2018 Is the Last Year of America's Public Domain Drought (vice.com) 275
An anonymous reader shares a report: Happy Public Domain Day, every-some of you! In New Zealand and Canada, published works by artists who died in 1967 -- Rene Magritte, Dorothy Parker, John Coltrane, and many others -- have entered the public domain; Kiwis and Canadians can now freely distribute, perform, and remix a wealth of painting, writing, and music. In Europe, work published by artists who died in 1947 are now public domain. In the United States, well, we get nothing for the 20th year in a row, with one more to go. Our public domain drought is nearly old enough to drink. American copyrights now stretch for 95 years. Since 1998, we've been frozen with a public domain that only applies to works from before 1923 (and government works). Jennifer Jenkins is a clinical professor of law at Duke Law School, which hosts the Center for the Study of the Public Domain. In an email she explained what changed and why nothing has entered American public domain for two decades. "Until 1978, the maximum copyright term was 56 years from the date of publication -- an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years," she wrote. "In 1998, Congress added 20 years to the copyright term, extending it to the author's lifetime plus 70 years, or 95 years after publication for corporate 'works made for hire.'"
And suddenly... (Score:5, Insightful)
And suddenly, legislation will appear that will extend the Public Domain timeout period by another 20 or 50 years.
Watch and see if this doesn't happen before the end of the year.
Re:And suddenly... (Score:5, Interesting)
And some wonder why there's so many who don't respect copyright.
The original deal was reneged upon and the public got nothing in return on each extension.
Re:And suddenly... (Score:5, Interesting)
The original deal was reneged upon and the public got nothing in return on each extension.
Not exactly "nothing". The 1978 extension codified the fair use factors from case law into statute. The 1998 extension gave the owners of restaurants the right to play the radio or unmute the TV.
Re: And suddenly... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow yep that completely makes it worthwhile!
Re:And suddenly... (Score:4, Interesting)
Worse. Stuff that had *already entered the public domain* was RETROACTIVELY CLAWED BACK!
Re: And suddenly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Figured everyone on Slashdot could understand the problem of wealth accumulation and compounding interest creating an exponentially increasing gap in a finite resource system, but the guy calling others "retarded" is clueless about it.
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Sounds like you need to read more than just Karl Marx. How about F.A Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. or maybe, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Everybody should read Karl Marx, but if that is all you read, you will never know just how bad his ideas were. Hint: He had no concept of the apathy of the human race.
Re:And suddenly... (Score:5, Interesting)
But I think he missed something important. I agree with Marx that laziness is not the problem, but I think he missed another important problem with his economics. The problem is that to implement Communism, you must demand that all individuals submit to a central authority and subsume themselves into a system. Some critics go so far as to say that such a system is inherently violent and repressive because it cannot tolerate individuals deviating from their assigned role in the system. Either way, the problem, as I see it, is that people are individuals and they don't just want to work and create, but they want to work and create in a way that expresses their individuality. To be forced to assimilate into a system in which they have no individuality is completely out of line with man's nature.
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you must demand that all individuals submit to a central authority and subsume themselves into a system.
Communism as Marx wrote has no central authority, he wrote about a stateless society.
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Viva Venezuela!
[drops mic]
Strat
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Everybody should read Karl Marx, but if that is all you read, you will never know just how bad his ideas were.
The problem with Marx is that he got the diagnosis almost exactly right and the treatment plan almost exactly wrong.
He was a pioneer, and pioneers always get stuff wrong. But yes, nobody should only read Marx.
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The random grandchild of a successful artist isn't more capable than anybody else.
Death + 95 years doesn't make any sense; it does not encourage production of creative works.
Few people want to abolish copyright laws, but few people think abolishing the public domain for all practical intents and purposes is a good idea either.
A more balanced copyright protection duration could be set between incentivizing production of unique works and production of derived works.
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The founding fathers seemed to think that 14 years + a 14 year renewal was a good balance. But back then, America wasn't about get rich quick, lottery mentality.
I mean, honestly, if you can't make your money off of something you've written in 28 years, you never will.
