A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform - By Cory Doctorow

[justaprogressive]

adblocking into a copyright infringement...

Here's a weird consequence of our societal shift from capitalism (where riches come from profits) to feudalism (where riches come from rents): increasingly, your rights to your actual property (the physical stuff you own) are trumped by corporations' metaphorical "intellectual property" claims.

That's a lot to unpack! Let's start with a quick primer on profits and rents. Capitalists invest money in buying equipment, then they pay workers wages to use that equipment to produce goods and services. Profit is the sum a capitalist takes home from this arrangement: money made from paying workers to do productive things.

Now, rents: "rent" is the money a rentier makes by owning a "factor of production": something the capitalist needs in order to make profits. Capitalists risk their capital to get profits, but rents are heavily insulated from risk.

For example: a coffee shop owner buys espresso machines, hires baristas, and rents a storefront. If they do well, the landlord can raise their rent, denying them profits and increasing rents. But! If a great new cafe opens across the street and the coffee shop owner goes broke, the landlord is in great shape, because they now have a vacant storefront they can rent, and they can charge extra for a prime location across the street from the hottest new coffee shop in town.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/29/faithful-user-agents/#hard-cases-make-bad-copyright-law

[John1956PA]

1. Rent obligations stifle the chances of many for upward mobility. n/t

[Hugin]

2. A pertinent aspect of "feudalism"...

That I had forgotten. Very true.

[ThreeNoSeep]

3. I had the pleasure of seeing him speak at a librarian conference

Doctorow is amazing, and he sees what tools the modern oligarchs and corporations use to oppress the rest of us while he also provides ways to combat that oppression.

[al bupp]

4. This certainly deserves a kick