Talk:Criticism of copyright

State aggression

@User:Lethargilistic Thing is, Kinsella's opinion doesn't make sense. Yes, some countries have in the last thirty years enacted criminal copyright legislation. But it remains the case that nearly all copyright actions worldwide are civil actions - not actions of the state.

In my view, gibberish that is cited is still gibberish. I think it is counterproductive to include material that doesn't make sense - it won't help WP users to understand anything.

Incidentally, there's a huge amount of uncited WP:OR here. My general attitude to articles that are blighted by OR is to delete uncited stuff. BRD, someone reverts, fair dos. That enables me to ask:

Do you think that opinions that don't make sense should be included, simply because the holder is notable and citable?

MrDemeanour (talk) 17:40, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

• I don't really have an opinion on Kinsella's specific view because I haven't read the book, although I would not oppose removing the "aggression" clause because I don't think I've ever seen that argument made elsewhere, so I'd say its notability is debatable. More broadly, I also don't think it's necessarily our place to just say that an opinion is nonsense and not include it. After all, even though I personally find arguments in favor of copyright policies based upon morality extremely unrealistic about the relationship between copyright claimants, work they claim, and people interested in using the work later, those morality arguments are still used in favor of copyright. And, however wrong I think that is, they've obviously been successful to the extent that they enshrined moral rights policy in the Berne Convention. It's therefore certainly notable and, indeed, deserves its own article. Also, because this article is not very well developed in general, I'd caution against removing things under the banner of WP:OR. Even WP:V says any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. It does not say that things that are unsourced must be removed. It says they may be removed and that things which are challenged must be sourced. And, just to cover the base, simply saying "I challenge every unsourced statement in the article" would not be respectful of other Wikipedians' time. If you plan to work on this entire article's citation quality, it would be more productive to follow WP:V's suggestion of marking questionable statements with improvement tags like {{citation needed}} or {{better citation needed}}, or perhaps at least attempt in good faith to find a corroborating source yourself. My personal philosophy is generally that progress toward the content's eventual perfection should be prioritized over minor problems in the current version. Most of this content has a clear path to improvement, so I'm fairly hesitant to remove things just because someone should technically go through and find better references. It's not pretending to be a Featured Article or anything. lethargilistic (talk) 18:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I generally agree on the points made by MrDemeanour. Yes, the TPB founders went to prison and Kim Dotcom may also in some distant future. But, nearly all cases are civil. I would imagine the major reason for YouTube takedowns is copyright related and doesn’t require any legal action other than a DMCA which doesn’t require a lawyer. And yes, we need to add multiple viewpoints from RS. But, utter nonsense from activist sources should be limited, and/or relegated to their articles. This is an encyclopedia article, not a manifesto. O3000 (talk) 18:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't think any of the content in this article rises to the level of "manifesto." And since most prominent sources for opposition to copyright are based on activist activity (whether Lessig or a political party platform), it's natural that their views be covered. Just because you, personally, think their fears are nonsense, that is not a reason to cut them from the article if they are notable, perhaps if they are widely cited or appear in several different peoples' belief systems. TPB is certainly notable here and is not talked about that much. As for Kim Dotcom and YouTube, those are not in the article at present, so their notability isn't at issue. At a gloss, I'd say Kim Dotcom's views could be used as a specific example of a wider belief, but not alone. That's also why I'm not opposed to removing the "aggression" clause that started this discussion, as I doubt that part of "Artificial Scarcity" is a wide view. I didn't outright remove it because I wasn't sure. lethargilistic (talk) 18:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I've never heard of the "state aggression" label. This would require multiple sources and shouldn't be included based on one deontological anarcho-capitalist. Also, the scarcity argument must include the obvious responses for balance. O3000 (talk) 19:08, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree. On the second point, feel free to add counterpoints to whatever appears in the article or direct to other articles. The lack of counterpoints in the current version is a temporary problem, not a reason for removing content. Also, keep WP:FALSEBALANCE in mind. Just because there is a counterpoint does not mean that that counterpoint must receive exactly equal time, especially when the article is about one side's view. lethargilistic (talk) 19:14, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes well, the fact that it presents one "side" suggests that it is a WP:POVFORK. And, I'd hardly think the status quo is a false balance. O3000 (talk) 19:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

There is plenty of material for an opposition to copyright article, so per WP:POVFORK: The creator of the new article may be sincerely convinced that there is so much information about a certain aspect of a subject that it justifies a separate article.. It's appropriate. I also agree that the status quo should be represented in the article. However, although it is an imperfect example, consider Socialism vs. Capitalism. The socialism article is not half-capitalism and does not respond to every point with a capitalist view because the article is not about capitalism, and the capitalism article is also not about socialism. Part of why it's not perfect is that I can't think of an argument against copyright offhand that hasn't at least been answered by a pro-copyright viewpoint, so there's almost certainly something you could add to each section to represent that viewpoint. That does not mean each section should be half-pro-copyright, as that would be what I consider false balance in describing opposition. Also, remember that there are several branches of opposition to copyright that argue for returning to old versions of the law, some of which were in place much longer than current versions, so they could just as easily be called a return to a "status quo." lethargilistic (talk) 19:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Socialism vs. capitalism is not on point and those articles don't push any POV. Opposition to copyright is clearly, specifically about copyright. Also, this article isn’t about a “certain aspect of a subject". It is an argument against the subject of the main article. Surely smells like a POVFORK. O3000 (talk) 19:48, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

