That's not even a joke. One of the premises of a copyright is that you defend your intellectual property or lose it. If the system were more equitable then it would defend your copyright.
I'm reminded of how trademarks work: If you don't bother to defend them, then you lose them. Maybe copyright should be the same way: If you're not distributing copies any longer, you lose the copyright protection.
Coming up with a solution equitable enough for all takes hundreds of man-years, simply because the Western copyright systems aren't geared for supporting the commons in any meaningful way any more. Copyright terms are spinning out of control, and things are assumed proprietary even when there should be no doubt they belong in the commons.
Let's face it, trying to retrofit a reasonable legal framework that protects the end user into this legal system, is like trying to retrofit a database written in Haskell into a mainframe that can only run COBOL. Of course it's horrible. What do you expect?
Another way to look at it, is that the IP ecosystem is hyper-competitive. If it wasn't such an arms race, then nukes like the GPL wouldn't even be necessary.
Already copyright laws do not offer protection for writers (see the current [screen]writers strike [1]), visual artists, musicians (see the recent Taylor Swift re-recording debacle [2]), not to speak of the "lower" arts, crafts & merch, where colossi such as H&M and Zara steal art, designs, concepts regularly [3] (not to even mention the sweatshops).
Copyright laws, or in fact generally laws, are for the rich and powerful, perhaps even for the corporations, not the individuals, since they paid for them to be so [4], it's just us, individually, the hoi polloi, who are still trapped into believing that there is rhyme or reason to our current system.
The joke is that while our system extolls itself as the most efficient system in history, based on competition of equals and free markets (two contradictions in terms contradicting each other), it harbours terrible inefficiencies such as the copyright laws, the patent system, and so on.
I'm just pointing out that our current system of copyright doesn't really do enough to protect the authors and artists that create the works we enjoy; there's certainly room for improvement.
Seriously, I don't understand how people can defend copyright at this point. Maybe at the beginning it was implemented properly. Maybe in theory it's a great idea. But - surprise, surprise! - it's been broken by corporations. Life + 70 years? gtfo.
I agree that our current copyright system is certainly out of hand, but it does serve a purpose. Out of curiosity, what system would you suggest in its stead?
Sure, it's not perfect, I'm just going through a thought exercise to try and reason if the hypothetical I'm suggesting might be more fair than the current system. A lot of people say there are holes/deficiencies in the current copyright system. And a "perfect" system that everyone would be happy with is likely impossible.
That statement is just blatantly illogical. It's like saying, "if you cook using heat, you can expect to burn yourself sometimes."
If you make a living under a strong copyright system, you should expect to be perfectly fine as long as you don't copy someone.
Sure, there can be weird exceptions, and as in any complex system, we should adjust the system over time to account for them, rather than immediately throwing out the whole system. For example, when a plane crashes, we don't rush to abolish the FAA, or to ban aviation.
That is an argument for the idea of copyright itself. It's not an argument in favor of the current system and it also proves no justification to expand the current system.
In simpler terms, copyright was created as a legal hack to prevent a tragedy of the commons that would result in a total devaluation of intellectual labor.
There may be a more elegant and fair solution, but no solution and pretending the problem does not exist is not it.
That's how things work now. You think having a copyright on something will matter if the multibillion dollar company fights you and drags out the legal process until you run out of money?
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