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I hate how copyright now lasts indefinitely. There are many papers from the 50's by people who are dead, and these companies are still claiming ownership over t

I hate how copyright now lasts indefinitely. There are many papers from the 50's by people who are dead, and these companies are still claiming ownership over them. Copyright should last a relatively short time, and maybe be even shorter if you don't pay a fee to get it extended. Perhaps even a special exemption for scientific research. If you could read all papers published 10 years ago for free, that would be incredible, even if it still cost $35 to read a new paper. See the science section here: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976 https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976 >1959 was another noteworthy year for science. C. P. Snow presented The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, an influential lecture about the gulf between the sciences and the humanities. The programming language COBOL was developed. Martin Gardner published the Three Prisoners Problem, a probability theory paradox, in his “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American. Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison published Searching for Interstellar Communications, a foundational work for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, in the journal Nature. >If you follow the link from Nature above (and you do not have a subscription or institutional access), you will see that this 1959 article is behind a paywall. You can purchase it for $32. A distressing number of scientific articles from 1959 require payment or a subscription or account, including those in major journals such as Science and JAMA. And the institutional access that many top scientists enjoy is not guaranteed—even institutions such as Harvard have considered canceling their subscriptions because they could no longer afford the escalating prices of major journal subscriptions.

Paul-ish 11y ago
Although copyright technically is limited in term [1], it is practically forever, as in I will never see a work created today go into the public domain. Next time a bill is introduced to extend copyright term, I think the community should speak out against it. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Copyright_term.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...
- godzillabrennus 11y ago
  I'm helping a startup in the grassroots lobbying space to improve how citizens can effect change. Turns out elected officials really do care a lot about their constituents, more so on average than lobbyists. Unfortunately it's hard to get the contact information for the staffers of these elected officials and it's hard to know if the supporters of a cause live in the right district that the elected representative represents. Anyway, the platform makes this all easy and is going live this summer. If anyone does represent a special interest and wants to help beta test for free email hn (at) strapr (dot) com
cableshaft 11y ago
I wish they'd just acknowledge that Disney really, really wants to keep their IP forever, and just make a "Disney Exemption" -> if you're willing to pay all the money you would normally pay lobbyists to lobby to keep copyright perpetual, you get to keep your IP. Otherwise, you only get X number of years, period. That way we can stop artificially extending copyright terms just to make one corporation happy and ruining public domain for everyone else. I know some people really want to make Disney play by everyone's rules, but they just have too much damn money and influence. At least they do tend to revive their old IP and not just let it sit there to rot indefinitely, like so many other companies.
- iamcurious 11y ago
  Then they will lobby to decide exactly the amount they have to pay. Exercise for the reader: show that they would want to pay a substantial sum.
  - karmelapple 11y ago
    At least then other IP is not negatively affected. Now it's just Disney trying to save Disney money, whereas the rest of the IP properly goes into public domain.
    - iamcurious 11y ago
      And Dreamworks', and Marvel's, and...
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  Maybe your pragmatic approach is right but I don't think I could settle for "we'll do this for this company because our politicians are easily bought". The real solution seems to be to get politicians with better ethics or create laws that force them to comply with good morals ... then of course you need a strong judiciary.
  - philovivero 11y ago

Paul-ish 11y ago

Although copyright technically is limited in term [1], it is practically forever, as in I will never see a work created today go into the public domain. Next time a bill is introduced to extend copyright term, I think the community should speak out against it. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Copyright_term.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...

godzillabrennus 11y ago
I'm helping a startup in the grassroots lobbying space to improve how citizens can effect change. Turns out elected officials really do care a lot about their constituents, more so on average than lobbyists. Unfortunately it's hard to get the contact information for the staffers of these elected officials and it's hard to know if the supporters of a cause live in the right district that the elected representative represents. Anyway, the platform makes this all easy and is going live this summer. If anyone does represent a special interest and wants to help beta test for free email hn (at) strapr (dot) com

cableshaft 11y ago

I wish they'd just acknowledge that Disney really, really wants to keep their IP forever, and just make a "Disney Exemption" -> if you're willing to pay all the money you would normally pay lobbyists to lobby to keep copyright perpetual, you get to keep your IP. Otherwise, you only get X number of years, period. That way we can stop artificially extending copyright terms just to make one corporation happy and ruining public domain for everyone else. I know some people really want to make Disney play by everyone's rules, but they just have too much damn money and influence. At least they do tend to revive their old IP and not just let it sit there to rot indefinitely, like so many other companies.

iamcurious 11y ago
Then they will lobby to decide exactly the amount they have to pay. Exercise for the reader: show that they would want to pay a substantial sum.
- karmelapple 11y ago
  At least then other IP is not negatively affected. Now it's just Disney trying to save Disney money, whereas the rest of the IP properly goes into public domain.
  - iamcurious 11y ago
    And Dreamworks', and Marvel's, and...
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Maybe your pragmatic approach is right but I don't think I could settle for "we'll do this for this company because our politicians are easily bought". The real solution seems to be to get politicians with better ethics or create laws that force them to comply with good morals ... then of course you need a strong judiciary.
- philovivero 11y ago