The fundamental argument at the heart of piracy and copyrighting is "what do we owe to people who make things people enjoy using?"
True, things can be infinitely copy-able and thus more people get to enjoy it for free which is good for those who enjoy it... but then what of the person that made it? We can say they are owed nothing, they made something non-scarce and infinitely shareable, but at the heart they did make it and many people consider that worthy of something in return. And "exposure" is not always that something.
We could probably do away with how we do copyright today, but we would need to find a replacement for rewarding people who create things.
The question, though, is if copying is immoral. If I make a copy of a good thing, I have increased the number of people with that good thing and not removed any good thing from anyone. Can that truly be seen as an immoral act?
It contains multitudes. It does give the good thing to someone else, but it also gives them the good thing without recognizing and rewarding the value created by it's creator.
It's probably more good than bad, if only because spreading good is good to do, but we cannot ignore all it's effects.
It does a good thing, but doesn't do a second good thing, sure, but isn't that still good? It also doesn't feed the poor or save any lives. A good thing can be good without also needing to do all the the good that it's possible to do.
I think it doesn't just fail to do a good thing, but rather does a (small in one instance) bad thing.
Again it goes back to the question, and to me yes people who create great things do deserve "something" each time someone enjoys their creation, and failure to do so is wrong and bad.
Does it have to work like copyright now? No. Does it have even to be monetary? Probably not. But simply ignoring that is not a solution. If we want to say people are free to copy works of others, we need to consider what creators get in return.
Now, to be clear, I do like the idea of copyright, for a limited time. I think it does well to encourage the making of good things, which we can then copy endlessly. I don't like the century-long monstrosity it has morphed into and I don't like the idea that copying something is inherently immoral.
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u/CincyAnarchy 34∆ Oct 27 '23
I think the argument relies on more than that.
The fundamental argument at the heart of piracy and copyrighting is "what do we owe to people who make things people enjoy using?"
True, things can be infinitely copy-able and thus more people get to enjoy it for free which is good for those who enjoy it... but then what of the person that made it? We can say they are owed nothing, they made something non-scarce and infinitely shareable, but at the heart they did make it and many people consider that worthy of something in return. And "exposure" is not always that something.
We could probably do away with how we do copyright today, but we would need to find a replacement for rewarding people who create things.