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Believing that copyright shouldn't exist or should be limited from it's current status but contracts should be enforced is a completely valid position.



Only there weren't any contracts here. How about: "work should be conpensated" and "give it for free and make up in volume/exposure is BS"?


You can't enforce a contract related to creative works without the concept of copyright. Otherwise there is nothing of value upon which to base the contract. That is where copyright came from in the first place.


>You can't enforce a contract related to creative works without the concept of copyright.

Yes you can. The value is in the time and creative process that went into creating the creative work.

A contract that says I will pay you $1000 to create a piece of open source software, is still a valid and enforceable contract, even though I won't own the software in the end.


You definitely can - it's contracts for performing a service, and it doesn't matter if the end result is some copyrightable artifact like a poem, an uncopyrightable artifact like a finding of fact (x % of surveyed people liked your product) or no artifacts at all, as for many services.




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