'That's All Right' Soon To Enter UK Public Domain 519
jwlidtnet writes "Reuters is reporting that Elvis's "That's All Right"--currently an unlikely hit in Great Britain--is soon to enter the public domain in that country, followed by other milestones of popular music as Britain's fifty-year protection period comes to an end. Naturally, rights owners are outraged, regarding it as a "wakeup call" for Britain to adopt something similar to the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, to end this "discrepancy between the United States and the EU." Copyright law uniformity has of course been a sore issue in recent years, with the exportation of "DMCA-alike" legislation raising the ire of many. Uniformity on an issue this divisive might be difficult to achieve politically."
Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope the governments don't give in (Score:5, Insightful)
GREED. And I don't mean the good kind of greed that drives competition,
innovation, and creation of new music.
Elvis is dead. He doesn't need the money. His estate run by spongers sure
doesn't need it. When he wrote the song, in fact, copyright law was less
draconian than it is now. So he certainly wasn't factoring in a copyright
extensions when he wrote the song "Hey, I wonder if I should write a song
today. Well, if they don't extend copyright in 2005, I won't, I have better
things to do."
Shouldn't copyright be used to *encourage new music*?? This is just sick. I
wish they would just STOP extending copyright. I wish the governments around
the world would just say, OKAY YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH.
I wish they would view copyright as an *exchange* between the copyright holder
and the public, and not just some formality that the record labels have to go
through every few years to keep extending it.
Can you think of any other situation where you can just go up to the
government and say, hey, I'd like to extract money from society for another 20
years?
This is what's supposed to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets see ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Specially since Blair has been accused of letting Dubya have his way on one to many an issue.
Given that this is mostly a commercial issue (national or global security is hardly at stake), I have a feeling Blair and the Labour party will politely ask the Americans to go shove it where the sun don't shine and score with the masses on both sides of the pond.
Discrepancy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Another reason corporate ownership of music is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find really scary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if you obtained a 50 year lease, and then at the end of those 50 years, the owner wanted the property back. Would you moan to the government about extending your term unilaterally, with no other compensation to the actual owner?
Re:Or... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to admit, though, that the really long copyrights in the US are a bit unreasonable. How long do these people need to own the work before it makes them enough money. Patents only last 1/5 as long, and that amount of time seems more than sufficient to recoup the typically much larger R&D costs associated with patents.
The Terms of Release (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyrights and money (Score:4, Insightful)
By ten years, most of the copyrights are nearly worthless.
I don't see any reason why copyrights should extend past twenty years.
If copyrights are the property of their owners, why not treat them as property and require that property taxes be paid on copyrights and allow the copyright owner to make the material public docmain if the property taxes exceed the income from the copyrights?
50 years of profit isn't enough? (Score:2, Insightful)
I bet we'll see a change to the law slipped through before the end of the year, though. Blair will do anything that the Americans tell him just so that he can have his ego-trip of thinking he's Bush's best friend, even as Bush pounds him in the ass. The man's a fucking disgrace to this country.
"Suffer loss of income" ?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The late '50s and '60s was more than 40 years ago! Who guaranteed anyone a right to still be profiting from music recorded before man set foot on the moon, especially when those artists are no longer around? The living Beatles, the heirs to Elvis Presley Enterprises, and anyone else who has been suckling at the copyright teat for 40 years should be grateful for what they have. Quit whining about "loss of income" from something you didn't lift a finger to produce.
I'm lucky to be paid a decent wage for the work I do today, and I'll consider myself fortunate if my job is still around next month. I sure as hell don't have any expectation that, 40 years from now, I'll still be making money from something I did today! Much less that my kids, if I ever choose to have any, will see any benefit beyond what I manage to save up and pass on to them. Even pension plans are a dying breed here in the US; when once a widow could count on her husband's years of duty to his company to provide some meager living for her when she survived him, nowadays it's generally left up to Social Security.
