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Comment by berrynice | Hacker News Reader

When do we get to the point where people start acknowledging how insane the entire concept of copyright is.

Copyright is necessary and isn’t the problem here. What is the problem is Youtube’s refusal to require any verification when a copyright claim is made. YouTube has essentially created a society that doesn’t abide by due process because it’s a virtual society and therefore isn’t required to follow the same laws that physical societies are held to. This is a symptom of a much more dangerous problem - as we exist more and more in the online world, we are subject to whatever contrived laws the owners of that world decide to create. Those laws have serious fallout in the real world, like complete loss of income due to bogus copyright claims.

The DMCA law itself says the host can't require any such verification, and if YT started requiring it for ContentID, the complainers could just start sending regular DMCA takedowns.

which is better, because regular DMCA claims comes with a legal repercussion risk - you cannot file a false DMCA claim without punishment from the law.

But youtube contentID claim is not DMCA, and has no punishment attached for a wrong claim.

As ryani points out in another comment[1], the punishable part is so narrow as to be irrelevant. Which is why nobody ever was punished for that.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19955838

I reject the notion that copyright is necessary, what's necessary is my personal ability to use my devices without random companies being able to use the state to punish me for using an abstract concept that may or may not resemble one that they at some point also used. If you would like to make money from your art there are options such as commisions, but the onus is on you to find a business model that works, it is not for the government to be creating artificial monopolies to facilitate a business model that is incompatible with reality.

Copyright is enshrined in law. You don’t get the choice of picking and choosing to abide by it or not. The artificial monopolies (they’re not artificial btw) are guaranteed by those laws.

Should an artist want to not register copyright for their works, they are 100% free to do so.

They won’t make any money, but that’s their choice.

You may not agree with the system, but it’s the law.

In this single case, this is actually the system working as it should.

https://twitter.com/roomieofficial/status/113018091135248793...

The copyright concept is fine. Creators should enjoy the ownership of the products of their labor.

The problem is with the youtube's implementation. There are no negative effects for the large players who falsely claim copyright.

Which has nothing to do with copyright the concept but our particular current implementation of it.

> The problem is with the youtube's implementation

it is not.. it is with the existing laws

Our laws are the implementation of copyright I’m talking about and are distinct from the concept of copyright.

I understand that but I was not replying to you initially... we were talking about youtube's implementation of copyright law

Also communism is fine, a few failed implementations don't prove the opposite.

Socialism is doing quiet well in Europe and seem to provides a much better standard of living for the average person than America's capitalism implementation.

I wouldn't call that a socialism.

You're not going to see any other implementation any time soon.

Isn’t that an implementation detail?

not really, if your implementation has to comply with laws... more like an implementation requirement

"Creators should enjoy the ownership of the products of their labor."

The basic issue some are concerned with is that "ownership" of intellectual property gives people or entities rights that infringe on regular property rights. There's an inherent conflict, so you can't just maximize both at once.

How it’s implemented in current law is though. And it’s getting worse. That’s the problem, not copyright itself.

hopefully never as the concept is sound.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com