p2pnet - rss feed: What’s copyright, Grandpa?
p2p news / p2pnet: Gamasutra ran an intriguing feature which among other things says following the Grokster ruling, “File-sharing will continue to grow ever more popular, but now there will be no one to sue.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling hasn’t even delayed the inevitable; it has actually brought it closer.”
Who says? Famed game meister Ernest Adams. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The End Of Copyright
By Ernest Adams - Gamasutra
I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of a major era in world history. It may take fifty years, it may take a hundred, but the age of copyright is drawing to a close. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s inevitable. And I say this as the author of two books and over 75 columns like this one, all copyrighted.
Just 550 years ago this year, a guy named Johann Gutenberg figured out how to make large quantities of metal type in a hurry. He didn’t invent printing—the Chinese had been doing that with wooden blocks for centuries—but he did find a way to make it fast and efficient. Gutenberg changed the world and helped to bring on the Renaissance.
There were no copyright laws at that point. Before the printing press, books in Europe were copied by hand, and having someone go to the trouble of copying your book was about the highest praise an author could get. But with the printing press, the concept of intellectual property was born. Over the next two centuries or so, copying books went from being high praise to being a crime. As printing presses were large and heavy—i.e. difficult to conceal and difficult to move—it wasn’t all that hard to prosecute the offenders. The smaller and faster they got, though, the tougher it became.
I’m old enough to remember when photocopiers became commonplace. At first, there used to be signs in libraries, warning the users against duplicating copyrighted material—any copyrighted material, ever. But people did it anyway. They didn’t think they were doing any harm, and they weren’t planning to sell the copy, they just needed it for their own use.
When enough people feel that it’s OK to do a thing, that thing ceases to be wrong in their own cultural context. You can complain about moral relativism all you like, but the facts are inescapable: that’s how people behave. When the photocopier came along, people simply didn’t think it was wrong to copy a few pages out of a book, even though it was against the law and the authors would have preferred that they buy the whole book. So eventually, the Fair Use doctrine evolved with respect to copyright materials. The law changed. It’s now OK to photocopy parts of books for educational, non-commercial use. In effect, the authors and book publishers had to give some ground in the face of the overwhelming tide of public opinion.
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
On June 27, 2005, the US Supreme Court decided to hold companies that make file-sharing software responsible for copyright infringements perpetrated by the software’s users. Everyone expected that they would rule as they did when Universal City Studios sued Sony over the Betamax in 1984: there were legitimate uses of the technology, and it shouldn’t be held responsible simply because it can be used unlawfully. Instead, however, they ruled that file-sharing software actively encourages piracy and the makers should be held accountable.
The Supreme Court’s action has done the exact opposite of what MGM and the other content distributors who brought the suit hoped it would. File-sharing software will become open-source and public domain. File-sharing will continue to grow ever more popular, but now there will be no one to sue. The Supreme Court’s ruling hasn’t even delayed the inevitable; it has actually brought it closer.
There’s no intrinsic reason why someone should continue to get paid for something long, long after the labor they expended on it is complete. Architects don’t get paid every time someone steps into one of their buildings. They’re paid to design the building, and that’s that. The ostensible reason we have patent and copyright law is, as the US Constitution says, “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” But travesties like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act don’t promote the progress of science; they actively discourage it. So do software and biotechnology patents. The patent system was intended to allow inventors to profit for a limited time on particular inventions, not to allow huge technology companies to put a stranglehold on innovation by patenting every tiny advance they make.
Right now, the music and movie industries are howling and beating their breasts and doing their best to go after anybody who violates their copyrights on a large scale. The fury with which they’re doing it is a measure of their desperation. The Sony rootkit debacle is a perfect example: in an effort to prevent piracy, they secretly installed dangerous spyware into people’s PCs, which itself may have been a criminal act. This was about the dumbest public-relations move since Take-Two lied about the Hot Coffee content, and as with Take-Two, it will cost them vastly more than they could hope to gain from it. Did they really think nobody would find out?
The lawsuits, the spyware, the DMCA: these are the death struggles of an outdated business model. It’s the modern-day equivalent of throwing the Christians to the lions in an effort to discourage Christianity. It didn’t work for the ancient Romans and it won’t work now.