Why, then, is it so different when it comes to copyrighted works, music in particular? Why is it that the descendants of dead musicians feel that they're due millions of dollars for their parents' (or even grandparents') work, eternally? I don't get it. Maybe I should have been born to musicians.
Re:Loophole? (Score:2, Insightful)
2) Quality of the media has nothing to do with the copyright.
3) There are actually two copyrights involved with music, the song itself, and the recording of that song. That's why you'll usually see a (P) and a (C) on recordings.
Re:I hope the governments don't give in (Score:5, Insightful)
-You can have iron-clad digital restrictions on your media making it absolutely impossible for end-users to do anything other than what's explicitly approved. If you choose this route, your max copyright term is 8 years, then it's completely public domain.
-You can ease up the restrictions, allow some free use (academic, reviews and the like), device and timeshifting, backup copies, downloadable content, etc. Then your copyright is good for 30 years.
-You can tell the public that they can do whatever they want with your creation, so long as no money is being made from any derived works - then the copyright is 50 years after the date of the death of the creator.
N.
It's all folk music (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't claim that 'That's all right' is a song that would not have happened if Elvis hadn't sung it.
Translation (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I got news for ya RIAA! EASY COME EASY GO [wikipedia.org], SHUT THE FUCK UP! This is LAW. You aren't allowed to profit by getting new laws in place which benefit you and nobody else! EVER! Especially not in countries which aren't corrupt like the US government! Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. If you want profit, you have to make it the old fashioned honest way: MAKING GOOD NEW MUSIC AND SELLING IT. Unfortunately, the RIAA are used to making profit and not earning it, because "they deserve it".
Fuck that. I wish the US would break them up, considering they are an illegal cartel.
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's as if he believes the Beatles were thinking, "If I didn't expect the government to extend copyright terms by 2010, I'd seriously rethink my career."
The premise of copyrights encouraging innovation and creativity is completely at odds with retroactive extension. And 70 years past the death of the artist is simply insanity. I don't expect my employer to continue paying my salary to my hairs after I die. Of course, it's no surprise that the corporate holders of copyrights (e.g. Disney through Sonny Bono) are the ones raising the stink.
On the other hand, I'd really like to see Elvis earn enough money for a flight back from Alpha Centauri.
Re:Copyrights and money (Score:4, Insightful)
Any kind of media created by you has an automatic copyright. You don't need to register with anyone or pay anything.
So, imagine an indie band who just likes making music. Are you saying that they should have to pay to prevent their 100 copies of their CD they recorded in their garage from being duplicated and sold by someone who keeps all the profit? I bought an old No Doubt CD that was made before they made it big*. If they were selling the CD for, say $5 when it came out should they have to pay $1000 per year to keep it from the public domain?
Clearly they wouldn't do this, so when they had recieved more exposure and people wanted to hear their early stuff they wouldn't get any money for it.
You can bet there would be people who did nothing but monitor what went into the public domain and make money selling it for redistribution, sampling, etc.
In addition to this no large creator of any kind of media could afford to keep all their work in copyright. You would either have to set the price for the "property tax" so low that the studios would just copyright everything and it would only be a burden on small artists, or high enough that no independent artist could possibly afford it, and only coporate owned media would be copyrighted.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but I'd prefer it if they didn't lobby for retrospective rights. Elvis' songs were produced 50 years ago with the full knowledge that 50 years was all the copyright protection they got. Now that the 50 years is almost up the publishers are trying to extend the copyright.
It's as annoying as those people who build their houses next to airports and then complain about the noise. They knew what they were getting into when they built there!
If copyright extension acts only affected works produced after the date the act went into effect then I think there would be fewer complaints from the rest of us.
