Copyright abolition (was Re: [fc-uk-discuss] DT Articles on r ecordingcopyright extension)

[Crosbie Fitch]

> From: Tom Chance
> it puts a huge burden on people to go through the process 
> when getting access to the raw materials would be preferable.

I think this only applies to the copyright culture, with a view to having
equivalent mechanisms to the GPL that oblige publication of more convenient
source materials for works published under something like the CC-SA license.

If there is no copyright, what incentive is there to retain these things?

Alternatively, why must an artist be obliged to surrender their private
materials simply because this makes other artists' lives easier?

If I remix a load of public domain works, and publish a recording, and there
is interest/value in the materials and methods I used to make it, why should
I be forced to relinquish them for nothing rather than sell them and realise
their evident value?

Such a tit for tat deal is part of the copyright based CC-SA model.

If there is no copyright, then such a deal isn't required.

There are two kinds of free culture.
One is the gift-economy type of free culture with copyright obliging
monetary or in-kind exchange - at the point of use.
One is the independent publishing, unrestricted, no-obligation, free
culture, with any remuneration occurring prior to publication (though this
does not preclude honourable patronage subsequent to publication).

Copyright based cultures inherently exaggerate the value of source materials
- and thus counteractive mechanisms have been developed to reproduce a more
balanced and culturally positive system.

These aren't necessary in non-copyright based cultures, because the source
materials are just as likely to be published as the end-product, i.e. they
each will have similar values, whereas with copyright the unpublished source
can be 99.99% of the value.

You need the GPL in order to incentivise the publication of source code -
precisely because copyright has perversely incentivised its non-publication.
Software patents are even worse miscarriages of good intention to remedy
this.

There is no right to someone else's secrets. Patents and copyrights are
there to incentivise their publication where exclusive copying can be
CONTROLLED. Where such control is not possible there is no economic
incentive available - only repressive, unproductive restrictions.

I would argue that such control should never have been applied to works of
art in the first place, i.e. that it is anathema to free culture and
misguided if intended to promote it - notwithstanding its short term
sustainability.

You do not force people to surrender their secrets, their intellectual
property, you offer them compensation - which they should still be free to
decline. Moreover, if you support freedom you do not offer artists
illegitimate compensation such as the facility of shackling their fellows -
however much this may appeal to the less scrupulous.

With copyright, free culture was supposed to be momentarily restricted to
compensate for the printing press. Unfortunately, such restriction is now
becoming a permanent state - and as we know, free culture is suffering.