Ed Sheeran demonstrates how copyright is destroying musicians
We honestly need to rethink intellectual property from top to bottom, it’s not just copyright and not just music, it’s so much more and it affects every single kind of IP:<p>Patent trolls, overly broad and vague patents that stifle innovation and prevent competition. Amazon should never have got a patent on 1-Click purchases and hardware shouldn’t be impossible to enter due to entrenched players’ deep patent portfolios.<p>Overextending trademark, look up all the ways Monster Beverages tries to abuse their “Monster” trademark, just as one example.<p>Copyright is used to stifle innovation in the arts as seen here. It keeps works out of the public domain for way too long as well.<p>Not only do these directly cause harm but they create chilling effects due to how they let the legal system be weaponized in their defense. Even if I would win a lawsuit regarding whether I’m allowed to do something, I might still let a big player bully me out of it because of the risk and asymmetric cost of going to court. This generates a huge amount of friction.<p>Without our current IP system you would not have all these abusive middle men in publishing, music, or other media. Not only are they stifling new art, they’re benefitting from IP by using it take a huge cut directly from artists per their contracts.<p>Trade secrets, allowing for reverse engineering but not direct espionage, are IMO the only kind of IP that we should allow as-is. Everything else needs to be thrown out and potentially replaced with something else less abusable - I think Netflix should be allowed to fund a big movie and recoup the costs fairly without it being immediately ripped and given away for free, but they shouldn’t get to bully people making similar content or even content extending the IP.