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Re:And suddenly... (Score:4, Insightful)
One word: Disney.
Two words .. Darth Mickey
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Got the T-shirt. Years ago already.
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Much better than death by Jar-Jar
Disney and protecting the Mouse (Score:5, Informative)
For those who don't get the Disney reference, the implication is that the 1998 Copyright Extension Act [wikipedia.org] (sponsored by Hollywood-owned Congressman Sono Bono), was really the brainchild of Disney, as part of an ongoing effort to keep their earliest cartoon and cartoon characters (most notably Mickey Mouse) from ever entering the public domain. Disney was also suspected by many to be behind the Copyright Act of 1976 [wikipedia.org], which had extended the term previously. Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse, was created in 1928 and, with each of these new laws, always stays just outside of ever entering into public domain.
Here is an interesting article on the subject [orangenius.com].
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Given I'm no copyright lawyer, I'm no expert. That said, my understanding is that the literal cartoon 'Steamboat Willie', copyright 1928, with Mickey Mouse in it would no longer be under copyright protection and anyone in possession of a copy of that work could begin to make their own copies of it for resale without Disney's permission. This may not cover derivative works that Disney (may have) released such as a digitally enhanced version or a re-released version of that same cartoon which may carry a more
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Given I'm no copyright lawyer, I'm no expert. That said, my understanding is that the literal cartoon 'Steamboat Willie', copyright 1928, with Mickey Mouse in it would no longer be under copyright protection and anyone in possession of a copy of that work could begin to make their own copies of it for resale without Disney's permission.
I wonder how many copies of Steamboat Willie or other bouncy crap from that era they sell. My guess would be not a lot, like single digit sales if they're lucky. They probably still have a team of lawyers figuring out how they can make a claim on cuphead.
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Yes, I suspect Disney, but aren't the characters created by Disney also trademarks of Disney, and thus still have protection even when copyright runs out? So you'd still be able to copy Sleeping Beauty, but you wouldn't be able to use Mickey Mouse as a character in your own video, nor would you be able to use "his" likeness in other products.
However, Trademarks do have limits. Specifically, trademarks are field of use limited, and can be revoked for numerous reasons - including becoming part of the common terminology - e.g Google may have trouble with further trademarking the term "google" b/c it has become a verb related to their business in the common vernacular of the public (f.e googling X, just google Y, just google it).
Copyrights are harder to lose; but also can be a bit harder to enforce.
The extension was done all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The rationale for this is that the whole point of copyright is to encourage the creation of artistic works. Since the pre-existing work has already been made, copyright has already has served its function and encouraged its creation. So there is nothing to be gained by extending the duration of pre-existing copyrighted works. You can't encourage a pre-existing work to be created over again.
Re: And suddenly... (Score:2)
Hopefully Trump tries to, then we can be sure it wonâ(TM)t happen. At least one positive thing the current political climate can achieve.
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His tax plan went through. What makes you think copyright "reform" can't go through?
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If they don’t stabilize the healthcare market - and I’m betting they won’t - then Susan Collins will stop prioritizing the party line... that was the promise she extracted for supporting the tax bill. And they’re already going to be down one Republican after a few days, which means they can only afford one defection or absence if they want to pass anything at all.
Copyright Extension (Score:3)
The tax plan was not Trump's, it was the Republican Congress's.
I think that there would be far more public awareness of a new copyright extension, and a lot of determined resistance. People weren't using the Internet to organize in 1998, at least not to the degree that we've seen with e.g. the Net Neutrality campaigns. The 1998 extension was unpopular, but I don't recall it ever being front-page news. I suspect that public pressure, probably as coordinated by our benevolent billion-dollar tech overl^Wcompan
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What impetus does Google have to prevent another copyright extension?
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Impetus is not quite the word you were looking for, I feel. I didn't mention Google specifically, nor do I think that it's entirely fair to single them out. However, Google spends quite a bit of resources on policing copyright, and most tech companies don't really benefit from the idea that some bits are illegal to copy. However, while there may or may not be any direct incentive for the tech companies to oppose a copyright extension, I don't think that their leaders would be very fond of the idea, and they
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What impetus does Google have to prevent another copyright extension?
