Copyright Cutback Proposed As RIAA Solution 709
An anonymous reader writes "InfoWeek blogger Alex Wolfe proposes a novel solution to the ongoing spate of RIAA lawsuits over alleged music copying. He suggests legislation which cuts back corporate copyrights from 120 years to 5 years. 'We should do what we do to children who misbehave,' he writes. 'Take away their privileges.' Wolfe says this is regardless of the misunderstanding surrounding the latest case, which apparently isn't about ripping CDs to one's own computer. As to those who say copyrights are a right: "That's simply a misunderstanding of their purpose. Copyrights, like patents, weren't implemented to protect their owners in perpetuity. They are part of a dance which attempts to balance off societal benefits against incentives for writers and inventors. You want to incentivize people to push the state of the creative and technical arts, but you don't want give those folks such overbearing protections that future advances by other innovators are stifled." What do you think; is it time to cut off the record industry?"
Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod me down in-case I just gave some shill a bright idea.
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:4, Funny)
I think you meant to type "Sonny Bono" but, then again, maybe you really weren't that far from being right.
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Preaching to the choir (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I suspect you're wrong on that.
In the UK, we had the Gowers Review, a government review of the general framework for copyright and other types of IP, conducted a couple of years ago. Needless to say, Big Media were lobbying aggressively for, amongst other things, increases in copyright terms (and retroactively, too). Their efforts were supported by the likes of Sir Cliff Richard. And yet, if you read the submissions from members of the public (which you can do from the Review's web site if you like; just look it up on a search engine) the overwhelming majority of those stating a view on that question opposed the extension of the copyright term.
The Review came down pretty clearly on the side of the public on that one, or at least, on the side of the public who could be bothered to comment.
Flaming to get hits. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. It really couldn't happen because it would violate more than a few international agreements.
2. corporate vs personal copyrights? A lot of artists when they start make money incorperate. Where do there works fit in?
It is a non solution to a real problem. But lots of people will click on the blog and read the ads and they will make money off it.
Thank you for playing and paying.
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? Answer me this: In America, who has sovereignty? We the actual citizens, or foreigners?
Obviously, once you eliminate fuzzy measures like "life of the author," corporate and personal copyrights can be exactly the same 5 years.
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be pretty happy with 5 years for corporations, 10 years for individuals, each with the option to renew for one more term. If you can't recoup your investment within this time frame, you don't need to be in this business.
Of course, I'd also like to see perpetual copyrights for free-as-in-speech works, but that's probably too much to ask.
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Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe word of mouth used to be slower, but it doesn't take that long for a new hot clip to rise to the top of the YouTube charts. Try a few weeks. "The Blair Witch Project" is one of the few independent hits it recent history and it didn't take them more than five years from idea to millionaire. Any "artist" who is still trying to hawk 5 year old goods isn't gonna make it anyhow. Yes they might have to try for more than five years to get their break, but if they aren't producing new and better works regularly then their art will never become a livelihood.
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I'm a stagehand in NYC. I've seen and worked for/with plenty of artists both famous and unknown in the last decade. I've never met one that struggled for years and years and then suddenly took off because of some piece they did years in the past. Years of struggle then something they try in a new direction and achieve success, sure; but never
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Again, the Constitution says 'for limited times,' not 'temporary.' As for how long the term can last, that wasn't the question being discussed in Eldred. The question had been whether or not retroactive extensions (of any length) were constitutional. Indeed, this is made very clear as soon as the sec
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? Answer me this: In America, who has sovereignty? We the actual citizens, or foreigners?
Well first of all international agreements have less to do with 'foreigners' and more to do with one's own government since they had to agree to it (hence the word agreements).
Secondly, in my experience, in America the cooperations have all the power but allow the citizens to think they have power.
And Americans have very little right to talk about sovereignty since they have little to no respect for the sovereignty of others.
