10 ms·

What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016?

231 points by pwg 11y ago

btilly 11y ago
The fact that nobody benefits much is very much worth pointing out. Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works. We didn't create any new works from the 1950s by passing laws in the 1970s. Those works were already created on incentives that authors already received. It is just a giveaway to the tiny minority of said authors whose work achieved success. Of course the main driver of this is Disney, which is trying to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright. (Never mind the fact that trademark is a better fit for how they use it...) Also I'd like to highlight the 1987 part of the argument. The early computer era saw a lot of games written for platforms like Apple ][ by companies that went out of business and the copyright ownership went to places unknown (though they theoretically exist). You can't make and pass around legal copies of them from the floppies that they originally came from. Some of the games (Ultima, PacMan, etc) would likely see copyright renewed. But a lot of them would not. And that would be great for people like me that want to revisit our childhoods. In fact historically there were stories that only became popular BECAUSE they fell out of copyright. The most famous example is https://www.globalipmatters.com/2015/12/17/when-a-quirk-of-copyright-law-creates-a-christmas-classic-its-a-wonderful-life-and-the-public-domain https://www.globalipmatters.com/2015/12/17/when-a-quirk-of-c... but it isn't alone. Just think what new cultural gems we might create if artists of today could safely refer back to works from a generation or two ago.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > The fact that nobody benefits much is very much worth pointing out. > Of course the main driver of this is Disney, which is trying to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright. I read an analysis that didn't think much of this view. It said we should look at ever-extending copyright protections as a form of economic protectionism against the past, forcing the public to buy potentially-inferior modern IP rather than fall back on older IP. You suggest this yourself, with > historically there were stories that only became popular BECAUSE they fell out of copyright and I think it's worth thinking about. In particular, I'm pretty sure "the fact that nobody benefits much" isn't actually a fact.
  - bograt 11y ago
    The problem with this analysis is that, if such a course of "ever-extending copyright protections" were pursued, it would run the 'well of creativity' dry. The 'creative commons' is a recognition that cultural works are not created ex nihilo but by building on the works of previous generations; as creators benefit, so must they contribute.
    - zanny 11y ago
      > so must they contribute. A tremendous swath of people have been born or published works since 1928 and have since died, whose works remain under the perpetual Disney copyright. So no, we have had generations die now that never contributed back to the commons because Disney said so.
    - thaumasiotes 11y ago
      The well of creativity is unlikely to run dry. In particular, we can observe that a huge chunk of literature effectively can't be consumed today because no one alive speaks the language it was written in (also, because no copies survive!). That's a much more effective ban on using the work than copyright is, and it's permanent. But it hasn't led to storytelling just gradually dying out because we forgot all the stories.
  - btilly 11y ago
    There are analyses that say many contradictory things. I haven't read that analysis and don't know whether I would think much of it. But let's suppose that if I did then I would be convinced that the economic effects of copyright extension are better understood as that type of protectionism. That doesn't change the fact that I still have evidence that Disney is explicitly involved both directly and indirectly in lobbying for copyright extension. And they start lobbying for it like clockwork as soon as Steamboat Willie starts threatening to slide into public domain. Therefore no matter what the economic arguments, I believe that the people actually changing the rules are changing it to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright. That said, I think little of the position taken in that analysis. It claims that the public is forced to buy potentially-inferior modern IP. To the contrary, I believe that the public is free to not buy IP at all, but instead to find other ways to entertain themselves. In fact I believe that if modern authors and artists could freely draw on iconic past IP, they could create compelling new works drawing on the old ones which would increase consumption of IP. Thereby making the public happier AND content creators richer. Therefore I believe that the net effect of copyright extension is to increase the rent that current content owners can get from past content at the cost of both the public and current content creators. (And yes, this holds true even though there are content creators employed by content owners.) --- As to "nobody benefits much", I remember one of the briefs that I saw for Eldred v. Ashcroft that demonstrated that over 99% of the possible present value of a work is captured by the author under the terms of the 1976 law. That is, if we take the possibility of public domain away and assign perpetual copyright to authors, we will not add more than about 1% to the compensation authors can expect. Turning that figure around, today's content creators would be better off with the 1976 laws if they in aggregate could increase consumed commercial content by more than 1% from having full access to past content to work from. (Exactly like Walt Disney did with works like Sleeping Beauty.) I believe that this is quite possible. A number of economic experiments have found that increasing availability of free content increases consumption and ultimately increases revenue to artists. See, for example, http://www.baen.com/library/prime_palaver1.asp http://www.baen.com/library/prime_palaver1.asp for one of them.