Re:Lets see ... (Score:5, Insightful)
K
Re:Incentive (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny comparison, I would have pegged the Stripes minimalist two piece rock as seeming more in place fifty years ago than today. Of course, fifty years from now people will cherry pick all the good stuff out and make this look like a golden age of music as well.
show me the creative benefit (Score:5, Insightful)
The history of copyright is one long battle between the rights of the author and the rights of third-parties. The Sony Bono copyright extension act does nothing to reward or encourage the author...it removed many works from the public domain and established criminal sanctions for any fool who might use those works newly re-copywritten. Who pushed this law in the US? Disney. THE MOUSE almost went into the public domain and a company contemplated the demise of their core IP rights and promptly made certain THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.
The Sony Bono copyright extension act is only the most current power grab. It is the camel's nose under the tent of author's rights. Creator's be damned-let's reward the assignees. Mr. Michael Jackson funds his interests with the copyright royalties from the works of McCartney & Lennon. Not one dime of those royalties reward, support or encourage either of the two living Beatles. They fund Mr. Jackson's "Neverland" ranch and his defense attorneys. All you need is love? Or, is all you need are buckets of money to fund Mr. Jackson's peculiar concept of love? Any way you look at this it stinks on ice!
You can be certain that well before the MOUSE or Jackson find their IP holdings in danger of falling into the public domain again that another extension will be enacted.
Now is the time for a major nation to upset this unearned windfall for the lucky, but uncreative, assignees of author's works. Limit the rights of publishers, purchasers and offspring to profit from the (usually) under compensated creator's works!
TJ Would Agree (Score:1, Insightful)
It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property.
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.
Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices. -- Thomas Jefferson
Why is this an issue NOW...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh yeah, this is Elvis we're talking about, heaven forbid his music ever be free.
(wait till the Beatles' hits hit the wire...)
Dont worry, in 50 years or so, some copyright will be repealed. No one will give a damn about protecting today's pop musical shite. But the old stuff will remain protected FOREVER AND EVER.
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:3, Insightful)
With retrospectivly increasing copyright terms, on existing works, doing nothing to encourage creation. If anythig long, and especially increasing, copyright terms discourage the creation of new works.
Rather, it is simply accepted that the natural expiration of these copyrights, which the holders knew would happen, is somehow causing a property loss to the current holders.
Where this "property" is only considered to be "property" through legal fiat in the first place.
Imagine if you obtained a 50 year lease, and then at the end of those 50 years, the owner wanted the property back.
Now the "owner" gets an even worst deal of X years after someone dies. With no mechanism for the lessor indicating when the clock starts running. I doubt many people (both real and corporate) would willingly lease their property under such terms.
Would you moan to the government about extending your term unilaterally, with no other compensation to the actual owner?
Not even any consultation with the owner...
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:5, Insightful)
For many works the "self life" could probably be meaningfully measured in single digit years (even months).
so there are arguments that government policy should be against rent-seeking behaviour on those accumulating back-catalogs.
Such behaviour also tends to be destructive to the vast majority of works, those which have short shelf lives, since these works may cease to exist before they ever become public domain. Copyrights of the form "life plus X" mean that Copyright Libraries simply cannot function in their intended way.
Re:I hope the governments don't give in (Score:3, Insightful)
Even better would be if when governments were next asked for another retrospective extension they would turn around and set a flat 20 year term on everything. Though no doubt that would have the middle men and those who produced a "one hit wonder" in the early 80's crying in their beer.
Still being sold (Score:2, Insightful)
But that doesn't excuse this kind of greed -
As we all know, the record industry is in a bad state right now. New music is being supported less than it ever has been, mainly because the industry majors are structured to make their money from albums recorded decades ago.
If they have to look for new music to make their money from, then maybe they might have start developing bands and finding real talent again! Either that or sell even MORE Britney albums...
Practical consequences (Score:2, Insightful)
The goal is not to break media companies financially, one person can't do it. The goal is to feel good about not contributing to the ongoing rape of the public domain.