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:4, Informative)
Neither, large multi-national corporations do. And they like the 120 year stance, so let's all get used to it... there are too many "critical thought impaired" citizens with voting cards in the country. Sorry.
TRIPS (Score:5, Informative)
So what? Answer me this: In America, who has sovereignty? We the actual citizens, or foreigners?
The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property (IP) regulation. It was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994. Its inclusion was the culmination of a program of intense lobbying by the United States [wikipedia.org].
The United States strategy of linking trade policy to intellectual property standards can be traced back to the entrepreneurship of senior management at Pfizer in the early 1980s, who mobilized corporations in the United States and made maximizing intellectual property privileges the number one priority of trade policy in the United States (Braithwaite and Drahos, 2000, Chapter 7).
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep hearing this "sovereignty" thing bandied about by (usually conservative) people. They usually say it in the context of "we'll be giving up our sovereignty" with this treaty or that or "we should do [insert treaty-breaking thing we just feel like doing] because we have sovereignty!"
Here's the thing; Abiding by your agreements IS NOT some sort of weakness where you're somehow giving up your right of self-determination. It's simply keeping your end of a bargain. It's, you know, that honesty thing, where you make a contract, and then do the thing you said you were going to do in the contract.
But it gets better. We usually get something we want when we make these deals. You got that? It's not just give, give, give, give, give. We actually get something in return. I don't know about you, but it doesn't seem very nice to me when someone takes something from me, then doesn't give me the thing they promised in return. I try to avoid doing business with that guy in the future.
Sure, I understand that treaties sometimes need to be dissolved. It happens. But it gives me the willys when you sovereignty folks act like it should be done at the drop of a hat. It's serious damn business and should be treated as such. doing it simply "because we can" is not good enough. If it comes to exercising our sovereignty whenever we feel like it or being a good honest neighbor and only breaking treaties unilaterally when there's a very serious reason, well, I value good and honest a hell of a lot more. It just seems like the American way to do things. At least I hope so.
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:4, Insightful)
1. It really couldn't happen because it would violate more than a few international agreements.
Wrong, this is a brilliant idea. It's the international agreements that are dumb.
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. I think a general copyright of 14 years is the optimum from the time of publication. This study previously appeared on slashdot.
http://www.rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/optimal_copyright.pdf [rufuspollock.org]
2. Solve the problem of people using copyright to prevent reproduction especially in small independent films.
If companies use copyright to deny reproduction at any price or at a price that is so high its absurd, enable people to pay some fixed fee and ignore the wishes of the copyright holder. Copyright shouldn't be a tool to prevent reproduction just a tool to make some money from artistic creativity.
3. If companies abuse the position by engaging in fraud or anti trust behavior to manipulate prices they lose their copyright.
http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/PrRel/prfeb192004.htm [utah.gov]
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-cd-settlement.htm [about.com]
4. Expand fair use. If I want to use a small portion of a book eg 1000 words from a 50,000 word book its ok even if its for profit. I just can't reproduce lots of 1000 word bit to reproduce the book. If its educational I get to use it unless it literally causes major loss to the company. Eg in a classroom I can make 200 copies of a newspaper article for all the students. I just can't do that for a whole textbook. But I can use it for a figure from a textbook.
5. No automatic copyright for photos. There has to be some artistic quality to them.
6. In the U.S., buildings built on or after December 1, 1990 are also eligible for copyright. This is pathetic. Given that creativity was not stifled beforehand this is totally unnecessary. No copyright on buildings.
7. No frivolous copyright either like on restaurants. Yes someone was sued and lost because one restaurant was too similar to another.
8. No copyright on 'happy birthday'. If you sing happy birthday in a restaurant you gotta pay a fee to the so called rights holder. The movie 'The Corporation' claims that Warner/Chappell charge up to US$10,000 for the song to appear in a film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You [wikipedia.org]
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. You can incorporate and then license your personal copyright to your company. Same with patents. Corporate patents should be shorter than personal patents. If a company owns a patent then it should be capable of developing it quite quickly. An individual who owns a patent likely needs a longer term to develop it.
