Copyright: an attempt at theoretical justification
Copyright is one of the most painful topics of our time. At the same time, I have never met attempts at its theoretical (not only legal, but as applied to the general world order) justification. I propose private considerations explaining that the legal requirements for copyright have natural, natural bases, and that in no case have.
Copyright is the protection of copyright and related rights, that is, the rights to certain information products. Let us ask ourselves a simple question: is the RIGHT whether anyone has the right to information?
The fundamental difference between information and matter is that it can be copied without loss. This means that when transferring information from one subject to another, no expense for the source occurs: someone shares information with someone, while keeping it at its disposal in the most beautiful way, without losing anything. Why should I pay him a refund?
It is high time to understand: information as such is worthless and cannot be usurped by anyone, for the reason that sharing it with others is absolutely harmless.
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Does this mean that it is not necessary to pay for the information and that nothing is due to the authors for their information products? Not at all, due - not only for informational products as such, but for material products whose useful properties are informational content.
It is well known that information is not able to exist by itself, but always exists on a tangible medium. The disc with music is produced, on the one hand, by the workers in the factory, on the other hand by the composer. The disk is a material object, but its value lies in the music recorded on it, therefore, compensation for using the disk is due to all participants in the production process. And the information itself - in this case music - is worth nothing by definition: it sounds gratuitously in the head, it is whistled on the streets and nothing is paid for, if you do not use a man-made material product.
Man-made material products are goods made in the manufacture of things: their use must be compensated, but only in the man-made part, the one made by people. It is obvious that in some cases the information embedded in the goods is man-made, and in other cases it is not man-made, in the sense that it was created by nature itself. When a watercolor landscape is placed on a postcard, the information is man-made, because it was created by the artist, and when a photo of the same landscape is placed on the postcard, the information is not made by hand, because it was created by Mother Nature.
We get the following classification of material products:
1. Products that do not have the information component. These goods are simply things (stool, cup, slippers, etc.) made by material manufacturers;
2. Products with information component produced by the forces of nature. These products are spectacles . Nature does not require compensation for spectacles delivered to man, so there is no need for compensation for the information component.
3. Products with information component produced by the efforts of people. These products are works of art . In this case, it is necessary to reimburse both their material and information production.
Let us analyze from this point of view the main objects of copyright and related rights.
Works of literature, art and music as created exclusively by human effort belong to the field of art.
It is possible to distinguish works of art from spectacles by two criteria:
1) works of art build their own magical world of the smallest insignificant pieces of reality, forming a whole picture,
2) works of art are digitized.
Literature and music correspond to the named criteria absolutely. Painting - not absolutely, for the reason that it is necessary to perceive canvases from the original. This is a historical mistake due to the inability to digitize the work in those times: from this point of view, the original canvas should be classified as a spectacle, and its digitized image as a work of art.
The approach allows us to understand what sculpture is : in its natural form - a spectacle, but in the form of a 3D-format file - an unconditional work of art.
In contrast to works of art, the spectacle either gives an integral natural picture for some kind of its own work, at least digitized ( photo ), or combines large finished pieces of reality into some kind of “composition” issued for its own achievement ( installation ), or provoke some kind of natural picture, which mistakenly consider their property ( dances and performances , for example). Neither photographs, nor installations, nor dances with performances have any relation to art by definition.
If the true author of the spectacle is nature, does this mean that the photographer, dancer and other actors should not receive compensation for their work? Again does not mean. Named performers are producers, not only of the information component of the product, but of its material component, and compensation for their work should be made on the general rights with other material producers. What is the difference? The fact that reimbursement for material production is less profitable than for information production (there is no possibility to thoroughly explain why - this question is connected with the procedure for reimbursement in a fair economy of labor effort. Those interested can refer to this post , which briefly describes the labor theory value in my interpretation).
