this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Showerthoughts
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The creation can possibly have monetary value, thus the protection. How much is up to society.
This isn't a good argument for UBI.
It's a good argument because artificially constraining the supply to simulate "monetary value" destroys most of the actual value it could have by being available to everyone. The "protection" is a harmful kludge that only has to exist because we insist on making everyone measure their value with the market.
I don't think that tracks though. If we all lived in universal basic income world I don't think the idea of copyright would be given up. People would still want to be compensated for their work, universal basic income doesn't get rid of capitalism, it just gets rid of the less desirable aspects of it.
We would still have money but it would change in its nature. Instead of needing it in order to survive you would simply need it in order to improve your lot above whatever base level the theoretical society decided on. You would still need copyright to enforce your right to compensation and prevent others from taking credit for your work.
To me copyright is one of the more undesirable aspects of capitalism, for the reason I mentioned. I don't think you really have a right to prosecute people for copying, repurposing and remixing the stuff you've made just so you can personally profit, that would be just selfishness if it wasn't something of a necessary evil to make sure creators can have a way to survive.
Unfortunately, "society" doesn't control most of the value of anything. The monopolists do.
So the only really valuable kind of art is the art that can be used for speculation and money laundering.