Re: @anyone care to argue that the people do benefit from eternal copyright on Mickey Mouse
Well, that’s two bullshit-o-meters that need replacing thanks to this thread alone. You guys are making this article unprofitable. Do you know how much science I have to read to reset that thing?
Okay, listen, let me break this all down for you. Let’s have an honest discussion here: man to piranha.
I consider myself to be “a creator.” I have reached the point in my life where I am now reliant upon income from the articles I write, the advertising copy I edit and so forth to make ends meet. I am in the process of writing a science fiction trilogy; one I intend to self-publish on Kobo and I am sincerely hoping will sell enough copies at some low amount ($3.99 a book?) to pay for the creation of the next one.
I have planned a significant % of my future around being a creative, reliant upon copyright as an exit from the world of systems administration. (The stress is literally killing me.) So I believe that I have a right to weigh in on this topic from the standpoint of someone other than “just an observer.”
At the end of the day, Big Content is bad – terrible – for people like me. They are quite frankly the enemy. They are not a vehicle for support, they are not a vehicle for reimbursement. They are a massive cabal of extremely well resources business dedicated to ensuring that I see as little money from my own efforts as possible.
I am not talking here about simply taking the lion’s share of any works they publish whilst passing a bent pittance on to the actual creators. I am talking about their attempts to have all orphaned works slurped up and assigned to their incestuous little publishing cartels. I am talking about actively raising barriers to entry for creatives who are unaffiliated with them.
I am talking about the outright economic warfare they perpetuate on the anyone who doesn’t work for them combined with the blatant treatment of those who do work for them as little more than indentured chattle.
The extant copyright cartels – the copyright holders – are businesses I consider to be unbelievably damaging to the livelihoods of any creators. They lobby to restrict and remove rights from creators in order to assign it to “copyright holders.” They then lobby to have the bulk of those rights assigned to “collection societies” and other tentacles of the cartel, instead of individuals.
They are a pestilence; a pox on society, the ruination of any and all (except the chosen few, ordained by the cartels themselves) who seek to create content at all. A pox on all their houses.
But it makes perfect sense for Big Content to act this way.
You see, Big Content is winning the war of perpetual copyright. That means they don’t need an injection of new material anymore. They have enough content in their grubby mitts to last the next two centuries. And new content will perpetually be assigned to them as “orphaned works” are brought within their grasp…not that of society at large.
Now, consider Google. (Yes, I looked through the viel and saw who you were referring to.) Google wants to murder the copyright cartels in the face with a bag of angry, rocket-powered weasles. Hurray! I support this on general principle.
Do they want to completely strip content creators of rights? No.
But…but…Big Content tells us that they do! Well, bullshit. Google has no interest in stripping creators of their rights. They do have designs on that very same pool of “orphaned works” though. They want orphaned works released to society at large. (So that anyone, anywhere can benefit from it. But especially Google.)
I am actually okay with this. Morally, ethically…pragmatically. If some of my works go missing, and they cannot find me or my heirs…I want those works available to the rest of society. I create not for the profit, but because I want my works to be consumed by people; that they may find some part of me in them and I may perhaps be remembered.
What’s more; I continually find Google promoting rights for creators to the detriment of rights for copyright holding corporations. Google seems to like the idea of lots and lots of individual creators all creating new things and competing against eachother.
This is likely because it reduces the ability of creators to collectively bargain, but again, I’m okay with that. We have 250 years of learning to deal with that problem; we can go it alone without having to surrender our works – indeed our futures – to the likes of Big Content.
Big Content needs as little competition as possible. They must control all new works, or prevent them from being created. If they can’t prevent creation, they need to acquire control or at the very least prevent those new works from becoming popular. This is fundamental to their business model.
Google doesn’t need to control content at all. Google needs to eliminate powerful copyright cartels that can drive up the cost of licensing to levels which it – and by extension consumers – cannot afford. What Google does need is as much new content – from as many diverse creators as possible – to advertise against.
It needs new content because this is what the people demand. It needs content from diverse creators so it can keep prices low. And it needs to ensure that creators get paid so they keep churning out the new content.
So neither side is really going to maximize the profits I receive from my creative endeavors if they win. But Google will ensure that I have a much better chance at retaining control of my own works while I am alive and getting paid for them than Big Content can provide me.
More to the point; what I do get paid will probably be more under daddy Google than it will be under Big Content. Unless I am stupid enough to still believe in the fairy tale that Big Content will pick me to be the next superstar. (Bullshit.)
Google needs me. Big Content doesn’t. Google wants my works to be made available for the benefit of society if at any point I cannot be found to assert my claims over my works. Big Content wants my works locked away from the world unless they control those works.
Google is the future for creatives. They aren’t the greatest. They aren’t “in it for us.” But their vision of the world is far more closely aligned with mine than that of Big Content. And with Google at the helm, at least I stand a chance of getting paid.
Now, I'm off to watch some Geek and Sundry; an Internet TV channel made possible by Google; check it out here: Geek and Sundry.