HackerTubewatch
Surprise me
Frame from The Surprising History of Copyright and What It Means For... Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

The Surprising History of Copyright and What It Means For...

56 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
2 HN users recommended this talk3 months2016–2021 score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN uses it as the go-to history of copyright, arguing it was a gatekeeping tool and that creators don't need it.

Karl Fogel's 2006 Google Tech Talk traces copyright from a 16th-century English censorship law to a distribution monopoly. It then surveys alternative economic bases for creation and distribution.

“Karl Fogel does a great job explaining the History of copyright” (HN, 2016)

1 strong recommendations · 2 recommendations · 2 citations · Talks

5 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@syshum Nov 2016 Strongly recommends
on HN thread “DRM is Used to Lock in, Control and Spy on Users”
Read more
>>but that's all it is, a justification. And in my opinion, that justification results in less original content. Given that more content from more people is being created today that at any point in human history runs counter to your statement Copyright is about protecting the Gatekeepers, the Movies Studios, the Music Labels, the Book Publisher, not about protecting creators. Karl Fogel does a great job explaining the History of copyright and why is it not needed to protect creators [this video] >> it's our own propensity to not respect the rights of the creator which has encouraged the adoption of DRM. I do not recognize them as rights. Copyright is a Positive Right created by government. I am a supporter of Negative Rights theory and do not support any Positive rights at all >>The rest of your argument centers on DRM; it is not just about DRM,DRM is how they attempt to force my property to disobey my commands, it is also about the law the DRM is attempting to enforce on my machine
Karl Fogel explains copyright history and why creators don't need it.
@syshum Apr 2017 Recommends
on HN thread Chrome 55-57 showed “download” button for all HTML5 media
>>Copyright limitations are a reasonable thing for society to extend to content producers. No they really are not, and have never been Copyright, historically, is a tool for Information Gatekeeping, censorship, and profiteering. Not one of benfiting the Creators of content See the Talk on the History of Copyright [this video] We see this every day in the modern era where copyright is used to censor critics, prevent research (especially security research), and prevents more content from being created by locking up ideas for over a century Copyright is a Negative for Society, and for Creators
History of copyright as gatekeeping tool.
@exo762 Aug 2021 Recommends
on HN thread Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow
Why would any fan of someones work buy a knock-off copy? We can safely assume they are a fan, otherwise why would even buy it? Also, painting is a physical object. It's a one of a kind. EDIT: your objection and many many other questions like that are nicely argued against here: [this video] (The Surprising History of Copyright talk by Karl Fogel)
Karl Fogel's talk argues against common objections to copyright skepticism.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@the_ancient Feb 2016 Cites it
on HN thread Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law
>> The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce creative works False, the purpose, and only reason for copy right is to promote the useful sciences, all other reasons are UnConstitutional (from a US Stand point anyway) The Surprising History of Copyright: [this video] [link]
History of copyright and its stated constitutional purpose.
@syshum Jul 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Internet Archive responds to publishers’ lawsuit
Read more
>>It only creates a monopoly for other's books. That is far from "all it does", YouTube is a prime example of the suppression forces inherent in copy right law, and the amount of abuse that occurs chilling speech and public participation >>You really should consider the other part of the equation. Authors need to eat. No I really should not. That is not the goal nor desire of copyright law. profit is not the reason copyright was added as a constitutional power of the US Government nor should that be the metric for which we judge the effectiveness of copyright law >. They can only eat if publishers pay them. Again this is incorrect, and becomes more incorrect as time goes on. Through Copyright publishers act as gate keepers which prohibits new an innovative ways of funding creative works beyond the traditional copyright model Copyright from its inception has had a questionable [1][2] history even when looked at from the creators point of view > No "monopoly" means no paid authors There is nothing further form the truth than a statement that absence copyright all creative work would cease. OpenSource software, Open Documentation Projects, and the huge amount of Free Culture works fly in the face of that statement. Further it is provable and self evidently false that publishers and traditional publishing models are the only or even best method to fund creative works in the 21st century [1] [link] [2] [this video]
Cited for questionable history of copyright from creators' viewpoint.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Search
j k
Next / previous video
r
Surprise me
l
Like (video page)
w
Watch later (video page)
?
This help
Esc
Close