Re:I hope the governments don't give in (Score:5, Insightful)
As part of the registraton, a copy of the work is stored in some central vault. It will be available from that location the moment the copyright expires. This avoids "misunderstandings" of copyright law with DRM-technology not allowing anything to pass into public domain, even after copyright ends.
This mechanism allows reasonable copyright protection for those who desire it, for a period of their own choosing, but limited by the value of the product being copyrighted. Thus things of limited commercial value will quickly pass into public domain (keeping the public at large happy with a steady stream of crap movies, older books, ROMs, and what more) and things of great commercial value can be kept locked up somewhat longer (thus keeping big corporations like Disney happy). And as a steady source of revenue, it should appeal to the government as well.
As for Elvis, his heirs will have the choice: are his songs worth $3200 (each)? If so, it is once again time to pay.
Re:Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell that to the 5 year old in south africa working his ass off to make Nike Shoes at $.02 a pair, or his parents who are working to make a bit more at gunpoint. Need I point out Digital Rights Management hardware/software, or do you have enough wits about you to realize everything you just said was so incredibly wrong?
Here's another one for you; UNICOR, a prison-industry advocate who employes american prisoners to american and foreign companies for a fraction they'd have to pay americans, wants to protect the growth of their busieness. Wanna know how their business grows? By lobbying for more rediculous laws that put people in jail for no good reason (such as the guy who got thrown into jail for life on a 3 strikes you're out program in texas for stealing a can of BEER!), and better contracts and hand-outs to build prisons. Ultimatly, your ass will be thrown into prison when you can't earn to pay off your college loan working whatever you work at because a prisoner or foreigner is doing it.
There is something wrong with "for profit" corporations. They have no moral code, and therefore, we must make laws to restrict them. But, since we don't enforce those laws ever, the average joe ends up loosing more and more of their rights, and those laws end up stifling competition so companies like wallmart can grow bigger.
You can take your post and shove it; I have a 10 gauge that says if some corporate asshole wants to enslave my ass to "protect assets and market share growth" that he can have a nice ball full of FUCK YOU in his face!
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but the beatles were thinking after the first album "Is it worth the time and effort to record a good album in a good studio (as opposed to some garrage) with good producers..." Now as musicians they would produce anyway, but it would be in concerts more because they were fun, and if you screwed up everyone lived with it instead of expecting another retake.
Lets take the simpler case: authors would write if there was a market or not. However by allowing the author to quit their day job and write full time, we allow authors that people like to write more books. As a reader I consider that a good compromise, therefore copyright benefits me - but only so long as the author is writing good books. (too many don't, but that is a different rant)
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:4, Insightful)
My moral threshold would be much higher actually (X=100 years maybe), but from an economic standpoint, I really hate to see a valuable work go to waste.
in a vaccum doesn't get anywhere.
Let me give you a different argument, based on some of your own reasoning: you recognize that physical property rights such as land ownership are limited in a number of ways. One of those ways is that land owners pay taxes on the land. Now, those taxes go to support all sorts of unrelated things, but one of the justifications for that tax is that society pays for defending your property rights.
If taxing your land to pay for defending your rights is sensible, then, especially as we move to more expansive IP protections including criminal sanctions against infringers, shouldn't IP be taxed?
One could, of course, abandon a copyright, allowing it to enter the public domain, and not have to pay the tax.
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Laws are rarely only to the benefit of specific individuals. If they are, it's often a sign of corruption. The purpose of law in a democracy should be to maximize the good for society as a whole, which sometimes coincides with creating a benefit for certain individuals, but which should never benefit individuals just 'because'.
The natural 'right' of a creator is the right to keep his creations to himself, should he wish to. The natural 'right' of everyone else is to imitate, embellish and retell those creations, the tradition on which creativity throughout the ages has built upon. Indeed, what the very concept of human learning builds upon.
Copyright not only grants a new right to the creator, it also takes away natural rights from everyone else. It does this for the very specific reason of benefitting society as a whole by encouraging creators to share and to create more, while still letting the rest of society engage in their rights after a while.
