Comment by TheOtherHobbes
Comment by TheOtherHobbes a day ago
Copyright doesn't "produce a cultural hellscape." That's just nonsense. Capitalism does because it has editorial control over narratives and their marketing and distribution.
Those are completely different phenomena. Removing copyright will not suddenly open the floodgates of creativity because anyone can already create anything.
But - and this is the key point - most work is me-too derivative anyway. See for example the flood of magic school novels which were clearly loosely derivative of Harry Potter.
Same with me-too novels in romantasy. Dystopian fiction. Graphic novels. Painted art. Music.
It's all hugely derivative, with most people making work that is clearly and directly derivative of other work.
Copyright doesn't stop this, because as a minimum requirement for creative work, it forces it to be different enough.
You can't directly copy Harry Potter, but if you create your own magic school story with some similar-ish but different-enough characters and add dragons or something you're fine.
In fact under capitalism it is much harder to sell original work than to sell derivative work. Capitalism enforces exactly this kind of me-too creative staleness, because different-enough work based on an original success is less of a risk than completely original work.
Copyright is - ironically - one of the few positive factors that makes originality worthwhile. You still have to take the risk, but if the risk succeeds it provides some rewards and protections against direct literal plagiarism and copying that wouldn't exist without it.
Everything is derivative. This boundary you are defending between originality and slop is extremely subjective at best. What harm is slop anyway? If originality is so objectively valuable, then why should its value be systemically enforced?
At the intersection of capitalism and copyright, I see a serious problem. Collaboration is encapsulated by competition. Because simple derivative work is illegal, all collaboration must be done in teams. Copyright defines every work of art as an island, whose value is not the art itself, but the moat that surrounds it. It should be no surprise that giant anticompetitive corporations reflect this structure. The core value of copyright is not creativity: it's rent-seeking.
Without copyright, we could collaborate freely. Our work would not be required to compete at all! Instead of victory over others' work, our goal could be success!