Part of the issue is related to the question of how much money it took to create a copyrighted work in the first place. With books and music, the answer is simply, “not that much.” Forget notions of what their rights may be in law; the idea that a band or an author should be paid millions upon millions over the next several decades for something that it cost them at most a few thousand dollars to make, just feels silly to most people. You’ll notice that it’s the megastars who are fighting the hardest over this in music—Madonna, Metallica, and so on. They’re the ones who stand to lose the most. But the smaller, less well-known groups are embracing new business models for distributing their music. They’re like authors back before the printing press: “Copy my music and listen to it! Please!”
Movies and video games are more problematic. They take millions to make in the first place and a good many of them don’t earn back their investment, even with full copyright protection in place. If we’re going to go on making video games, the publishers have to find a way to make them pay for themselves. One approach is an advertising model, although I’m reluctant to say it because I hate the idea of ads in games. Another is to treat games as a service rather than a product. With broadband distribution, I think this is increasingly likely: you won’t ever have a durable copy of a game, you’ll download it every time you play it. Each instantiation will be unique, personalized for a particular machine and Internet address; encrypted to discourage hacking; and expires after a few hours. After that you’ll have to download a new copy.
Yet another model is the donor model: somebody who is known for creating great work can collect up donations in advance; when he has collected enough to fund the work, he builds it, and releases the game copyright-free when it’s finished. The donors will have paid and everyone else gets it for nothing, but they get it first and perhaps some special recognition for their contribution. I’d be happy to put down $40 two years in advance for a new Sid Meier game, particularly if I knew it would be released copyright-free when it came out. And I bet a lot of other fans of Sid’s work would say the same.
The donors have to trust that the developer will finish it, of course; but this is effectively how freeware development works now. Somebody makes a name for themselves with a piece of freeware; they ask for donations; the donations help to fund further work on a new version. So far it has only been tried on a small scale, but—as the mobile and casual games are showing us—there’s still plenty of demand for small scale games in the world.
(A variant of this system, pioneered by cyberspace engineer Crosbie Fitch, is already in place for music, except that people give pledges rather than donations. When the musician releases the work, she collects all the pledges made towards it. See www.quidmusic.com for details. Credit where it’s due: I first heard about this whole idea from Crosbie.)
In short, there are a heck of a lot of ways to recover the development and marketing costs of video games besides trying to sell individual physical copies and prevent their duplication. That system is awkward, wasteful, and theft-prone. It supports too many middlemen and, like Prohibition, puts money in the pockets of some very nasty gangsters.
Of course, some alternative distribution models still rely on copyright, and publishers will still be trying to prevent people from redistributing their content. But sooner or later that model is doomed. The perceived value of a thing is inversely proportional to the ease with which it can be duplicated. If the public simply refuse to acknowledge that copying books or movies or software is wrong, then in a democracy, it will eventually cease to be wrong. People elect the legislators, and legislators make the laws.
Does the end of copyright mean that books or music or movies or games will die? Of course not. The urge to create is too strong in all of us, and consumers will always be willing to pay for novelty and for excellence. It may mean that nobody gets mega-wealthy any more. What it does mean for sure is that the giant dinosaurs that currently dominate the distribution channels had better learn to adapt or die. There are a lot of fast-moving little mammals in the underbrush eating the dinosaurs’ eggs.
And fifty years from now, kids will be asking, “What does that © symbol mean in this old book, Grandpa?”
December 3rd, 2005 at 5:57 pm
Copyright was a good idea.
So was democracy and elections.
So was independent courts.
So was mass education.
So were written contracts.
So was music and the arts.
So was the labor movement.
So was God.
But each and everyone of the good ideas has been taken over by the big mone, big business, a crime syndicate or political gangsters. The voters own nothing.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:19 pm
I can’t say I agree entirely with you.
Copyright was a good idea, until Disney & Co. started expanding it (watch this: http://www.leech.dk/free_culture.swf ).
Mass Education was a good idea, but it teaches too much kids to be workers, not entrepeneurs. They teach you that you want a job in a big corporation’s paper production facility. They don’t teach you that you should take initiative and start your own company. They also teach you to be good little slaves. ( http://revradio.org/movies/ml.wmv)
God was definetly NOT a good idea. Religion is probably the worst thing ever invented. War, murder, racism, hatred, insanity and lack of logic thought are all side effects of religion (even if they some times occour without religious intervention).