- dx211 11y ago
  > The fact that nobody benefits much is very much worth pointing out. Warner Brothers, Disney, etc. benefit from this, as do their employees, in quite concrete terms.
  - pc2g4d 11y ago
    I thought they were emphasizing the fact that, under the previous scheme, authors had to do something to renew copyright, which meant that unexploited works automatically lapsed into the public domain. Under the current law, even works whose authors do not care remain under copyright. Previously, the default state was public domain. Now, the default state is copyright. This means that for a huge majority of works, their remaining under copyright benefits neither the uninterested rightsholder, nor the public who are now prohibited from reusing the work.
  - meric 11y ago
    If we made these laws protect Disney exclusively and leave everyone else out of it, and we would be better off.
    - 13of40 11y ago
      I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and say that the Winnie the Pooh copyright is better off in the hands of a large corporation that can use it to create wealth. Besides that, it's not like the Queen of England owns it and keeps it hidden away where only VIPs can see it (I'm looking at you, Vermeer's The Music Lesson). They use it to create media that the majority of people on this forum have happily consumed. What do we get if it goes into the public domain? The ability to download old books for free that you'd otherwise have to pay...oh...fifty cents for at the local St. Vincent De Paul? Slash fiction? (Again, Devil's Advocate, so no down votes.)
      - umanwizard 11y ago
        The wealth creation is completely artificial. I'm not sure how having to pay a tax to Disney for a Winnie lunchbox "creates wealth" more than getting the identical thing for cheaper. Basically your post is a more subtle version of the broken window fallacy.
- deciplex 11y ago
  > Never mind the fact that trademark is a better fit for how they use it... I'm not sure about this. I think trademark would prevent you from publishing a work and calling it "Mickey Mouse" or something similar, but it wouldn't stop you from producing work which incorporated Mickey Mouse somehow, and calling it something else e.g. "I Hate Corporate Mice" or something.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    Mickey's shape is trademarked, so you'd have to go to great lengths to make sure that your Mickey doesn't convey any of the meanings protected by trademark.
- monochromatic 11y ago
  > Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works. We didn't create any new works from the 1950s by passing laws in the 1970s. This is a really good point. I don't know why I've never thought about that before.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I suspect this is because the popular media is a limited number of conglomerates who generate enormous profits from retrospective copyright extensions. Funny that stories that don't benefit these conglomerates aren't published.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  It is not Mickey Mouse that Disney is protecting (he is protected by trademark), it in Winnie the poo. The copyright on Winnie supports billion of dollars of revenue in licensing deals - basically millions of kids lunch boxes and backpacks.
- frobozz 11y ago
  > Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works. I disagree. Although you are correct for rules that extend the duration of the exclusive right of the copyright holder, a rule that reduces that duration would allow greater access to these works sooner.
  - treenyc 11y ago
    > I disagree. Care to elaborate, and give some examples? Tks
    - frobozz 11y ago
      What do you mean by elaborate? I thought my statement was pretty clear. From the linked article: "Readers – from the conspiracy theorist to the grammar enthusiast, the student of racial injustice to the sociologist – would have something to celebrate." If applying the pre-1978 laws to pre-1978 works would cause this celebration, then surely applying them to post-1978 works would also cause such celebration. For further elaboration - if the contemporary rules were applied, then a work from 1977 would become public domain in 2033 and a work from 1978 would become public domain in 2048 (or 2073). If the pre-1978 rules were to be reinstated today, without backdating, then that 1978 work would still take 70 or 95 years. With backdating, it would become public domain in 2034.
      - treenyc 11y ago
        Since you disagree with "Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works." I just would like to know your bases for your disagreement, and ask for some examples. Maybe there is a misunderstanding.
        frobozz 11y ago
        Are you only reading the first few words of my comments, and ignoring the rest? It's right there. A new rule that reduces the term opens up old works earlier than if the contemporary rule is left in place. Let's consider something other than copyright. It is bad to retroactively prosecute people for new crimes, but (for example) should people convicted of sodomy prior to 2003 have to serve out their (up to life) sentences, or since the act is no longer illegal, should they be freed? Surely, if an act is no longer a crime, it's abhorrent to treat people who have committed that act as criminals.