This article does not currently push a POV, it would not do so by simply describing its subject if expanded properly, and concerns of false balance are a concern for the reader's education and not in service of a particular POV. Hell, most "criticism" of subjects is done in a single section of the larger articles, which is almost certainly how this page started its life. The simple fact is that it is a topic too broad to be relegated to such a section. I don't think there would ever be consensus to do that, too, so I don't think discussing that further would be productive. I'd rather address POV problems that currently exist in the article's text (such as not enough counterpoint) via responsible expansion rather than debate what might happen if we assume in bad faith that the article will be expanded incorrectly. lethargilistic (talk) 05:00, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Lethargilistic et al.: Thank you for your remarks.

I fully take your point that it is inappropriate to simply wade through an article removing all uncited content, and that instead one should generally (a) try to find suitable citations, and (b) failing that, tag content as being in need of references. I have re-read the article, and perhaps it is not so badly infested with OR and uncited content as I have claimed; maybe it just needs re-organising. However the accusation of state aggression is nonsense, because the state is so rarely involved in copyright enforcement. It should be removed. MrDemeanour (talk) 02:45, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Removed the aggression remark per our unanimous consensus. I've thought about reorganizing this article myself, though it's seemed daunting due to the variety of alternate takes. One approach might be to break it up into major categories of dispute, such as arguments on economic, moral, technological, etc. grounds. lethargilistic (talk) 05:00, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

General reorganization

Alright, if we're actually going to do this, it would be better for us to actually set out a plan rather than delete a bunch of stuff and communicate through edit summaries. I think we should settle on the highest level organization of the article first. What broad categories of objection are there? I'm sure there are papers and organizations out there that would supply content for this high level outline. My understanding of the subject is mostly American, so my topics list will certainly weigh toward sources examining economic forces. It goes without saying that counterarguments would appear throughout; just because I framed these as questions for expediency does not mean the article would be making arguments itself.

• Organizations that oppose copyright to one degree or another
  • Advocating changes to copyright
  • Use existing copyright law to promote change (copyleft, CC, etc.)
  • Abolition (This should not be first on the list, as it's not really common among advocacy groups)
  • Academic/Scholarly takes on the issue
• Overall goals of copyright. Are they being met?
  • Prevent monopolization of works
  • Compel the release of documents to the public
  • Promote the creation of new works
  • Lead to authors being paid better
• Economic (Heald and Boyle would be good sources here)
  • Market concerns
    • Are authors fairly compensated?
    • Does the current system weigh in corporations' favor?
    • How do poor/disadvantaged/those in the developing world get access to copyrighted things?
  • Piracy
    • Does it matter?
    • Does it harm authors?
      • Why have some authors embraced piracy and believe it helps them sell more books? (Neil Gaiman, CD Projekt RED)
  • Term length
    • Does a longer term benefit authors within their lifetimes?
    • Does a posthumous term benefit the author enough to justify its costs to society?
    • Does a retroactive extension of copyright benefit society?
    • What about the people who want to use things made in their lifetimes?
  • Automatic copyright
    • What were the arguments in favor of copyright formalities?
• Morality (any objections to moral rights)
  • Concerns with the Berne Convention
    • Three step test
  • Does attribution have value?
  • Do people who were born during/after the time when the thing was created have a right of their own to respond to it?
  • Are there demonstrable differences between the European and American systems that weigh in favor or against one or the other?
    • sui generis database rights?
  • Is it moral for an author to prevent people from reading their work simply because they speak a language that the author will not authorize a translation into?
• Advancing technology (Boyle, Lessig)
  • Does copyright adequately adapt to technology advances? (People will point to the automatic piano in the US or Betamax)
  • Does copyright prevent things that may benefit society? (Google Books, TVEyes, mass text crawling)
• Natural rights (Maybe Hettinger, perhaps there's a critique of Lysander Spooner's work out there)
  • Copyright is not physical property
• Conflicts with the public domain (Boyle)
  • What separates a book written in 1922 from a book written in 1923?
  • How available are books written before 1922 compared to books written afterward?
  • What is the value of a commons like the public domain?
    • Are companies mining the public domain and then preventing works from entering it? (Disney)
• Copyright's expanding scope
  • How has copyright expanded from literature to cover basically anything?
  • How do you define originality? How is that distinguished from creativity?
  • How do we rationalize things that are uncopyrightable because they are not original enough? Is the bar of originality that too low?
  • We could probably have a bunch of section of criticism of different expansions, but here are some quickies:
    • software
    • fashion
    • public speeches/presentations
    • public art/architecture
• Objections to the framing of the argument in favor of copyright
  • Arguments against lumping copyright into and arguing about the term intellectual property in general?
  • "Why do you hate poor artists?"
  • "Why do you expect to get things for free?"
  • Empirical evidence is rarely presented in favor of copyright during calls for expansion to copyright. Boyle calls is an "Evidence free zone"
    • Celebrity endorsements of copyright over time. (Hugo, Twain, Sonny Bono's wife. Recently, Smokey Robinson)

Certainly weighing in favor of economic arguments as I expected, but I think we could easily fill in something like this. lethargilistic (talk) 04:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for working on this, lethargilistic. I am more of a copy-editor by inclination, than an article author, and I don't want to try to contribute to your article structure, other than by body-shaming: I suggest that it needs a diet.

