Just wanted to vent about this topic for a bit, because this is something that annoys me to no end. You see so many people complain nowadays about how China "stole" something from the West, whether that's technology or just some idea for a product.
So many times this is just racism, but yes, there are times when Chinese manufacturers were very likely inspired by a Western design. So what? Let's even assume that they added nothing of their own to it and just took the idea as-is (which is not usually the case; as we have seen by now, imitation is only the first step; eventually China learns and starts to innovate and even advance ahead of the West).
Even in those extreme cases, either the original product was not made anywhere near as cheaply, or as efficiently, or maybe even mass produced at all. Let's say someone showcases online some artisanal design of something cool they made, but never tried or intended to mass produce, and some manufacturer (doesn't even have to be in China, can even be in a Western country) decides to take that design and mass produce it and sell it, did they really do something wrong?
Did they "steal" anything? As in physically take something away from the original creator that they now no longer possess? No. On the contrary, they worked out how to actually produce that design in a way that is commercially viable, and provided the world with a product that people would not have had if this manufacturer had not taken up that idea and actually made it a mass produced reality.
So where is the "crime"? What would have happened if the first hominid who discovered how to make fire told all the other hominids: "Hey, you're not allowed to make fires, this was my idea and if you use it for your own benefit, it's stealing!". How about the first inventor of the wheel? "No, no one else can make wheels, else you're stealing my design! Even if i decide not to make any more of them than this one prototype."
Why do so many people nowadays accept this argument, when all throughout human history this sort of behavior would have gotten you laughed out of the village? Humanity progresses by sharing knowledge, by imitating and copying other people's ideas. And if someone can implement your own idea better than you yourself can, why shouldn't they?
This isn't theft. "Intellectual property" is the real theft: theft from humanity. Holding back progress because you could have made money off of it first, or even just because your ego demands recognition, is that justified? Is that something that we as a society should accept?
This criticism of course extends even more so to the level of corporations which go absolutely crazy with hoarding patents and copyrights, often to things which they didn't even create but just "bought the rights" to (a crazy, absurd concept btw...i mean even if you believe the originator of an idea should have a special right, how can anyone believe that this right is something that can be bought and sold!?), even long past the point when they themselves are no longer using these IPs to make money. I call this is a crime against humanity.
Also, so-called "piracy" of digital media has nothing to do with actual piracy, which is actually physically taking something by force from someone else. You don't take anything from anyone when you copy a sequence of ones and zeros. The original sequence is still there, you didn't delete it, you just duplicated it.
One of the biggest psyops ever pulled on us as a society is convincing us that making copies of existing digital media is somehow equivalent to "theft".
As an Artist who regularly gives away free Artworks of different nature i kinda take issue when people sell stuff i did not intend for to be on sale. I'm ok with them giving it away, but i don't want people to make money off of works i specifically made to be non-commercial. Just takes all the joy out of creating it in the first place.
Why? If you don't mind me asking. If your intent is to give away your artwork for free, how does it affect you when others try to monetize it if you had no intention of doing so yourself?
(I assume here you don't mean actual physical paintings right? Because taking those would be literally theft. You mean digital artwork?)
And how does someone even make money off of selling something that can be found for free? If something is available for free then why would people pay money for an identical non-free version if the free version exists? Is it just that people don't know that you are offering it for free?
Or is it because someone can take your work and copyright it for themselves and then forbid you from distributing it for free? If that is the case then i would argue that your original intention of having the work be free would be better protected if there was no such thing as IP law in the first place. IP law benefits big corporations who have a lot of financial resources to enforce their rights much more than it does small creators anyway.
Don't get me wrong, i do believe in giving credit to original artists. Just like we credit authors when we quote them, or scientists who invent new mathematical equations or discover new scientific facts by naming their discoveries after them. It's a matter of common courtesy and respect.
Taking credit for other people's work is of course considered rude and generally socially looked down upon, but i just don't think that any special legal right should be enforced over ideas.
Not op, but I feel like this comment is somewhat disingenuous.
1.You argue against points op is not explictely making. For example, op never actually says they like copyright law or that it is effective in this scenario. However you argue like op explicitly did. All op said is that they "take issue with it," which is actually objectively in line with what you say in the last paragraph of your comment
2.You very much can take something given for free and sell it based on the ignorance of the consumer base, especially if the consumer bases don't interact. If i write a video about the French revolution or something, a company can then just transcribe the video and put it on their website, claim it's there's, and make money off of it. This happens plenty already. Additionally, back when NFTs were a big thing, people would steal art and make them NFTs to sell, and basically tell artists "tough" when they were criticized for the practice.
3.I do want to point out we still have a lot of years of "to each according to their work" to get through once a socialist transformation occurs. How does one get compensation for their work if society has no ability to dictate credit? I'm obviously not saying the creator should be able to prevent ideas from being used in one way or another, but they should still be compensated for the work they do to actually make said concept.
They get paid by the hour, like all the other workers.
This is impossible
Even if they somehow managed to delete it off the creator's computer, the creator could just go to the nft site, rightclick, download. It can't be stolen if you still have it.
Sorry, they wouldn't physically steal the art off the creators harddrive. They would just post the art and sell it for money despite having no involvement in the creation of said art. This was a very important distinction to make
Then it's not stealing. Stealing is when it is gone. Not stealing is when it is still there.
Well, yes, and? If the original creator wants the art to be free they can still post it on free websites. Whoever still buys the non-free version of the same thing they could easily get for free is just a dupe at that point, no? Obviously it's a shitty thing to do, taking credit for other people's work, but the real underlying problem is the fact that this absurd concept of "selling" something that can just be endlessly duplicated via a copy-and-paste operation has somehow come to be accepted as normal. That shouldn't even be a thing.
In confused how this idea conflicts with what I am saying. Having your work taken and sold while you're trying to give it to people for free is disheartening. I havent advocated for some form of system of redress, I am simply saying it hurts us to have our work be used for other people's gain without our consent. I, like you, am saying it's a "shitty thing to do."