The explicit goal of copyright is to promote art work. Copyright intends to accomplish this by promising each artist a profitable monopoly over the result of their work. The thinking is that even though an artist isn't paid directly for their labor, they can compel society to pretend their art is a singular object and sell it over and over again as a good. This is why pretentious gallery people refer to paintings and sculptures as individual "works", as if labor itself can be counted with integers. It isn't the instance of art (the copy) they are referring to as "a work": it is the abstract unit of labor and the copyright monopoly (the exclusive right to make another copy) that defines its domain.
Because copyright redefines art as a good, each artist must invest their labor to create "a work". Only then can they leverage copyright to (hopefully) profit from their investment. This is already counterproductive, because the only prospective artists who are free to work are those who can afford the upfront investment of their own labor. Profit from this investment is nowhere near guaranteed, particularly today when the overwhelming majority of publishing goes through a tiny number of corporations.
The most significant problem, though, is the monopoly itself. For copyright to function, an artist must be able to monopolize their "work": not the original copy they made, but the labor itself. In order to do so, the copyright holder must be able to prevent any work that intersects with their own. What this means is that copyright is made of incompatibility. Anyone who wants to collaborate with a work must have explicit permission; otherwise their own labor is illegal by virtue of the presence of someone else's existing work. Copyright demands that the labor of one individual be incompatible with the other.
This incompatibility is what copyright is truly used for. We use copyright to destroy fraudulent copy. We use copyright to fill moats of incompatibility; and drown competition from those who seek to collaborate competitively.
Copyright has been a bad idea from its very inception, but in today's world - where copy itself is practically free, and collaboration requires nearly zero coordination - copyright has become the foundation of the most significant and damaging parts of our society. It's time to start over.
The explicit goal of copyright is to promote art work. Copyright intends to accomplish this by promising each artist a profitable monopoly over the result of their work. The thinking is that even though an artist isn't paid directly for their labor, they can compel society to pretend their art is a singular object and sell it over and over again as a good. This is why pretentious gallery people refer to paintings and sculptures as individual "works", as if labor itself can be counted with integers. It isn't the instance of art (the copy) they are referring to as "a work": it is the abstract unit of labor and the copyright monopoly (the exclusive right to make another copy) that defines its domain.
Because copyright redefines art as a good, each artist must invest their labor to create "a work". Only then can they leverage copyright to (hopefully) profit from their investment. This is already counterproductive, because the only prospective artists who are free to work are those who can afford the upfront investment of their own labor. Profit from this investment is nowhere near guaranteed, particularly today when the overwhelming majority of publishing goes through a tiny number of corporations.
The most significant problem, though, is the monopoly itself. For copyright to function, an artist must be able to monopolize their "work": not the original copy they made, but the labor itself. In order to do so, the copyright holder must be able to prevent any work that intersects with their own. What this means is that copyright is made of incompatibility. Anyone who wants to collaborate with a work must have explicit permission; otherwise their own labor is illegal by virtue of the presence of someone else's existing work. Copyright demands that the labor of one individual be incompatible with the other.
This incompatibility is what copyright is truly used for. We use copyright to destroy fraudulent copy. We use copyright to fill moats of incompatibility; and drown competition from those who seek to collaborate competitively.
Copyright has been a bad idea from its very inception, but in today's world - where copy itself is practically free, and collaboration requires nearly zero coordination - copyright has become the foundation of the most significant and damaging parts of our society. It's time to start over.