Copyright in the Cosmere

[berylliosis]

I had a semi-silly idea for an implementation of copyright in the cosmere.

Essentially, you hold the copyright of a work until people other than you have more Connection to that work (well, probably some more specific threshold that depends on the actual frequency of Connection). Then, it enters the public domain, to be used for anything the fans want.

The natural issue with this is Bondsmithing and other connection manipulation powers, which... doesn't really have a solution, unless there's some way to detect it. But were it not for those (say, on a planet without access to any such powers in the pre-space Cosmere), I think that would actually be a rather good way to measure whether an idea should belong to someone. Better than what we have now, anyways.

Interested in what you guys think of this as a metric

[Frustration]

I don't think that would be a good idea, as Connection can be weird.

Like Spook was more connected to Kelsier than Vin was, but Vin would be more deserving of inheriting anything Kelsier left.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Frustration

[Anomander Rake]

Perhaps not with connection alone, but it seems reasonable that there should be some metric, albeit maybe a convoluted one, to determine the concept of ownership as you describe it.

Still, we are very much in the dark about connection and its tangential topics like spiritwebs, so it could be totally possible for such to be determined from connection alone, though the efficacy is questionable given the fudgy stuff y'all mentioned that can happen with connection.

[Fish613]

2 hours ago, berylliosis said:

Essentially, you hold the copyright of a work until people other than you have more Connection to that work (well, probably some more specific threshold that depends on the actual frequency of Connection). Then, it enters the public domain, to be used for anything the fans want.

The natural issue with this is Bondsmithing and other connection manipulation powers, which... doesn't really have a solution, unless there's some way to detect it. But were it not for those (say, on a planet without access to any such powers in the pre-space Cosmere), I think that would actually be a rather good way to measure whether an idea should belong to someone. Better than what we have now, anyways.

I love this kind of question! I'm a lawyer in real life and I always think law is underused as a worldbuilding tool. I'm really hoping that in the far future of the Cosmere we see things like magical regulation - governments always find a way to regulate / legislate about stuff, and I can't see why magic would be any exception.

In your implementation, would the creator reacquire copyright if their Connection level rose above the threshold again?

I really like the idea of exploiting spiritual attributes to prove ownership. Like previous commentators said, Connection isn't all that well understood, and I think most of the uses we know about are connections between the user and other people, places, or "things" (e.g. spren). Perhaps Identity is a better starting point? If I create something it can be keyed to my Identity, and I can always prove I was the creator. Feruchemy allows us to have public domain (blank my Identity before I create a work) and maybe sell copyright (store my Identity and sell the metalmind, though you run into problems if you want to sell copyright in just one thing at a time).

Hemalurgy messes with this, but 1) you can always check someone for spikes before you test their Identity; and 2) hemalurgy messes with everything, so as long as we're theorising about legal systems here, we should probably just ban it...

[CryoZenith]

26 minutes ago, Fish613 said:

Perhaps Identity is a better starting point? If I create something it can be keyed to my Identity, and I can always prove I was the creator. Feruchemy allows us to have public domain (blank my Identity before I create a work) and maybe sell copyright (store my Identity and sell the metalmind, though you run into problems if you want to sell copyright in just one thing at a time).

There is one big issue with using Identity for this: it wouldn't work in the case of independent development. If two people, separately from each other, invent the same thing (like for example how Newton and Leibniz both came about calculus) they can both key it to their Identity and both have a legitimate claim of being original, if not a legitimate claim of being the first to get there.

And thinking back on the speech Hoid gave in SA about timing as (arguably) the thing which people value the most, this is a nuance that is highly relevant.

[Fish613]

16 minutes ago, CryoZenith said:

There is one big issue with using Identity for this: it wouldn't work in the case of independent development. If two people, separately from each other, invent the same thing (like for example how Newton and Leibniz both came about calculus) they can both key it to their Identity and both have a legitimate claim of being original, if not a legitimate claim of being the first to get there.

And thinking back on the speech Hoid gave in SA about timing as (arguably) the thing which people value the most, this is a nuance that is highly relevant.

There's a few reasons I'm not sure your example is the best one (e.g. two mathematicians can come up with exactly the same mathematics, but copyright just deals with works of art, and it's far less likely two artists would create the same art), but you're right that my proposal doesn't account for independent development. Do you have any suggestions?

For my part, I'm ok saying that we can probably deal with that using the same approaches as real-world copyright law - Cosmere magic-y shenanigans are fun, but they may not actually be necessary. (See e.g. all the copyright claims in recent years about whether some musician plagiarised some other song - you line up a whole bunch of evidence about how similar the two actually are, you get the second singer to give evidence about whether they'd ever heard the first song etc.) It's like how the Lord Ruler [Mistborn Era 1 spoilers]

Spoiler

could have fed his people through the cataclysm by creating and filling a whole bunch of unkeyed gold metalminds to store enough health for everyone for 200 years - or he could have simply invented tinned food and made massive water reservoirs, with no magic required

.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Fish613

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Fish613 said:

I love this kind of question! I'm a lawyer in real life and I always think law is underused as a worldbuilding tool. I'm really hoping that in the far future of the Cosmere we see things like magical regulation - governments always find a way to regulate / legislate about stuff, and I can't see why magic would be any exception.

In your implementation, would the creator reacquire copyright if their Connection level rose above the threshold again?

I really like the idea of exploiting spiritual attributes to prove ownership. Like previous commentators said, Connection isn't all that well understood, and I think most of the uses we know about are connections between the user and other people, places, or "things" (e.g. spren). Perhaps Identity is a better starting point? If I create something it can be keyed to my Identity, and I can always prove I was the creator. Feruchemy allows us to have public domain (blank my Identity before I create a work) and maybe sell copyright (store my Identity and sell the metalmind, though you run into problems if you want to sell copyright in just one thing at a time).

