Dead Musicians Signing Media Rights Petitions 357
epeus writes "Following from the Gowers coverage and the Musicians' ad in the FT, Larry Lessig admits he was wrong about term extension: 'If you read the list, you'll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead (e.g. Lonnie Donegan, died 4th November 2002; Freddie Garrity, died 20th May 2006). I take it the ability of these dead authors to sign a petition asking for their copyright terms to be extended can only mean that even after death, term extension continues to inspire. I'm not yet sure how. But I guess I should be a good sport about it, and just confess I was wrong. For if artists can sign petitions after they've died, then why can't they produce new recordings fifty year ago?'"
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:1, Interesting)
Every act of creation of non-material goods such as stories, paintings, programs and songs is thought to be based on works of others. You did not create it yourself, you learned from others. Society grants you the right to get money for it, for the most part of your live, but not longer. In the end, the creation flows into the public domain because, into the culture it came from. This is thought to help others create more and new things.
Don't confuse "IP" (i hate that therm) with physical property. It is not the same. Sure, you can give it to your kids. And you can give the money you earned with it to your kids. But why the hell would it make sense to provide a free income for your kids for the rest of their lives because you wrote a nice song once?
And furthermore, in reality, it is not the children (o think of them, nice try that argument of yours) who in most cases get the money. It is the investors in 5 or 6 record companies. What is ethical about paying them money for 95 years?
Welcome to the new world of ..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Intellectual property rights are man created and man enforced where they can reasonably be enforced.
However, the value of the intellectual property only goes as far as the ability to share it, via licensing or some other method of "regulation" of the value exchange flow.
You can have all the intellectual property in the world but to yourself it is value less, it is only upon sharing it that it becomes valuable or has value.
With this in mind the apex of debate is regarding at what time does the IP rights constraints become to constraining to others on the path to human advancement that it falsely limits human advancement even effecting the author/inventor life and living environment?
Maybe some see creative works of non-invention as something that doesn't apply to this but the fact is that such creative works being constrained of the past would have, for example, nearly eliminated all science fiction of today. Today all science fiction contains enough elements of works previously done that it would be virtuallyt impossible to write a decent story. The same applies to alot of music.
Intellectual property right are intended to benefit the creator of it, but not to give them a permanet monopoly on it.
As a human character, right and duty, we build upon and with the works of those before us. If we did not then we could not evolved our environment, society, technology, medicine, shelter, transportation etc.. We'd still be living in caves and hunting for food.
Now what if technology could reach the rate of advancement that itself would provide solutions fast enough that we could live much longer, healthier, etc. And this would certainly effect any living "creator"
This cannot happen with IP rights constraining such forward movement!
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:they should have a whip round (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, one of the main reasons that Ford (and GM, etc) are in such dire straights these days is because of the HUGE financial burden of paying large sums of money to people who have not worked for them for decades. Both as pensions, and (apparently, even more expensive) health care. One long-ago retired assembly line worker, in the last throws of lung cancer (just as an example) can cost Ford (and its currently working employees) hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course, they made that promise to the unions, so they deserve what they get... but a lot of people would say that it is exactly like getting paid for work you did a long time ago.
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:3, Interesting)
Copyright infringement is not a violation of private property rights.
Let's say you have a bird-feeding house on your lawn. You made it yourself, it looks nice and all. I come by, see the house and am very interested by it. I observe it from the road (not stepping on your lawn or anything), then I go back home and make a copy of your bird feeding lawn for my own house.
I didn't infringe on your private property rights, I didn't steal your bird-feeding house (and you can still use yours), yet I do have a bird-feeding house much like yours.
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:3, Interesting)
While you are, of course, entitled to your own opinions, please don't conflate your misguided ideas with the Libertarian view. I'd advise checking lp.org and googling around to find that you've been strenuously arguing against the Libertarian position on copyright.
Died for tax purposes (Score:3, Interesting)
Ask The Live Ones (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:they should have a whip round (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah.
Let's say that you just spent three years working on a recording or a film, etc. Or a novel. You know that you'll be getting good money for your work as it sells, especially in the next couple or three years, and that's going to be an important part of your family's income. The book/film/recording publishing deal kicks in, and your work starts to get in front of your audience, and all of the sacrifice you and your long-suffering wife have made is about to pay off. And you get hit by a bus on the way to the book signing/premier/etc.
Is it really unreasonable to say that your wife, who perhaps was supporting you while you spent all that time typing/filming/recording, to (as you would certainly have wished) benefit from your work? Are you so insistent that someone else get to pretend that Mickey Mouse isn't a Disney character and release Porno Mickey movies that you'd make the dead author's work public domain the day after he got done writing it, and leave his family holding the bag? That's definitely the sentiment of someone who's never worked on anything that took more than a week to create.