Yes, indeed, government-mandated monopolies are really the best way to make sure the "creative works" of fundamentally indeterminable values get paid and the "free-market" is upheld /s.
This moronic notion that IP somehow encourages creativity is so delusional it's not even funny. Did Michelangelo and Shakespeare need copyrights to their works to make money? Have thinkers and authors who contributed most to human intellectual evolution across the Golden Ages and Renaissances of science, arts and philosophies ever needed state-enforced punishments against non-consensual copying? Good works are not funded using abusive laws to crack down on those trying to share them, they get sponsored by communities that value them.
There are countless examples of absolutely garbage works that end up making a lot of money and there are countless awesome works that are completely free to the public. IP does nothing to reward good productions, all it does is help publishers and governments abuse individual rights and control information. NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO HAVE A MONOPOLY ON IDEAS AND INFORMATION. You are free to keep your ideas and information private, but if you make them public they are NOT your private property anymore. IP laws are probably among the worst inventions the west has ever introduced to the world that has single-handedly held back unfathomable amounts of progress.
This is objectively and demonstratively wrong; the lurid ad hominem only adds to embarrassment.
If 'money was not involved' then Shakespeare, Michelangelo et. al. would not have made most of their works.
Moreover, you've used two examples of artists creating physical things for money, whereupon the very notion of 'IP' is not hugely relevant.
Obviously, people need an income to survive, and most great works require incredible investment of time, labour, materials etc..
The Sistine Chapel and The Statue of David - were both commissioned aka 'commercial works', and the works of those artists (along with Bach, Beethoven, and innumerable composers and artists since the dawn of time) are paid for by the Church, state officials, private organizations, or wealthy individuals. Only more recently from the public purse (Universities and most research institutions were socialized in the late 20th century).
If the Opera del Duomo / Florence Cathedral did not pay for Michelangelo - it would not exist. It was their idea in the first place.
Shakespeare was a populist playwright - if he did not entertain paying audiences at The Globe - most of his works would never have existed.
Even the Eiffel Tower - a magnificent centrepiece to the city of Paris, was almost entirely a commercial project.
Nobody is suggesting that 'creative works' ought to be inherently limited by IP, as I directly indicated in my point.
Nobody is suggesting that IP and other commercial aspects are primary drivers of creative impetus.
Nobody is suggesting that people would 'not do' at some creative work without being paid.
Nobody is suggesting that some kinds of information don't belong inherently in the public domain.
However - if people are not able to be compensated for their works, then only a tiny fraction of creative work will be done.
'Journalism' is a fairly important industry, and they've come under incredible duress due to the proliferation of information, there are many benefits from that, however, the lack of professional journalists is on the whole, a bad thing. Without some form of IP basis it would likely be impossible for them to exist.
The entire entertainment and sports industries would mostly cease to exist without IP, and even most non-fiction works would not be authored. Most productions, especially those involving more than one person are involved, such as film or TV, can only move froward knowing they will have a material income. If publishing were really some kind of toxic businesses grabbing all of the surpluses then a lot of people would be doing it. Clearly, that's not the case. The MBA's are flocking to the Wall Street and Valley, not to the Publishing Industry.
That a lot of content out there is 'not very good' is a bit besides the point, it's not your right to tell people how they want to be entertained.
If you want to see what a world would look like without IP rights, visit the National Film Board of Canada and contemplate that's pretty much all that would exist: the totality of entertainment. They do a few good bits, but most of it is frankly not very good (as evidenced by the complete lack of interest in this content). And that would be all of your Netflix/Disney/ESPN etc. put together.
There's always room to debate about IP rights obviously, but what's shocking is how ostensibly intelligent people can't grasp how foundational IP rights are.
> If 'money was not involved' then Shakespeare, Michelangelo et. al. would not have made most of their works.
Yes, but wasn’t their model one of patronage rather than “intellectual property”? William Shakespeare predated the Statute of Anne, Britain’s first copyright law, by one hundred years.
This moronic notion that IP somehow encourages creativity is so delusional it's not even funny. Did Michelangelo and Shakespeare need copyrights to their works to make money? Have thinkers and authors who contributed most to human intellectual evolution across the Golden Ages and Renaissances of science, arts and philosophies ever needed state-enforced punishments against non-consensual copying? Good works are not funded using abusive laws to crack down on those trying to share them, they get sponsored by communities that value them.
There are countless examples of absolutely garbage works that end up making a lot of money and there are countless awesome works that are completely free to the public. IP does nothing to reward good productions, all it does is help publishers and governments abuse individual rights and control information. NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO HAVE A MONOPOLY ON IDEAS AND INFORMATION. You are free to keep your ideas and information private, but if you make them public they are NOT your private property anymore. IP laws are probably among the worst inventions the west has ever introduced to the world that has single-handedly held back unfathomable amounts of progress.