There are combined types of art, first of all, theater (in the case of digitizing a performance) and cinema , synthesizing in themselves both individual arts and spectacles. The general principles of compensation should be applied to them: for the information component - for information producers, for the material component - for material manufacturers.
I don’t consider this question in detail, since the post is not art criticism, but I turn to other objects of copyright and related rights: how much do they correspond to the proposed classification?
Computer programs . The information component of computer programs is obvious, so computer programs are works of art (in this sense, any art is informatics, or operating with some symbolic information).
The purpose of computer programs is utilitarian, but technical literature is also utilitarian, and not to declare fiction on this basis to be works of art, and technical literature to be something else that has no relation to art?
Databases . But the database for works of art are not relevant: they only list what already exists in reality. The creator of this information is nature. Consequently, database compilers are not creators of works of art, but material producers.
Inventions . There seems to be no doubt: the inventors are the creators of the new, for this reason the inventions should be attributed to works of art. Not here it was!
It is impossible to invent - in the sense of creating - something that is potentially absent in nature: in this sense, both the author of the novel and the inventor of a steam locomotive do not invent anything in the literal sense of the word, but as if "pull out" from nature what was originally laid , honor for them and praise. If someone invents a steam locomotive, until that moment the locomotive did not exist in nature in the same way as the novel just written ... but does this lead to the emergence of the rights of the inventor of a steam locomotive to his intellectual brainchild? In no case! A literary work is a product with an information component, for which the user must pay, while the engine does not have any information component. If someone assembles a steam locomotive, there is not the slightest economic reason for compensation, since there is not a grain of labor of the inventor in the assembled locomotive. How so, because a man pored over the invention of the engine? To pore something, but by itself the information is free, and - I repeat once again for particularly dull ones - there is no information component in the assembled steam engine that you should pay for. From this point of view, reading a novel (which is in any case written down on a material carrier) is subject to reimbursement to its producers, including the author, and using a locomotive invented by one person but built by others does not lead to reimbursement in favor of the inventor. Will a poor inventor get nothing? Why nothing: in order to build a locomotive, manufacturers will have to study a patent, and a patent is a book, a work of art, authored by an inventor. But it will not be possible to cut the headstock from every locomotive built by other people, of course.
I am not going to exaggerate the hackneyed and completely indisputable thought that copyright is hindering scientific and technical progress, but I am trying to give this thought a logical explanation.
Trademark, trademark . This case is the most insidious and crying. Initially, trademarks and trademarks were intended to identify the manufacturer, which indicates their accounting intrasystem function, but not external information, meaning for the consumer. The idea, having earned the original reputation, to distribute it to other manufacturers, to transfer, lease and so on. - in fact, to trade, - is absurd in essence and, in a good way, should be prohibited, despite the fact that any product must have all the identifiers of interest to the consumer: the name of the manufacturer, the place of production, the technology by which the product is manufactured, etc.
What do we have in the dry, so to speak, residue?
Information is publicly available and free of charge, like air: it is possible to copy it for free and use it - there are no prohibitions. Any restrictions on copying or using information are not based on natural grounds, thereby violating fundamental universal human rights. It is necessary to pay not for the use of information, but for the use of man-made material carriers on which information is recorded (and then only if the product is a work of art).
A logical question: what difference does it make to pay directly for the information or for the material medium on which it is recorded? There is a difference, and it is huge, but most contemporaries are aware of it only at the household level, thinking: “I bought a material carrier, so why the hell do I pay more for music, if the material carrier is intended to record music on it?”. Indeed, the charge for the material carrier should be distributed between its material and informational co-producers. Unfortunately, the modern economy does not allow to distribute payment for tangible media depending on what information is recorded on them: as long as it is impossible even technically. But technically impossible does not mean - should not be.
Once upon a time, people were worth a lot of work and a lot of blood to understand that from birth they are equal. Let the real equality is not achieved, but it is officially declared, thanks for that. Now mankind has faced a second problem similar in scope: recognition of information as free and publicly available. It would be desirable to hope that the solution of this problem will cost less blood and occur in a shorter historical period than the abandonment of slavery.