- static_noise 11y ago
  > It is just a giveaway to the tiny minority of said authors whose work achieved success. I think you mean the copyright holders. When the authors sign it off to somebody else they are different entities.
Ologn 11y ago
I have an Android app which contained (among other things) two works which are in the public domain in the US - one is 93 years old and one is 95 years old. A media conglomerate sent a DMCA notice to Google for my app, and Google took it down. Then my Admob was cut off for the app (luckily I had ad mediation). The DMCA notice said the 93 and 95 year old works were in copyright in some country, although they were not specific as to which country exactly. I had to go through a whole rigmarole to get my app back on Google Play, which almost didn't happen (I had to appeal). I removed those two works and shut off access for my app to Australia, the UK, India and Canada. Not that this was required but I can't go through this again and lose the income. It wasn't Disney, but Disney is big in supporting these laws. Yet Disney started off by ripping off Alice in Wonderland in a cartoon. Disney made his money ripping off a book published not long before he rips it off, now they have a media monopoly and want to shut the gates up behind them for eternity. Which is not even possible, because the nature of the Internet, mobile etc. is such that this doesn't work any more. It's an old model which does not and can not work and will not work as things are and as they are going to be, yet there will be a lot of waste and problems as they continue to try to do this.
- Reedx 11y ago
  Yeah, it's especially egregious re: Disney who's benefited so greatly from public works. Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, etc, etc.
- exodust 11y ago
  Why not mention what the works are?
  - deciplex 11y ago
    +1 Unless you legally restricted from doing so, there is no reason to protect these assholes. Tell everyone who did this and for which works.
oofabz 11y ago
I notice every artist on this list is dead. These long copyright terms do not help artists, programmers, or anyone else who creates intellectual property. They only benefit capital holders - people who purchased the rights and want a return on their benefit. Such people are wealthy already, they do not need government handouts. Companies like Disney do not require regulations like this in order to survive; they would do fine with less onerous copyright terms, and everyone else in society would benefit.
- avar 11y ago
  I don't agree with the current state of copyright, but I think pointing out that every one of these people are dead is a nonsensical argument. The question is what incentives should we give people to create creative works, and what should the cost to society be? If you're a smart guy with Robert Heinlein and copyright is more limited to a few years would you ever have written Starship Troopers? Or would you have gone into something like the real estate business which can last generations and keep your children and grandchildren happy & fed after you're long dead? Would the 1998 Starship Troopers movie have been released based on the 1959 book if copyright had been at its original 14 years? How about a lot of the "cult classic" works of today that only became really popular and earned money tens of years after their original release? I don't know what the right answer is, but it's a fallacy to assume that we'd have the same state of affairs if the incentives we can gave people to create creative works automatically expired after their death.
  - Turbo_hedgehog 11y ago
    Let's assume Lord of the Rings was out of term and then a bunch of shoddily made movies got made based on the story and didn't reap much. Would New Line Cinema have laid out the budget for Peter Jackson to make the quality LOTR film trilogy if they didn't have exclusive rights to produce the movies? Those films generated huge amounts of revenue - would we have missed out on that if the books were in the public domain, or would the same revenue have been produced by now with it in the public domain?
    - 11y ago
ianstormtaylor 11y ago
Does anyone have a link to (or can write) a good explanation of the benefits of things entering the public domain? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it. I think lobbying to extend copyright terms is disingenuous. But I don't have a great argument for why we should want things to enter the public domain other than "your local theater can show it for free" , which the article noted. People seem to already be sharing things easily enough.
- vhold 11y ago
  The biggest benefit imo is that derived works can be created freely, imagine if you could use all music up to the 60s or what not freely in any movie or video game you make, or make a game about guessing the movie from scenes from all movies instead of just a tiny subset you had to spend thousands of dollars working with lawyers to negotiate on, etc.
  - douche 11y ago
    Then every chain restaurant wouldn't need to have their own, non-infringing Happy Birthday song... One possibly crackpot theory that just occurred to me is that in the _Futurama_ universe, copyright was extended so far as to be perpetual[1] [1] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ubbd92/futurama-nibbler-s-birthday http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ubbd92/futurama-nibbler-s-birt...