Your taxonomy is certainly comprehensive. It could accommodate a very long article. To be honest, I don't think a long article is called for. The subject is 'Opposition to copyright'; that should not subsume topics such as 'How to improve copyright', 'Using copyright to promote change', 'Why some authors benefit from unauthorised copying' and so on. In fact there is precious little to say about Opposition to copyright as such; very few groups oppose copyright outright, and they tend to be fringe.

There is quite a number of articles about different aspects of copyright. Some of this material should end up in those articles, not coatracking on Opposition.

Incidentally I do not want to encounter the term 'piracy' in any article on copyright. That term is strictly POV, comparing as it does copyright infringement with a particularly nasty kind of violent crime on the high seas. Same goes for 'copyright theft', a term that takes for granted that copyright is a kind of property, and then applies to it the term 'theft', meaning 'to take with the intention of permanently depriving'. Copyright is not a kind of property, and infringement is not a kind of theft. MrDemeanour (talk) 09:13, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Haha, I often go overboard on outlines. Certainly, not all of these would be sections and there would be cuts. I agree that there is little to say about copyright abolitionists, but I think the limiting the article to outright opposition/abolitionism would make the article less useful because, as you say, those are fringe views and most copyright criticism comes from people who want to improve the system. (Not to mention it would make the anemic copyright abolition article redundant.) Perhaps a name change for the article is in order? "Criticism of copyright," even if that's a tad boring? Def agree on limiting the information that would better live in other articles, and there would probably be significant incentive to link out to those from here. Also agree on piracy -> copyright infringement. lethargilistic (talk) 15:44, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Once again, it looks like you are trying to present an argument against copyright protection with this highly detailed outline containing numerous areas for which there is no text in the body. If we are reorganizing the article, do so around the text in the article. We’re developing an encyclopedia article, not writing a 70,000 word dissertation. O3000 (talk) 16:32, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

While we don't have to use the entire outline, it's not necessary to limit ourselves to things already inn the article because the article is poorly organized and not comprehensive even on the issues it does talk about. Aside, repeating this vacuous accusation that I am trying to "present an argument" doesn't make it any more true. I'd prefer that you do me the courtesy of stopping. I have repeatedly been deferential to your insistent POV, even when I have deeply disagreed, and I have repeatedly agreed that the article needs counterpoints. This doesn't contribute to the discussion and could easily be said to be a product of your own biases, inappropriately so. lethargilistic (talk) 17:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you would stop making false accusations that I have a POV. My POV, as always, is that articles should follow WP guidelines. O3000 (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I only said it once, and once was enough. Let us please restrict commentary to the substance of the proposal from here on. lethargilistic (talk) 17:39, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 4 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 03:06, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

---

Opposition to copyright → Criticism of copyright – This article broadly covers criticism of copyright in general, not just opposition groups, and the current title sounds like POV to me, particularly with the use of opposition. There are more critics of copyright than are there actual opponents (I for one think copyright is too strict and should only focus on protecting the commercial interests of the copyright holders, but seeing that there are practical uses in protecting such interests, I do not oppose it). Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ 00:48, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Support. Boring title, but strict opposition to copyright is a fringe view and the article is about more than that. lethargilistic (talk) 03:15, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support - A far more accurate description of the article. Primergrey (talk) 05:11, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. bd2412 T 02:59, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support per above. A better description of the page's contents.--Yaksar (let's chat) 01:32, 11 April 2019 (UTC)----

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Added link about sci-hub

• Sci-Hub - network of pirated research papers, "Sci-Hub can instantly provide access to more than two-thirds of all scholarly articles", Lindsay McKenzie. Sci-Hub’s cache of pirated papers is so big, subscription journals are doomed, data analyst suggests. Science Magazine. Jul. 27, 2017. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/sci-hub-s-cache-pirated-papers-so-big-subscription-journals-are-doomed-data-analyst

Onlyforwikiapps (talk) 22:22, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Anti copyright "sentiment"

In the first sentence, this article conflates criticism of copyright with anti copyright "sentiment". Sentiment implies emotional response and is often regarded pejoratively, whereas most of the the arguments for and against copyright are based on logical reasoning, not sentiment. As such this label is misleading and possibly pejorative, it should be removed form the article or preceded with "regarded by some as sentiment" or words to that effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.93.146.3 (talk) 14:34, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Disagree. "Anti-X sentiment" is a common phrase that has no implications as to logical soundness of the position. I'm not categorically opposed to changing it to something else, but a) it needs to be as pithy, and b) it can't be couched. lethargilistic (talk) 18:54, 11 December 2022 (UTC)