Google Books to name one. They've had a lot of run-ins with the Copyright lawsuits from various factions while trying to expand out the search business. Google News is another.
Re: And suddenly... (Score:4, Insightful)
His tax plan went through.
No, it didn't. A capitalist tax plan went through, but not his.
He didn't run for and didn't get elected to Dictator of Legislature, which seemed to come as a shock to him.
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It's not like he proposed a plan of his own.
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It's not like he proposed a plan of his own.
Actually, he did [taxfoundation.org].
(He has since removed the plan from his own web site, in typical Trump Minitru manner.)
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His tax plan went through.
Lol.
Re: And suddenly... (Score:4, Funny)
What for the same thing to happen: extend copyright, or never receive another penny of donations while we prop up those who campaign against you.
Oh no, Hollywood's going to drop all its support for Republicans! They're going to be quivering in their shoes over that, I'm sure!
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What for the same thing to happen: extend copyright, or never receive another penny of donations while we prop up those who campaign against you.
Oh no, Hollywood's going to drop all its support for Republicans! They're going to be quivering in their shoes over that, I'm sure!
More like they'll drop all support for Democrats, which would be a problem for them as Hillary Clinton seems to have left the core of the DNC bankrupt. 2018 will be an interesting election year as a result - DNC won't be able to help out so easily.
There is a way to satisfy all sides here (Score:5, Interesting)
And suddenly, legislation will appear that will extend the Public Domain timeout period by another 20 or 50 years.
Watch and see if this doesn't happen before the end of the year.
There's a way to both extend copyright on some works and still let most things enter the public domain. If these copyrights are so valuable, why on earth is the US government extending them for free? That's insane. Here's a system that would let the very few people willing to extend their copyrights do so and yet make money for the government and let most stuff enter the public domain.
1) Current copyright law (so-called Bono Act) is retained.
2) Copyrights are not automatically extended beyond the Bono act terms. Owners must apply for an extension before the expiration. If they miss the application for any reason at all - too bad, so sad. The work goes into the public domain. This will eliminate the 2nd biggest problem with the Bono Act (the biggest problem is doing renewals for free) - not making people be responsible for their copyrights when a very small number of major failures (ie. It's A Wonderful Life) led to much crying and wailing by Hollywood.
3) Those who apply for an extension get one for 10 years. We could make it 5 if you like. The cost - $1 million per work. If you don't apply and pay the money, it goes into the public domain.
4) Every subsequent renewal costs 10 times what the previous one did. The 2nd renewal will cost $10 million. The 3rd will cost $100 million. The 4th will cost $1 billion. And so on. At some point even Disney will have to say "Enough is enough" on extending copyrights on things from the 1920s.
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Except anything less than Berne Convention (thats life plus 50 years) is going to be tough to get going on the international stage and that is kind of important these days.
In fact the life plus 70 years can probably be seen as an equalisation measure with the EU, where the extra 20 years was a push from Germany basically to keep the copyright in Mein Kampf ticking along so they could keep it's publication banned. (The German goverment's position was the copyright resided with the goverment after Hitler's de
Re:There is a way to satisfy all sides here (Score:4, Interesting)
3) Those who apply for an extension get one for 10 years. We could make it 5 if you like. The cost - $1 million per work. If you don't apply and pay the money, it goes into the public domain.
That is appealing to me, but would probably not fly with the big companies. American laws are relatively cheap to buy.
It's a long time since i read Free Culture [free-culture.cc] by Lawrence Lessig, but IIRC he argues that a mandatory renewal in order to keep rights would be a huge improvement on the current situation even if the cost were $100 or free. The gist is that it would make available and save a lot of art that would otherwise be lost forever.
For instance it's not feasible to contact the participants in a movie/descendants of same to obtain permission for transferring old decaying cellulose films to a digital format, and a lot of movies from the 50's are decaying beyond recovery because of this.