"And all this makes the "X years plus life of author" make sense, I suppose. It's a balance. I think it would probably be best, from an economic standpoint, to have X = 25 years."
How does that benefit society? Will the average writer write more if he will get money after his death? Or will he create less when he needs write nothing else? What benefit outweighs limiting the freedom of everyone else for that time?
What economic and social benefits would we have seen if Disney were not allowed to make films based on old stories? What would we gain if nobody was allowed to use and adapt Mark Twains books?
Copyright not only promotes creativity, it also prevents the evolution and adaption of works, and in the case of abandoned works, it can remove them from humanity as a whole.
Re:Copyrighted works and country of origin (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:5, Insightful)
No-one lives in a vacuum - writers, directors and musicians are influenced by existing works and may draw on the public domain as much as they want (Disney provides prime examples of the latter). No creative work is entirely original.
A better solution than blanket (C) term extension (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong--I think the idea that content owners should be able to milk profits from decades-old work done by a deceased person is ludicrous. But it's not nearly as damaging to society and culture as a whole as keeping everything else out of the public domain just to satisfy a few copyright-holding freeloaders.
It's a moot point for now (Score:4, Insightful)
So while a sound will expire, the song as recorded is a modification of the original text, and thus still protected. Samples of the song can be used freely, the whole song is still copyrighted.
Re:You do not understand copyright. (Score:5, Insightful)
You, the author, created a work in the 60's or whatever. Society granted you, clearly and under no uncertain terms, copyright over that work for say 50 years. You understood that 50 years later, your work would lose all copyright protections, and fall into the public domain.
Society at large understood this too... and *expects* that work to fall into the public domain on the required date.
If we are going to keep retroactively changing copyright periods, why bother putting a limit on it at all?
Just because it has economic value to the owner does not mean it should continue to be protected.. the owner should work on NEW stuff, not continue to sit on the old.
Copyright isnt about the individual.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This isnt about protecting an authors ability to indefinitely maintain ownership, its about assuring authors that if they write something new for some period of time they will be protected in the name of promoting progress for the community. The U.K. has it right, 50 years is fair and this is not about protecting individuals.
Re:Why? - Missing the Point (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't follow the logic there. You're suggesting that because we have a sensible law that means that copyright expires after 50 years, "investors" will think that a copyright which is 5 years old is "not as protected?"
Here's the point: laws should not be written around the whims of "investors."
I know it's a hard point to get in today's world where it seems that large corporations might as well just bypass the whole legislature and write the darn statutes themselves (simply because it saves time and does away with the pretence that our representatives can think for themselves) but it is the critical point here.
Sometimes laws are not made to "help the economy", they're written because they're morally the better course of action. Copyright is not a right, it's a privilege extended by government to afford a balance between the creator of a work and those who may become dependent upon it.
If these corporations and lobbying groups are now complaining that they "didn't know" that this time limit was approaching and that it's an awful shame as despite the fact that the artist is long dead, they're still able to part people with their money then I suggest that they hire better advisors. It's not as if the 50 year time period was a closely guarded secret now is it?
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:5, Insightful)
Malarkey. At its heart, copyright is about "promot[ing] science and the useful arts", just like it says in the constitution. That's why copyright terms in the founders time were much shorter. The point of putting copyright in the constitution was to balance the author's right to make some money from their work with the public's right to have useful arts. That balance is now broken, and in a big way. That's why the constitution says "to secure, for limited times". The life of the author plus 70 years is NOT a limited time, not by any reasonable standard. Everyone who was alive at the creation of the work will be dead by its expiration. It's a travesty, and it's unconstitutional, regardless of what our lousy supreme court says.
The irony... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:4, Insightful)
P.S. The whole idea that ideas have zero marginal cost to reproduce introduces complexities that have been hashed out many times before, so I'll stay away from that one.
Don't! Because this is precisely the point where your misunderstanding begins.