Great story BTW. Copyright _is_ dying. Nothing can stop that.
December 4th, 2005 at 12:35 am
I think that’s a little too far on the religion thing. Religion gives millions of people’s lives purpose. Just like everything else, there will always be bad things with good things, that’s inevitable. To say that religion has no positive effect shows a lack of logic on your part.
December 4th, 2005 at 12:40 am
You have a point there, but they’re living a lie. I feel sorry for religious people, who can’t stand up and think for themselves, instead of being dominated by a book.
December 4th, 2005 at 1:06 am
I must say I do agree with this article’s theme. The main hold back in it already being reality of being like getting a photocopy is that the RIAA and assorted organizations push infringement. In photocopy, you must admit for everyday usage by the populace, most of it is very hard for a copyright holder to be “Johnny on the spot” to catch it. Sort of the same way it was for the RIAA to catch a friend handing you a copy of a cassette was.
While the internet makes it much more highly visiable, the idea is still the same, the intent is identical, and for p2p (just like everyday lawyers who get a copy of evidence regardless of copyright issues or not for the judge) there is no money passing hands to justify the statutory fines now being used against everyday p2p users. Statutory fines were not put in place for traders making no money on it, it was put in place to discourage those that were selling items not their own. The key here is that the money finalizing the transaction is missing. The other key is that the proclaimed “theft” doesn’t take place as with physical items that our laws have been based on through historical usage.
Now in a quick slight of hand, corporations are wanting IP elevated to physical status for damage relief. Simply it is a way to collect on something that should have never been ranked as high as it is. Trading or giving an idea to someone else doesn’t make you poorer nor does it deny you possession of that idea afterwards. In much the same way, neither does trading files. P2p is rapidly becoming a culture thing, not a mass piracy manufacturing ring as the cartels would have you believe.
Most of the industrial nations are finding that local and national laws are jacking up the cost of making physical things. As much as possible they are looking at cashing in on the difference in costs between cheap labor and manufacturing costs by using third world countries where they don’t have to meet the minimum labor costs associated with their own countries. Those costs have risen to the point that it is prohibitive to do so within country.
The answer to this in their minds is to sell something that doesn’t cost so much to manufacture. Say software, things that are protected by copyright and patent. Only if they can get and keep the idea that an idea is worth big money can they pull this off. So far the laws are bending over backwards to meet these ideas but the reality and the intangable are having a hard time seeing eye to eye.
I don’t call 1’s and 0’s tangible property. Get a power surge, a virus, or a simple deletion that removes those items and show me where that physical is. There is no way in my mind that 1’s and 0’s have the value of physical property. Especially when considering that the programmer is paid once for the job yet the copyright holder expects to be paid each and every time as if you had purchased something tangible. I see nothing that tells me I bought a product under these terms. The world of legal has yet to apply common sense to laws to reflect this lack of value, still being stuck in the manufacturing era.
December 4th, 2005 at 3:54 am
“You have a point there, but they’re living a lie. I feel sorry for religious people, who can’t stand up and think for themselves, instead of being dominated by a book.”
Well, that’s why religious folks are to this very day referred to as flocks of sheep. It comes down to the social behaviours that are hard wired into most of us and is why it’s human nature to want to be ruled over, and is also why the religious have always been easy to manipulate whether for good or bad intentions. You know the old saying, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The bible is quite simply a tool for those that wish to control others whom don’t want to think for themselves, so I have to agree with your statements. Especially seeing as it’s really hard to say with any certainty whether the bible and religion in general has done more good for mankind than bad through out all of history. This is subject to opinion, but I would definitely say the amount of good has come at a heavy price and is overshadowed by the dark times historically.
Back to the bible, it’s just a collection of stories really like any other, and some of them are simply common sense for the most part (common sense, now there is an oxymoron). I have no doubt that a few of these stories are perhaps a somewhat accurate historical recordings of the past, but I definitely don’t believe that everything in there is accurate or even true since I’m not the type that likes to be told what to believe on nothing more than blind faith. See, I know it’s also human nature to make things up and embellish. I guess that’s the real problem, faith is completely blind and has to be, otherwise it would all fall apart for them. It’s a religious persons only real defence against having to think for themselves when their faith is questioned and I’ve always found that rather funny. It’s their warm cozy security blanket that they love to hide in, and it doesn’t require independant thought nor any real effort. They say we unbelievers just don’t get it, I say it’s just the easy way out and that this so called “faith” is really just the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and humming loudly. I should know, my wife is a devout Christian lol. Thankfully we get along because we are able to accept each other for what we are, something we have no control over at all. That would be the product of our parents and families heh. Now that is something a lot harder to change (if not impossible), and likely not even worth trying. Change yourself if you want, but don’t try to change others. Sadly people like to ignore that bit of wisdom more than any other, so it’s no wonder nobody gets along.