- dlubarov 11y ago
  One benefit is publishing competition. You can buy most popular public domain novels for $2~$5. On Amazon right now, the first hit for A Modest Proposal (a very short piece) is $2.25, and the first hit for Huckleberry Finn is $4.05. There may be even cheaper options if you dig through the hundreds of other editions. And of course you can get digital copies from sites like Project Gutenberg.
- exodust 11y ago
  Access, cost, creative interpretation, republishing, sampling, copying, using, showing, legally sharing, downloading, use in the classroom, commercial use without permission... The list goes on. As the article says, public domain breaths new life into forgotten works. It's culturally important to lift the access and publishing restrictions of old works that we learn from and reflect on where we came from. Historical art is important to celebrate, rediscover, republish and enjoy without fear of copyright takedowns by faceless corporate stooges looking to line their pockets.
samueloph 11y ago
Sometimes I think i'm too dramatic because this kind of things really pisses me of, i mean REALLY, imagine all kind of artistic AND scientific works we've lost due to the stupid IP laws that the world has. And don't get me started on acessibility, because the fall of these laws would give us a huge increase in globalization and acessibility to 3rd world countries. Even, this things only serve to profit rich people based on blocking everyone from making progress, and by progress i mean both technology and art. I sincerely think some action is needed for yesterday, we need to take this down ASAP. Also, Aaron Swartz may have made me a little extremist about this.
- cooper12 11y ago
  Yeah this made me really disappointed as well. We've probably already lost so many works because the original distributors have long gone out of business and we're not legally allowed to preserve them. Not to mention that most of the original authors are dead so it's not like this is for their benefit. Such onerous terms are only there for the benefit of bloated megacorps. Aaron's case is also relevant to how our government views the matter: the prosecutor wanted to use him as an example even though JSTOR only cared about getting the articles back and it also made up a ridiculous sum for their monetary losses. These copyright terms are not built for the good of society.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zanethomas 11y ago
Hollywood films pretty-much make their money or not in the first few years. Giving them extended copyright is ridiculous.
maxharris 11y ago
Here's an opposing view: https://medium.com/@jkdegen/5-seriously-dumb-myths-about-copyright-the-media-should-stop-repeating-a92e934f12a4#.afhx9ckfo https://medium.com/@jkdegen/5-seriously-dumb-myths-about-cop...
- andersonvom 11y ago
  The so-called "myths" the author highlights are more like fallacies than actual facts. He briefly touches some points related to copyright and claims that that's all there is to it. > Myth #5. Artists Feel Restricted by Copyright Remixing works under copyright means you need the author's permission to do so, usually by paying royalties. This would be fine if copyrights ended at some point. Currently, in the US, they last way past the death of the author. > Myth #4. Copyright Harms the Public Domain He mentions The Little Prince as if all works are really popular. There are tons of works that are not popular, their authors don't even care about them anymore or are dead or companies have gone bankrupt, and remain under copyright. This makes it illegal for people to make copies and keep these works alive. Access to such usually also requires payment and what's affordable for some may not be so affordable for others. > Myth #3. Copyright is an Attack on Artistic Freedom He only mentions the freedom of the original author. Indeed, their freedom is not touched. Everybody else is hurt, though. Nobody else can express their artistic freedom on works under copyright without permission (which usually means paying royalties, but can also be impossible if the author doesn't approve the derived work). > Myth #2. Copyright Costs Consumers Nobody argues that authors need to be compensated for their work. How much is "fair" is a whole different story. Should they keep being compensated 25 years, 50 years, 100 years, 500 years, forever? > Myth #1. Copyright only helps Corporations Copyright, in general, is a good thing. Perpetual copyright is not. Copyright that extends beyond the life of the original author is not. After some time, only corporations will benefit, since their heirs will live much beyond the original authors and will profit on someone else's work. EDIT: Here's a nice video on why eternal copyright is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4
  - maxharris 11y ago
    but can also be impossible if the author doesn't approve the derived work But the right to refuse derived work is just as essential to justice as the right to royalties on creative work. For example, Kurt Vonnegut had (and his estate has) the moral right to say "no!" to a neo-Nazi that wants to "remix" Harrison Bergeron into a new story promoting racism.
espadrine 11y ago
One aspect of having the copyright law increase the time after the author's death is that it creates a shadow during which nothing enters the public domain. In France, we are still in a shadow. I made a graph of all shadows that ever existed in France: http://espadrine.tumblr.com/post/136054168016/public-domain-shadow http://espadrine.tumblr.com/post/136054168016/public-domain-....