Physical property is naturally limited. You and I can't both possess and use my car at the same time and that's the reason why society has established this whole complex infrastructure for managing property rights, because physical objects and places are inherently scarce. If we abandoned the notion of physical property rights, there would *still* only be one possessor of each physical object.
Intellectual property is naturally limitless. You and I can both possess and use my idea at the same time, and so can everyone else. There is no inherent limit on the propagation and use of ideas, and there is, therefore, no need to artificially impoverish some people by not allowing them to use some ideas. If we abandoned the notion of intellectual property rights, everyone would have the use of every idea they could find.
Sure, if you hadn't created your idea/music/painting/whatever, then no one would have it, but that's no reason we as a society should expend effort and money helping you to retain control of it, and thereby intellectually impoverishing some portion of us. While it makes sense for our police, prosecutors and courts to help arbitrate the natural scarcity of physical objects, there's absolutely no moral reason why they should be charged with maintaining an artificial scarcity of your idea.
Well, there is one reason: By maintaining a limited and temporary artificial scarcity we can encourage the production of more ideas that will become available for all of society to use. But that bargain only makes sense if it eventually *does* become available for all of society. Otherwise, why shouldn't we just allow nature to take its course?
I think the single largest mistake people make when understanding intellectual property rights is to forget that there are several significant *costs* to society related to the enforcement of artificial limitations. Creators who wish to have society protect them in this way have to provide a reason why we should do it, but many seem to think it's a given that we should, and demand that society demonstrate a reason why we should not.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, copyright covers the right to control the distribution of your work. Songs, books, movies, etc are not a "property" and as such are dealt with by a different set of laws. Unfortunately business folks like to talk about "Intellectual Property", but there really is no such thing.
Copyrights quite simply are an agreement made between a government and an individual to allow that individual a time limited monopoly on distributing his work. When the limit is reached, the work falls into the public domain.
Copyright is a mechanism who's original purpose was to encourage creativity. The limited time monopoly allowed creators to profit from their works rather than others, but another reason for the limit in time IS TO ENCOURAGE TO CREATE AGAIN. Yet people have twisted this into something it was not intended to be. It was not meant to be a permanent source of income for the life of the author, it wasn't meant to be a right that could be passed on via inheritance for x number of generations to benefit from, nor was it meant for companies like Disney to remain the sole entity to be able to use those works forever.
Looking at it from a few feet back from an economic perspective, what do you think would generate greater economic benefit? One company profiting off from a work indefinitely, or a 1000 companies all being able to profit from that work?
That's why there is a (supposed) limit on the term of copyright. At some point that work needs to fall into the public domain so that the work may profit all of society and not just one person or company. And by profit, I don't mean just monetarily.
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, both copyright and property right are just legal instruments. And there is nothing magic or natural about them, their effectiveness for the purpose at hand has to be argued _every_ time.
If you want to defend copyrights you will have to argue that giving out private monopolies on non-scarce goods is the best way to reward artists for their efforts. Good luck with that.
Your current effort, an argument by association (copyrights are like property) and the invocation of a natural right ('property is a moral right') won't do this trick: argument by association is a no-no (well, it's a last resort failing anything decent) and private property is just an often useful instrument, nothing more.
If you give a group of people some right or privilege they will get used to it very soon and not much later will find some way to rationalize the situation. The best argument is of course a logical one but failing that a 'god-given right' or 'moral right' will do nicely. The fact that these rights are 'deeply felt' don't give them more credibility, it only adds to the unthankful job of the reformers.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your argument, that if an author would not create a work it would have never existed, is as lame as Jack Valenti's argument that all creative works need proprietary ownership to be preserved. It can be argued that if you did not build up on existing culture, you would have never created your work in the first place. So, you get from public almost fair trade to start with. However, public recognizes necessity to compensate authors, inventors and the like fairly in order to encourage this type of activity. And this is where 'mental property' rights are coming from.