December 4th, 2005 at 4:08 am
Bah, forgot to mention in all of that babbling that I really enjoyed the article. We certainly live in interesting times, and it’s going to be interesting to see just how much the world changes over the next few decades. I have no doubt that the dinosaurs will lose in the end, they always do (hopefully sooner than later). Between the Sony-BMG fiasco and a vote coming up here in Canada, I’m quite happy these days. Sony did more for our cause I think than anyone on our side could have, and this is going to have repercussions as well for some time to come. Plus being able to vote real soon is a chance to hurt their cause some more as well and make sure the people have their say. Yes, I realize that the issues aren’t going to go away really, but at least Bill C-60 and Bill C-74 are dead for now. I hope we see some articles on the upcoming vote here on p2pnet. All I really knew at the moment is that Harper wants to create new laws that supposedly are supposed to clean up the corruption in government and make it more responsible for it’s actions. The big thing I’ve latched onto is the part, from hearing a speech of his a while back, regarding implementing strict limitations on corporate lobbying, something that I feel would be a huge benefit for the people if true. Not really sure of anything else other than that and feel in the dark. Hopefully Michael Geist and Russell McOrmond will fill us in with a few articles in the near future.
December 4th, 2005 at 11:25 am
“God was definetly NOT a good idea. Religion is probably the worst thing ever invented. War, murder, racism, hatred, insanity and lack of logic thought are all side effects of religion (even if they some times occour without religious intervention).”
God was a great idea, INVENTED to control the minds and purse of the followers.
December 4th, 2005 at 11:36 am
“Religion gives millions of people’s lives purpose.”
Hitler also gave the German people’s live “purpose”. And they followed Hitler down to their death and destruction, with much help from the religious sect based in the Vatican. See the truth in the movie Amen.
December 4th, 2005 at 12:35 pm
“The urge to create is too strong in all of us, and consumers will always be willing to pay for novelty and for excellence.”
I think that consumers will always be willing to pay for novelty AND THE MEDIATIC CREATION.
“The giant dinosaurs that currently dominate the distribution channels” WILL SURVIVE MORE THAT OTHER… And perhaps they will use creations of the others.
Nina, http://www.portoalegre2002.org
December 4th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
On the other hand, maybe God is saying, “Sheesh, man was a bad Idea.” Maybe God quotes you, “I created man, but man created War, murder, racism, hatred, insanity and lack of logic.” People may fight over religon, but its just one of many things. hmmm, drugs, sexual abuse, domestic violence, broken relationships, politics, etc… maybe pleasure and profit is the real force behind all this.
I find your post amusing cuz you seem to be a person that simply takes a stab at religon whenever you can. After all the article was about Copyrights and patents, not religion.
Being Atheist makes it easy to see all the other reason people fight. I just like to be fair and neutral rather than discriminate against others. Christians have they’re problems, I’ll be the first to admit. However, your simple bias excludes acknowledgement of worse kinds of evil. Such as, oil hungry politicians are the reason for our current war. I think this comes under pursuit of profit or maybe just pursuit of power. what do you think.
December 4th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
On the other hand, maybe God is saying, “Sheesh, man was a bad Idea.” Maybe God quotes you, “I created man, but man created War, murder, racism, hatred, insanity and lack of logic.” People may fight over religon, but its just one of many things. hmmm, drugs, sexual abuse, domestic violence, broken relationships, politics, etc… maybe pleasure and profit is the real force behind all this.
I find your post amusing cuz you seem to be a person that simply takes a stab at religon whenever you can. After all the article was about Copyrights and patents, not religion.
Being Atheist makes it easy to see all the other reason people fight. I just like to be fair and neutral rather than discriminate against others. Christians have they’re problems, I’ll be the first to admit. However, your simple bias excludes acknowledgement of worse kinds of evil. Such as, oil hungry politicians are the reason for our current war. I think this comes under pursuit of profit or maybe just pursuit of power. what do you think.
