Why Artists & Inventors Will Love the Future

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are the lifeblood of many artistic, scientific and technical people. Without legal protections, such people cannot feed their families, pay rents and mortgages, get clothing or medical care. Copiosis makes intellectual property (IP) laws unnecessary – and creatives get richer without them.

Copiosis doesn’t need IP laws for two reasons. First, creators get continual NBR “income” when their creation benefits another.

Second, when someone else uses their idea – adds value to it benefitting others – the original creator and the second creator both get NBR.

And so does anyone else who contributes or builds on the idea. Every Net Beneficial improvement creates an additional NBR stream for the original creator.

A Case Study: Fan Fiction

“Fan Fiction” is a legal gray area. Generally, anyone can create and post their own stories based on copyrighted material like Star Trek, Star Wars or Game of Thrones provided they don’t make money from it. Otherwise, Paramount, Disney and HBO (respective owners of said franchises) will take legal action.

Even aficionados who recently produced professionally-executed Star Trek fan episodes required special permission from Paramount Pictures. They also forswore any profit potential.

In Copiosis, Paramount Pictures would not exist in its current form. Instead, the “rights” to Star Trek – acknowledgment as original creator and initial NBR stream recipient – would remain with Gene Roddenberry.

Let’s assume Gene (who died in 1991) is still alive and kicking at age 99. Because so many enjoy Star Trek, he’s generated NBR streams numbering in the hundreds. So do all the others who contributed to his original idea — including fanfic authors and producers.

Not Everyone Gets Rich And That’s OK

As is the case today, not all fanfic generates NBR. Some could create Negative Net Benefit if it used non-renewable resources or it harmed people. Much of it will languish in obscurity, going unread. Just like today.

But that’s all right. Because even if creative and inventive folks don’t get NBR rich, they still eat well. They also enjoy decent housing, basic clothing as needed and health care.

Worst case scenario: you have a population of contented, healthy folks, doing what they love. Best case scenario: Renaissance 2.0.

To learn more about how intellectual property rights are already moving in a Copiosis direction, check out Creative Commons.

By K.J. McElrath








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