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:4, Informative)
Photojournalists won themselves a similar deal through labor action. They own all their photos. News agencies are not allowed to purchase the copyright, only license the use of the photo. The photojournalist benefits because he controls his photo and there's competition. We benefit because he can sell to many organizations. That's how those top 100 pictures of the year/decade/century books get published?
Rather than legislating it, artists could form a proper union or professional society I guess.
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2. corporate vs personal copyrights? A lot of artists when they start make money incorperate. Where do there works fit in?,
Name one artist who was stupid enough to create a personal corporation. I'll wait.
A successful artist might produce other artists under a label, or start a production company to finance their side-projects, but unless they're too stupid to hire a lawyer, they won't do anything that isn't THEIR OWN copyright.
The law is very clear on this already, btw. If you make a work that's yours, it's protected for your entire life, plus (IIRC) 80 years. If you make a work while working for your employer, and it's yo
Re:Flaming to get hits. (Score:4, Insightful)
As for violating international agreements. So? Facts change over time and some treaties aren't meant to last forever (esp regarding things like trade). We are not living under the same treaties that governed trade in the 1700s.
I believe the UK copyrights are(were?) for a much smaller timeframe such that the Beatles will go in the public domain (in the UK) in a few short years. That's not true in the US. The Beatles works are protected here for long, long after I'm dead and that doesn't assume it wouldn't get extended AGAIN.
Right now the ONLY people benefiting from current copyright laws (and their lengths) are mega corporations. Again, Corporatism in action.
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(2) I think we can recognize the difference between an S corporation, which is just a legal shell around an individual, and a joint stock company.
That said, it is unwarranted to assume we would have to pull out of Berne. We could just announce a new position for new round of international IP treaties, with the subtle hint that if things don't start getting more reasonable, pulling out is an option.
I also think that fi
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I also think that five years is too short.
Ok, how about 4? ;-)
Actually, I'll continue to advocate what I've always advocated:
1) 10 year copyright by default
2) Two available extensions for a total of 30 years
3) Those works that account for the top 1% of copyright-protected gross revenue in each medium in a 10 year period are not eligible for renewal
That last item is the most important. It allows us to put a metric on what our most culturally significant works are. It's not a perfect metric, but it opens up to the commons the most important cultural
Re:International Agreements (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, the US was the first to ban aerosols, has significantly cleaned up our lakes since 1970s, just recently upped the CAFE standards for gas mileage in cars, and subsidizes alternative fuels. Far from perfect, granted, but we have still done more without a treaty than most with one.
Re:International Agreements (Score:5, Insightful)
With the new targets being significantly more modest than the European equivalents.
Also, most people are not too upset about the US finding it difficult to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We can understand that. What we are REALLY pissed about is that your government has decided to launch a corrupt attack on the scientific process rather than admitting they have a problem and that it is hurting the entire globe. The disinformation they are promoting in order to save their own face is making it difficult for countries that DO try to make a difference to explain it to their population.
In short, the Bush administrations anti-scientific propaganda is causing Europeans who don't know better to reject their local governments attempts at curtailing emissions. Thus while they may just be doing it to save their own face, their lies are causing major trouble across the globe, and it is pissing of a lot of people.
Ideas don't have to be free... (Score:5, Interesting)
Everything should go into the public domain after a period long enough to have allowed the creator to profit under most circumstances.
Copyright should also last at least long enough that it discourages companies from just waiting it out.
I figure 10-15 years for most things.
Re:Ideas don't have to be free... (Score:5, Insightful)
Individual copyrights for 10-20 years are fine, IMO. It forces the corporations to answer to the artists if they want to save on copyright fees, and the artists will probably be more considerate to the consumers.
Re:Ideas don't have to be free... (Score:5, Insightful)
Individual copyrights for 10-20 years are fine, IMO. It forces the corporations to answer to the artists if they want to save on copyright fees, and the artists will probably be more considerate to the consumers.
