Posted on 11/18/2014 2:24:35 PM PST by reaganaut1
So, anyone who wants to put on a play by Shakespere should go and hunt down any and all decendents so they can be paid for their "property"?
You've actually got the entire concept completely wrong and backwards, which isn't entirely surprising concidering the massive propaganda on the part of media companies to convince of exactly that. The natural state of all "works" of this nature is the public domain. We, as a society see a benefit for us to encourage people to produce such works, so we have agreed to grant them a limited time where they will have exclusive control of a work, after which, it is supposed to revert to the public domain.
As others have mentioned on this thread, major companies like Disney have twisted and perverted this agreement to a point far beyond it's intended purpose. The modern american copyright harms the public greatly, especially since there is no clear way to deterimine who actually owns copyright to a specific work. Used to be, that the owner had to register said ownership with the government, which would then grant the creator exclusive rights to the work for 14 years, after which, the creator would have the option to extend it once for another 14 years, to bring the total to 28 years worth of government granted monopoly of a work. If the author did not renew, the work would enter the public domain after 14 years.
Today, with the horrid state of affairs regarding copyright, you can have a 50 year old book, written by someone dead for a decade or more (if that person can even be located), that is completely out of print and unavailable, yet noone can do anything with this work for another 50 years (or more if Disney buys off more congresscritters in a few years to extend it again).
The copyright laws of Canada are slightly better. They specify life of the author +50 years I believe. This is why the Narnia tales are now available for free download on the Project Gutenberg Canada website. Unfortunately, USFedGov is putting a lot of pressure on countries like Austrailia and Canada to change their laws to match our own insane versions.
I do occasional proofreading for the main Project Gutenberg site so I actually follow this stuff a bit. I can understand how a corporation, which is essentially an artificial immortal governmental construct might want to see copyright extend into perpetuity, but for us mere mortals, it's a bad deal all around.
The very minimum change that should be made to copyright law, even beyond reduction of the length, is that we should go back to a system where copyright for a work is registered for 14 year segments. If a work is not worth enough of someone's time to keep track of and to renew the registration of the copyright, it shold enter the public domain.
Yes, yes. I was using that as an example for a reductio ad absurdum of another poster's arguments. We mathematicians don't want them to be copyrightable, since haggling over rights would grind our profession to a halt. The problem is that the rest of culture works more like mathematics works than copyright maximalists want to admit (and if you doubt there really are copyright maximalists who are feeding the "information oligopoly" the Forbes author decries, look at the Fester, other fellow I'm quarreling with on this thread.)
Copyright is not for ideas or concepts, which can be expressed in different forms; just the expression.
I gather then, you, along with me, think that the suit which suppressed publication of The Wind Done Gone at the behest of the estate of Margaret Mitchell was wrongly decided. My main objection to the current state of copyright law is the suppression of derivative works -- though perpetual extension in the face of "for a limited term" and the really obnoxious removal of works from the public domain to retroactively put them under copyright (how does this serve the Constitutional purpose?) are also highly objectionable.
As for lifetime of the author plus x years, that wasn't the original idea. The original idea was 14 years, renewable at the request of the author for 14 years (copyright terms under the Law of Queen Anne).
...make your own sculpture from scratch - even if it’s the same figure...
Really? somehow doesn't work with cartoons of a famous mouse. Your own cartoon from scratch of the same figure still gets you sued by Disney Corp. Write rules for a fantasy RPG describing how one of H.P. Lovecraft's horrors should be simulated by the game-master, get sued by Lovecraft's estate for using the name, even though though doing this is plainly a transformational work (there's no competing RPG rulebook by Lovecraft that's being displaced from the market) and one which will arguably increase demand for the estate's holdings. Different expressions of the same idea, at least in the area of art and literature, are repeatedly suppressed by suits from rightsholders to earlier versions of the same idea, and seemingly some folks here at FR (Fester, this means you) think it should be even more that way than it already is.
Remember, I'm not arguing against copyright, I'm arguing for copyright as the Founders plainly meant it in historical context -- they were plainly thinking of the British Law of Queen Anne as a model for copyright, just as the thought of the Statute on Monopolies as a model for patents -- with robust fair-use allowances and passage into the public domain after "a limited term", since the stated Constitutional purpose of copyrights (and patents) is to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
It's late where I am. Perhaps tomorrow I'll have a stab at marking up the current copyright law to give something closer to my ideal. Good night all.
Nope.
Not at all. There may be, however, specific arrangements of Shakespeare plays that you would not be permitted to perform in public for pay without first securing permission from the arranger.
