BenPanced:
Yanno, I'm all for artistic integrity and purity of ideas and all that rot, but if I'm going through the trouble of writing a novel, I'm making the money off of it, dammit.
Yeah, I love how the people who want authors to "share" are always the ones who want to create derivative works themselves.
Having been quiet at work, I've taken the time to go through the article and it really is the most unconvincing piece of crud I've read on this subject in a while.
Leo Babauta:
there were a few people who were able to create works of art without the protection of copyright laws. Shakespeare, Milton, Cervantes, Virgil, Dante … to name but a few big names.
Way to miss the point. Of course you don't need copyright laws in order to create works, but you do need copyright to preserve your right to make money from them. How do these examples counter that - many of them were reliant on sponsors or patrons in order to make a living because they couldn't count on doing so from their actual work.
Leo Babauta:
The vast majority of artists are never read or seen or heard by the public, because the corporations don’t deem them to be profitable enough. So the system doesn’t help artists anymore — it hurts them.
Leaving aside the fact that the vast majority of artists who are never read, seen or heard by the public probably aren't good enough to be read, seen or heard by the public, in fact the copyright system does help those artists because it stops corporations from being able to take their work without compensating them for it. It's the market that works to keep their genius hidden.
Leo Babauta:
Third, I have proven that it’s possible to make money, even today, without using copyright.
Yes, it is possible to make money in certain circumstances - and it's interesting that those who have made money tend to do so in the written media and usually involve people with enough technical savvy to know how to exploit it. When you don't know what you're doing but just unleash your work to see what happens, you can actually lose money, which I think is what happened to Radiohead with one of their albums.
Leo Babauta:
Finally, copyright actually hurts artists, instead of protecting them. When you try to protect your copyright, you waste precious time and money pursuing violators — time and money you could be using to create instead of threaten litigation.
That's why you hire lawyers to pursue violators for you and why you claim damages against the violators to compensate you for those costs and damages. While your lawyers get on with the job of lawyering, you get on with your job of writing.
Leo Babauta:
When you protect your copyright, you are denying someone else the use of your ideas and creativity — which might seem good to you, but it doesn’t seem good to the person on the other end, and the community in general suffers a bit. And it hurts your reputation (if people think you’re selfish and protective) and stops your ideas from being spread as widely as possible.
Erm ... no. There is absolutely no obligation on me to think about the people who might want to rip off my work and consider their feelings. I am protective about my work. I have a right to be protective about my work, and I totally fail to see the logic of why someone else should be able to make money off
their work when they've taken it from mine and not paid me a penny for it.
Leo Babauta:
By protecting your copyright, you are putting up barriers for the spread of your ideas.
Wrong. I'm putting up a barrier to the spread of the expression of my ideas not the ideas themselves.
Leo Babauta:
These people are making money by selling your work to customers you probably wouldn’t have reached anyway. They’re making money, sure, but how does that hurt you? If you could have reached these readers, you probably will anyway. In fact, if these readers really like your work, they’ll probably come looking for more … and you’ll gain a bunch of new readers.
Well let's test that for a moment. Someone puts out a book that's a word for word copy of my book but they haven't paid me to do so.
How are the "customers" supposed to know the difference between that book (which I'm not being paid for) and my book (which I am being paid for)? They don't. Either way, they're not going to come looking for my original because they think that's what they've got.
Leo Babauta:
They might put your work in a free newsletter, or print it and use it in a classroom, or put it on their blog without making money. They’ll share your ideas with others, and give you credit.
You're assuming that they'll give you credit, but there's no guarantee that they will and without copyright protection, it's going to be almost impossible to force them to do so.
In addition, it means that you lose track of where your work is being placed which could see you being put in a really difficult situation. For example, someone releasing copyright in an article about child discipline might be happy to have that article placed in a childcare magazine, but would presumably be less happy about it being reproduced on a paedophile chat room.
Leo Babauta:
I’ll repeat that in case the italics and exclamation point weren’t emphasis enough: by releasing copyright, you might get people to do your marketing for you, for free.
And the operative word there is "might". It equally might not. The issue is whether you want to take that risk.
Leo Babauta:
This digital age is defined not by how much money you can make with an individual post or book, but how widely you can get your ideas to spread. If you get your ideas to spread widely, you’ll make money. Somehow.
No, the collapse of the tech bubble in 2001/2002 proves that even the digital age is defined by how much money you can make. All those dot come entrepreneurs who sold their ideas to investment banks with the promise that their site would "somehow" make money ended up going belly up and taking the cash with them.
The lesson learned - don't go into something unless you have a very good idea of the revenue stream. And that applies to giving up your copyright protection as well.
Leo Babauta: REBUTTED POINT BY POINT IN BOLD
But how can you make money if you don’t have copyright? Let me count the ways:
- You can sell ads and make money off the increased visitors that come from your increased reputation. No one is making a lot of money from selling ads on their websites. You might make enough to cover your server costs with a bit on top. Plus if you're a writer, adverts are going to annoy the hell out of your readers. They're coming to find out about you and your books, not the special deals offered by Mr Smith's Mad Mad Autos. And this all presumes that people know to come to your website in the first place.
You can sell print versions of your book (after releasing an Uncopyrighted ebook version), and people will buy it anyway, because they like to have print books. Cite your source on this. Publishers have played with doing this for some of the bigger name authors, but they're people who already have a following of people likely to buy the print version as well. If you're a debut novelist, it's unlikely that people are going to want to own both.
You can become a consultant and people will hire you because you are widely regarded as having authority in the field … because your ideas are spread widely. Again, it assumes that people know who you are.
You can sell ebooks (as I do) even if the copyright has been released. Most of my website income, in fact, comes from sales of my Uncopyrighted ebooks. And ironically, you an only charge for those books by asserting your copyright in those versions. Equally, other people can sell copies of your work and make money for themselves.
You can gain a print book deal from your increased readership and reputation. This doesn't happen very often.
You can become a speaker at conferences and other events. You can do that without giving up your copyright.
You can create seminars and other training courses. You can do that without giving up your copyright.
You can sell related materials — t-shirts, coffee mugs, learning materials, etc. You can do that without giving up your copyright.
Leo Babauta:
Releasing copyright isn’t just about making money off your creative work — it’s much more powerful than that. It’s about sharing your ideas with others, and allowing them to use it in their work.
There's no copyright in ideas. People can do that anyway.
Leo Babauta:
isn’t this a wonderful way to repay the creative types that came before you and made your work possible? Isn’t it a great way to contribute to the creative community, and to make the world better?
The creative types who came before me kept their copyright, got paid and contributed to the creative community. I'd like to do the same and it's a system that's worked pretty well for over 300 years without all art as we know it coming to a halt.
MM
). That's actually why Cervantes ended up writing a the sequel to the book, or what is now known as part 2. 
