this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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No, we absolutely do not need tougher laws, we already have ridiculously tough laws.
The problem is that people can not and probably will never agree on what is actually copyrighteable. And if you look into the respective laws you’ll always find rubber words, like „elements of originality“, in Germany it’s „threshold of creation“.
I pointed out two cases in some other comment here, but here are two more:
European newspaper publishers (lead, of course, by the Germans) established a EU law that it’s infringing their copyright if you take a snippet of a news article, even if you directly link to the newspaper in question. They were salty about google doing that, so they made it a law. Then google said, „well fuck off“ and threw them out. I don’t know what the current status is, I think the publishers realized they fucked up and now everybody acts like nothing happened or something.
Or: there’s a legal dispute going on between the German hip-hop producer Moses Pelham and the band Kraftwerk, about a 2 second (!) Kraftwerk sample Pelham used in 1997 (!). This thing ended up IIRC five times in front of Germany’s highest civil court, once in front of Germany’s constitutional court (freedom of art, you know), and a few years ago it was handed to the EU court, which handed it back and the last thing I heard is that they need to bring it to the EU court again because they still have questions… And all of this revolves mainly around the question „when is it okay to sample someone else’s work?“. For 25 years courts are trying to find a definition, and every decision is full of ridiculous money quotes.
Edit: I guess it has long passed the point of being a legal dispute, it’s become more like an extremely elaborate discussion of platonic idealism or something.
So, no, I disagree, we need less laws. And we can do that. Take science: yeah, we have creator’s right, but it’s treated as a moral failure to outright plagiarise someone without attribution, and you will lose your „scientist“ badge. Other than that reusing other people’s work is not just okay but a fundamental principle of science, you know, „standing on the shoulders of giants“, like that.
We could treat art the same, yet somehow we don’t.
The science industry is filled with patents and the inability to commercially reproduce works. The fundamental difference is how art is paid for as a product and science is licensed under patents to companies. Would you rather have a system where you could draw with pink but you need to pay the pink patent license holder?
Also, I am saying stronger copyright laws for the humans creating the works. I'd argue extremely strong copyrights would be those which do not allow a corporation to actively hold copyright but instead licenses to redistribute from individuals.
Ah, patents, finally someone opens the next pandora’s box… 😅
Well, that’s a bit what someone else tried to argue with the idea vs implementation of an idea argument.
But it’s different here, you cannot have a patent on „science“. You cannot patent the theory of relativity or Newton‘s laws of motion.
What you can patent is a product or a process or a technology which uses science, so you can have a patent on some gps technology which uses Einstein‘s work. Nobody gave old Albert a dime for using his theory though (okay he was also already dead).
But how would you like to transfer that to music? Do you want to patent the performance but the composition (the science) can be „quoted“ by anyone? Not sure where you’re going with this.
And btw you are already paying someone to be able to use the colour pink. You cannot patent the colour itself, but you can patent the product and the process. Producing reliable colours is an industry, they’re not for free.
Edit: we also have many, many areas in science where creating a patent based on the results is not the motivation nor expected because in many areas it’s not even a possibility.
The core of my argument is that art is a product, and science is funded through the ability to market it. Ideas aren't patentable but science is not just "ideas". Science doesn't mean anything unless you apply it. Applied Science is implementations that are patentable. It's why concepts like game mechanics are patentable.
Art fundamentally makes money differently than science does. This is why things like scientists freely offer papers describing studies and research while making money off of implementations of that research. In digital art, colors are free. The issue is then the monitors and display of that color change depending on implementation. That implementation isn't free. Color systems in digital art are the like the research side of science where the implementation of it is a copyrighted artwork. The applied art created a product just like the science side. They both work the same.
Yeah, that’s just plain wrong. Science isn’t just engineering, you know. Again, outside of the actual „applied sciences“ (engineering, pharmaceuticals, etc) rarely anyone produces something that can be marketed, and even if so, it’s by chance. Einstein did not develop his theory of relativity to „market it“. Many areas are only producing results to further our understanding of the world, and we as a society pay them to do so.
Yeah, how much did Einstein make when writing the paper on special relativity?
I thought science is funded by the ability to market it, what is it now, make up your mind 🤪
Einstein had a job at a Federal Department. Which is unusual, as a matter of fact (so be free take someone else if you like as an example), because – I don’t know if you have heard about this – usually science happens at something called a university. Which is payed by something called taxes.
And now please go and waste someone else‘s time, clown