Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

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> "If someone's willing to buy X and X came out in the 80's, shouldn't the creator of X get a share?"

Maybe? For what reason?

I get where you're coming from - but the whole notion that the "creator should get a share" comes only because of our current understanding of IP ownership. It hasn't always been this way, and odds are it won't always be this way. It may be the norm now, but is there an objectively good reason why it ought to remain the norm?

If I wrote a smash hit song when I was 20, should I get "a share" every time someone plays it 30 years from now? 50? Should my children get a share? There certainly isn't any notion of morality, in our society and most others, that this should be the case.

Which leaves copyright as economic policy. At that point the notion of whether or not we "should" do something is entirely based on the economic benefits it generates for society. Would I create more work for the public to enjoy if the copyright term was 10 years? 20? 30?

To take this example in a different direction - should the artist of a painting get a cut when you sell the painting to someone else? They did create it after all. People are still deriving value off of it, and even willing to pay for it, so why should the creator not get a share? The notion of whether or not someone should get a cut of anything is incredibly subjective, and is more related to the mores and standards of the time rather than any objective (or even subjective) notions of fairness/justice.

I think my ideal interpretation of how IP ownership should work would be that if you -- the creator -- own the IP, you deserve a share of value derived from it. But if you no longer own it (so, if you sell the painting, so to speak), then you aren't.

The notion of whether or not someone should get a cut of anything is incredibly subjective, and is more related to the mores and standards of the time rather than any objective (or even subjective) notions of fairness/justice.

I agree. I probably should have phrased my question better than using a vague word like should, since I meant it in more of a economic sense of incentivizing valuable work than a moral sense.

> "But if you no longer own it (so, if you sell the painting, so to speak), then you aren't."

But that isn't IP. That's the creation of physical objects - and our understanding of it fairly nuanced and not very controversial. IP by definition cannot be "lost" by the creator, since it's about ideas and knowledge rather than their physical manifestations of said ideas.

A painter may "lose" a painting when they sell it, that's not the point under contention. The contention is, for example, if the painter should be compensated if the new owner replicates it and beings selling copies.

IP ownership cannot go by a "you no longer own it, it's fair game" state, because IP by definition cannot be meaningfully removed from one person and given to another.

See: music. I give you CD with my music on it - should I be compensated if you distribute copies of this music? Should I be compensated if you perform this composition on your own (i.e. a cover)? Who "owns" the music?

> IP by definition cannot be "lost" by the creator

Yes, it can. "Property" is the right to control, not the subject of the rights. IP is lost in the same way that physical property rights are lost -- I can sell physical property and retain possession of the physical object that is the subject of property rights, but still have lost the property as such.

Calling it property is considered a misnomer by many (eg http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/feb/21/intellectu... ) and in fact, in certain jurisdictions, there are certain intellectual property rights that cannot be lost by the creator ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_%28copyright_law%... ).

> Calling it property is considered a misnomer by many

Yes, and those people don't understand property.(The problem isn't their understanding of IP -- most of what they say about the nature of IP is correct; the problem is that they don't understand real property, tangible personal property, and intangible personal property other than IP, because if they did, they would understand that the contrasts they attempt to draw are specious.)

> Maybe? For what reason?

Should we reward the creation of the type of music that people will still be listening to in 30 years time more than the type of music people won't be listening to in 30 years time?

Do musicians have any control whatsoever in the longevity of their work? More specifically, will giving musicians a longer copyright term result in more music being listened to for longer?

I think that'd be a pretty specious claim. Did Jimi Hendrix set out to create multi-decade hits, did he know how to create multi-decade hits? It seems to me the longevity of particular genres of music is fairly arbitrary and hard to predict, in which case no incentives will result in their deliberate creation.

Hell, is there a particular social benefit to why a creative work - a snippet of culture from a particular time and place - needs to remain culturally relevant for decades at a time? Would that not encourage creation of work that appeals only to the lowest common denominator and avoid specific contexts that are only relevant to the creator's contemporary era?

To put into a specific example: would this cause people to create documentaries about war, instead of, say, the Iraq War? Do we not lose out if we elevate "relevant to the mass-market over 50 years" to a virtue?

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