Sheet music that didn't sell well, but can be useful for researchers and others can not be distributed because it's very difficult to even determine who the current rights holder is, let alone contact that person and get permission for a work they have never heard about. They might not even know that their grandfather wrote music.
If it were possible for Disney to keep making money on the soon-to-be centennarian mouse while requiring everyone to actually make a trivial effort to keep the rights to works they actually make money from we'd be a long way ahead of where we are now. You could even do something like making the fee non-trivial, but reimbursable on proof of actual profit from the work.
Re:There is a way to satisfy all sides here (Score:4, Insightful)
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3 and 4 are a great way to ensure that only wealthy copyright holders would be able to retain a copyright.
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and software copyrights 5-10 years base with renew (Score:2)
and software copyrights 5-10 years base with renews. To fix abandonware issues. and right to repair issues to fix issues with suing web sites that hold roms / manuals / restore disks form people trying to fix there owned hardware.
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Being old enough to drink (Score:3)
Totally random OT post, but the Public Domain Drought could easily move to any of 172 other countries in the world and start drinking legally now.
The contemporaries of the US with a drinking age of 21 are: Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, Kiribati, Micronesia, Mongolia, Nauru, Oman, Palau, Samoa and Sri Lanka.
And the only countries that technically forbid drinking alcohol are: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen
Taken from https://drinkingage.procon.org... [procon.org]
They'll fix it (Score:2)
Don't worry, this congress and president will ensure nothing new falls to the public domain this or any other year.
Re:They'll fix it (Score:4, Informative)
It should, perhaps, be noted that Copyright extensions seems to be a bipartisan thing in the US Congress. The last one was done by a Republican-controlled Congress (with a Dem President), the one before that was done by a Democratic-controlled Congress (with a Rep President)....
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It might be noted I said 'this congress", not "this Republican congress".
Copywrite extension belongs to both parties while steaming turds like the recently passed budget are all on the republicans.
I also predict for 2018: (Score:2)
A bumper crop of metaphors.
"clinical professor of law" (Score:2)
What in the hell is that?
Re:"clinical professor of law" (Score:5, Informative)
A clinical professor is a professor that is hired for professional expertise and practical experience. Usually clinical professors supervise a school's clinic, which provide low-cost or free (legal, medical, dental) advice to needy clients. Upper level students provide the labor, and in return, get some practical experience.
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Clinical professor, also known as professor of practice, is an academic appointment made to a member of a profession who is associated with a university and engages in practical instruction of professional students.
Examples of clinical professor
Clinical Professor of Medicine
Clinical Professor of Nursing
Clinical Professor of Psychology
Clinical Professor of Law
Clinic
As a Canadian - responsibilities for IP holders (Score:2, Insightful)
We should be able to sue any copy right holder of any significant cultural work that becomes lost. As a geek,
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I'm sorry, but I really don't think you should be able to sue me over my kindergarten art work which is long lost. If you happen to have a copy, you are now free to share that work, but the idea that every work has to be kept sounds insane. If it is culturally important, there will be copies around that can be republished.
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One of the "various reasons" being "lack of rebroadcast rights". Do you read your own link? It's like the second sentence on the page.
Thanks for the reminder! (Score:2)
We'll be sure to get that handled before the year's up.
Yours forever,
Disney
In the USA ... (Score:2)
Personally, I blame a large rat.
Slight correction? (Score:2)
American copyrights now stretch for 95 years.
Wait, I thought it was life of author + 70 years, or 120 years after creation/95 years after publication for work-for-hire works, which means, that the copyright duration could actually be much longer than 95 years.
For example, strictly hypothetical, if some teen at 15 makes a spectacular song, and then lived to be 100, that would mean that the non-work-for-hire work would be under copyright for 85 + 70, or 155 years.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:5, Funny)
What direction are you travelling through time?
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He built the Time Tombs [wikipedia.org], obviously.
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Re:PROPERTY (Score:4)
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
Did you pay a royalty for the idea of using a roof and walls, or did you steal those ?
Re:PROPERTY (Score:5, Informative)
well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period.
