Google TechTalks
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2016–2021
54:58 · 19K views · Oct 9, 2007
Karl Fogel's 2006 Google Tech Talk traces copyright from a 16th-century English censorship law to a distribution monopoly. It then surveys alternative economic bases for creation and distribution.
HN uses it as the go-to history of copyright, arguing it was a gatekeeping tool and that creators don't need it.
5 comments from Hacker News
>>but that's all it is, a justification. And in my opinion, that justification results in less original content. Given that more content from more people is being created today that at any point in human history runs counter to your statement Copyright is about protecting the Gatekeepers, the Movies Studios, the Music Labels, the Book Publisher, not about protecting creators. Karl Fogel does a great job explaining the History of copyright and why is it not needed to protect creators this video >> it's our own propensity to not respect the rights of the creator which has encouraged the adoption of DRM. I do not recognize them as rights. Copyright is a Positive Right created by government. I am a supporter of Negative Rights theory and do not support any Positive rights at all >>The rest of your argument centers on DRM; it is not just about DRM,DRM is how they attempt to force my property to disobey my commands, it is also about the law the DRM is attempting to enforce on my machine
>>Copyright limitations are a reasonable thing for society to extend to content producers. No they really are not, and have never been Copyright, historically, is a tool for Information Gatekeeping, censorship, and profiteering. Not one of benfiting the Creators of content See the Talk on the History of Copyright this video We see this every day in the modern era where copyright is used to censor critics, prevent research (especially security research), and prevents more content from being created by locking up ideas for over a century Copyright is a Negative for Society, and for Creators
Why would any fan of someones work buy a knock-off copy? We can safely assume they are a fan, otherwise why would even buy it? Also, painting is a physical object. It's a one of a kind. EDIT: your objection and many many other questions like that are nicely argued against here: this video (The Surprising History of Copyright talk by Karl Fogel)
>>It only creates a monopoly for other's books. That is far from "all it does", YouTube is a prime example of the suppression forces inherent in copy right law, and the amount of abuse that occurs chilling speech and public participation >>You really should consider the other part of the equation. Authors need to eat. No I really should not. That is not the goal nor desire of copyright law. profit is not the reason copyright was added as a constitutional power of the US Government nor should that be the metric for which we judge the effectiveness of copyright law >. They can only eat if publishers pay them. Again this is incorrect, and becomes more incorrect as time goes on. Through Copyright publishers act as gate keepers which prohibits new an innovative ways of funding creative works beyond the traditional copyright model Copyright from its inception has had a questionable [1][2] history even when looked at from the creators point of view > No "monopoly" means no paid authors There is nothing further form the truth than a statement that absence copyright all creative work would cease. OpenSource software, Open Documentation Projects, and the huge amount of Free Culture works fly in the face of that statement. Further it is provable and self evidently false that publishers and traditional publishing models are the only or even best method to fund creative works in the 21st century [1] [LINK] [2] this video
>> The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce creative works False, the purpose, and only reason for copy right is to promote the useful sciences, all other reasons are UnConstitutional (from a US Stand point anyway) The Surprising History of Copyright: this video [LINK]