Copyright is the protection of copyright and related rights, that is, the rights to certain information products. Let us ask ourselves a simple question: is the RIGHT whether anyone has the right to information?
The fundamental difference between information and matter is that it can be copied without loss. This means that when transferring information from one subject to another, no expense for the source occurs: someone shares information with someone, while keeping it at its disposal in the most beautiful way, without losing anything. Why should I pay him a refund?
It is high time to understand: information as such is worthless and cannot be usurped by anyone, for the reason that sharing it with others is absolutely harmless.
')
Does this mean that it is not necessary to pay for the information and that nothing is due to the authors for their information products? Not at all, due - not only for informational products as such, but for material products whose useful properties are informational content.
It is well known that information is not able to exist by itself, but always exists on a tangible medium. The disc with music is produced, on the one hand, by the workers in the factory, on the other hand by the composer. The disk is a material object, but its value lies in the music recorded on it, therefore, compensation for using the disk is due to all participants in the production process. And the information itself - in this case music - is worth nothing by definition: it sounds gratuitously in the head, it is whistled on the streets and nothing is paid for, if you do not use a man-made material product.
Man-made material products are goods made in the manufacture of things: their use must be compensated, but only in the man-made part, the one made by people. It is obvious that in some cases the information embedded in the goods is man-made, and in other cases it is not man-made, in the sense that it was created by nature itself. When a watercolor landscape is placed on a postcard, the information is man-made, because it was created by the artist, and when a photo of the same landscape is placed on the postcard, the information is not made by hand, because it was created by Mother Nature.
We get the following classification of material products:
1. Products that do not have the information component. These goods are simply things (stool, cup, slippers, etc.) made by material manufacturers;
2. Products with information component produced by the forces of nature. These products are spectacles . Nature does not require compensation for spectacles delivered to man, so there is no need for compensation for the information component.
3. Products with information component produced by the efforts of people. These products are works of art . In this case, it is necessary to reimburse both their material and information production.
Let us analyze from this point of view the main objects of copyright and related rights.
Works of literature, art and music as created exclusively by human effort belong to the field of art.
It is possible to distinguish works of art from spectacles by two criteria:
1) works of art build their own magical world of the smallest insignificant pieces of reality, forming a whole picture,
2) works of art are digitized.
Literature and music correspond to the named criteria absolutely. Painting - not absolutely, for the reason that it is necessary to perceive canvases from the original. This is a historical mistake due to the inability to digitize the work in those times: from this point of view, the original canvas should be classified as a spectacle, and its digitized image as a work of art.
The approach allows us to understand what sculpture is : in its natural form - a spectacle, but in the form of a 3D-format file - an unconditional work of art.
In contrast to works of art, the spectacle either gives an integral natural picture for some kind of its own work, at least digitized ( photo ), or combines large finished pieces of reality into some kind of “composition” issued for its own achievement ( installation ), or provoke some kind of natural picture, which mistakenly consider their property ( dances and performances , for example). Neither photographs, nor installations, nor dances with performances have any relation to art by definition.
If the true author of the spectacle is nature, does this mean that the photographer, dancer and other actors should not receive compensation for their work? Again does not mean. Named performers are producers, not only of the information component of the product, but of its material component, and compensation for their work should be made on the general rights with other material producers. What is the difference? The fact that reimbursement for material production is less profitable than for information production (there is no possibility to thoroughly explain why - this question is connected with the procedure for reimbursement in a fair economy of labor effort. Those interested can refer to this post , which briefly describes the labor theory value in my interpretation).
There are combined types of art, first of all, theater (in the case of digitizing a performance) and cinema , synthesizing in themselves both individual arts and spectacles. The general principles of compensation should be applied to them: for the information component - for information producers, for the material component - for material manufacturers.
