this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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Death to IP.
Capitalist "innovation" in a nutshell.
Oof is this complicated. Yes, but no.
If there is no IP then why would you bother creating or inventing?
On the other hand, Disney extended the timeline of copyrights beyond reason.
Edit: I understand not everyone needs monetary rewards to create something, however I think there are a lot of things that without the monetary reward would not exist.
Do you like video games? Everyone here seems to think we can just copy the files without any harm to anyone. But if all games were free, what sort of games would be created? If game companies stood to make no money, why would they bother with such a large production? Why would Nintendo bother being Nintendo?
It's not that video games wouldn't exist without the IP, it's that without the monetary reward there wouldn't be such a drive over such an extended period of time. But maybe we only need indie games and no one here has ever enjoyed AAA games. That's fair, if true.
Why did the No Mario's Sky creator bother creating or inventing? People created and invented far before the advent of IP. IP generally serves the purpose of consolidating Monopoly Capitalism, aka Imperialism.
For clarity, I am for abolition of all Private Property to begin with. I'm a Communist.
I’m a digital communist, at any rate. If something can be copied for free, it darn well ought to be free. Anything else is artificial and enforced by threat of violence.
Out of curiosity, under this system, how do the people writing the software get paid? Are they all dependent on donations?
Good question! The answer can be found by looking at how most of the commercial open source products are monetized. Software hosting and technical support are quite lucrative if the software is valuable.
But let’s look bigger than just software. How do content creators get paid? That’s far less tested. I expect crowdfunding to be the primary vehicle for that. It’s popular for indies, but the big boys haven’t caught up with the times yet.
This only applies to some software, though, no? Like, let's say a group of folks make a game or something, and release it as FOSS. Assuming they're not hobbyists, and this is their career, how are they covering costs and making a living on that?
Largely through sponsorships, I think, right? Sponsorships and crowdfunding, but both of those require some measure of notoriety. It's an unfortunate case where you have to spend a lot of effort doing it effectively unpaid until you get a following large enough to bring in sponsorship money or ad revenue or donations. Or you need to be a pretty woman who's willing to monetize that, that seems to have a much lower barrier to entry.
I would hope most people on Lemmy have at least that stance, haha.
Still, you should check out full Communist theory.
Indeed! My personal political alignment does in fact incorporate much of communism.
Come join us on lemmygrad!
What are your thoughts on the headline: People No Longer Think Working Hard Leads To Better Life?
Is this just the natural state of things then?
I interpret the headline as workers losing faith in the "bootstraps" illusion, hard work isn't rewarded, Capital Ownership and accumulation is. Wages are largely tied to subsistence + reproduction levels, which is why real wages haven't kept up with productivity.
As for this being the "natural state of things," yes and no. It's one link in a long chain of development, after Capitalism will come Socialism, just as Capitalism was born from Feudalism, and eventually Communism will be born out of Socialism. It's natural only insofar as it plays a role in historical development, it isn't a default state nor an end state.
Our system is "capitalism", not "workerism". The owners of capital solely decide how the fruits of productivity are split, and wouldn't you know it they decided that it should all go to themselves.
But at least you are entitled to the sweat of your brow. Until your boss finds a way to extract that, too.
The world is full of creatives who make things without any expectation of income, but people create anyways. Look at open source software, or the many youtubers who don’t get enough views to get paid yet they post anyways. There’s quite a few journalists who operate solely on optional donations.
Fuck IP. Copyright is theft. IP kills.
I'm a games industry professional. I would continue to do this work as an unpaid job if my basic needs were met on a societal level.
You think you're asking a neutral question, but you're not. Companies operating within capitalism will behave in the interests of capitalists. IP laws aren't required for the AAA studios other than to domineer control over an idea. A game like Call of Duty is a titan made by 1000s of professionals. One of those games gets launched every year. By shear force of momentum, there are very few companies that could ever replicate it in any fashion.
