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11
AskMatrix - - (+10|-0)
What is the alternative to copyright?(self)
4 commentsbyx0x7

Is there an alternative we could do?

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[-]RickSanchez3(+2|0)

I wrote a book on Amazon Kindle without DRM; The Pirate Bay had a torrent for it, and I got more Twitter followers and emails than usual. It is sort of like the Metallica vs. Napster effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica_v._Napster,_Inc. Napster pirated their songs, made them more popular with young audiences, and led to more concerts and merchandise sales.

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[-]newJiminy4(+3|0)

Creative Commons? Or do you mean keeping people from copying something you wrote so you can make money from it?

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[-]RickSanchez2(+1|0)

If you pirate books, copyrighting your own book is hypocrisy.

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[-]chakwit2(+1|0)

It sort of depends on the context of what you're asking about. What, in your view, is wrong with copyright, and what features of it do you want in the alternative?

If you're coming from an anarcho-capitalist position, then (despite the views of Lysander Spooner, but that is an entirely different and long discussion) you almost necessarily have to take the position that intellectual property is a myth, since it depends upon the power of the state, and ancaps are against the existence of the state. (And this is more or less a slightly more genteel version of the anarchist leftist view on things.)

(I find Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David Levine to be a better, more evidence-based argument for abolishing IP laws, though even that one doesn't quite carry me to the conclusion they reach.)

(The late libertarian science fiction author J. Neil Schulman once proposed "Logoright" as a natural rights alternative to copyright, but it never went anywhere, with good reason in my view.)

If you're more in the camp of believing copyright is, as currently instantiated, overbroad and overlong, that's less a case of finding an alternative than it is of dialing the current regime back to one degree or another.

Without changing the law, there are options for creators in the form of Creative Commons and Free Culture licensing. Letting creators choose the extent of freedom they grant to their customers and fans appeals to me far more than just about anything else, and it's an option available Right Now, rather than dependent upon the whims of voters, legislators, and the judiciary.

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