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Comment by citricsquid | Hacker News Reader

If a content creator wants to release everything they've ever created without copyright, or for free, they should absolutely have the right to do that. However a content creator should also have the right to be restrictive, to say that only people that pay $1000 for a license can access the content, or that another company can sell access in return for $1000.

    That’s good for any content creator

That's good for any content creator if they value in-discriminatory consumption, which they are under no obligation to value. A content creator should have control over their content. It should be just as acceptable for this author to want everyone to have access for free as it is for another author to want $10 for every copy.

If you love and agree with his view point, great, but so many people agree with him and then take it as far as "well this content creator is okay with it, so all content creators should be!".

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A content creator should have control over their content.

Absolutely! Up and until they decide to relinquish it by selling a copy to someone. Then that person should have control over his or her copy.

But should that control extend to the right to make further copies? If you say yes, then you've effectively eliminated the creator's control over their work, since copies are effectively free to distribute. If you say no, then you're stuck with a policy that there's no practical way to enforce.

The only way here to accept that content will be pirated but trust users to do right thing as well.

Many content creators put off users with their stupid DRM implementations. I remember buying a game for some $34 in 2008. But that game had 5 copy limit. Now I am what you can call a "regular formatter". Formatted PC twice, changed laptop and now I do not own license to that game.

Let user make copies, but trust that they won't copy them further.

But the issue here is not only the end users, but also publishers and others who could potentially make a business out of selling this authors work without paying him one cent. There is in my opinion little reason to want to get rid of ones copyright, it's better then to declare that it can be used freely without charge for non commercial use for example. Or if the intention is to sell it, simply not using any DRM schemes at all.

should that control extend to the right to make further copies?

Sure, they bought it, it's theirs. That question makes as much sense as asking if car owners should be able to give lifts with his own car.

you've effectively eliminated the creator's control over their work

No, the creator did that by relinquishing part of his work to other(s).

Sure you bought it, but what did you buy? Did you buy the rights to whatever you please with it? It depends. Say I only sell an MP3 through Amazon what are you doing? You're buying it with the following terms of use, which you agree to by the very act of forking money over for it:

2.1 Rights Granted. Upon payment for Music Content, we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Music Content only for your personal, non-commercial, entertainment use, subject to the Agreement.

2.2 Restrictions. You must comply with all applicable copyright and other laws in your use of the Music Content. Except as set forth in Section 2.1 above, you may not redistribute, transmit, assign, sell, broadcast, rent, share, lend, modify, adapt, edit, license or otherwise transfer or use the Music Content. We do not grant you any synchronization, public performance, promotional use, commercial sale, resale, reproduction or distribution rights for the Music Content. As required by our Music Content providers, Music Content is available only to customers located in the United States.

Sure, and Amazon should be able to go after the buyer for the breach of contract. The people who subsequently got a copy (and didn't know of the breach) should not be bound by it, though.

Those people would be benefitting from the original pirate's crime. Generally feigning ignorance is not enough to absolve you from the responsibility in such cases. If you buy a stolen car (even not knowing that it was stolen) the police will take it away from you and will not reimburse you, and you may be even looking at jail time.

This kind of copyright infringement is not a crime, at least not in the US, and in this hypothetical situation it wouldn't be more than a ToS violation. Comparing this to stealing is specious.

If you want to demonstrate that non-colluding third-party beneficiaries can be sued for the breach of contract of a second party, be my guest, though (I honestly don't know).

That question makes as much sense as asking if car owners should be able to give lifts with his own car.

I think that most copyright owners are interested in restricting the making of copies because selling copies is a source of revenue for them. Revenue with which they buy food, and clothes, and housing, and cars.

When food and clothes and housing and cars are all able to be freely copied just like music recordings and books and movies are, then the makers of media would likely be less interested in making sure they get paid for their work. If they need a new car, they can just copy one, for free.

I know why many copyright holders want to keep their (our, since I'm one as well) privileges. That doesn't mean I have to agree that we as society should grant it.

Is the claim that media products are inherently worthless, and time spent working on them is inherently time donated to the good of society?

It is a thing in property sale, to occasionally contain contractual obligations that force the buyer to act in a certain way (you may not cut down these trees) and additionally force the buyer to keep that obligation attached to later sales.

On the surface, I cannot think of a good reason why that should not also be able to be applied to the sale of software.

Your comment basically just says "I think copyright should exist", but it doesn't really provide any arguments for your opinion.

My own opinion is that copyright decreases total utility/well-being of society, and I disagree with the claim that copyright is required to create works of art/media. For more detailed argument why copyright is not needed I recommend the book Against Intellectual Monopoly.

Copyright is the bedrock of much of the Free and open source software I use every day so in that regard I think it's a great thing.

That doesn't mean there are not improvements to be made to its application in practice, or that copyright justifies the use of any number of unethical tools (like DRM).

I should have clarified that. I do not want everyone to do that. Just that I hate the way RIAA and MIAA take the approach to other extreme and eat a lot of money that artists should get.

If someone wants to sell for $1000, I am in. But if some middleman wants to sell it for $1000 and give $10 to creator plus restrict me from using the content the way I want, I hate that!

What if that middleman is providing value?

Despite the rise of the Internet, a bunch of new artists who were probably in diapers when Napster came out continue to sign up with those middlemen.

>However a content creator should also have the right to be restrictive, to say that only people that pay $1000 for a license can access the content, or that another company can sell access in return for $1000.

Why? That is not a right in the US the same way that free religious expression is a right. Copyright was left to Congress to define however they liked, later shaped by corporate interests and international agreements.

Regarding the morality of copyright: music, movies, books and so on are all part of our culture, and I find it reprehensible that you want to limit the sharing of our culture for 100 years at a time [1].

[1] Current copyright terms in the US are mostly life of the creator + 70 years, or 95 years for corporate works. 100 years is a conservative average.

Being entertained is not a moral right.

If someone wants to charge you a thousand bucks to watch the movie they've created it is their right to do so.

Culture drives creative works, and creative works drive culture. It's harmful to the progress of civilization to limit the use of works too severely.

That said, I can't sleep in, eat, or drive good feels, so I'd like to derive benefit from what I create, at least while I'm alive. Unless a post-scarcity world happens in my lifetime, in which case I'll offer up all my work with minimal restrictions.

> If a content creator wants to release everything they've ever created without copyright, or for free, they should absolutely have the right to do that. However a content creator should also have the right to be restrictive

Of course, the difference between these two options is that one requires a massive government bureaucracy and potentially millions of dollars of money and time spent in court.

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