5 ms·

How about: "Copyright is for 7 years. Extensions can be granted for additional 7 year periods indefinitely, but must be requested by the copyright holder. There

How about: "Copyright is for 7 years. Extensions can be granted for additional 7 year periods indefinitely, but must be requested by the copyright holder. There is a modest fee(say, $100) to file an extension." That way Disney gets to keep Mickey Mouse, things that are abandoned or neglected get released into the public domain, and the fee stops people from just throwing everything into some software that reapplies indefinitely without thinking. It could be tweaking by increasing the period(maybe 14 years would be better), by changing the fee(maybe $5 or free is better), or by changing the initial period(maybe 20 years for the first period, and it renews for 10).

cookiecaper 11y ago
Because we don't want Disney to be able to keep Mickey Mouse forever, and because the Constitution mandates that copyrights be for a "limited time", so an indefinite renewal scheme would require a Constitutional amendment.
- imtringued 11y ago
  Let them have their toy if that means they won't destroy ours.
- MichaelBurge 11y ago
  Addendum: Copyright extensions have a maximum term of 10 trillion years. Now their time is limited. I bet Disney would be happy with this compromise.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    The late Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, actually suggested that copyright terms last for "forever minus one day". Lawrence Lessig argued a case before the Supreme Court (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft) trying to get the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act overturned, but lost 7 to 2.
joenathan 11y ago
How about each subsequent renewal renews for less time and cost more. That way people keep moving forward and innovating, instead of beating all the life out of one thing.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  I like the "less time" element. I'd played with a doubling of costs, but that fails to get sufficiently expensive without being reasonably painful, fast enough. Shortening renewal periods might help. Another option would be to provide some limited revenue-based protections (similar to music's mechanical copyright), but otherwise allow general use.
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    How about this? At renewal, term = max( 1, round( 20 x .97 ^ duration in years )) Cost = round( duration in years x ln( duration in years)) x median individual income The total assumes that MII will have roughly constant relative purchasing power. | YEAR | TERM | COST (x MII) | TOTAL | AVG | | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | 20 | 11 | 60 | 60 | 3.00 | | 31 | 8 | 106 | 166 | 5.35 | | 39 | 6 | 143 | 309 | 7.92 | | 45 | 5 | 171 | 480 | 10.67 | | 50 | 4 | 196 | 676 | 13.52 | | 54 | 4 | 215 | 891 | 16.50 | | 58 | 3 | 236 | 1127 | 19.43 | | 61 | 3 | 251 | 1378 | 22.59 | | 64 | 3 | 266 | 1644 | 25.69 | | 67 | 3 | 282 | 1926 | 28.75 | | 70 | 2 | 297 | 2223 | 31.76 | (biannual renewal) ... | 84 | 2 | 372 | 4603 | 54.80 | | 86 | 1 | 383 | 4986 | 57.98 | (annual renewal) ... | 100 | 1 | 461 | 10928 | 109.28 | ... | 200 | 1 | 1060 | 86673 | 433.37 | ... | 1000 | 1 | 6908 |3197517|3197.52 | ... | 2000 | 1 | 15202|14199586|7099.79 | Recall that those numbers are not dollars, but the entire income of one person, working all year. Given that such a person spends no more than 0.1% of their income on a given work, multiply by 1000 to estimate the number of paying fans required just to keep the work copyrighted. If you have less than 60000 copies sold in the 20th year, it is not worth extending copyright another 11. If you have fewer than 106000 sales in year 31, you probably can't afford to go another 8. In theory, this would allow a work to remain copyrighted for millennia, but at that point, you are essentially employing tens of thousands of middle class workers to do nothing for you at all. The annual renewal bill for a 2000-year-old copyright would be about $500 million now. The Christian Bible, all editions--the bestselling book--has annual sales around $500 million. But in reality, a one year consumer boycott on any copyrighted work older than 85 years old would probably be enough to force it into the public domain.

cookiecaper 11y ago

Because we don't want Disney to be able to keep Mickey Mouse forever, and because the Constitution mandates that copyrights be for a "limited time", so an indefinite renewal scheme would require a Constitutional amendment.

imtringued 11y ago
Let them have their toy if that means they won't destroy ours.
MichaelBurge 11y ago
Addendum: Copyright extensions have a maximum term of 10 trillion years. Now their time is limited. I bet Disney would be happy with this compromise.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  The late Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, actually suggested that copyright terms last for "forever minus one day". Lawrence Lessig argued a case before the Supreme Court (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft) trying to get the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act overturned, but lost 7 to 2.

joenathan 11y ago

How about each subsequent renewal renews for less time and cost more. That way people keep moving forward and innovating, instead of beating all the life out of one thing.

dredmorbius 11y ago
I like the "less time" element. I'd played with a doubling of costs, but that fails to get sufficiently expensive without being reasonably painful, fast enough. Shortening renewal periods might help. Another option would be to provide some limited revenue-based protections (similar to music's mechanical copyright), but otherwise allow general use.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  How about this? At renewal, term = max( 1, round( 20 x .97 ^ duration in years )) Cost = round( duration in years x ln( duration in years)) x median individual income The total assumes that MII will have roughly constant relative purchasing power. | YEAR | TERM | COST (x MII) | TOTAL | AVG | | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | 20 | 11 | 60 | 60 | 3.00 | | 31 | 8 | 106 | 166 | 5.35 | | 39 | 6 | 143 | 309 | 7.92 | | 45 | 5 | 171 | 480 | 10.67 | | 50 | 4 | 196 | 676 | 13.52 | | 54 | 4 | 215 | 891 | 16.50 | | 58 | 3 | 236 | 1127 | 19.43 | | 61 | 3 | 251 | 1378 | 22.59 | | 64 | 3 | 266 | 1644 | 25.69 | | 67 | 3 | 282 | 1926 | 28.75 | | 70 | 2 | 297 | 2223 | 31.76 | (biannual renewal) ... | 84 | 2 | 372 | 4603 | 54.80 | | 86 | 1 | 383 | 4986 | 57.98 | (annual renewal) ... | 100 | 1 | 461 | 10928 | 109.28 | ... | 200 | 1 | 1060 | 86673 | 433.37 | ... | 1000 | 1 | 6908 |3197517|3197.52 | ... | 2000 | 1 | 15202|14199586|7099.79 | Recall that those numbers are not dollars, but the entire income of one person, working all year. Given that such a person spends no more than 0.1% of their income on a given work, multiply by 1000 to estimate the number of paying fans required just to keep the work copyrighted. If you have less than 60000 copies sold in the 20th year, it is not worth extending copyright another 11. If you have fewer than 106000 sales in year 31, you probably can't afford to go another 8. In theory, this would allow a work to remain copyrighted for millennia, but at that point, you are essentially employing tens of thousands of middle class workers to do nothing for you at all. The annual renewal bill for a 2000-year-old copyright would be about $500 million now. The Christian Bible, all editions--the bestselling book--has annual sales around $500 million. But in reality, a one year consumer boycott on any copyrighted work older than 85 years old would probably be enough to force it into the public domain.