No, you are supposed to be rewarded for a brief period. The US Constitution plainly states that; it's not just the article's author's opinion. The Constitution even points out that the *purpose* of depriving people of their natural rights to copy things they see for a limited period of time is to enhance the public domain.
However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead. So you can stop your bitching and whining. You got what you wanted.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:5, Informative)
However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead.
Part of the problem here is that copyrights are transferable and can be owned by corporations. The original copyright holder quickly loses his rights, if he even held them in the first place, and people with no affiliation whatsoever to the works or the artist gets to reap the benefits.
Make copyrights non-transferable from the actual creator(s), and only licensable for no longer than 5 years at a time.
If a corporation wants to continue using a creation, they need to continue to compensate the creator, until the work falls into public domain.
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However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead.
Part of the problem here is that copyrights are transferable and can be owned by corporations. The original copyright holder quickly loses his rights, if he even held them in the first place, and people with no affiliation whatsoever to the works or the artist gets to reap the benefits.
Make copyrights non-transferable from the actual creator(s), and only licensable for no longer than 5 years at a time. If a corporation wants to continue using a creation, they need to continue to compensate the creator, until the work falls into public domain.
That wouldn't solve anything. Patents are already non-transferable; instead it's all bought and signed via payments and contracts. Inventors sign away everything to corporations and patent trolls.
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well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period.
No, you are supposed to be rewarded for a brief period. The US Constitution plainly states that; it's not just the article's author's opinion. The Constitution even points out that the *purpose* of depriving people of their natural rights to copy things they see for a limited period of time is to enhance the public domain.
However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead. So you can stop your bitching and whining. You got what you wanted.
The *public* is suppose to be rewarded; the Constitution does not guarantee the owner of the copyright would ever be rewarded for their creations.
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The constitution was obviously written by intellectuals. It's a relic of a era long gone, but properly amended, it can be used to protect and shore up our corporate society. Using intellectual property law to encourage new ideas is part of that old way of thinking. The tendency for most Americans is to work for massive corporations that already own these properties anyway, nothing they produce belongs to them.
The days of big ideas coming from little people is long gone, and an amendment granting perpetual c
Re:PROPERTY (Score:4, Insightful)
Because my children (not even grandkids) will not derive any income from my writing, I'll have to shelve my idea of this book and go do "real work". That's the line of thinking I was alluding to. The creator — or his wife — would certainly think/say such a thing.
Utter nonsense. Copyrights are extremely long, there's no way that children won't benefit from the same copyrights. This is just silly. Moreover, do you have any evidence that any author has ever said so?
But I do not wish to argue, which way is more effective. Even if my way was less conducive to development of art, it is still the only right way. Creators ought to be able to control their creations — they must be able to sell, rent, give away, or even destroy them however they see fit. It is not yours, it is not mine, it is theirs.
So at the end of the day, what you are trying to do is make a moral claim about the nature of intellectual property. I explicitly addressed that claim earlier. The moral reason we have a notion of basic property rights is that physical property is by nature restrictive, as I tried explaining earlier. If we somehow existed in a universe where objects could be used by any number of people without diminishing their value or usability, property rights wouldn't be a sensible thing. But that's precisely the situation with things like copyrighted works- one person reading it doesn't make someone else have less value. This isn't that complicated. And it is simple even before one gets to the incredible amount of wasted resources if copyrights were indefinite (imagine for a moment what our world would look like if Shakespeare was still copyrighted or if every 19th and early 20th century patent was still active). Your approach is both morally incoherent and simply a pragmatically bad idea.
Re: PROPERTY (Score:2)
Copyright is not about the creation, but subsequent imitations, usually identical given most copyrighted works are designed to be produceable at large quantities.