231 points by pwg 11y ago

The fact that nobody benefits much is very much worth pointing out. Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works. We didn't create any new works from the 1950s by passing laws in the 1970s. Those works were already created on incentives that authors already received. It is just a giveaway to the tiny minority of said authors whose work achieved success. Of course the main driver of this is Disney, which is trying to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright. (Never mind the fact that trademark is a better fit for how they use it...) Also I'd like to highlight the 1987 part of the argument. The early computer era saw a lot of games written for platforms like Apple ][ by companies that went out of business and the copyright ownership went to places unknown (though they theoretically exist). You can't make and pass around legal copies of them from the floppies that they originally came from. Some of the games (Ultima, PacMan, etc) would likely see copyright renewed. But a lot of them would not. And that would be great for people like me that want to revisit our childhoods. In fact historically there were stories that only became popular BECAUSE they fell out of copyright. The most famous example is https://www.globalipmatters.com/2015/12/17/when-a-quirk-of-copyright-law-creates-a-christmas-classic-its-a-wonderful-life-and-the-public-domain https://www.globalipmatters.com/2015/12/17/when-a-quirk-of-c... but it isn't alone. Just think what new cultural gems we might create if artists of today could safely refer back to works from a generation or two ago.

thaumasiotes 11y ago
> The fact that nobody benefits much is very much worth pointing out. > Of course the main driver of this is Disney, which is trying to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright. I read an analysis that didn't think much of this view. It said we should look at ever-extending copyright protections as a form of economic protectionism against the past, forcing the public to buy potentially-inferior modern IP rather than fall back on older IP. You suggest this yourself, with > historically there were stories that only became popular BECAUSE they fell out of copyright and I think it's worth thinking about. In particular, I'm pretty sure "the fact that nobody benefits much" isn't actually a fact.
- bograt 11y ago
  The problem with this analysis is that, if such a course of "ever-extending copyright protections" were pursued, it would run the 'well of creativity' dry. The 'creative commons' is a recognition that cultural works are not created ex nihilo but by building on the works of previous generations; as creators benefit, so must they contribute.
  - zanny 11y ago
    > so must they contribute. A tremendous swath of people have been born or published works since 1928 and have since died, whose works remain under the perpetual Disney copyright. So no, we have had generations die now that never contributed back to the commons because Disney said so.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    The well of creativity is unlikely to run dry. In particular, we can observe that a huge chunk of literature effectively can't be consumed today because no one alive speaks the language it was written in (also, because no copies survive!). That's a much more effective ban on using the work than copyright is, and it's permanent. But it hasn't led to storytelling just gradually dying out because we forgot all the stories.
- btilly 11y ago
  There are analyses that say many contradictory things. I haven't read that analysis and don't know whether I would think much of it. But let's suppose that if I did then I would be convinced that the economic effects of copyright extension are better understood as that type of protectionism. That doesn't change the fact that I still have evidence that Disney is explicitly involved both directly and indirectly in lobbying for copyright extension. And they start lobbying for it like clockwork as soon as Steamboat Willie starts threatening to slide into public domain. Therefore no matter what the economic arguments, I believe that the people actually changing the rules are changing it to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright. That said, I think little of the position taken in that analysis. It claims that the public is forced to buy potentially-inferior modern IP. To the contrary, I believe that the public is free to not buy IP at all, but instead to find other ways to entertain themselves. In fact I believe that if modern authors and artists could freely draw on iconic past IP, they could create compelling new works drawing on the old ones which would increase consumption of IP. Thereby making the public happier AND content creators richer. Therefore I believe that the net effect of copyright extension is to increase the rent that current content owners can get from past content at the cost of both the public and current content creators. (And yes, this holds true even though there are content creators employed by content owners.) --- As to "nobody benefits much", I remember one of the briefs that I saw for Eldred v. Ashcroft that demonstrated that over 99% of the possible present value of a work is captured by the author under the terms of the 1976 law. That is, if we take the possibility of public domain away and assign perpetual copyright to authors, we will not add more than about 1% to the compensation authors can expect. Turning that figure around, today's content creators would be better off with the 1976 laws if they in aggregate could increase consumed commercial content by more than 1% from having full access to past content to work from. (Exactly like Walt Disney did with works like Sleeping Beauty.) I believe that this is quite possible. A number of economic experiments have found that increasing availability of free content increases consumption and ultimately increases revenue to artists. See, for example, http://www.baen.com/library/prime_palaver1.asp http://www.baen.com/library/prime_palaver1.asp for one of them.
