Hacker News Reader

Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Most benefits from the copyright system are accrued to large corporations

Citation fucking needed. Among those who study copyright and inequality, none suggest abandoning it [1][2].

Within the context of machine learning, one of the only pillars buttressing individuals against multi-trillion dollar corporations is copyright [3].

[1] https://journals.library.wustl.edu/lawreview/article/id/5108...

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1339714

[3] https://sfstandard.com/2023/07/10/cruise-and-waymos-24-7-san...

View on HN

To nitpick, the second article is from 1970, back then a concept such as the Amazon Antitrust Paradox [1] would cause burning at the stake in the legal field. Similarly, we also have an Elsevier Antitrust Paradox, a Nature(.com) Antitrust Paradox, and so on.

Just the fact that I cannot freely read an article published 53 years ago is beyond ludicrous. And also, if I pay JSTOR ($19.5/month) and read the 1970 article, do you think the money will go to Stephen Breyer [2], the author? No, 100% of the $19.5/month will go to Ithaka Harbors, parent company of JSTOR [3], that's where the "accrued to large corporations" lies.

[1] 2017, https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado..., Lina M. Khan is the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission since 2021.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Breyer

[3] "Ithaka's total revenue was $105 million in 2019, most of it ($79 million) from JSTOR service fees", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaka_Harbors

> the fact that I cannot freely read an article published 53 years ago is beyond ludicrous

And has as much to do with individual versus corporate power as the health of a single tree can speak for a forest.

Nobody is saying the current situation is good or even sustainable. OP just made a big claim for which there is no evidence, despite many looking for it.

"there is no evidence"

As quoted above, "Ithaka's total revenue was $105 million in 2019, most of it ($79 million) from JSTOR service fees". All those $79 million and more JSTOR has stolen from the authors. Although JSTOR should have been dissolved long before this for effectively killing Aaron Swartz. But yes, there is no justice in this world. I suppose that's my main contention, why pretend anymore, we live in a society, yada yada.

This isn’t a cogent argument. You’re identifying troubling behaviour. But it’s not being stitched into anything cohesive. Hiding bad rhetoric behind post-modernist nihilism is in vogue, but unproductive.

Not sure where you picked nihilism in my reply, referencing the "we live in a society" meme I actually smiled. Nevertheless, stopping the pretence today, painful as it is, realizing the state of the world is far from perfect, is the first step for a better tomorrow.

There is no political debate in which increasing the opposition’s nihilism is not advantageous. Nhilihism keeps people from thinking. It keeps people at home, away from voting booths. There is daylight between Panglossian utopia and dystopia. If you’re cynical, one of the most productive uses of your time might be engaging the other side and convincing them civic engagement is worthless.

Again, haven't brought up nihilism or cynicism.

Incidentally, just to give you some more to rummage about, staying away from the voting booth seems like the best thing to do and civic engagement is indeed worthless. Unless you are able to say and vote "No", effectively banning all the "sides" from political action, forcing new sides to emerge. No people will ever be free, representational democracy or not, if they can't even say "No". Not being able to say "No" is also the root of the cynicism.

I'm not sure how that has to do with abolishing copyright, when that mostly has to do with weak and skewed protections current laws offer. They're not allowed to take names off copyrighted text, which is partly why that name is still on that paywalled text. They're not effectively forbidden by law to purchase to become a corporate owner of copyright, which is how they get to paywall it in their name.

If they, in loose usage of the pronoun, were allowed to deface an art, papers, code, anything copyrighted, they will. Stripping copyright text could even become an "etiquette". Conversely, if they were not allowed to profit off of a thing, copyrighted, with appropriate enforcement, they won't. These should go without saying for core Internet users and software engineers.

I mean, haven't you heard what Oracle just said?

I never argued that copyright should be abolished, I was responding to a comment that essentially said that anyone who was opposed to copyright is doing so at the behest of large corporations at the expense of individuals, which is a really flawed and one sided way of looking at copyright laws, the first linked article you provided being a great example.

For the record, I can’t find a single large corporation pushing for the dissolution of copyright, and many clear examples of large corporations lobbying for increased copyright protections and terms. I thinks this puts the onus for providing evidence on those who would argue that corporations are completely failing to act in their own interest.

> I can’t find a single large corporation pushing for the dissolution of copyright

The defendant of every copyright infringement lawsuit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com