Copyright is about the inventor controlling who gets to be a creator, in order to ensure profits are funneled back to the inventor.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:4, Interesting)
> Creators ought to be able to control their creations
No creator creates things entirely by themselves. Writers draw on the public domain for the language they use, and many of the plot themes for fiction. They have past inventors to thank for their tools, whether it be pencil and paper or laptops and text editors. It is only fair that if they draw from the goods society hands them to work with, they eventually give back to society so the next generation can build on their work.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:5, Insightful)
Because my children (not even grandkids) will not derive any income from my writing, I'll have to shelve my idea of this book and go do "real work". That's the line of thinking I was alluding to. The creator — or his wife — would certainly think/say such a thing.
And this right here is why no art, no music, no movies and no books were created before the 95 year copyright rule.
Right?
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Re:PROPERTY (Score:4)
Re:PROPERTY (Score:4, Insightful)
the flip side of the wonderful free availability is the artists either starving
Or, you know, maybe they can produce something new once every few decades to support themselves.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:5, Insightful)
Point is, they should not have to.
Why not ? What's so special about artists that they can make one thing, and then collect money for the rest of their life (and their children's) while other people have to repeat their work day after day ?
Re:PROPERTY (Score:5, Insightful)
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors [sic], it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
And you will pay for the upkeep of the house, and pay taxes on the house (and the property below it). But more importantly, nobody is paying you or your descendants for your right to keep that house. Nor is anyone prevented from making their own house that looks like yours.
If, on the other hand, I write a tune or a book, or develop a drug, or create a painting — well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period.
Just a note: drugs are patented, not copyrighted, and patents run out after (a maximum) of 21 years.
All the things you mention are built upon knowledge and skills of previous creators ("we stand on the shoulders of giants"). The purpose of copyright was to create a protected period during which creators could make money--so they would be encouraged to create more. It's a contract between society and creators.
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It's not merely the wish of the author of the article. In the US, there is, in fact, a difference between physical property and intellectual property, as provided by the Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 [wikipedia.org]. It's a limited time monopoly. If you don't like it, make your contributions in another arena. Or seek to amend the Constitution. Or join the corporations that continue to buy the extensions piecemeal as other commenters have predicted will happen.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:5, Insightful)
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
Not if someone else builds a similar house elsewhere. Then your house will vanish in a puff of logic.
This is why there ought to be a law to stop thieves from duplicating houses.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't support collectivization either but you're comparing apples and oranges.
A home has natural scarcity and is easily quantized. Expression is not. Ideas are not. This is why copyright infringement is not the same as theft. Copyright provides temporary scarcity at society's expense so that you can profit from your work. However, at some point, ideas become part of the society's culture/general knowledgebase, and allowing the creator to remain the bridge troll indefinitely deters progress. This is especially true in science and technology where the IP stack becomes very expensive very quickly.
Want another house? Build one. Want more scarcity? Come up with a new idea. It was not meant to protect one trick ponies forever. 14+14 was quite generous (~half a lifetime). Later revisions were even more so. Today it's egregious.
Re:PROPERTY (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because you aren't also claiming the right to keep me from saying 'nice house' and building one just like it for myself.
If you want to write your great novel and lock it in a vault, passing it to your descendants, you're free to do so. Nobody will legally cut the vault open and abscond with your only copy.
If you choose, you may accept copyright which means that for a limited time (which exceeds your lifetime), society will grant you the exclusive right to make copies. Your descendant doesn't lose the right to make copies after the copyright expires, it's just that the government will no longer prevent others from doing so as well.
You keep using that word... (Score:2)
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. 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.
tl;dr Ideas are not property, and the idea that you own something you don't have immediate physical control over is also a social agreement. Copyright exists as a social convenience, and humanity got along fine without it for thousands of years. The Internet being effectively copyright-free has revived older means of supporting artists, namely patronage and serially released works.
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If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors.
That would be true were it not for the fact that the Government will seize it if you don't pay property tax. That essentially means that you're just renting it.
I'll explain Re:PROPERTY (Score:3)
If you write a creative work, you can keep it forever, just like the house you built. You can pass it forward, and nothing will stop you from doing that. You have the right to sell your house, and then you lose ownership of it. You can also sell your work and lose ownership of it.
