to prevent others from singing a song they just wrote.

You have no natural right to “intellectual property,” because ultimately what you mean by “intellectual property” is the temporary right to exclusive sale of a product. And that is not a natural right. It’s not a natural right like freedom of speech, or even ownership of tangible property. Copyright violation is fundamentally different from real theft because it doesn’t deprive the owner of an original. Yes, you as an artist may feel you have some innate ownership to an idea, but that is a sense of privilege and entitlement that comes from misunderstanding the history and purpose of IP law. Hell, for most of history, artists were not even considered the source of creative works. Medieval painters didn’t sign their works, because they considered God to be the real creator. Before that, the Muses got credit.

Here is what you are missing. Copyright is not an innate right. It’s a useful legal compromise, nothing more. We discovered through trial and error that providing a limited period of exclusive use of a work to an artist helps get more art made. But that’s all it is, a pragmatic compromise. Do not confuse it for a natural right like life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

No one creates art in a vacuum. Everything is inspired and derived from works that came before it. There are no original stories. Artists are only able to create works because they’ve trained and studied on the works of countless other artists that came before them. Your work as an artist is just one tiny piece of a grand cultural tapestry. And as you were able to benefit from the commons, in turn your work will return to the commons to inspire others. A drop from the ocean. An ocean from a drop. That is the nature of art and creativity.

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Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Whenever people make claims like “You have no natural right to intellectual property”, I’m very curious A) what is the fullest extent of the amount of IP they, as an individual, have worked to create, and B) how secure their living situation and finances are.

I find a lot of people shift their opinion after they’ve worked for years on something under genuine risk of it not doing well.

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- TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’ve been arguing with people about this stuff for 20 years online and can count on one hand the number of other industry professionals that I have come across. As I mentioned in another comment; the tone, and tenor of these debates says far more about the type of people who like talking about video games online then it does about the state of the industry, or quality of products and services…
  
  Most people have a very hard time grasping the reality that if they are here, talking about video games on the internet, that represent less than 1% of the consumer base. Some manage to walk right up to the line, acknowledging that most gamers don’t care about digital-only, or DRM, or MTX, or subscriptions… yet somehow still come to the conclusion that their opinion and resistance is the “correct” perspective and they know better than the 99%.
  
  It’s a perennial example of false consensus and naive realism cognitive biases.
  
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TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

The very idea that you can restrict the creativity of another human being is an affront to the human spirit. Strawman. What I said is that the creator of art has full moral authority over when and how it is consumed, if at all. If you have a private sketchbook in your room right now, are we all entitled to its contents as the common property of the human race simply because it exists?

…artists would laugh in your face if you suggested that a musician had some God-given right to prevent others from singing a song they just wrote. False equivalency. What you are describing would be a unique performance and a completely new creative expression. A fairer question would be whether some hypothetical historical musician would agree with your suggestion that if they had 10 songs written down in a journal somewhere, that the rest of humanity was entitled to read, or hear them performed at their leisure and demand.

You have no natural right to “intellectual property,” because ultimately what you mean by “intellectual property” is… Another false equivalency. You are confusing private property and personal property. Intellectual property (which would be a form of private property) does not exist; all ideas which benefit humanity should be shared freely. What we are discussing is the capitalization of intellectual labor, and the moral authority over all labor belongs to the individual who executed said labor. The knowledge required to write a song, or make a clay pot has utility to humanity and should be shared freely. If I use that knowledge to actually MAKE a clay pot you are not entitled to its use simply because you also exist.

It’s a useful legal compromise, nothing more. We discovered through trial and error that providing a limited period of exclusive use of a work to an artist helps get more art made. I disagree 100%. Copyright should have only ever been used to prevent anyone other than a living creator from profiting off a unique creative work. This is why we have fair-use, and time bound public domain exceptions. Fundamentally I disagree with capitalism and commerce more broadly, but that is outside the scope of this conversation. As long as we have are operating under those models, then copyright should protect commercial use of original works until the original creator is dead, then the work should enter the public domain.

One last question looking at you profile: do you have all your woodworking plans available for free online?

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Merman_Gothique@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Well said. I only take issue with your assertion that it is a useful legal compromise. It being useful is entirely dependent upon who you are.

For someone who partakes in the shared cultural tapestry it could come to be that the legal compromise ends up an oppressive force.

For instance, if you went to clubs in the 80’s and 90’s and the music became part of your shared culture. Now you will struggle to revisit that same shared culture by those using intellectual property legalities to paywall your soul.

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- TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  When you are older you will struggle to revisit that same shared culture by those using intellectual property legalities to paywall your soul.
  
  Again, you are fully entitled and within you legal right to sing those songs to your heart’s content to relive the glory days; that does not mean that you are entitled to a high fidelity recording of the original work in perpetuity simply because you paid to listen to it once at a club…
  
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