Better Than Copyright
Oct. 16th, 2025 05:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unspeakablehorrorI think one big question whenever anyone like me talks about abolishing copyright is how to make sure that people who create works that would currently be placed under copyright would be compensated.
I want to first say that copyright does not exist to ensure fair compensation for creators. In the extremely unlikely situation that should happen to occur, it is, contrary to popular belief, an exception, a bizarre fluke. No, the rule is that copyright, in the vast majority of cases, serves as one of two things:
1. A lottery ticket to dangle above the poor. A way to get a larger mass of support for the laws underlying copyright besides the support of their primary beneficiaries.
2. A way for the primary beneficiaries of copyright, corporate suits who have never had an original thought in their life, to steal the rightful income of creators.
This is why I believe that copyright is worse for creators than having nothing at all.
Nevertheless, I do think there is something better than both copyright and not having any special incentives for creators. A system based on compensating digital works per copy viewed or downloaded. Note I didn't say 'bought'.
Because this system would compensate creators even if the work wasn't bought. Now, even in a system like this, some digital copies might go uncompensated. One can imagine scenarios where that would be possible. However, gone would be the days where someone else takes your work, sells it or gives it away for free, you find out, but aren't able to ever recoup that income. Instead, this system would compensate you for those works as well. At the same time, the other person would also be compensated for their advertising and distribution work. And thus, the pirate of today is tomorrow's (free to you!) advertiser and distributor.
Now, obviously, this system would require extensive logging technology. However, that technology largely already exists--activity counters and social media--it's mostly a matter then of modifying some specifics for that software and building the social and legal framework required to make a system like this work.
Any system created by humans can be changed by humans.
I want to first say that copyright does not exist to ensure fair compensation for creators. In the extremely unlikely situation that should happen to occur, it is, contrary to popular belief, an exception, a bizarre fluke. No, the rule is that copyright, in the vast majority of cases, serves as one of two things:
1. A lottery ticket to dangle above the poor. A way to get a larger mass of support for the laws underlying copyright besides the support of their primary beneficiaries.
2. A way for the primary beneficiaries of copyright, corporate suits who have never had an original thought in their life, to steal the rightful income of creators.
This is why I believe that copyright is worse for creators than having nothing at all.
Nevertheless, I do think there is something better than both copyright and not having any special incentives for creators. A system based on compensating digital works per copy viewed or downloaded. Note I didn't say 'bought'.
Because this system would compensate creators even if the work wasn't bought. Now, even in a system like this, some digital copies might go uncompensated. One can imagine scenarios where that would be possible. However, gone would be the days where someone else takes your work, sells it or gives it away for free, you find out, but aren't able to ever recoup that income. Instead, this system would compensate you for those works as well. At the same time, the other person would also be compensated for their advertising and distribution work. And thus, the pirate of today is tomorrow's (free to you!) advertiser and distributor.
Now, obviously, this system would require extensive logging technology. However, that technology largely already exists--activity counters and social media--it's mostly a matter then of modifying some specifics for that software and building the social and legal framework required to make a system like this work.
Any system created by humans can be changed by humans.