Because you know as long as they can pay a small amount to retain their stranglehold they will do so.
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Protecting images... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mickey Mouse(TM) is already well protected by trademark law. If you are suggesting that "Look and Feel" or heavens-forbid "Image" should be protected under Intellectual Property laws, then just take ten seconds to think how quickly everything would be "ImageMarked" by the scammers and locked up by "ImageMark" trolls who make nothing but sue everyone around for near-misses and co-incidence.
/me shudders...
If I remember correctly, the whole point of IP laws is to foster innovation. If Disney does something new with Mickey, then that is protected. Protecting the old images forever does not serve to foster new creativity.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:Ideas don't have to be free... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, if nobody claims to own the work, it should go into the public domain. Even a $5 filing fee would be enough for this.
ISTR an article where Disney's mouthpiece admitted that they'd heard about this concept and weren't entirely opposed to it... Anybody remember? Was this one of Lessig's brainchildren?
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ISTR an article where Disney's mouthpiece admitted that they'd heard about [periodic maintenance fees for copyright] and weren't entirely opposed to it... Anybody remember? Was this one of Lessig's brainchildren?
Yes, the (failed) Public Domain Enhancement Act [wikipedia.org] was Dr. Lessig's idea. To qualify under the Berne Convention, it was worded as a property tax [wikipedia.org].
Re:Ideas don't have to be free... (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm just saying that the terms should be the same for every work. They shouldn't be tied to what the creator decides to do charge for their work.
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That is actually untrue, which is why I disagree with the rest of your post. The protection is to provide incentive, but it does not specify in the law what way the creator should use the protection as incentive. Plenty of authors use their copyright in ways that derive no profit, but they would still potentially wish to renew after
Re:Ideas don't have to be free... (Score:5, Insightful)
The distinction between corporate and individuals wouldn't be effective. Some company exec will just hold the copyright personally, and license it exclusively to the corporation for the full 20 years.
Re:Ideas don't have to be free... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the heart of the problem. Congress is authorized only to secure copyrights to creators ("Authors and Inventors") - not to employers, assignees, or heirs.
Recognizing that any copyright claim by someone who didn't create the work is bogus would go a long way to fixing the problem. (And would align copyright law with the Constitution as a bonus.)
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Yes, and the *authors* who can make a lot more (and faster) cash by fully alienating the copyright.
Do you not agree that 2. is a mutually beneficial transaction? Yes, "big evil distributors" benefit from it. So do creators! Stop reading every gain as a loss for someone else.
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The problem is they will always fight for extensions, I think this is where democracy fails big time, there should be an absolute law to prevent infection of greedy capitalists into knowledge that will stifle and hold back innovation.
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Similar to trademarks, and to a lesser extend patent continuations, I think copyrights should last as long as the work is being actively revised, promoted, and/or otherwise used commercially. But if the work languishes or has had no creative augmentation, the copyright should expire in 5-10 years. That leaves Disney in the clear to keep their copyrights while at the same time allowing the zillions of obscure books, song
Cut Them Off? (Score:2)
Yes. And if I might suggest where to cut them; just south of the beltline.
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Rainbows and Unicorns for everyone! (Score:2, Insightful)
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"I come in peace. Take me to your Lizard." (Score:3, Funny)
What I find strange, the money for the politicians come from the RIAA suing the people. The people are the ones that vote these politicians in! If we just vote them out, i.e. keep reminding everyone which politicians are RIAA stooges and to remind them that voting for them is voting for the RIAA to sue them it should be a fairly straight forward way of cleaning up the mess.
From So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams:
Re:Rainbows and Unicorns for everyone! (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who whine and mumble "It will never happen" think they are being 'realists', but they are just dragging everyone
down with their own depressive lack of vision. Neil, you are as much a part of the problem as the RIAA and other criminals.
What do you possibly feel you have added to the discussion, other than what we all already know?
