Intellectual property kills creativity | Joost Smiers | TEDxEindhoven

Every Lightbulb Moment starts with an individual human being, going through its creative process. But that does not mean it is an individual process. As Newton said, he stood on the shoulders of giants. Is our current system and philosophy on intellectual property imposing unnecessary restrictions and holding back our collective creativity? With decades of research into the politics of the arts, Joost takes the stand that we should abolish copyright. Joost will speak about the current status of intellectual property and suggest a potential other way of supporting and rewarding creativity and invention as a society. Dr. Joost Smiers is a Professor (em.) of Political Science of the Arts, Research Fellow in the Research Group Arts & Economics at the Utrecht School of the Arts, the Netherlands, and formerly visiting professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures, UCLA, Los Angeles, and Director of Research at the Utrecht School of the Arts.
He has written, lectured all over the world and researched extensively in the areas of decision-making in cultural matters worldwide, new visions on a world without copyright and the public domain, freedom of expression versus responsibility, cultural competition policy, the income of artists and their entrepreneurs, European cultural policy, Unesco’s Convention on Cultural Diversity, and cultural identities (plural). This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx

[@PantheraLeo04]

No creation exists in a vacuum, it is always based on the work of those who came before. Therefore how can one person claim sole ownership over said creation, when it is only possible because of thousands of years of other people's work. No one can own ideas. And this too applies to physical property as nicely explained by Pyotr Kropotkin, "All belongs to all. All things are for all men, since all men have need of them, since all men have worked in the measure of their strength to produce them, and since it is not possible to evaluate every one's part in the production of the world's wealth. All things are for all."

[@whitewolf3601]

There is a big difference between physical and intellectual property. Intellectual Property is just information. Information can simply be copied, Physical Matter not. Property rights are fundamental. Your Idea of everything owned by everyone seems at first very appealing. But when you think longer: Who decides what happens with the bread you want to eat? Do you first need to gain the permission of everyone till you will be able to eat it? You will probably not because you will die before you got the permission. And in addition, you will probably not gain the permission from everyone because someone else will be hungry as well and wants to eat the bread. A world like that will not work. We need physical property rights. BUT I would agree with you in the intellectual property: As it is information that can be copied an infinite amount of times, it can indeed be owned by everyone. It doesnt have to be, but it can. Therefore everyone who wants to own the information can own it, everyone who doesnt, doesnt need to. In the physical world your will always face problems with universal ownership, simply starting with the fact that two people are not able to occupy the same space.

[@whitewolf3601]

It is therefore also much easier to claim physical property than intellectual property. I agree that it is not perfect, but much easier than intellectual property. Physical property I would say is claimed by first come first served. The first person using something is the one owning it. Thats not really easy with Land most times, but feasible: If you built a house and some fence around, it will be yours (thinking of a world where not a least the state claims this land)

[@popypop23]

I'm not usually into topic like the cultural impact of copyright but this was so engaging and fascinating and I'm really going to think more critically about that stuff from this point on

[@HxH2011DRA]

He's right

[@heterodoxagnostic8070]

you are right, he is right, always has been

[@BlackPhillip666]

If the USA let's China get away with "infringing" on *it's* 'Intelectual Property Rights' why doesn't it let *it's* citizens "violate" I.P. too? If it's soooo *illegal* why would America roll over and take it? Is America full of PU$$#1$ now? Big question is: Are the American people PU$$#1$ to China, or their own Government... ...maybe both?

[@joeredfield979]

You'll find in the industry that property and creativity is neatly blurred for profit. You would think that the property is where the greed falls and the creativity where freedom blosoms. When actually its quite the opposite. Creativity is simply the taking something that wasn't your in the first place and making it yours. The property part is then the symbol of your stolen freedom. What elevates humanity to better itself is how we dictate how our creativity effects ourselves but those it spawns from as well. or else all those ideals behind that creativity fall to nothing more then survival instincts. Which is fine, we are all bound to them. Just in the face of some higher "moral" and "enlightened" calling............well, keep trying. That said, I find that if someone profits of my likeness, they do so and move on. Modern Slavery is more real then you would think. Why the strong language? It becomes slavery when you are used, but then you know it, and then your told to not just deal with it, "but to like it". That your wrong for not only paying attention to it, but disagreeing with it as well. That is slavery. being a resource and not having a say in the matter.

[@yuanningfu7328]

Agree. Creativity reproduces, and stories and expressions derive from their previous counterparts. Thoughts influence each other and people's mind is container. Creativity is alive itself, but those who ignore this fact build a profitable industry and defend this huge business machine with intellectual properties. Though authors do need to get rewarded for their hard work. This is so hard.

[@ThatGreenSpy]

TED: Intellectual Property kills Creativity. Me: I've been saying that for years.

[@DaleCoutinho]

just FYI i was not interested in patent or protecting IP.. just wanted to kno bout it n hav my answrs or Alt solution ready ..

[@triot2127]

People should have exclusive right to their creations while they are alive but the idea that here in the US it continues for 70 years after their death is crazy. Imagine if it worked the same way for patents. We probably wouldn't have a lot of the tech we have now.