dx211 11y ago
> The fact that nobody benefits much is very much worth pointing out. Warner Brothers, Disney, etc. benefit from this, as do their employees, in quite concrete terms.
- pc2g4d 11y ago
  I thought they were emphasizing the fact that, under the previous scheme, authors had to do something to renew copyright, which meant that unexploited works automatically lapsed into the public domain. Under the current law, even works whose authors do not care remain under copyright. Previously, the default state was public domain. Now, the default state is copyright. This means that for a huge majority of works, their remaining under copyright benefits neither the uninterested rightsholder, nor the public who are now prohibited from reusing the work.
- meric 11y ago
  If we made these laws protect Disney exclusively and leave everyone else out of it, and we would be better off.
  - 13of40 11y ago
    I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and say that the Winnie the Pooh copyright is better off in the hands of a large corporation that can use it to create wealth. Besides that, it's not like the Queen of England owns it and keeps it hidden away where only VIPs can see it (I'm looking at you, Vermeer's The Music Lesson). They use it to create media that the majority of people on this forum have happily consumed. What do we get if it goes into the public domain? The ability to download old books for free that you'd otherwise have to pay...oh...fifty cents for at the local St. Vincent De Paul? Slash fiction? (Again, Devil's Advocate, so no down votes.)
    - umanwizard 11y ago
      The wealth creation is completely artificial. I'm not sure how having to pay a tax to Disney for a Winnie lunchbox "creates wealth" more than getting the identical thing for cheaper. Basically your post is a more subtle version of the broken window fallacy.
deciplex 11y ago
> Never mind the fact that trademark is a better fit for how they use it... I'm not sure about this. I think trademark would prevent you from publishing a work and calling it "Mickey Mouse" or something similar, but it wouldn't stop you from producing work which incorporated Mickey Mouse somehow, and calling it something else e.g. "I Hate Corporate Mice" or something.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Mickey's shape is trademarked, so you'd have to go to great lengths to make sure that your Mickey doesn't convey any of the meanings protected by trademark.
monochromatic 11y ago
> Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works. We didn't create any new works from the 1950s by passing laws in the 1970s. This is a really good point. I don't know why I've never thought about that before.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I suspect this is because the popular media is a limited number of conglomerates who generate enormous profits from retrospective copyright extensions. Funny that stories that don't benefit these conglomerates aren't published.
danieltillett 11y ago
It is not Mickey Mouse that Disney is protecting (he is protected by trademark), it in Winnie the poo. The copyright on Winnie supports billion of dollars of revenue in licensing deals - basically millions of kids lunch boxes and backpacks.
frobozz 11y ago
> Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works. I disagree. Although you are correct for rules that extend the duration of the exclusive right of the copyright holder, a rule that reduces that duration would allow greater access to these works sooner.
- treenyc 11y ago
  > I disagree. Care to elaborate, and give some examples? Tks
  - frobozz 11y ago
    What do you mean by elaborate? I thought my statement was pretty clear. From the linked article: "Readers – from the conspiracy theorist to the grammar enthusiast, the student of racial injustice to the sociologist – would have something to celebrate." If applying the pre-1978 laws to pre-1978 works would cause this celebration, then surely applying them to post-1978 works would also cause such celebration. For further elaboration - if the contemporary rules were applied, then a work from 1977 would become public domain in 2033 and a work from 1978 would become public domain in 2048 (or 2073). If the pre-1978 rules were to be reinstated today, without backdating, then that 1978 work would still take 70 or 95 years. With backdating, it would become public domain in 2034.
    - treenyc 11y ago
      Since you disagree with "Furthermore absolutely no viable public purpose can be served today by backdating new rules to past works." I just would like to know your bases for your disagreement, and ask for some examples. Maybe there is a misunderstanding.
      - frobozz 11y ago
        Are you only reading the first few words of my comments, and ignoring the rest? It's right there. A new rule that reduces the term opens up old works earlier than if the contemporary rule is left in place. Let's consider something other than copyright. It is bad to retroactively prosecute people for new crimes, but (for example) should people convicted of sodomy prior to 2003 have to serve out their (up to life) sentences, or since the act is no longer illegal, should they be freed? Surely, if an act is no longer a crime, it's abhorrent to treat people who have committed that act as criminals.
static_noise 11y ago
> It is just a giveaway to the tiny minority of said authors whose work achieved success. I think you mean the copyright holders. When the authors sign it off to somebody else they are different entities.