December 4th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
On the other hand, maybe God is saying, “Sheesh, man was a bad Idea.” Maybe God quotes you, “I created man, but man created War, murder, racism, hatred, insanity and lack of logic.” People may fight over religon, but its just one of many things. hmmm, drugs, sexual abuse, domestic violence, broken relationships, politics, etc… maybe pleasure and profit is the real force behind all this.
I find your post amusing cuz you seem to be a person that simply takes a stab at religon whenever you can. After all the article was about Copyrights and patents, not religion.
Being Atheist makes it easy to see all the other reason people fight. I just like to be fair and neutral rather than discriminate against others. Christians have they’re problems, I’ll be the first to admit. However, your simple bias excludes acknowledgement of worse kinds of evil. Such as, oil hungry politicians are the reason for our current war. I think this comes under pursuit of profit or maybe just pursuit of power. what do you think.
December 4th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
While it is true that in some countries we have unaccountable corporations “counting the votes” (Diebold in the USA), the greatest problem I see in democracy is still apathy. While it is true that no matter who you vote for, the “Government” will get in, we still have a huge influence on that government. There is still more of us than there are of “them” (those buying elections), but they sleep confident that most citizens won’t bother getting involved.
We need to change that — the power of people-to-people (P2P) is here..
Canada is currently involved in a federal election — how many of the Canadians on this site (Or foreigners with friends in Canada) will be using this time to try to educate each other on copyright and related issues, including election candidates?
We have started to see some posts to the riding-specific areas on the Digital-copyright.ca site. If you want to track posts, go to http://www.digital-copyright.ca/tracker
If you have information about your area, please sign up and post it!
December 5th, 2005 at 7:19 am
God is best marketing idea ever. It still tryed today, political partyes call it a msnifesto. Just like religion partys lot good ideas and prove the point to the idea some good storys which are very one sided.
Political partys, Religion, **AA all one same thing really LIERS!
December 5th, 2005 at 9:53 am
These days, most successful “recording acts” incomes are derived from concerts and other live performances. The recording contracts the labels stuff down new artists throats as structured in such a way as to ensure that the label winds up with virtually all of the money from recorded music purchases. Sure, the new promising band gets a big ‘advance’, but then there are ‘expenses’. LOTS of expenses. There are two places in the world that you can find people actually paying $5.00 for a bottled water: Ibiza in August and in a Label run recording studio.
The bands put up with this crap because they have to get on the charts and get airplay if they expect to make it to the big time concert circuit. This was even true back in the hey-day of “Lounge Act” singers like the rat Pack. They’d make more during a two week run in a Las Vegas Showroom than they did off of any album they cut. However, they do their penance in the studio in order to get new material out to their fans who would then be eager them to come back and see them the next time around.
Eventually Big Music is going to make attempting to their (pathetic) offerings so cumbersome with non-sensical restrictions and boo-boos likes XCP, that their customers will just get disgusted, give up and learn to play the bassoon, or whatever instrument strikes their fancy. In fact, there are many “make and mix your own tracks” software packages available now that require only the most rudimentary knowledge of music to create something sufficiently good enough to inspire further learning and experimentation.
Imagine the possibilities!
–TurboGeek
December 5th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
“The recording contracts the labels stuff down new artists throats as structured in such a way as to ensure that the label winds up with virtually all of the money from recorded music purchases.”
If the premise is true (and it is) then why do a trickle of artists back RIAA?
The same reason a trickle of songwrites make appearances to backup RIAA, their music publishers and the performace righs collecting agencies that allegedly work for the songwriters.
The reason is PAYOLA (paid money or favors) and FEAR of loosing the income they get and just plain IGNORANCE of how the accounting is carried out by music publishers and the and record companies. Anyway, the trickle is the CHOSEN FEW that may actually be paid something because they are the ARGUMENT that songwriters and performers are paid.
