• shrugal
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    8 months ago

    Monopolies are not about exclusively for one specific thing, but about scale and the availability of alternatives. It’s not like you can only buy pictures or music from one artist, just that you have to buy art from the artist who made it.

    • rchive
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      8 months ago

      In a sense it is a monopoly, just a very narrow one. The first step to identifying a monopoly is identifying the relevant market, and that is quite hard to do, actually.

      • shrugal
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        8 months ago

        The contradiction is that you imply copyright is always a government enforced monopoly. It can be, but it usually isn’t, especially with art. So using it as a counter argument here makes no sense.

        • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          copyright is always a government enforced monopoly.

          that’s the only thing it is. it’s a law that grants exclusive rights to sell. how do you think it’s not in relation to art?

          • shrugal
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            8 months ago

            Exclusive rights and monopolies are not the same thing. Monopolies are about access to a category of things or services that fulfill a need, not one specific thing. E.g. Samsung has exclusive rights to sell Samsung TVs, but they don’t have a monopoly on TVs, and talking about a monopoly on Samsung TVs specifically makes no sense. Similarly no one has a monopoly on landscape drawings, rock music or scifi movies, just exclusive rights to specific pieces of art or literature that they created.

            As a side note, patents are a different story imo. Because overly broad patents can actually give you exclusive access to an entire category, and therefore a real monopoly. But you can’t patent art.

              • shrugal
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                8 months ago

                Because the example is not about copyright in particular but monopoly vs exclusive access. I wanted one that’s not about art to illustrate the point, and the priciple is the same in this regard.

                • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  8 months ago

                  trademark has nothing to do with copyright. they’re two sets of laws that developed a two different times for two different reasons.

                  • shrugal
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                    8 months ago

                    So, what does that have to do with the exclusive rights vs monopoly discussion? Both give you exclusive rights, doesn’t matter that they come from two different sets of laws.