Want to add something other than vague accusations?
Want to print the names of those you accuse of corruption?
Want to cite some examples of their criminal behaviour?
Your hand waving dismissal just insults us all.
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I'm all for solutions, but
ha! I think that should be done anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
Corporation owned copyrights should be 5 years (with possibly an expensive continuation fee to add another 5 years).
Individual copyrights should stay 15-20 years (again with the possibility of a continuation fee). If any of my books get published, I think 75-120 years, whatever it is now, is ab
What about the artists? (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporate Copyrights - Not Just Entertainment (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Corporate Copyrights - Not Just Entertainment (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Corporate Copyrights - Not Just Entertainment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporate Copyrights - Not Just Entertainment (Score:4, Interesting)
Games could be a problem as they seem to like to release platinum editions of older games and I honest have no idea how much that brings in for the games industry... its probably a nice little earner they wouldnt like to lose. But on the other hand it could solve the problem of abandonware... games Id still like to play but cant because I cant physically purchase it anywhere.
For other sectors like niche vertical market sector software developers(Ive worked in such and industry) they are generally doing pretty bespoke stuff and being used as a service provider to their clients.
Id be honestly interested if anyone has any examples of really bad things happening in any sector of the software development world. Settop boxes for sat and cable TV perhaps? If you argue that the software on the sim code falls out of copyright every five years then whats to stop you duping a bunch for your friends.
What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
One little problem ... (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, the copyright ratchet is built right into the Constitution.
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However, I note that somehow it doesn't seem to be illegal to extend copyrights every time some special interest, like Disney [wikipedia.org] wants them extended. How is it that copyright owners get to have their cake and eat it too?
The takings clause (Score:3, Informative)
However, the USSC has held that the takings clause applies to anything of value, such as water rights, income streams, etc. Copyright is, IIRC, one specific example explicitly addressed.
Re:One little problem ... (Score:4, Informative)
So taking back copyright is perfectly legal, and the argument has ALREADY been argued in court!!! We just have to get Congress to vote to change it!!
There is probably no hope (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting (Score:2)
Maybe if copyright is re-defined as being attributable to individuals only, not corporate entities, as well as reducing the length of the term back to what it originally was, rather than the Mickey Mouse 125 number that it currently is....
This guy obviously doesn't write his own music (Score:5, Insightful)
There are other solutions than this that have NOT been tried yet, because the lobby is too big for Congress to act. And this would suffer the same fate.
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if the artist dies during the origninal copyright term, the estate receives the remainder original 20 to 25 years, non-renewable. if the term has been renewed by the artist for the extended term, the estate gets half of tha
Re:This guy obviously doesn't write his own music (Score:5, Insightful)
If Congress cut back copyright, it wouldn't be removing your rights, it would be reducing rights that it had granted to you in the first place. It's entirely up to you whether you agree to distribute your music or video based on those rights.
Even for corporate copyright, I agree 5 years is much too short, but equally the current US period (70 years + life?) is much too long. Some figure around 15-20 years, as for example in patents, would be a much more reasonable balance between making it worth your while to produce and not overly restricting the rights of the general public to enjoy and reuse your concepts after a reasonable time.
Re:This guy obviously doesn't write his own music (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, that's all I can tell you. Nobody keeps paying ME for the creative work I did a month ago in my job. Far as I'm concerned, this notion that I should be prevented from saying words because another person owns them is repugnant on its face -- five years is the compromise position, not the extreme.
There's an outer limit at which copyright becomes a law I'll agree to obey instead of a moral and ethical irrelevancy backed by nothing but powerful men with guns. "Life plus 70" isn't on the map. I seem to recall that the first act of Congress establishing copyright covered it from 17 years; that still seems awful long to me, but it's in the ballpark where we can start trying to cut a deal. Much past 17, though... and it's back to men with guns.
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Why, just because you write music do you feel you should own it for life or many years?
