#capitalism can die and i'll rip copyright apart with my teeth

[harfblarf]

Circling back to this post to talk to myself abt this subject, because it's genuinely very interesting even from what little I know/have experienced.

I think it's important to keep in mind that no small part of this division, the lines that mark where copyright is and isn't real, is a matter of enforcement. Enforcement, under capitalism, springs from Perceived Profitability; as with any law in a capitalist society, it is only enforced as much as the parties with power think it can benefit them. Free access is allowed only when capitalism doesn't think it will profit from metering it; if it can profit from it, it will claim control over that access, and call you a thief.

Case study: anime. In the U.S. in the 80s-00s (at minimum; I would need to do more detailed research to set a specific timeline), anime was almost entirely community-procured, community-curated; in those circumstances, copyright was similarly treated as either fake or irrelevant. Access under the restrictions of copyright was usually nonexistent, and fansubs, illegal VHS copies, and eventually fansites were the dominant mode of access for anyone in the U.S. who wanted to watch it. Quality of copies and translations varied wildly, and the shows U.S. anime fans had access to tended to be very limited-- but that pool continued to grow as anime fans remained passionate and interested. No one expected their bootleg copy to be "legitimate" or pay the original artists, and no one really thought about it.

But that passion and interest tipped anime (and manga) into the Profitable category, and companies swooped in. It was exciting! Real companies were handling real deals with anime studios. Professional translators were being paid. More shows were getting dubs, and dubbing anime was becoming a viable, specific career. Manga hit bookstore shelves. USAmerican interest in anime was being solidified and spread via advertising. No longer was it a niche hobby quietly traded in the corners. How cool!

This is the trick of capitalism. You are legitimized and recognized when you are profitable, and people tend to crave recognition and legitimacy. This is the underlying logic of rainbow capitalism, and why-- even for many who know better-- it has an undeniable pull, a deeply personal sense of relief and security. The only people who have authority under capitalism are those who can be sold to. The only people who are desired are those who can be sold. Both desirability and authority are things people crave; that's how people are convinced to play both customer and product.

When anime became 'legitimate', piracy and fansubs became a threat to profit, and they were reshaped into a moral negative. Genuine love and passion for the art was weaponized against fans: "if you love it, you should respect the artists who made it. The only way to respect the artists is to pay them. Do you really want to be a thief?" Some established fans didn't buy in to the false dichotomies, but things like crunchyroll and netflix had money and power and authority, and fan spaces were reshaped as new fans outnumbered the old. The changes came gradually; many community spaces still taught each other to dodge ads or passed around old files and YouTube links, bitched about low-quality dubs and translations that changed the meanings. But gradually, failure to use "legitimate" channels to access anime became a source of shame, a sign of selfishness, to seek it without paying the toll, to prioritize your own enjoyment over honoring the artists. Once-loving jokes about janky fan translations and sketchy fansites slowly became more mean-spirited and disdainful.

Crackdowns on and legal threats against fansites, fan translations, and illegal copies chased the people involved into the shadows, took away their tools, and scared some out of the work entirely. Communities fell apart. Jokes about sketchy fansites were replaced with serious warnings about the dangers of piracy sites, and not without reason-- the crackdowns discouraged many, both those who wanted access and those who supplied it, so the sites offering it had every motive to drag as much profit and use out of their users as possible before getting shut down, and users did not have better alternatives. Support for community teams dropped, and interest and engagement in their projects plummeted. Translating and subtitling was intensive and fairly technical work, working within limited software and often with limited experience and linguistic skills. For most manga translators, it also required connections overseas, to get clean digital copies of the works they wanted to translate. Studios and artists alike began directly expressing distaste for rips and fan translations when they partnered with companies for translations. Artists are told they are being stolen from when someone loves their work enough to translate and share it with a wider audience, even when no official translation exists or is even planned.

Curiosity and love of stories is seen as a crime, if you aren't paying a middleman for your access. Challenging that narrative is treated as a betrayal of your community and the art itself. That goes for more than just the anime and manga communities.

Copyright is a legal cudgel wielded to protect a corporate entity's "interests"-- that is, their profits. Conflating copyright with the Artist, with protecting, preserving, or respecting their work-- it's a scam. It's marketing. Corporations and companies will do everything in their power to utilize copyright law against artists and take every penny they possibly can. This is undeniable. It's why Disney lobbied for copyright extension.

But it's also the sole legal tool artists are allowed in places where copyright law is taken seriously. They need its limitations if they want to have any shot at making a living creating their work. It's the only thing that can inflict any consequences on someone claiming credit or ownership of their work. It's the only shield small artists have against companies stealing and using their work without pay. For many artists, big and small, this sole, crappy legal protection is the difference between surviving as an artist and being forced out of the field. So they uphold the system, even though the true beneficiaries would just as soon see them starve.

When I said "I want that" about a copyright-less world, I meant it. Copyright sucks diddlydick, it crushes creative freedom, it hurts artists far more than it helps them, and it only has any decent function under the assumptions of a capitalist society. But it is also crucial to acknowledge why it exists, why it is held up as a golden rule in some places but not others, and how that happened.

If we want to be rid of copyright, we have to change how the entire system treats artists, how it treats people at large, because the few protections copyright provides are the ONLY protections most small and independent artists have. Blowing up a wall only to crush people under the rubble isn't good either!!

What's funny to me is that nobody cares about copyright outside the US and maybe, I dunno, Canada and Europe? For the entire third world, it's something we politely pretend is real so we don't hurt their feelings, but it's probably the fakest and less upheld concept here, absolutely nobody cares.

Some yanqui says something deranged like "um, uh, yeah, you should pay for every time you play a song otherwise you're stealing" and we just pat their head and say "claro que sí tesoro" while we download 15 GBs of movies and the local pizzeria has a mural of like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny to promote it.