Ologn 11y ago

I have an Android app which contained (among other things) two works which are in the public domain in the US - one is 93 years old and one is 95 years old. A media conglomerate sent a DMCA notice to Google for my app, and Google took it down. Then my Admob was cut off for the app (luckily I had ad mediation). The DMCA notice said the 93 and 95 year old works were in copyright in some country, although they were not specific as to which country exactly. I had to go through a whole rigmarole to get my app back on Google Play, which almost didn't happen (I had to appeal). I removed those two works and shut off access for my app to Australia, the UK, India and Canada. Not that this was required but I can't go through this again and lose the income. It wasn't Disney, but Disney is big in supporting these laws. Yet Disney started off by ripping off Alice in Wonderland in a cartoon. Disney made his money ripping off a book published not long before he rips it off, now they have a media monopoly and want to shut the gates up behind them for eternity. Which is not even possible, because the nature of the Internet, mobile etc. is such that this doesn't work any more. It's an old model which does not and can not work and will not work as things are and as they are going to be, yet there will be a lot of waste and problems as they continue to try to do this.

Reedx 11y ago
Yeah, it's especially egregious re: Disney who's benefited so greatly from public works. Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, etc, etc.
exodust 11y ago
Why not mention what the works are?
- deciplex 11y ago
  +1 Unless you legally restricted from doing so, there is no reason to protect these assholes. Tell everyone who did this and for which works.

oofabz 11y ago

I notice every artist on this list is dead. These long copyright terms do not help artists, programmers, or anyone else who creates intellectual property. They only benefit capital holders - people who purchased the rights and want a return on their benefit. Such people are wealthy already, they do not need government handouts. Companies like Disney do not require regulations like this in order to survive; they would do fine with less onerous copyright terms, and everyone else in society would benefit.

avar 11y ago
I don't agree with the current state of copyright, but I think pointing out that every one of these people are dead is a nonsensical argument. The question is what incentives should we give people to create creative works, and what should the cost to society be? If you're a smart guy with Robert Heinlein and copyright is more limited to a few years would you ever have written Starship Troopers? Or would you have gone into something like the real estate business which can last generations and keep your children and grandchildren happy & fed after you're long dead? Would the 1998 Starship Troopers movie have been released based on the 1959 book if copyright had been at its original 14 years? How about a lot of the "cult classic" works of today that only became really popular and earned money tens of years after their original release? I don't know what the right answer is, but it's a fallacy to assume that we'd have the same state of affairs if the incentives we can gave people to create creative works automatically expired after their death.
- Turbo_hedgehog 11y ago
  Let's assume Lord of the Rings was out of term and then a bunch of shoddily made movies got made based on the story and didn't reap much. Would New Line Cinema have laid out the budget for Peter Jackson to make the quality LOTR film trilogy if they didn't have exclusive rights to produce the movies? Those films generated huge amounts of revenue - would we have missed out on that if the books were in the public domain, or would the same revenue have been produced by now with it in the public domain?
  - 11y ago

ianstormtaylor 11y ago

Does anyone have a link to (or can write) a good explanation of the benefits of things entering the public domain? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it. I think lobbying to extend copyright terms is disingenuous. But I don't have a great argument for why we should want things to enter the public domain other than "your local theater can show it for free" , which the article noted. People seem to already be sharing things easily enough.

vhold 11y ago
The biggest benefit imo is that derived works can be created freely, imagine if you could use all music up to the 60s or what not freely in any movie or video game you make, or make a game about guessing the movie from scenes from all movies instead of just a tiny subset you had to spend thousands of dollars working with lawyers to negotiate on, etc.
- douche 11y ago
  Then every chain restaurant wouldn't need to have their own, non-infringing Happy Birthday song... One possibly crackpot theory that just occurred to me is that in the _Futurama_ universe, copyright was extended so far as to be perpetual[1] [1] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ubbd92/futurama-nibbler-s-birthday http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ubbd92/futurama-nibbler-s-birt...
dlubarov 11y ago
One benefit is publishing competition. You can buy most popular public domain novels for $2~$5. On Amazon right now, the first hit for A Modest Proposal (a very short piece) is $2.25, and the first hit for Huckleberry Finn is $4.05. There may be even cheaper options if you dig through the hundreds of other editions. And of course you can get digital copies from sites like Project Gutenberg.
exodust 11y ago
Access, cost, creative interpretation, republishing, sampling, copying, using, showing, legally sharing, downloading, use in the classroom, commercial use without permission... The list goes on. As the article says, public domain breaths new life into forgotten works. It's culturally important to lift the access and publishing restrictions of old works that we learn from and reflect on where we came from. Historical art is important to celebrate, rediscover, republish and enjoy without fear of copyright takedowns by faceless corporate stooges looking to line their pockets.