I am a software developer with more than a 11 years of experience. Writing software is a creative work. However, I do not get to keep my work for 150+ years. I do it as a work for hire. If I do write software on my own, and sell it; should I be able to "own" it for longer than any human can live, even myself? How exactly would I _or_
Universal copyright cutback is not the answer. (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no fan of the RIAA, but there are plenty of other ways to nail them to the wall with less collateral damage. It's the method of enforcing copyright that's been so despicable, not the duration of the copyright(for music that is).
It's 95 years after publication NOT 120 (Score:2, Informative)
An example might be a movie that was made but not published until a generation later.
Short periods = more draconian RIAA (Score:2)
Re:Short periods = more draconian RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)
Does Congress think the RIAA is behaving badly? (Score:4, Insightful)
In order for them to perceive the RIAA as behaving badly, they'd have to have the same sort of world view as I, Lawrence Lessig, probably most Slashdot readers, and probably most Americans who have any awareness of what's going on with (so-called) intellectual property.
But if they had that sort of world view, they would never have passed the DMCA and the various copyright extensions in the first place.
So, what's the point here? Unless it's a tongue-in-cheek Swiftian "modest proposal."
As a serious proposal, it makes about as much sense as suggesting that Congress pass a law allowing unrestricted legal immigration in order to increase the numbers of young workers and thus solve the demographic problems of Medicare and Social Security.
Limited Times (Score:2)
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
Securing for LIMITED times is the key. Not "unlimited," which a 120-year copyright effectivly is. Where's the motivation to keep up progress if you can make one work and milk it for 120 years while blocking anyone else from building on it? It's too long by an order of magnitude.
C
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
And limiting copyright to half of what it was (IINM) in 1900 is hardly punishment. I think it would be a GOOD thing to limit it to at least 20 years; the present incredibly long copyrights last longer than all non-acid-free paper and longer than any file format or encryption sceme. The present lengths insure that little copyrighted today will ever be seen by anyone after its copyright expires.
-mcgrew
Copyrights Are Insane (Score:5, Insightful)
What I would put into law are 2 specific reforms:
1: Copyright cannot be extended beyond its original term. The reason for this is simple. Copyright exists to encourage creation and publication of the arts. Once that art is created under the copyright terms of the time, copyright has served its entire purpose. Anything beyond that is just giving more unnecessary rewards to a few at the expense of the many.
2: Copyright is lost to any item not available for new sale in a 3 year period at a fair price. If you're no longer selling it, then you have no right to prevent other people from duplicating it and keeping it available.
Change on any issue starts when people start talking about it. Let copyright change begin here now!
5+ year old content is the RIAA's bread & butt (Score:3, Interesting)
Tiered Pricing (Score:3, Interesting)
First 5 years: Free
2nd 5 years: 1,000 dollars
3rd 5 years: 10,000 dollars
4th 5 years: 100,000 dollars
The idea being that everyone should get an initial shot at capitalizing on their ideas. After that, you have to either start turning a profit (and sending a piece of the action back to the public coffers), or you let it go. As time goes by, the cost to society of not being allowed to draw on their cultural history increases - and so the cost to the rights holder of maintaining their monopoly should increase. But if they are doing a good job of capitalizing and/or if it is a really valuable idea, they should have the option to continue to renew their monopoly grant.
The Mickey Mouse Rule (Score:5, Interesting)
Killing off copyright, or at least reducing it to anything less than 80 years isn't going to happen anytime soon.
Re:The Mickey Mouse Rule (Score:4, Informative)
Disney wouldn't lose ownership of Mickey Mouse. Mickey's distinctive likeness is under trademark, completely different area of law. What they'd lose is copyright on a single very old cartoon "Steamboat Willy" which was the first appearance of a rat that'd eventually morph into Mickey years later. And Disney knows this. Their use of the "We'd lost ownership of Mickey." argument is a smokescreen. What they really want is simple: a one-way door. They want to be able to use older works (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Treasure Island, etc.) as the basis for their works without any strings attached, but they don't want anybody using their works the same way without paying them handsomely for the privilege. That, after all, maximizes profits (for them, at least).