My personal experience is that RIAA record companies have sold millions of records with songs that belong to my family and not a single cent in composer royalty money has been paid to us since my father (the songwriter) died 12 years ago. Just one record produced by RIAA member Sony has sold over 5 million copies (a confirmed fact) and the royalty money is worth about $1,000,000 at current value. Surely if Sony steals the author’s royalties, why expect them to be honest with singers and bands. Our infringement (the songs were used by Sony without a license) lawsuit against Sony, filed in 2001, five years ago and stalled (ask the judge), are here:
Venegas v. Sony Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
http://rafa_venegas.web.prdigital.com/venegas_v_sony_lawsuit.htm
A glaring fact is that songwriters and recording artists have never joined forces to fight the accounting schemes of record companies and the music publishers, the cartels. Theese cartels have been very clever. They have created allegedly songwriter associations that only accept songwriters because the association was set up to only collect the performnce income that is only paid to songwriters (and ironically, not the oerformers themselves). The scheme to create a division among songwriters and artists is pefect and has worked for many pre-Internet years. It is time these anti-artists, anti-songwriter systems be destroyed by the artists and the songwriters.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 5th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Look like they are trying to get new law in uk.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/05/uk_intellectual_property_rights_review/
NOTE to self: keep watch on this!
December 5th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Thank you for a well-considered commentary.
December 9th, 2005 at 9:09 am
I do not know much about things. However I believe that if every inventor and genius that mankind has had, behaved as the supporters of patents and licencing laws do now, we would still be at the stone age.
Elio Crivello- United Kingdom
December 9th, 2005 at 9:14 am
Where do I log in to identify myself ??
I have just submitted my views re patents and licensing laws and stone age
Elio Crivello, Welcome , Upper Clarence Road, St Leonards on sea, TN37 6PG . UK
August 20th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
You all sound intelligent and well informed with a clearly defined perspective. It’s a familliar tone. I hear it from friends here in northern california. As far as I can tell it’s all built backward from the end user of something freely accessible. It can be easy to believe that you have a right to something you’ve become accostomed to having uninhibited accsees to even though you were never welcome to it.
If you discovered my unlocked mountain cabin that I hadn’t used in five years, you’d move in.
IT’S MINE!!! You’re NOT welcome, whether I’m using it or not!
The internet has made access to information and media much more open. Just because someone doesn’t know how good of a lock they need to protect thier property doesn’t mean you’re welcome to free use!
It’s a beautiful ideal to live in a society where every member of the team gets equal recognition at dinner time. Should the waterboy get as well paid as the quarterback? They couldn’t have done it without a waterboy.
Unfortunately society is made up of waterboys. Dime a dozen mean anything here? Fact is it’s the quarterback that makes the decisions that get it done! That’s why he makes the big bucks.
We all decide how we want to use the life we’re given. Some people decide to shoot for financial comfort. Many of these people decide to do things so valuable that they’re unique like the quarterback. Granted there are people who just take the money, but most are paid by the society that values them accordingly.
What would happen if you and I each bought adjoining, equal plots of land for a thousand bucks. Say you dug one shovel load of dirt that had 100 one million dollar diamonds and I planted corn. At the end of the year each yaer you sell a diamond and I sell my corn. Should I make the same amount of money as you? Or how about you only make as much as me!!! If we were paid based on our investment I would clearly get paid more. I would have plante , tended, and harvested. You just dug a scoop of dirt. The reality is that you’ld have made the wiser decision to harvest something more valued for your effort than I. People in society are using each of our products every day until the products used up or no longer valued. We’ve been paid for that use. How ’bout I quit farming corn and open a hotel. Should I quit charging for the rooms as soon as my investment is paid off? No, each user needs to pay for each use. That’s called profit! Profit is why I quit farming and built the hotel! If I die, shouldn’t my heirs be able to enjoy the profit of my efforts as much as the house I leave them or the wisdom they’ve gleand from me?
If I write a book, record a song, invent a machine, write useful code, or design and build the edifice that moves us from the cave it is mine. It’s mine to share as I see fit. If I want to charge for its use it is mine to do so, in perpetuety if I want.
No person is made up of only the thing you know them for. It’s your error to assume a wealthy rockstar is wealthy enough and should therefore give the music away for free. The reality is that most of the money donated to socially concious causes comes from the wealthiest 9% of our society. These people are wise enough to make thier living doing what they do and give away for free what they can, where they can, when they can. Often this is done anonymously.
If you want something in this life, earn it, build it , or buy it. If you steal it, you’re a thief. Have a concience and respect others property and they might respect yours. It’s the old universal rule. Do unto others …..