This iconic mouse is weeks away fromn being in the public domain Jan. 1, 2024, is the day when ‘Steamboat Willie’ enters the public domain
I mean, IP isn’t all bad. I can’t start selling p*ss in a bottle and label it with Coca-Cola branding. I’d get sued into oblivion. In this particular case, that would be a good thing. It also means that if you find a rat in your coke, you can sue CocaCola. If there were no IP, everyone could make it and it would be almost impossible to know where it came from.
There would also be no widely distributed film, TV, music, books, etc. Do you really want to live in a world where WattPad is the engine of literature?
If you sell cheap knock-off cola and slap a Coca-Cola label on, that isn’t copyright infringement, that’s a trademark violation.
I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about how it’s ridiculous that a corporation earns money every time someone plays a song, because they bought the “rights” to that song, whose author may or may not even still be alive.
Getting rid of copy-right entirely would remove the predatory publishing industry and make art non-commercial again. Small artists will still be able to live from their art, by performing on stage or being employed (or self-employed on contract) and paid for their time while creating content.
Indie movies, games and music will still exist. Fast and Furious 12 will probably not get made. I fail to see any negative, unless you’re Disney.
I’d say that while copyright was intended to incentivise creativity and allow authors to share without suffering from rip-offs (at least it seems like it was), it evolved into something completely abominable. But that’s not the only one thing in the current state of world that did.
Games? Name five great FOSS games.
Games and other media that are labor intensive to make and trivial to copy will not exist without some form of copyright.
Live music and theater will still exist, as well as physical works like paintings and sculptures. But say goodbye to professional books, films, games, comics, and scripted television (I guess we’d go back to sports and live variety shows). No more professional journalists, nature photography, audiobooks, podcasts…
Trademark is a form of intellectual property but never mind that. Who do you think is paying for all those indie games and films?
Sure, we can talk about some major reforms, but you seem to be fine throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Linux, Firefox, LibreOffice, etc. are all labor intensive to make and trivial to copy.
People buy games on Steam they could easily pirate cause it’s more convenient.
And you could just turn AAA games into a subscription model or charge for accessing the server per hour.
Novels can be financed through donations to pay for the author’s time, or by a government grant.
Journalism lives from being the first to publish something, by the time it’s copied it’s already worthless, even in today’s model.
Science journals and text books should be financed by the state and made available for free.
My takeaway message here is: Removing copyright won’t remove the demand for media. If supply dries up because current distribution models aren’t profitable, the demand will drive other methods of monetization.