Before you all go crazy .... (Score:3, Interesting)
it's a double edged sword, it cuts both ways ....
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Take it another step. (Score:3, Funny)
A step further it you can't buy it anywhere because its no longer in print same thing, end of copyright. I have long felt that same rule should apply to books and computer software. If I can't buy it at any price because you longer make it available, then someone else should be able too.
drug patents expire quickly (Score:3, Insightful)
America: 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
In America, this group of people called politicians make these things called laws.
Traditionally, they answered to the will of the people. If the people didn't like what they did, they got voted out. Therefore they tended to do whatever the people wanted.
However, people are lazy. People pay no attention to who does what, 99% of the time because it's a hassle.
Instead, people generally vote for whoever's already in power in the vast majority of cases. This tends to only change when on candidate spends a huge amount of money on advertising, telling the electorate that he did GoodThings(tm) and the other guy did BadThings(tm). This doesn't have to be true, as the electorate's far too lazy to fact check - they'll just believe what they're told.
So the only really motivating force in politics, so long as you otherwise generally keep your head down, is money.
And who gives politicians money? Big companies and lobbying organizations. Like the RIAA.
As the public sees it: The big mean RIAA is misbehaving. Let's take away their privileges.
As the RIAA sees it: The naughty public are misbehaving. Let's take away their privileges.
Who makes the decision over whose privileges get taken away? Oh, yeah, that'd be the politicians... who now only care about money thanks to years of voter apathy.
And who gives money to the politicians? That'd be the RIAA.
Who do you think is going to convince the politicians that they're right and the other side is wrong and deserves to have their rights taken away?
And there we have the DMCA, a progressively more conservative supreme court that will back businesses and a media surcharge tax in Canada.
As requested, the naughty ones are being punished... You just missed that your opinion over who the naughty ones are counts for absolutely nothing unless you can motivate the politicians to enforce it - and they listen to the other side because they give them money and we'll give them votes regardless.
Re:I do agree with a time limitation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I do agree with a time limitation... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Traditionally, copyright was for the life of the author + some reasonably large number.
The only tradition associated with copyright terms is the practice of extending them beyond the previous limit. Copyright started out at 14 years[1] with an optional 7 year extension. Actually, I guess there is also a second tradition, that of abusing the monopoly granted to copyright holders regardless of the term.
yp.
[1]http://download.nowis.com/index.cfm?phile=FreeCulture.html&tipe=text/html#2_2_1
Re: (Score:2)
On the contrary, it makes perfect sense once you realize the ruling principle of US copyright law: Mickey Mouse will never become public domain. Look for another extension around 2040.
Chris Mattern
Re: (Score:2)
That's my problem with this idea. If it's 5 years after artist death, that's one thing; if it's 5 years across the board from date of creation that's another. Some artists live off of a hit single from 10-20 years back. Also, it gives them incentive to NOT make their best works at the beginning, but to hold out as long as they can to make sure they don't lose the protections for their art at the peek of their popularity.
I don't
Independent musicians cry "foul!" (Score:4, Insightful)
And if independent artists are also limited to 5 years' copyright, what's to prevent a label from discovering them, liking their songs, but leaving them in obscurity for 5 years until they can take their songs and get some pretty boy band to record them?
Sounds to me like you'd be handing the industry a gold mine of free songs and screwing the little guy. After all, which one has the marketing and payola to make sure something is an instant hit? Which one has to struggle for a decade to become an "overnight" success?
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
That's one of the many reasons it won't happen.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your music example is easier to understand. If an orchestra records a performance of Beethoven's 9th, the orchestra holds the copyright on that recording. If a different orchestra records the same tune, it holds the copyright on its nearly indistinguishable recording.
I don't see why we'd need special "look and feel" regulations just beca