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The Surprising History of Copyright and What It Means For...

Google TechTalks · 19.4K views · 2007-10-09 · 54:58

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Overview

Karl Fogel's 2006 Google Tech Talk traces copyright from a 16th-century English censorship law to a distribution monopoly. It then surveys alternative economic bases for creation and distribution.

On Hacker News

HN uses it as the go-to history of copyright, arguing it was a gatekeeping tool and that creators don't need it.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2016–2021

Topics

Law, policing & justiceHacker culture & free softwareWorld history
Search by tags
copyrightintellectual propertyfree culturecensorshipcreator economics

What people said

syshum · 2016-11 · Strong recommendation

>>but that's all it is, a justification. And in my opinion, that justification results in less original content. Given that more content from more people is being created today that at any point in human history runs counter to your statement Copyright is about protecting the Gatekeepers, the Movies Studios, the Music Labels, the Book Publisher, not about protecting creators. Karl Fogel does a great job explaining the History of copyright and why is it not needed to protect creators [VIDEO] >> it's our own propensity to not respect the rights of the creator which has encouraged the adoption of DRM. I do not recognize them as rights. Copyright is a Positive Right created by government. I am a supporter of Negative Rights theory and do not support any Positive rights at all >>The rest of your argument centers on DRM; it is not just about DRM,DRM is how they attempt to force my property to disobey my commands, it is also about the law the DRM is attempting to enforce on my machine

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exo762 · 2021-08 · Recommendation

Why would any fan of someones work buy a knock-off copy? We can safely assume they are a fan, otherwise why would even buy it? Also, painting is a physical object. It's a one of a kind. EDIT: your objection and many many other questions like that are nicely argued against here: [VIDEO] (The Surprising History of Copyright talk by Karl Fogel)

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syshum · 2017-04 · Recommendation

>>Copyright limitations are a reasonable thing for society to extend to content producers. No they really are not, and have never been Copyright, historically, is a tool for Information Gatekeeping, censorship, and profiteering. Not one of benfiting the Creators of content See the Talk on the History of Copyright [VIDEO] We see this every day in the modern era where copyright is used to censor critics, prevent research (especially security research), and prevents more content from being created by locking up ideas for over a century Copyright is a Negative for Society, and for Creators

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Sources

Video by Google TechTalks, played through YouTube.

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