Hemalurgy messes with this, but 1) you can always check someone for spikes before you test their Identity; and 2) hemalurgy messes with everything, so as long as we're theorising about legal systems here, we should probably just ban it...

31 minutes ago, CryoZenith said:

There is one big issue with using Identity for this: it wouldn't work in the case of independent development. If two people, separately from each other, invent the same thing (like for example how Newton and Leibniz both came about calculus) they can both key it to their Identity and both have a legitimate claim of being original, if not a legitimate claim of being the first to get there.

And thinking back on the speech Hoid gave in SA about timing as (arguably) the thing which people value the most, this is a nuance that is highly relevant.

So, Identity is what separates souls, it's the thing in the SR that says, this soul is so and so. It's effectivly a skin for your soul, everything inside is you, everythong outside is not.

The reason investiture is keyed to an Identity is because it's part of someone's soul.

Ideas/art etc wouldn't be part of someone's identity, the only way I can think of that working is some mechanical overwriting of the Identity of the object, but that allows anyone to do it.

I think the easiest, and most realistic outcome would be for their copyright laws to match our own.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Frustration

[CryoZenith]

13 minutes ago, Fish613 said:

There's a few reasons I'm not sure your example is the best one (e.g. two mathematicians can come up with exactly the same mathematics, but copyright just deals with works of art, and it's far less likely two artists would create the same art), but you're right that my proposal doesn't account for independent development. Do you have any suggestions?

.Oh yeah, I know it's not a super accurate example, I was just giving the gist of it.

My suggestion would actually, funnily enough, be the exact same as the one in the OP. Use Connection. Independent development would look in the SR as two people both connected to the same work of art, and you could legislate that the one with the stronger Connection is the one who owns the IP.

[Pathfinder]

18 hours ago, berylliosis said:

I had a semi-silly idea for an implementation of copyright in the cosmere.

Essentially, you hold the copyright of a work until people other than you have more Connection to that work (well, probably some more specific threshold that depends on the actual frequency of Connection). Then, it enters the public domain, to be used for anything the fans want.

The natural issue with this is Bondsmithing and other connection manipulation powers, which... doesn't really have a solution, unless there's some way to detect it. But were it not for those (say, on a planet without access to any such powers in the pre-space Cosmere), I think that would actually be a rather good way to measure whether an idea should belong to someone. Better than what we have now, anyways.

Interested in what you guys think of this as a metric

So my big issue with this concept is obsessive fans can gain ownership of works or even in some cases the person themselves. Imagine if the guy that shot John Lennon owned Lennon's name and everything he produced? 

15 hours ago, Fish613 said:

I love this kind of question! I'm a lawyer in real life and I always think law is underused as a worldbuilding tool. I'm really hoping that in the far future of the Cosmere we see things like magical regulation - governments always find a way to regulate / legislate about stuff, and I can't see why magic would be any exception.

In your implementation, would the creator reacquire copyright if their Connection level rose above the threshold again?

I really like the idea of exploiting spiritual attributes to prove ownership. Like previous commentators said, Connection isn't all that well understood, and I think most of the uses we know about are connections between the user and other people, places, or "things" (e.g. spren). Perhaps Identity is a better starting point? If I create something it can be keyed to my Identity, and I can always prove I was the creator. Feruchemy allows us to have public domain (blank my Identity before I create a work) and maybe sell copyright (store my Identity and sell the metalmind, though you run into problems if you want to sell copyright in just one thing at a time).

Hemalurgy messes with this, but 1) you can always check someone for spikes before you test their Identity; and 2) hemalurgy messes with everything, so as long as we're theorising about legal systems here, we should probably just ban it...

Check out Max Gladstone's series starting with "Three Parts Dead". Basically magic is ruled by contracts and arrangements so there are huge magical law firms with lich ceos. And it's not done ironically, but quite seriously. Eventually it got too onerous for me but I did enjoy the concepts and the first book or so. Might be right up your alley

Edited January 21, 2022 by Pathfinder

[Fish613]

On 21/01/2022 at 2:54 PM, Pathfinder said:

Check out Max Gladstone's series starting with "Three Parts Dead". Basically magic is ruled by contracts and arrangements so there are huge magical law firms with lich ceos. And it's not done ironically, but quite seriously. Eventually it got too onerous for me but I did enjoy the concepts and the first book or so. Might be right up your alley

Interesting tip - thanks. I keep a running list of things I want to read and I'll add this. 

[Serack]

On 1/20/2022 at 3:54 PM, Frustration said:

I don't think that would be a good idea, as Connection can be weird.

Like Spook was more connected to Kelsier than Vin was, but Vin would be more deserving of inheriting anything Kelsier left.

Yah, and people can be pretty obsessive on their fandom.  The world fan literally comes from "fanatic" and 

[apepi]

On 1/21/2022 at 8:54 AM, Pathfinder said:

So my big issue with this concept is obsessive fans can gain ownership of works or even in some cases the person themselves. Imagine if the guy that shot John Lennon owned Lennon's name and everything he produced? 

Check out Max Gladstone's series starting with "Three Parts Dead". Basically magic is ruled by contracts and arrangements so there are huge magical law firms with lich ceos. And it's not done ironically, but quite seriously. Eventually it got too onerous for me but I did enjoy the concepts and the first book or so. Might be right up your alley

Reminds me of a DnD world I had, where spell materials are the way of getting the copyright of a spell. You use the spell material and it goes to the copyright holder, which they can sell the material for profit.

I almost wonder if people could control the ideals of things, like the ideal fire/etc that the flamespren are based off of.