Unfortunately, for practical reasons, monetary value of creative works which are subject of copyright and patent laws may not be easily evaluated. This is the only reason for the 'limited monopoly' bargain, otherwise, public would fairly compensate an author, allienate his/her work and leave to him/her only the honorary attribution.
Thomas Jefferson conceived that 14 years of monopoly is enough for an author to try to profit from their works. And this is under late XVIII- early XIX centuries means of of communication in the United States. In XXI century, when RIAA posesses means of promotion and distribution far beyond XVIII-XIX centuries authors' wildest dreams copyrights should be shorter . And corporate copyrights should be even shorter still.
Since the copyright law arises from the rights the public granted to the authors or their proxies on the condition of fair balance,
the first thing is that the period of a work's copyright protection must be the one, when the work was made accessible to public, because that was a contract at that time and an author knew the terms and still decided to publish. It must not be retroactively extended. This will create fair stability for both the public and the vested interests.
Second, term 'limited times' must be taken not literally but rather practically. It is just unacceptable that 3 generations of the mankind are and being deprived from the rights the previous generations used to have.
Third, pigopolies akin Disney Corporation, RIAA, MPAA, Clear Channel, etc. are unacceptable and must be outlawed as a matter of bargain or, at least, their rights (copy and otherwise) must be adjusted to reflect their ever increasing ability to promote and dissiminate creative works, in order to keep the balance fair.
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:3, Insightful)
The obvious issues with your thought have to do with the basis value of the IP in question and the actual effect enacting such a tax will have.
If we appraise a certin IP, its value would either have to be potental (what it could be sold for or could likely earn for the owner) or real (what it is actually sold for or what it actually earns). In essence, the new tax would either end up being an additional, perhaps recurring, fee for IP protection or simply an extension to the current capital gains taxes. In the formor case, individual inventors and creators would find it onerous to protect their works. In the latter case, it just becomes a net reduction in the real value of the IP.
In either case, the net effect will be what taxation most always causes: a reduction in the behavior taxed or increased negative economic fallout (bankrupcies, debt, default on that debt, etc.) for the group that finds the taxed behavior difficult to curb.
In other words, the net effect would be that less and less cool new stuff would be created.
Ob-OSS reference: Think how this would extend to Free/OS software - how much would the copyright/trademark holders owe the government?
IMHO this is like most any call for new/increased taxation: at best misguided, at worst evil.
The only real solution to the whole IP mess is to acutally reform the laws. Reduce the period of copyright back to no more than 50 years. Create patent classes -- one for non-drug tangibles (the inventions originally addressed by Mr. Jefferson et al.), one for drugs and other highly regulated tangibles (the time lost to the regulatory process needs to be addressed), one for software and , perhaps, one for processes. Set the protection periods for each to something like 17 years, 20 years, 3 years and 5 years, respectively. Doing this would, all by itself, bring the IP system back to doing what it was intended to do: increase the development of cool new stuff by a) helping ensure that the costs of developing them can be recouped and b) making that cool new stuff public so it can be built upon.
Change the law in the US instead. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that Elvis got all the encourgement he neaded. I think the Beatles have been amply encouraged. I don't see any reason for the US law to remain in conflict with European law *and* the US constitution indefinitely.
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:3, Insightful)
If there was good odds the government would side with me, sure, why not?
-jim
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
The way I see it is, you have a right to do anything, as long as that doesn't interfere with the rights of others. If the author is still alive, and you believer that creators have the right to control distribution of what they produce, then it's reasonable to say that someone making a copy without their permission is an immoral act. But if the author is dead, it's no longer possible to interfere with their rights, or at least no more than you could interfere with the rights of a piece of rock or other inanimate objects.
What is Copyright . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Compare copyright to patents. Why is a patent (in the US) limited to 20-odd years? Because society stands to benefit from the short terms of the patent. Many generic drugs (Ibuprophen, for example) are so commonly available because the patent expired. What if the patent terms were 90 years? How much more would we pay?
