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Comment by rst | Hacker News Reader

Some of them could --- Jonathan Coulton, for instance, has been making a pretty good living over the last several years on his music, all of which has been freely available on the web since he was a fairly generic techie with a guitar and a hobby. (In part from live performances, and in part because most people _will_ buy stuff that they _could_ get for free if it's the most convenient thing to do.) Likewise Randall Munroe at XKCD (with revenue from tie-ins), etc.

How many of them could is impossible to estimate. But it's also worth remembering that for everyone who made a living at the by-now traditional, exclusive rights-based approach, there were quite a few wannabes trying to "break in" or "get discovered" by the industry gatekeepers, who weren't making a living at their stuff either.

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Before copyright, people still made a living from music, books, art, etc. It was just a different model, patronage was common, the modern equivalent is probably something like kickstarter. Even under the current system, most artists don't make a living straight away, they have to gain recognition whilst doing something else before it becomes their full time job.

And this business model really isn't as alien as you might think, many industries require deposits, milestone based payment, etc.

However, despite having been corrupted by greedy entities into a parody of it's original purpose, copyright has undeniably been beneficial to western culture over the past 100 years.

I believe there will be a grand bargain at some point, where citizens will be asked how long a copyright should last for, and an agreement will be reached. "pirating" will become something that is seen as morally wrong by society (at the moment most people see it as "a bit naughty" at worst).

How long it will take for the corporations to give up on copyrights that last more than a human lifetime is difficult to say. It is surprising to me that americans are willing to put up with a system which means that the only video of martin luther kings i have a dream speech will likely never enter the public domain.

>"pirating" will become something that is seen as morally wrong by society

Quite the opposite. Society will wake up and realize that sharing information, culture and art is the farthest thing from "morally wrong". Sharing is probably one of, if not the most universally ethical action a human being can undertake. You will be hard pressed to find a culture - modern or historical - where this is not the case.

It is sickening how far the - for a lack of a more appropriate word - propaganda of the copyright industry has twisted society's most basic perception of morality, though I must applaud them for their efficiency in spreading their misguided beliefs.

It is not that we, as humanity, will one day realize that sharing - quite probably the very act that brought us this far - is something evil that needs to be stopped. We will wake up, and realize in disgust how a single industry controlled our shared heritage for almost 5 centuries, and declare that this mistake must not be repeated - that art, culture and information cannot be owned by anyone, and must be free for everyone to access, process and hand on. That will be the day we finally get rid of copyright, of patents, and other forms of nonsensical "Intellectual Property", passing on to our children how this was one of the worst mistakes in our history.

I look forward to that day, and let me say with confidence that we will one day arrive at it. You cannot suppress human nature, just as much as you cannot bring order into chaos.

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