this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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Oof is this complicated. Yes, but no.
If there is no IP then why would you bother creating or inventing?
On the other hand, Disney extended the timeline of copyrights beyond reason.
Edit: I understand not everyone needs monetary rewards to create something, however I think there are a lot of things that without the monetary reward would not exist.
Do you like video games? Everyone here seems to think we can just copy the files without any harm to anyone. But if all games were free, what sort of games would be created? If game companies stood to make no money, why would they bother with such a large production? Why would Nintendo bother being Nintendo?
It's not that video games wouldn't exist without the IP, it's that without the monetary reward there wouldn't be such a drive over such an extended period of time. But maybe we only need indie games and no one here has ever enjoyed AAA games. That's fair, if true.
Why did the No Mario's Sky creator bother creating or inventing? People created and invented far before the advent of IP. IP generally serves the purpose of consolidating Monopoly Capitalism, aka Imperialism.
For clarity, I am for abolition of all Private Property to begin with. I'm a Communist.
I’m a digital communist, at any rate. If something can be copied for free, it darn well ought to be free. Anything else is artificial and enforced by threat of violence.
Out of curiosity, under this system, how do the people writing the software get paid? Are they all dependent on donations?
Good question! The answer can be found by looking at how most of the commercial open source products are monetized. Software hosting and technical support are quite lucrative if the software is valuable.
But let’s look bigger than just software. How do content creators get paid? That’s far less tested. I expect crowdfunding to be the primary vehicle for that. It’s popular for indies, but the big boys haven’t caught up with the times yet.
This only applies to some software, though, no? Like, let's say a group of folks make a game or something, and release it as FOSS. Assuming they're not hobbyists, and this is their career, how are they covering costs and making a living on that?
Largely through sponsorships, I think, right? Sponsorships and crowdfunding, but both of those require some measure of notoriety. It's an unfortunate case where you have to spend a lot of effort doing it effectively unpaid until you get a following large enough to bring in sponsorship money or ad revenue or donations. Or you need to be a pretty woman who's willing to monetize that, that seems to have a much lower barrier to entry.