samueloph 11y ago

Sometimes I think i'm too dramatic because this kind of things really pisses me of, i mean REALLY, imagine all kind of artistic AND scientific works we've lost due to the stupid IP laws that the world has. And don't get me started on acessibility, because the fall of these laws would give us a huge increase in globalization and acessibility to 3rd world countries. Even, this things only serve to profit rich people based on blocking everyone from making progress, and by progress i mean both technology and art. I sincerely think some action is needed for yesterday, we need to take this down ASAP. Also, Aaron Swartz may have made me a little extremist about this.

cooper12 11y ago
Yeah this made me really disappointed as well. We've probably already lost so many works because the original distributors have long gone out of business and we're not legally allowed to preserve them. Not to mention that most of the original authors are dead so it's not like this is for their benefit. Such onerous terms are only there for the benefit of bloated megacorps. Aaron's case is also relevant to how our government views the matter: the prosecutor wanted to use him as an example even though JSTOR only cared about getting the articles back and it also made up a ridiculous sum for their monetary losses. These copyright terms are not built for the good of society.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

zanethomas 11y ago

Hollywood films pretty-much make their money or not in the first few years. Giving them extended copyright is ridiculous.

maxharris 11y ago

Here's an opposing view: https://medium.com/@jkdegen/5-seriously-dumb-myths-about-copyright-the-media-should-stop-repeating-a92e934f12a4#.afhx9ckfo https://medium.com/@jkdegen/5-seriously-dumb-myths-about-cop...

andersonvom 11y ago
The so-called "myths" the author highlights are more like fallacies than actual facts. He briefly touches some points related to copyright and claims that that's all there is to it. > Myth #5. Artists Feel Restricted by Copyright Remixing works under copyright means you need the author's permission to do so, usually by paying royalties. This would be fine if copyrights ended at some point. Currently, in the US, they last way past the death of the author. > Myth #4. Copyright Harms the Public Domain He mentions The Little Prince as if all works are really popular. There are tons of works that are not popular, their authors don't even care about them anymore or are dead or companies have gone bankrupt, and remain under copyright. This makes it illegal for people to make copies and keep these works alive. Access to such usually also requires payment and what's affordable for some may not be so affordable for others. > Myth #3. Copyright is an Attack on Artistic Freedom He only mentions the freedom of the original author. Indeed, their freedom is not touched. Everybody else is hurt, though. Nobody else can express their artistic freedom on works under copyright without permission (which usually means paying royalties, but can also be impossible if the author doesn't approve the derived work). > Myth #2. Copyright Costs Consumers Nobody argues that authors need to be compensated for their work. How much is "fair" is a whole different story. Should they keep being compensated 25 years, 50 years, 100 years, 500 years, forever? > Myth #1. Copyright only helps Corporations Copyright, in general, is a good thing. Perpetual copyright is not. Copyright that extends beyond the life of the original author is not. After some time, only corporations will benefit, since their heirs will live much beyond the original authors and will profit on someone else's work. EDIT: Here's a nice video on why eternal copyright is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4
- maxharris 11y ago
  but can also be impossible if the author doesn't approve the derived work But the right to refuse derived work is just as essential to justice as the right to royalties on creative work. For example, Kurt Vonnegut had (and his estate has) the moral right to say "no!" to a neo-Nazi that wants to "remix" Harrison Bergeron into a new story promoting racism.

espadrine 11y ago

One aspect of having the copyright law increase the time after the author's death is that it creates a shadow during which nothing enters the public domain. In France, we are still in a shadow. I made a graph of all shadows that ever existed in France: http://espadrine.tumblr.com/post/136054168016/public-domain-shadow http://espadrine.tumblr.com/post/136054168016/public-domain-....