Reinventing Copyright

Leaving Barthes aside, many (if not most) surviving works Older Than Steam are basically a compilation of different sources and fragments of texts, mashed together into a somewhat coherent hole by critics based on other texts (for example, summaries of these works written by others), common sense, or history (for historical adaptations like The Song Of Roland or the "Cantar del Mío Cid"), so it makes no sense to attribute them to an author (as it's impossible to correctly identify that possible author, or know which parts of the "official" version are from the "original" and what was added in later versions). Another thing to keep in mind is that because every work is intertextual, a lot of the concepts that are present in one text come directly from another (So, The Aeneid, is it Virgil's creation, or just a plagiarization of Homer?). And in third place, should I decide to immerse myself in 17th century Spanish culture to try and re-create the Quixote (without ever reading the book itself), and actually pull it off (word by word), wouldn't I be justified to call myself the author of an already existing work?

edited 10th May '16 3:27:47 PM by IFwanderer

But other than that, it's an inalienable property.

That most older books are collages of even older books only makes it complicated. It is not possible to go back in time and change who wrote a book. Whether we know who that person is or not.

Also, independent invention of the same thing does not disqualify either inventor from rights to that thing. This has happened several times.

It's not.

More accurately, yes, works are made by people, but that's not relevant to anything on the text itself except for categorization (book 1 and book 2 are both written by the same person). If tomorrow someone discovered Shakespeare stole Hamlet from Marlowe it would change nothing about the text.

edited 10th May '16 4:25:55 PM by IFwanderer

Just because something's a recent invention doesn't disqualify it from being a natural right per say. Our understanding of natural rights is itself a recent invention. As for it having no effect at all: What about say, piracy? If you could watch movies on the internet with absolutely zero going to the people who made it, then how will the companies get paid?

With the Youtube copyright debate, I'd argue the problem isn't copyright itself. It's simply bad automation, and hacks abusing the copyright process. The problem is with methods, not the law itself.

I agree on that. I do not agree that copyright is a natural right, however.

The companies I don't care about, most of that money would go to the studio's bank account instead of the scriptwriters, actors, director or anyone else who could be called an author (understanding author as "involved directly in the creative process or the process of producing the movie") anyway.

Another thing, I'm not saying that someone who creates a work isn't allowed to charge for access to it, and/or to have some degree of control over how it's distributed. That's fair, as that person has invested labor in making that work. What I'm saying, is this:

1. As most creative works are actually recreative (in that they are made of things taken from works) it is not really important who made it, just that it exists and how it's received and interpreted by it's audience.
2. Because of that, there is no special rights for the person who made the work to control anything about it, except maybe if/when to share it (commercially or not).

That is at least a little off. Inventions, another type of intellectual property, are always built on earlier inventions and discoveries. There is still always original work in the invention.

A remix should confer more rights onto the author than whether or not to distribute. As there is still labour invested in it. Most noteworthy, the right to claim authorship. This is the most important right, as far as I am concerned. And the only one that cannot be given away.

I do think that once an author decides to publish, no takebacksies. I don't like the idea that a product can be withdrawn, withheld or edited after publishing.

[The Atlantic] Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria. This is a long chronicle of the Authors Guild v. Google case and why the proposed settlement eventually failed.

Now I wonder if a president could revisit that case?

Of course considering the one we have now it might be better to wait or else the Modern-day Library of Alexandria would really get torched.

Please refrain from responses that are just an image post.

I don't know that this would even be on any president's radar. Like the article pointed out, this isn't the kind of thing that gets anyone elected. AND it was a private enterprise, so at this point you'd maybe just be better off petitioning Google to take the project on again. It seems like they won that case, so maybe bug the guys who have the data in their possession into releasing it.

edited 25th Apr '17 8:50:30 PM by AceofSpades