> Unless you know a bevy of small creators now living in mansions in Beverly Hills?
Per a google search, it seems that mainly very famous actors, actresses, and generally people who've contributed significantly to our culture live in Beverly Hills. The google results are definitely biased towards celebrities, but Beverly Hills seems to be a very odd example to choose when trying to point out how copyright isn't helping creators. It's natural to expect some proportionality between a creator's audience and the profit the can make monetizing their work.
The story goes that many people in the creative professions earn very little or even can't make ends meet; thus mansions in Beverly Hills are only available to the few.
I've heard of the trope of the "starving artist", but mainly in the context of the art world Vincent Van Gogh and his contemporaries lived in. I do not have any data to corroborate it as a true representation of any significant population that exists in reality today.
Can you point to examples of any small creators who would be better off if they had no legal copyright over their works?
I think the site rules do imply you're not supposed to go for the straw man argument that ends a debate, but rather for the steel-man argument that stimulates further curious conversation.
So let's go for that then... :
People often build on each other's work. Can you imagine situations where people can take inspiration from each other a whole lot earlier, or are allowed to borrow ideas sooner and more often?
This does happen in eg. open source and open content. More traditionally, scientists also reference each other's papers. Sometimes there's also times like eg. when sampling first became popular: this lead to a period of creative bloom in music.
People can't copyright a style or a vibe or inspiration, so it's not steelmanning to jump from
* "Can you point to examples of any small creators who would be better off if they had no legal copyright over their works?"
to
* "People often build on each other's work. Can you imagine situations where people can take inspiration from each other a whole lot earlier, or are allowed to borrow ideas sooner and more often?",
it's just completely removing the concept of "copyright" from the question entirely and attempting to inject the false premise that "violating a creator's copyright is the same as sparking inspiration in someone else or citing a paper" (which is, itself, a straw man).
Your points are made from a very idealistic place, but not rooted in reality. If I steal your car and tell you that I'm just "building on your work" to better my life, are you going to feel the same?
For ideals not rooted in reality, it seems to have paid the bills ok so far. (knock on wood).
Now, I have to take you seriously because the site rules say so. So I will! But I haven't heard a "stealing a car" analogy since last century, so I may be rusty. And maybe you're taking this in a novel direction? Let's see!
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So a trick people did to me in the late '90s was to redefine "to steal" and not tell me. Sorry, but I do have to check for a minute!
In the case where you have allegedly stolen my car: can I walk out of the house next morning half asleep, put my keys in the ignition, and drive the <stolen> car to $customer without noticing much?
If so, then you have redefined "stealing" beyond my Overton Window and I shall be forced to make rude noises at you.
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Otherwise: obviously I want to be able to drive my car. Depriving me of my property is bad. Where do you want to go with this?
edit/note: possibly I'm misremembering and people were still using the "you wouldn't steal a car" argument in the very early 2000s?
And yet, MPAA seriously made an advertising campaign that equated copying to stealing [1] . This obviously didn't go down well. (eg: [2] ). It sounded a bit like what you were saying, hence the odd response you got.
Of course in in reality, copying isn't stealing. If you could somehow copy my car, I'd still have my car, so you wouldn't be depriving me of anything.
In general, people collaborating and building and iterating on each other's work is normally considered a good thing. Originally copyright had fairly short terms to facilitate this, but over time the original aims of copyright seem to have drifted somewhat.
Anyway, I'm still left mostly guessing where you're trying to go with your 'If I steal your car and tell you that I'm just "building on your work" to better my life, are you going to feel the same?' comment. Could you elucidate?
Per a google search, it seems that mainly very famous actors, actresses, and generally people who've contributed significantly to our culture live in Beverly Hills. The google results are definitely biased towards celebrities, but Beverly Hills seems to be a very odd example to choose when trying to point out how copyright isn't helping creators. It's natural to expect some proportionality between a creator's audience and the profit the can make monetizing their work.