[@josephcalabrese6337]

@@mystifiedoni377 Not to mention fan art works. How many times has an artist's work been passed around cyberspace? IF it is illegal to share images and sounds over a social media platform, Then the whole world wide web should be shut down.

[@austinbyrd4164]

Intellectual property is vague, counterproductive, governmental protectionism that only causes problems by hurting competition. All in the name of giving an artificial incentive to discover new ideas/concepts. In reality, they monopolize them. Since you can't draw clear boundaries with what should and shouldn't be monopolized, they can be applied to literally anything. Anything from software to Mickey Mouse to the ability to repair your own property gets caught in the crossfire of this pointless quest to stop people from using eachother's ideas. We may be incentivized to get a piece of this mafia support ourselves, but while we do the rest of the world allows their citizens to use them freely. We blame China for allowing it's citizens to use our ideas and label them "thieves." Thieves of *our* rightful ideas. I say allow this _thievery_ within our own walls. It's not like protecting us is doing any good.

[@whitewolf3601]

@@austinbyrd4164 You know what I think is really funny: Many capitalists love intellectual property. But me considering myself a real capitalist do not think this way: Intellectual Property is a government approved monopoly. If you had the right idea but are not able to produce and sell the product with profit, but others do, than the others should do it because they proved themselves more efficient. If you think that your idea is worth a lot of money, go to the manufacturer you think would do it best and make a contract showing them how to produce it. When the thing is one the market, the company will make some profit till others will come and copy it to improve it. Nothing is wrong with that. Intellectual Property has nothing to do with competetion. Its just a battle of lawyers on who writes the best patents and is better at defending. It is also very difficult to adress a patent since in our history, many inventions were done independently nearly at the same time. Mostly, these inventions were just logic consequences of the knowledge previously available. It just had to be put together

[@whitewolf3601]

@@austinbyrd4164 Were I think its difficult is with books for example. You could just write your name on it and claim that its yours. Thats where I would see a problem. And you could just Print it and sell it on your own. There would also not be the incentive to write difficult Textbooks in certain fields, because it would just be too expensive since you wouldnt pay the knowledge and work behind, but simply the paper and ink. And today not even that, since its just the server thats running. In that field, copyright is a difficult thing. But patents are unnecessary in my opinion

[@austinbyrd4164]

@@whitewolf3601 i get it for purely intellectual creations, since there's no other way to monetize them, but it still does bring about the same problems & should be minimized.

[@Mabaws-ju9wp]

The Problem of modern copyrights system is Corporate Greed. Actually if copyright benefited the authors then it's a good thing, But now Corporate is profiting from the loophole and made them Greedy.

[@TheoThompson-Guldseth]

seems more like a criticism on capitalism than intellectual property

[@supaswagg251]

Because not being compensated/credited for my intellectual property hampers plagarists. Have continue to keep the best ideas to myself while I develop a better ways for myself to benefit from my intellect.

[@BattousaiHBr]

that's called a monopoly.

[@wikipediaintellectual7088]

Plagiarism doesn’t exist, brainlet. It’s a meme concept enforced by the state.

[@kellyw8017]

@@BattousaiHBr One person is not a monopoly. You want what other people produce and seek the benefits they would receive. That's called money-grubbing. That's called narcissism. That's called mental laziness.

[@BattousaiHBr]

@@kellyw8017 it's still a monopoly. if nicola tesla registers a bunch of genious patents and locks everyone else from doing it, he's effectively making things worse for everyone else. you claim i want to have what other people produce as my own but you're conveniently ignoring the fact that it goes both ways, what i produce can also be used by others. it's a mutual exchange.

[@reneelucero2923]

@@kellyw8017 "One person is not a monopoly" ...do you not know what monopoly is? When you take something and work to make it your own (Ex: Fanfiction) that isn't mental laziness because you're literally creating something on top of what another has done. Would you call those who rewrite their own versions of fairy tales and sell it lazy because they didn't create the characters? Of course not, that would be ridiculous because it would be ignoring all the labor they put into making their own version. That would be like saying those who make origami aren't actually doing anything because they didn't make the paper.

[@rmartin7558]

If only I had insomnia, then this video might be useful.

[@Diggnuts]

Nah, you do not insomnia, you need a soul.

[@user-ve9xl9uo2c]

The contents of your comment lead me to believe that you have something more severe than just simply insomnia. Haha

[@obuyWw]

Another critique of capitalism.

[@obuyWw]

Mystified Oni Aren't the ideas and or work therefore privatized to individual players within the economy? And instead of sharing to common human knowledge, owners make profits out of it, don't they?

[@obuyWw]

Mystified Oni Why is it anti-capitalist and anti-consumer?🤔

[@obuyWw]

Mystified Oni Well I don't fully disagree. Piracy does creat extra competitions while breaching the laws, but I think if assume there's no piracy, there would still be competitors' offerings that satisfy similar or same needs of the market, for example, some games on Steam under the same category, but respectively protected, and if a player only has limited money for a game, that is competition right? But maybe games on Steam isn't a good example xD

[@obuyWw]

Mystified Oni I see what you mean by anti-consumer. innovation models like Steam's (Community contributions taking account) are really good ideas I think - Steam itself is not likely to be capable of creating such amount of work in their games.

[@obuyWw]

Mystified Oni you cant see my full typings?