this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 days ago

So what are the chances he means no copyright for everyone, versus that he means copyright shouldn't affect corporations?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago

Sure. Let's start with publishing and copyright.

[–] [email protected] 126 points 1 week ago (6 children)

There’s nothing stopping Dorsey from releasing all of his IP under a public license. Same with Elon who jumped on this bandwagon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

What is Dorsey's IP, exactly?

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Jack Dorsey, who owns dozens of patents, conveniently does not opt to lead the charge by cancelling them all.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] sik0fewl 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yes, now that rich people want to break the law to create AI we should just make it legal for them.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago

Yes. Because individuals stand to gain far, FAR more than corporations if IP law disappeared.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

No, this has enormous implications to break the monopolies of many companies and supply chains. Companies like Broadcom and Qualcomm only exist because of their anticompetitive IP nonsense. This is everything anyone could ever dream of for Right to Repair. It stops Nintendo's nonsense. It kills Shimano's anti competitive bicycle monopoly.

Every frivolous nonsense thing has been patented. Patents are not at all what they were intended to be. They are primary weapons of the super rich to prevent anyone from entering and competing in the market. Patents are given for the most vague nonsense so that any competitive product can be drug through years of legal nonsense just to exist. It is not about infringement of novel ideas. It is about creating an enormous cost barrier to protect profiteering from stagnation by milking every possible penny from the cheapest outdated junk.

IP is also used for things like criminal professors creating exorbitantly priced textbook scams to extort students.

All of that goes away if IP is ditched. The idea that some author has a right to profit from something for life is nonsense; the same with art. No one makes a fortune by copying others unless they are simply better artists. Your skills are your protection and those that lack the skills have no right to use their wealth to suppress others. The premise of IP is largely based on an era when access to publishing and production was extremely limited and required large investments. That is not the case any more; that is not the world we live in. Now those IP tools are used for exactly the opposite of their original purpose and suppressing art and innovation.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago (30 children)

I am hard side eyeing everyone who are pro abolishment of IP laws. You are either mindless consumers who have never spent time and effort creating anything yourselves your entire lives, or you haven't thought this through.

I hope for the latter.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (3 children)

The problem for me is that if you abolish copyrights it means your creation can be used for any reason without permission.

Maybe you don’t care if somebody downloads your music for free to listen to or uses it in their goofy TikTok dance video.

But, no copyright also means the most terrible person on the planet can use your song at their political rally. They can use it as a backing tracks for ideals you do not agree with. A major corporation can use it in their advertising campaign. They can even straight up sell your creations as their own for profit.

Without the protection of copyright, artists, authors, musicians, video content creators, etc. have no say in how their work is used.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

All you described is happening WITH copyright and even enforced by it.

https://youtu.be/ylKLIjlDEi8

Without the protection of copyright, artists, authors, musicians, video content creators, etc. have no say in how their work is used.

Copyright owner is not author. Publisher(disney, EA, Ubisoft) controls everything and author has no say in it. Often authors in order to discuss their works and show portfolios have to pirate their own work(e.g. The Owl House). So copyright protects inability of artists, authors, musicians, video content creators, etc. have no say in how their work is used.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

That's one of the least worrying aspects of abolishing copyright for me. but then again, the whole "control what others do with your creation" never sat right with me in the first place. I tend to fall into the "property is theft" line of reasoning.

With regards to profit sharing in particular, well, I think copyright law is a paltry, dirty bandage that covers up the festering wound of for-profit art. At the very least, the wound needs to be cleaned and the bandage changed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Exactly. There are so, so, so many different ways that no IP laws can backfire severely and in ways that people don't think about. The scenario you just used, I hadn't even thought of, but yes! I would HATE for something I created to be used to promote ideologies or products I am vehemently against.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

Don't care. Don't like what you created existing? Don't make it. You're using "but muh art" to prop up a system which is needlessly killing people by denying them access to information which would save their lives. Your art doesn't matter. The concept of IP is evil

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Patents are also how you kill electronic vehicles for 15 years.