Now imagine if COD was made by a company in which IP didn't exist, all the profits went to the workers rather than shareholders, and that the workers have a say in the launch schedule. Would you be willing to pay for a game in that instance?
I don't follow. How would no IP give more money to the workers? How would no IP change how the company was run?
I'm not arguing IP here, I just seems to me that you are mixing two different things. You can have a employee owned company and still have IP.
Or am I missing something obvious?
More people would be able to innovate on said "non IP". Multiple lines could be developed by multiple independent teams, extending the non ip however they see fit. By encouraging competition, the better content would thrive.
It lowers the barrier of entry, enforcing competition and lowering distribution cost. And without the ludicrous profit margins and legal overhead from big conglomerates, it would be cheaper for the consumers, and more of the fees could be distributed to the actual people working on the creation.
This is prettyranty, sorry if it's not too clearly articulated.
I think their point is that if the people making the games were given fair compensation that they would be more willing to sacrifice IP rights.
I don't see what makes them think that other than their own personal feelings on the matter, but I think that's the message.
That couldn't have been the point.
Companies use (read: abuse) IP to keep an artificial, government-sanctioned monopoly they use to extract money from users. Add to that skins, microtransactions, lootboxes, yearly releases and all the other vilest shit you can find in a modern videogame and you'll see it isn't about the studio staying afloat - it's abuit the publisher raking in the $$$.
People who are creatives take it as a point of pride when their work is spread, remade and remixed. What they do not like is if that remaking and remixing is done by a soulless company in the vilest and most soulless way to generate profits. Oh, and except for thise with the best deals, IP stays with the company.
It's not about cratives "not being paid enough" so they need IP protection - it's the very same companies whose IP is protected who don't pay their workers enough. IP doesn't bring money to workers directly nor does it protect workers from anything since again - the IPs are owned by the studio/publisher.
Call it "personal feelings", but it's how the world works.
I'm trying to reframe the point of the discussion, which is about IP. Nitpicking the example is counterproductive, because it's absurd to assume that no one would ever pay for a piece of software.
What's stopping you from doing this now? Seems like it would be naturally the place that industry professionals would flock to and would see dramatic success.
Because I don't have the capital, and jumping into forming a large worker cooperative is incredibly risky. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to, but I've found my niche and it's organizing unions within the tech industry.
you posted this on a open source platform that someone bothered to create.
This is why there were nothing created or invented before 1710.
This has always struck me as a dumb argument. Before "intellectual property" innovation was just technological advancement. Patenting is just enabling punishment against actual innovators. I am a welder. I make things. If I set out to make a stove, I don't give a shit who patented what fuel distribution system or air intake methodology, I'm gonna make a damn stove. The entire concept of being able to exclusively "own" a design or concept is reductive to human learning as a whole.
There's a reasonable version of IP laws we could have. Imagine if copyright lasted five years. Thats plenty of time to try and turn a profit. Would a fan made sequel to 2019's Pokémon: Detective Pikachu really detract money from the creators of the original at this point? If there was a fan made sequel today and also an "official" sequel, would the fan sequel stop people from seeing the official one? No. It just gives people more freedom to actually vote with their dollar on the better made one. The laws we have today around IP are just corporations being greedy and paranoid that they wouldn't actually be able to compete with "unofficial" sequels and reboots. It's cowardice.
People would. Companies, not so much.
Welcome to 1,000 games of minesweeper/tetris/flappybird! With, maybe, two or three more advanced games like Thrive or Endless Sky.
There should be a balance. The way things are now, and have been, is simply not balanced.
What do you mean a "balance?" Why is a balance itself a good thing?
There should be a spot between "everybody can use and claim any idea as their own and make money off of it" and "corporations with virtually limitless resources control all IP and no matter how small or innocuous a use of that IP is, they are the arbiters of copyright, trademarks, etc". How is this controversial?
Why is the spot in between those correct?
Yeah I'm not doing this lol
What is the value of IP?