disfit

Copyright is awarded to 'professional' creators. Yet even a like (upvote, retweet, whatever) by a regular user might be considered the result of a creative process. But even if a singular click might not be considered as something that falls under copyright protection, at the very least an original post, tweet, photo, meme or any other expression should be. Yet every piece of legislation I have seen only recognizes the professional creation as falling under copyright. Most if not all social media, and even bog standard old media , thrives on the creation and proliferation of non-professional content. In my mind the regular non-professional user is therefor supplying most of the original content an/or is responsible for the proliferation of non-professional content of others while not being rewarded for this. At the same time the regular user is paying for the right to create and distribute original (personal) content by supplying (social) media with their data and their behavior which is used to generate advertising income at huge but hidden (privacy) costs.

I have wondered if recognition of this non-professional / personal content as copyrighted content would create a situation that creates a better equilibrium between the user and the platforms (and the professional content creators). Experiments (for lack of a better word) like the Brave browser and its Basic Attention Token seem to me to be a possible commercial or market-based solution to this uneven playing field.

On the other hand I would be very much in favor of a more lax copyright legislation, or maybe better a return to its original goal: a limited time of recovery, monopolistic profitability and/or personal recompense after which the content (or work) would fall into public domain.

This is different from most software that is now protected under copyright or patent. This material is being treated wrongly (in my eyes) as a either an original copyrighted work or an original and unique (and therefor pateneted) solution.

I am not the first, but maybe the second, to state that writing of source code can be seen as an art and is the result of a creative process. One that I can be in awe with, admire and see as a thing of beauty or aesthetically pleasing. But those cases are rare. But most programming and most programmers do not excel into that realm. Nor is their work a unique and new (business) solution to a (new or old) problem. So I have long doubted the special distinction software gets.

With the rise of Machine Learning (Deep Learning, Neural Networks, or any other term of the day), there is more and more unique coding being preformed and taken into production every day. And even though this might lead to code and a solution that is unique, we do not give a copyright or patent to the ML system that created it, but to the owner of the originating algorithms and the user data that they can freely use without any recompense.

I am fully supporting EFF's efforts regarding the DMCA and the call to protest the past and upcoming EU copyright legislation. But I wonder if this will be enough to counter the decades long misuse and strengthening of bad legislation and jurisprudence by the now seemingly unbeatable oligarchies, duopolies and/or monopolies.

It feels to me that more people are more easily a consumer of something new and better (or alas perceived as better), than a protester of something old and bad.

What would be more effective in your eyes: a change of regulations / laws or the re-interpretation of the existing regulations and laws via jurisprudence? Or would a commercial or market alternative be more successful?

Alternatively: what would you suggest people that want to make a difference put their energy towards? Change of business or change of politics?

Many thanks and all the best :-)

I just got home from work, and am expected at the dinner table, so brain dead and pressed for time, no questions from me.

I just want to thank you all for your works and contributing to HumbleBundle (even though I have got those books already, $#$&*!)

And anybody who knows Peter S. Beagle only from The Last Unicorn: Shame on you. Pick up Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, Tamsin or Folk of the Air

(wanders off muttering "Best known for ... Tssss ... <sigh>")

Wait, what? That is quite a bit of visionary (god)father overload.

Makes me wonder who her godmother is. Gentle? Tepper? Bear? (No, Elizabeth)