Pluralistic: “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing” (08 Dec 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net

The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

  • Marxism-Fennekinism@lemmy.mlEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    Especially telling when it’s the corporation that owns the copyright, and not the actual artists and other workers that actually created it.

    • bane_killgrind@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Accidentally deleted my comment. Spelling…

      real purpose of copyright

      To separate the worker from owning the means of production?

    • jasondj@ttrpg.networkEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I mean, at the low level, sure. “Bart Simpson”, the concept, was created by a person. Bart Simpson, the character, was developed and built as a collaborative effort of several people spanning the course of decades, and continues to be developed by teams of people.

      The copyright shouldn’t belong to an individual. The rights to the intellectual property need to be protected, but so too do the rights of everyone who contributed to building it.

      Unfortunately, corporations are really the closest proxy we really have.

      Thats what’s really exciting about new media, and small time collaborators, and niche content. HomeStar Runner doesn’t belong to Disney, or Fox, or Viacom. He belongs to the small group of people who created him and his friends. The same could be said for Kurzgesagt, or The Lockpicking Lawyer, or both the Nostalgia and Angry Video Game nerds.

      • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        The corporations exist to extract as much ownership as possible from the creative class, it is not a proxy ownership by those doing the collaborative work. See the recent WGA strike as an example. Unions and co-ops are the proxies, not corporations.

      • Venia Silente@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Unfortunately, corporations are really the closest proxy we really have.

        [citation needed]

        The closest thing we have to “representation proxy to a community of people who helped author a thing” is an author’s guild, for example. And things like the Writers’ Guild already exist, I’m sure there’s a Drawers’ Guild too. Not as close, but more solidly defined, would be a union, oh guess what? We have those, too.

        In comparison, a “corporation” has a whole lotta fat.

        Corporations don’t need you to shill for them.

        • jasondj@ttrpg.networkEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I think my point is getting lost in the one pro-corporate part of it…the corporation is responsible for nearly all of the risk, and that investment is what ultimately creates the content. They absolutely do deserve some stake in its IP, just not necessarily nearly as much as they currently have.

          This is why I love new media. Low enough startup costs that small individuals and small groups could easily creat and own their own content and IP. It’s really the big investments that complicate everything.

          It used to be necessary to sell your soul to the establishment to get your content in front of a large audience, but it’s not anymore.

          And don’t get me wrong, it’s only in this specific context and conversation that I would call Google the good guys, or at least the lesser of two evils. Obviously context matters.