I think if you said "major reform" like use it or lose it, mandatory licensing, and any other number of sane overhauls...sure, but the point is to destroy the broken system we have today.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

I've created lots of things. The moment I finish creating it, I sign over my IP rights in exchange for money for food, and never have a right to it again.

Without IP law, the thing I created would at least be in the commons where I can still legally use it.

(I agree with your point, some IP law could be better than none. But I'll assert that a total void of all IP law would be better than what we have now.

And we need to theaten to void it all, to get the current rights holders to negotiate. Frankly, I don't think they will. I think we need to void all IP law and then encourage the next generation to create some new IP law after we starve our current billionaires.)

(All this is in spite of my objection to being on the same side of any argument with Jack Dorsey. I have no illusion that his motives are pro-social.)

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How do you explain the vast wealth of free software and entertainment media created by both professionals and hobbyists alike? How do you explain the profitability of games and movies when any of us can pirate a copy with little effort? Why is it possible to sell copies of public domain books when we have libraries?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 days ago

When software and entertainment is created for people to use for free, that is a deliberate action from the creator. They can't do that every single time, but they can do it once in awhile if they please.

I am a professional artist and I sometimes draw things for free for other people because sometimes I decide it is worth it for me to do that. It is kinda like doing volunteer work. You don't get paid, but it gives you something back either socially or ideologically etc.

But I am pretty sure that the people who create free software and entertainment either aren't working full time in software or entertainment and get their money from an unrelated job or they decided to do one for the community inbetween orders. They would not do this all the time if they were financially dependent on their skills and products giving them food on the table. I don't think you would give your own services away for free all the time in the name of community spirit. But once in awhile, is fine. Then it is an agreement you made woth yourself, that you have given a work to the community for free and therefore you don't care about IP.

When it comes to games and copying, well, people have copied media for ages and no matter what you say, it does affect profitability. Musicians can't earn any money on their music. They earn money on merch and when they are on tour. Nobody buys their music anymore because they can just download it for free online. I can't speak for games as I'm not a gamer, but with movies I personally prefer to buy a physical copy of the film rather than downloading movies in poorer quality than what I would have been able to get on bluray. I don't know, but I can imagine people still buy games to get the best quality and maybe enough people want to financially support the developers to make sure that they can still produce good games than they want to make copies and share them. If games ended up being copied to the same extent thst music does, I think you would start to see an effect on the market because making games would no longer be financially possible. In fact, the gaming industry bubble did burst a few years ago and I know a lot of developers who can't find jobs. Similar in animation. And it is not like any of these creators lived good beforehand either. A profitable game, I doubt is profitable in the way you think it is. It is my personal experience from being both part of and a spectator in the industry that the success of any creation is largely smoke and mirrors. People are extremely poor and companies go bankrupt all the time, especially in recent years. Maybe part of it is because people decide to copy a game for free rather than buy it, maybe it is bigger than that, but people don't really value art nowadays because they don't see it as art, but as content that they can mindlessly consume and get easy access to. It should be easier than ever for artists to earn money with how much art people consume, but the opposite is true. If artists have their intellectual property taken from them as well in the landscape we already have, then that will be the death of the art career. We have so little already. If we can't even keep domain over our own creation, then what is the point?

I don't understand your argument about public domain books. Public domain refers to the material no longer having a living creator who can profit from their own work. People can sell public domain books but that money goes to the publisher who probably did a lovely new edition of an old book with pretty covers.

I don't know what you mean. The money from a sale of a public domain book won't financially support the author.

If we talk about a living author who owns their IP and their book is available in the library, then I still say the same thing I did before, that the library doesn't sell the books, nor do they take ownership of the IP. The book market also has other problems than public libraries. The problems they face is that no one reads anymore, but that is a different discussion.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

🏴‍☠️

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I hate agreeing with a CEO.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Don't worry, he's probably being disingenuous and likely has ulterior motives.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

Oh absolutely he's being disingenuous, but it doesn't make the idea outside of his goals wrong.

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