However, with a creative work you get an extra right, and that right is to control the copying of it. As long as you own the copyright, you are the only one who can make copies, or give the right to make them, and this allows you t
Just to clarify the problem Re:PROPERTY (Score:2)
The major problem (IMO) isn't the incentive issue, but that works get lost to the public. A good example for this is old computer games. The companies, which held the copyright, have often closed, and the copyrights have reverted to the individual creators, which means that there's not just one person controlling them, and these people are not only hard to track down, but often have little interest in making the games available. In other cases it's not clear who owns the copyright, after mergers and acquisi
there are people with rare games that don't dump (Score:2)
there are people with rare games that don't dump them and pull that copyright BS when asked even when the The companies that made them have closed or have sold off IP and when thought a lot of mergers that is very hard to fine what companies owns it now. Also there some IP trolls that hold the rights and change big bucks for rom files and manuals.
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If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
If you own a business, you can also pass it to your children, and great, great, great, grandchildren. Here are some veerrrryy old businesses:
Baker's Chocolate (1765)
Cigna Insurance (1792)
JP Morgan Chase (1799)
DuPont (1802)
Colgate (1806)
Citigroup (1812)
Remington (1816)
HarperCollins (1817)
https://www.businessnewsdaily.... [businessnewsdaily.com]
How can these businesses be allowed to make money for over 200 years and yet copyright owners are forced to "donate" their work to the public after 100 years? Inventors have to give their work away after just 20 years... cha-ching for manufacturers who pay nothing for the expired patent for hundreds of years. Programmers don't get a royalty... their hiring companies profit from the product for decades and the programmers get some peanut salary and get kicked out when they turn 40 or 50. Scientists and mathematicians have it the worst... they get paid with just a job (and they get some paltry sum in a Nobel Prize).
This is systematic abuse of the intellectual class by the ruling class (government and big business). Anything short of perpetual right to the creators of these works is abuse and exploitation.
When is the government going to make these old businesses "public domain?"
Don't be daft, all those businesses have had to keep producing new stuff to stay in business. Do you really think that Bakers Chocolate made one very good piece of chocolate and is still being paid for it? Artists can do exactly the same thing, keep producing new stuff to continue to generate money. And just like anyone is free to make chocolate that looks and tastes just like Bakers Chocolate, any one should be free to copy an artists work.
Don't want your chocolate or work of art copied, keep it secret and
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Do you really think that Bakers Chocolate made one very good piece of chocolate and is still being paid for it?
In essence, yes. They created the recipe for the chocolate. But they were smart and did not release the recipe to the public like the foolish inventors, software devs, authors, musicians etc. No, they kept the recipe a secret and produced millions of chocolate bars (a simple process once you know the recipe) for hundreds of years. Trade secret protection is the best protection of IP and this example proves it.
Yes, they rely on Trade Secrets laws to keep the recipe safe. However, you can be sure they have many other products. One recipe wouldn't be enough to keep paying all their employees over all that time.
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Maybe Jews are just smarter than you, and smart enough to use those smarts to enrich themselves.
More power to smart people smart enough to use those smarts!!
Re:We got scammed... (Score:5, Interesting)
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In practice, your proposal wouldn't make that much of a difference. People are already uploading copyrighted materials; as long as the copyright holder doesn't file a DMCA take-down notice, the material is available for free, even if it is technically not PD.
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The article is about copyright, but let's take patents.
Under your system, patents would never expire or come into the public domain. You'd still be paying Mr Fire (or his estate) for every fire made into perpetuity. And Mr Window. And Mr Garden Spade. Literally the cost of EVERYTHING you touch would increase overnight to pay patent royalties to someone who invented something 100 years ago, is dead and/or hasn't done a day's work since. This is apparently the bit you hate.
The same still applies for copy
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from job creators
The day after you finished producing that masterpiece, you ceased to be a job creator and became a rent seeker. You no longer do anything useful and should not expect society to hand you stuff in perpetuity.
But if tomorrow, anyone can copy your work, what motivated you to produce it in the first place? A reasonable monopoly on profits from it would be OK. But only for the time required for you to produce your next work.
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The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (Score:2)