[Perhaps we would not pay as much as we do for intra-patent drugs because the drug makers would have a longer timeline to recoop their investment?]
Let's expand this discussion a bit wider. What if the Colt revolver enjoyed a 90 year patent instead of a 20 year patent? Why, Colt could rest on his laurels for the rest of his life while the rest of the century paid him a premium price for an innovative-but-flawed design. Or, the invention of the steam locomotive. What if that patent had prevented improvements on the design, and derivative developments? Or, the invention of the telegraph had been extended such that the telephone (voice-over-telegraph) wasn't invented until the early 20th Century? Would we even have an Internet today, or a Slashdot to *freely* exchanged these ideas?
Patents and copyrights are a legalized monopoly to reward innovators. They are meant to be short-term because innovation feeds itself. Society is benefited by innovation. Overlong rights stifles innovation.
I've read discussions of the economic benefit to be had by allowing BFPs (Big Publishers) have multi-generational copyrights. I'm a BFP, so my ability to create an industry off of generation's old creativity and then strangle any competition is a societal economic benefit? How long can I prevent somebody from reproducing stuffed rats?
Or, in another realm. Look at the Gutenberg Project. They are hindered from digitizing over a generation of out-of-print works. Nobody is economically benefiting from the books being suppressed from the Public Domain. Society might be repressed from benefiting from the knowledge.
I mean, if the GP is able to take a rare out-of-print book and make it available to the masses via their on-line archival, is this not benefiting society? What if I download an old book from their archival, and reading it spurs me to write the Great American Novel--spinning off a whole deluge of movies and mini-series, book tours, etc? As a member of society, isn't this an economic boon that is stifled by too-long copyrights?
Wouldn't it be great if the USG bothered to fund the GP in such an effort?
Re:What is Copyright . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, in another realm. Look at the Gutenberg Project. They are hindered from digitizing over a generation of out-of-print works. Nobody is economically benefiting from the books being suppressed from the Public Domain. Society might be repressed from benefiting from the knowledge.
I know I'm belaboring the point. How many works could be irrevocably lost because the copyright was too long? If the work is lost, is this not akin to building a bonfire and hurling them in?
Pedantic point (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What I find really scary... (Score:4, Insightful)
privilege.
the EU sui genesis DatabaseSui generis, meaning category of their own. Sui genesis would be coming into existence of their own will, which outside of Futurama seems unlikely.
the Berne Convention back in 68
Despite the fact that the US only signed on to the Berne Convention in the 80s, it is much older than '68. Try 1886.
I mention these errors because they are fairly glaring errors which tend to diminish the fact that the substance of the message was spot on. Yes, Continental Europe has a different view of copyright to that of Common Law countries like the US.
On the other hand, while copyright is not like a lease, it is like a contract with the people. And when authors originally agreed to the 50 year term (by publishing and then claiming copyright), it is incongruous, to say the least, to come back at the end of the 50 years, having taken all or almost all of your benefit under the original agreement, and say you want more. That is exactly what the pro-extension lobby has done, except they have gotten Congress to do it for them by force.
Now the difference between a contract and a lease is something that only lawyers will normally understand, so to that degree the OP's point was perfectly valid.
Copyright is a Restriction not a Privilege (Score:4, Insightful)
The copy-making industry, which has largely turned into a rights-control industry, takes the very different position that the only thing the public is ever entitled to is the privilege of paying to use whatever material is offered, under whatever conditions are imposed by the rights holder. This is a new and one-sided philosophy, which does not reflect the way copyright was ever meant to function.
What's wrong with the US Congress extending copyright for the entire useful life of the material is that the public essentially gets nothing of value when the copyright expires. That's assuming that Congress ever actually does let copyrights expire from now on. The US Supreme Court has specifically ruled that "a limited time" can mean "forever" if Congress says so.