The reversion to public domain, I would argue, is arbitrary. I would rather see artists benefit more, and longer, from their efforts. You would like to seize upon them, I reckon, as if to make them your own and benefit from them without effort on your part. Rather like a leech.
This is way off the mark. The law simply prevents people from publishing further in their own name in order to profit from the work. Anyone can read it or quote it. For practical purposes it may be of benefit for some provision to be made for additional copies to be published for the sake of convenience, and even then, the creator should be entitled to some benefit from those additional copies since the public demands it. Pay your freaking $10.00 for a copy.
Some folks are talented enough at copying to make a copy from scratch that is virtually indistinguishable from the original, copyrighted work.
Those would be copies.
If you authored a cartoon character, The_Reader_Davidbert, and used this trdbert in a comic strip that was wildly popular, then nationally syndicated in newspapers, and you authored numerous books which included the character and funny stories about his escapades in, oh, say internet forums, you might be financially successful at the endeavor.
Let’s say you did this, and wound up making man millions per year from your little trdbert empire.
Now, I come along, weasely little lazy guy that I am, and I - from scratch, mind you - author an exact copy of your trdbert cartoon character. I did this from scratch, but the images are so much the same that no one can tell them apart, your trdbert character and my, oh, I name him trdbertx, character.
I start publishing books, I take it to the web. I make some animated movies about trdbertx, where the script has trdbertx trashing trdbert, mocking, ridiculing. I get trdbertx into social media, spreading lies and disinformation about trdbert. I get some venture capital backing, and launch massive PR campaigns. My social media consultants start conspiracy theories that trdbertx was actually first, and trdbert is the ripoff.
Your trdbert empire starts to crumble. Most newspapers drop trdbert to pick up trdbertx. trdbertx’s sarcasm is so funny, even when you try to have trdbert cartoons mock trdbertx, no one really finds it appealing. It’s too little, too late. No more new book deals for trdbert.
trdbert sales plummet.
Out of desperation, you hire Archie Bunker’s lawyers, and take the matter all the way to the Supreme Court, losing at every turn.
The Supreme Court decision finally comes: trdbertx was created from scratch, so it is not infringing on the trdbert copyright.
The End.
[orchestra plays, lots of swooning violins, as my character sails off on his yacht to the Cayman Islands with his trophy wife]
[Harlot DontCara (my wife)]: We’ll never be hungry again...
[Klept Butler, my character (smoking a nice Havana), played by Clark Gable]: Frankly my dear...
OK, so could you please tell me which of Shakespeare's descendents would own the copyright to the Tempest? Lord knows I wouldn't want to deprive someone of their due. I'm sure you'd like to assist in tracking down the descendents of the Brothers Grimm as well. Lots of their work is being used gratis these days.
If none of them have this work registered or have legal representation, why bother? There may be published versions of this work, however, that you are not free to copy and sell to others. Is that your aim?
It seems to me unfair that the invention of the corporation, the human creation of an immortal legal person, should destroy the way culture propagated all throughout human history before copyright was reified as "property" and people like you began advocating perpetual copyright held by such entities or passed down to heirs -- by remixing pre-existing cultural ideas, phrases, melodies, images. As Solomon noted in Ecclesiates, "there is nothing new under the sun." As more and more phrases, images, melodies are "owned" by such immortal legal persons zealous to collect rents on the "intellectual property", there less and less room for the creation of culture in the normal way, which always referenced pre-existing culture. Jazz would not and could not exist if your idea of ownership were applied by jazz musicians to their creations. You still haven't told me whether you really think that it should be harder to compose pieces like the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini or Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis because rightsholders have to be found and paid, or how that state of affairs would serve the Constitutional purpose of copyright.
Mickey Mouse should at some point become like the character of Robin Hood, the figure in Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", or Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: something on which anyone can base derivative works, from which they can earn money if the market will pay them, without paying a "rightsholder" or being sued. So, yes it is both unfair and unconstitutional for Disney and his agents to use the law to "maintain profits from the creative efforts of Mr. Disney for an indefinite period of time" if that maintenance requires the enforcement of a monopoly on the creation of derivative works.
Disney has benefitted mightily from remixing pre-existing culture: Snow White, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid (Did they pay Hans Christian Andersen's heirs for the rights? No. The story was in the public domain, the normal state for stories, not locked up in some corporation's horde of "intellectual property"), Beauty and the Beast (They were really happy that no corporation was holding the rights to the works of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont on that one), but try to remix Mickey Mouse and their attitude toward cultural appropriation from the past reverses.
