Nostr Web Client

Interesting take. If you produce something I value, and you put in years of training and hours of production to make it, and then I copy and resell it… something about that feels “wrong” to me. Like I didn’t do any work (besides burning a cd) yet I earn the same per-unit profit as you did, and you poured your life’s work into the thing I am profiting from.

I feel like the argument is theoretically sound but practically unethical. Or just “a shitty thing to do” if two parties disagree on the source of morality/ethics.

hh 2y ago

Then avoid producing something that's infinitely reproduceable in and of itself, like ideas, music, content... information, in one word... if your idea is to make money out of one single instance of them.

Property rights make no sense unless you have scarcity. You can own a CD. You cannot own the infinitely reproduceable (and in almost infinite supports and formats) information it contains, whatever it is.

Plus, it's futile. People will always copy information, there is no practical way to avoid it and all the resources put into trying are wasted ones thar should be put into producing newer, more useful ideas.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

hh 2y ago

I didn't want to write a treatise here, but since I have five minutes, I will add:

In your example, you say that you put X time and effort to "produce" the specific arrangement of information that you think is original and useful and that people should pay to receive from you. But what you really did is two separate things: you "came up" with the arrangement, which resides in your brain, and THEN you "produced" a physical object supporting it, which is what you can really sell.

When the information is out of your brain, it's immediately readable by others (that's the whole point, right?), and you are accepting that anyone who can read it can possibly reverse ingeneer it, or straight out copy it. It will all depend on how reversible the arrangement is, and on which specific format you decided to put it on. It's not by pure chance that information on an electronic support (a mere sequence of binary code) is at the same time the one that allows for widest and cheapest distribution, and the easiest to copy.

If you don't want your latest novel's of your music album's "intellectual property" downloaded on a P2P torrent network, stick to reciting them orally in private closed-door sessions where you can make sure people attending cannot bring in recording devices.

boston wine 2y ago

Gm, and thanks for the thoughtful reply!

So, I think you’re not wrong in making the point that IP is unenforceable, and that it’s potentially futile to expect that people won’t copy and reproduce your work at low cost, in the absence of (potentially unethical) enforcement.

However, I don’t think you’ve made a case that it’s actually ethical to copy and resell or share the artist’s work (see OP). You’ve shown that it’s difficult to prevent, but not that it isn’t “wrong” to do.

Holding the position that an artist “shouldn’t make art with expectation of profit if it can easily be copied” sounds like another disincentive to artists making great work, not a way of “freeing them to work harder”.