I don’t consider this question in detail, since the post is not art criticism, but I turn to other objects of copyright and related rights: how much do they correspond to the proposed classification?
Computer programs . The information component of computer programs is obvious, so computer programs are works of art (in this sense, any art is informatics, or operating with some symbolic information).
The purpose of computer programs is utilitarian, but technical literature is also utilitarian, and not to declare fiction on this basis to be works of art, and technical literature to be something else that has no relation to art?
Databases . But the database for works of art are not relevant: they only list what already exists in reality. The creator of this information is nature. Consequently, database compilers are not creators of works of art, but material producers.
Inventions . There seems to be no doubt: the inventors are the creators of the new, for this reason the inventions should be attributed to works of art. Not here it was!
It is impossible to invent - in the sense of creating - something that is potentially absent in nature: in this sense, both the author of the novel and the inventor of a steam locomotive do not invent anything in the literal sense of the word, but as if "pull out" from nature what was originally laid , honor for them and praise. If someone invents a steam locomotive, until that moment the locomotive did not exist in nature in the same way as the novel just written ... but does this lead to the emergence of the rights of the inventor of a steam locomotive to his intellectual brainchild? In no case! A literary work is a product with an information component, for which the user must pay, while the engine does not have any information component. If someone assembles a steam locomotive, there is not the slightest economic reason for compensation, since there is not a grain of labor of the inventor in the assembled locomotive. How so, because a man pored over the invention of the engine? To pore something, but by itself the information is free, and - I repeat once again for particularly dull ones - there is no information component in the assembled steam engine that you should pay for. From this point of view, reading a novel (which is in any case written down on a material carrier) is subject to reimbursement to its producers, including the author, and using a locomotive invented by one person but built by others does not lead to reimbursement in favor of the inventor. Will a poor inventor get nothing? Why nothing: in order to build a locomotive, manufacturers will have to study a patent, and a patent is a book, a work of art, authored by an inventor. But it will not be possible to cut the headstock from every locomotive built by other people, of course.
I am not going to exaggerate the hackneyed and completely indisputable thought that copyright is hindering scientific and technical progress, but I am trying to give this thought a logical explanation.
Trademark, trademark . This case is the most insidious and crying. Initially, trademarks and trademarks were intended to identify the manufacturer, which indicates their accounting intrasystem function, but not external information, meaning for the consumer. The idea, having earned the original reputation, to distribute it to other manufacturers, to transfer, lease and so on. - in fact, to trade, - is absurd in essence and, in a good way, should be prohibited, despite the fact that any product must have all the identifiers of interest to the consumer: the name of the manufacturer, the place of production, the technology by which the product is manufactured, etc.
What do we have in the dry, so to speak, residue?
Information is publicly available and free of charge, like air: it is possible to copy it for free and use it - there are no prohibitions. Any restrictions on copying or using information are not based on natural grounds, thereby violating fundamental universal human rights. It is necessary to pay not for the use of information, but for the use of man-made material carriers on which information is recorded (and then only if the product is a work of art).
A logical question: what difference does it make to pay directly for the information or for the material medium on which it is recorded? There is a difference, and it is huge, but most contemporaries are aware of it only at the household level, thinking: “I bought a material carrier, so why the hell do I pay more for music, if the material carrier is intended to record music on it?”. Indeed, the charge for the material carrier should be distributed between its material and informational co-producers. Unfortunately, the modern economy does not allow to distribute payment for tangible media depending on what information is recorded on them: as long as it is impossible even technically. But technically impossible does not mean - should not be.
Once upon a time, people were worth a lot of work and a lot of blood to understand that from birth they are equal. Let the real equality is not achieved, but it is officially declared, thanks for that. Now mankind has faced a second problem similar in scope: recognition of information as free and publicly available. It would be desirable to hope that the solution of this problem will cost less blood and occur in a shorter historical period than the abandonment of slavery.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/186052/
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