Technology

So the moment a property breaks even, + makes “some profit”, you should no l onger need to pay for it? Only when people still “care”, in that case they should pay?

That's not what I wrote, is it?

The problem with your idea here is that some movies/games/etc never make back the investment. That would mean that they would never run out of copyright if we did it that way. That some movies are duds also means that, on average, the rate of return on such investments is dragged down.

In a functioning market, the average ROI should be the same across the board. If something has a lower return, then people simply don't invest in it. That's clear, I hope. This means, that putting a cap on the profit that may be expected will reduce investments.

Obviously, the only returns that matter for this reasoning, are expected returns. Only the expected returns fund movies, etc., and that's why the timeframe matters.

At this point, ideology (or philosophy) becomes important. One has to ask: What is property about?

There are different philosophical views around this subject, but I am really only concerned with the practical outcome. The political right tends to hold an expansive, absolute view of property rights, to the point of rejecting taxation as illegitimate. The original definition of the political right was as supporters of the monarchy. It makes sense that the right would morph into something that supports all kinds of heritable privilege or right. The anti-capitalistic right seems to have largely disappeared. They often don't agree that intellectual property is property.

The left tends to hold more nuanced and pragmatic views. Property rights are balanced against other rights; the interests of other people and society at large. The US Constitution takes this view of copyrights and patents. [The United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

This latter view is, more or less, one to which I subscribe. Without copyright, there would be only public domain. Copyright integrates creative works into a capitalistic system by turning them into capital. Intellectual property enables people to make a profit with intellectual products. However, there is a clear limit to how much profit one may extract. One may only expect that profit, which actually incentivizes intellectual production. I actually hold the general view that all (commercial) property is only legitimate as long as it works beneficially for society.

So, I do not believe that anyone is entitled to windfall profits. I have published stuff on the web for my own reasons. Other people have found a new use for that by creating AI training datasets. I do not believe I have any moral justification to demand a share of their work.

I hope that clears it up.

Clearly you do not agree with this view. Obviously, you have some more absolutist view of intellectual property. I would appreciate it if you laid out your view of things. You don't need to answer these question, I'm just putting them here to say what is unclear: How does one create or obtain intellectual property? What can be intellectual property and what are the limits? To what does this property entitle one?

Finally: How come that these threads bring out so much support for right wing views? Looking at other threads, I would have expected left wing views to dominate. Looking at the piracy community around the corner, I would have thought that even among the right, copyright abolitionist views would dominate here. What gives?