Hello frens,
As a great opponent of any form of IP, I have been following the event of Disney’s Steamboat Willie entering the public domain with great amusement. The incidents where creators have been falsely demonetized on youtube for rightfully using this film is further underpinned by Disney’s decades-long shameless practices. The linked article sums it up quite well I think.
It’s still a valid sentiment. IP law as it is today protects established propert at the cost of both innovation and a robust public domain, which were both mission parameters of copyright as established in the Constitution of the United States. (Other nations may be more deliberately feudal with their foundational IP laws, but I don’t know.)
The public would be better served to abolish intellectual property entirely than retain the system we have, but our regulatory agencies are long captured to preserve the property rights of the wealthy, even when it harms or kills the public.
Exactly. In the end it should and will always be the consumers choice to either go with a cheap knock-of product or pay a bit extra to support the original creator. People who illegally buy cheap copies will continue to do so in the future but those who really want to see progress will spare some money to push their favourite projects.
No, IP should absolutely have some protections. Invent a hot new thing and giant-corp immediately out markets and produces you into oblivion. With zero protections innovation would be completely stamped out. Totally gone, not just harmed. No more new things because it would be immediately stolen so why bother.
That said, current IP laws are absolute BS and need to be cut back tenfold. None of this century of protection BS. For the lifetime of the creator, non-transferable. You can sell rights to use it but you cannot relinquish your ownership and creator status. Those are my hills but I’m not willing to die on them either.