You might ask yourself why the Founders didn't give Congress the power to grant perpetual copyrights, but specified "for a limited term". Get back to me when you've figured out the answer. Hint: it has something to do with Science and the useful Arts having a value beyond the merely commercial.
If it is not me as the original artist/author, but a rightsholding corporation, or one of my ne’er-do-well descendants, even if he has taken up continuing the comic strip after my repose and gets beaten out by your artistically-superior reworking of my idea now in the public domain, my shade will play the world’s smallest violin as part of your swooning violins in mock-sympathy for the folks wanting continued monopoly rents on my ideas.
For that matter, if I’ve had them on the market for 28 years and can’t keep the loyalty of fans against a knock-off, I probably don’t deserve any more money for the idea.
There is a fine line between incentivizing creators and discouraging them. Copyright law attempts to tread that line. There is no reason any person cannot create ad nausea duplications of works that have gone before. In fact, I’m sure it often happens that humans have the same creative ideas at the same time - even ideas that are incredibly complex.
Copyright law merely assigns who will receive substance in return, and for how long. The upside is that you have opportunity to create and bring to market indefinitely something no one else may receive substance from. The downside is the fees and a robust effort at swatting down any duplications another party may try to benefit from. The market place tends to crystalize where the money goes in consuming what is created.
If Walt Disney had expired without expressing any wishes as to how his creation should be handled in the marketplace, someone else would likely have taken up the torch to make money off of Mickey. I harbor absolutely no animosity toward those who would like to preserve an income from that creation, and no desire to market a Mickey Mouse of my own. But I may one day develop and bring to market an animated figure that is more interesting, profit from it, and enjoin the law to sustain that benefit as long as possible.
You’re absolutely right in quoting Ecclesiastes in regard to these matters. All is vanity.. Walt’s creations, along with everything done under the sun, will one day fade into nothing, along with all the perceived profits. Meanwhile, I see no reason to begrudge excellent creators and their creations benefits due in this short epoch we call history.
LOL but great idea. Isn’t the temporary nature of ownership in the Constitution, though? Had something to do with sharing scientific knowledge for the benefit of the people?
We all benefit from the knowledge and the creation in some way, but the creator enjoys additional substance in exchange for his efforts. Our forefathers did indeed use the words “limited time” in these matters. Well, time is naturally limited to that point when the Creator folds things into something new. Anyway, I question our forefathers as to why they thought it necessary, and how strongly they felt about this limitation. It is something we are free to hash out. It is also something - like anything - that is subject to excesses in either direction. To me it seems commercial success ought to play into how long a given creation is allowed copyright protection.
Don’t forget that copyright protects you too, not just the copyright holder. It’s similar to a brand name. When you buy a book under copyright, you are assured that you are reading what the author wrote, not some distorted version. Copyright law is a true double-edged sword that shouldn’t be swung too far in either direction.
I agree but have hesitations at part of your last statement. It should not be just commercial interests that determine copyright, although they should play a part, and they have played a part in the recent extensions of copyright term. The advances to the author and the enormous cost involved in producing a book have warranted some increase in the term of copyright. No more literary tea party. The money people took over a while back.
The money people cannot seize a person’s creation, but they may entice. Creators volunteer ownership of their creation in the hopes of increased benefit. It’s a messy business, but not one that necessitates truncating the term, as if all must be up for grabs after 50, 60, 100 years. Every creator that wants their creation protected by copyright law is thereby obligated to defend his claim, so it is not as if it’s lifelong smooth sailing. It’s always a “sweat of your brow” thing, especially for those who lie, covet, cheat, and steal.
Do you really want to defend copyright terms longer than the terms of the Law of Queen Anne on the basis that not having it will "run into bankruptcy" those artists who have had only a single profitable idea that they have milked for 28 years and who can't keep the fan base they've developed when competitors start marketing competing derivative works? Really? I refer you to zeugma's posts to this thread. Public domain is the normal state of affairs, copyright an exception we make to encourage art by allow an artist to receive monopoly rents for a limited term. At some point Mickey Mouse should -- indeed should already have -- become like the figure in Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", something anyone can use in a derivative work, yes, for profit, without having to pay royalties, or be sued.
I don't think you're going to make any headway with this. This fellow has a profound misunderstanding of what the public domain is, and the purpose of copyright. It's hardly surprising given the corporate push of lies and misinformation over the last 30 years.
For myself, I pretty much ignore copyright for anything more than 30 years old. If a friend wants a copy of Dark Side of the Moon, I have a great rip of a CD (that is itself that old, as it was the first CD I ever bought), that I'm perfectly willing to share with them.
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