this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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I think it's a conflation of the ideas of what copyright should be and actually is. I don't tend to see many people who believe copyright should be abolished in its entirety, and if people write a book or a song they should have some kind of control over that work. But there's a lot of contention over the fact that copyright as it exists now is a bit of a farce, constantly traded and sold and lasting an aeon after the person who created the original work dies.
It seems fairly morally constant to think that something old and part of the zeitgeist should not be under copyright, but that the system needs an overhaul when companies are using your live journal to make a robot call center.
Lemmy seems left-wing on economics in other threads. But on AI, it's private property all the way, without regard for the consequences on society. The view on intellectual property is that of Ayn Rand. Economically, it does not get further to the right than that.
My interpretation is that people go by gut feeling and never think of the consequences. The question is, why does their gut give them a far-right answer? One answer is that somehow our culture, at present, fosters such reactions; that it is the zeitgeist. If that's the truth (and this reflects a wider trend) then inequality will continue to increase as a result of voter's demands.
Yeah I think that this is showing a lot of people only really care about espousing anti-privatization ideas as long as it suits their personal interests and as long as they feel they have more to gain than to lose. People are selfish, and a lot of progressive, or really any kind of passionate rhetoric is often conveniently self-serving and emotionally driven, rather than truly principled.
You're not wrong but how many people here are actually pursuing their own personal interest. Most people here are probably wage-earners. Yet so many people support giving more money to property owners without any kind of requirement or incentive for work. Just a rent for property owners. It feels like this should be met with knee-jerk rejection.
I'm not sure what you're referring to as a far-right position?
The first is very pro-corporation in one way, but can lead to an argument for all intellectual works to be public domain.
The second is pro-mega-rights-owners, but also allows someone to write a story, publish it themselves, and make money without having it stolen from them.
Fair use has always been a thing in the US.
The US constitutions allows congress to limit the freedom of the press with these words: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
This has no room for fuck you, I got mine. Framing the abolition of fair use as enforcing copyright is an absolute lie.
The view of copyright as some sort of absolute property right that can be exercised against the public is a far right position. (I'd argue that's true for all property rights but that's a different subject.) What makes it far right is that it implies unfettered, heritable power for a small elite. Saying that everyone has an equal right to property, as such, is so inane that it is worthy only of ridicule. The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
The NYT is suing for money. It owns the copyright to all those articles published in the last century; all already paid. Every cent licensing fee is pure profit for the owners; beautiful shareholder value. Benefit to society? Zero. But you have to enforce copyright. It's property! You wouldn't want some corporation to steal the cardboard boxes of the homeless.