7 ms·

Copyright law is too draconian. At this point, the US should repeal the law completely, and let the chips fall where they may. Hollywood says we'll see a loss

Copyright law is too draconian. At this point, the US should repeal the law completely, and let the chips fall where they may. Hollywood says we'll see a loss of culture (fewer movies, songs, books). Let's find out.

GarrisonPrime 10y ago
Fewer media wide-releases sounds good to me. Perhaps we'll get better fare then. :P
FilterSweep 10y ago
>Hollywood says we'll see a loss of culture Seems like some scapegoating is going on here: (2011) http://www.slashfilm.com/infographic-hollywoods-waning-creativity/ http://www.slashfilm.com/infographic-hollywoods-waning-creat...
CM30 10y ago
How about if a bunch of other large countries simply dropped the laws and outright encouraged their population to 'pirate' American media? If the countries/regions were large enough (like say, the whole EU, or China or Australia or whatever else), that'd really put the US in a bad situation. Either compromise and fix copyright laws, or 'fight back' against countries powerful enough to threaten them in return. How far would anyone go to 'save' the status quo?
- zentiggr 10y ago
  Hence TPP and every other confidential trade agreement negotiation.
maxxxxx 10y ago
Copyright and IP (and probably real estate) are pretty much the only way for capitalists to make money the more things like internet, 3D printing, AI, robotics and so on are available to the masses. To me it's the only way to keep the current power structures intact so for a lot of powerful people copyright laws are probably the most important laws. They don't need the state for personal protection (they can pay for security guards instead of police) but they need the state for protecting their livelihood.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > They don't need the state for personal protection "The Hamptons is not a defensible position." ~ Mark Blyth (prof. of Political Economy at Brown), on the recent rise in populism rejection of traditional politics (e.g. Trump, brexit, etc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    That's why there is a call for more military while cutting everything else.
  - contingencies 10y ago
    What an awesome quote! I've added it to https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup (my fortune database .. have a browse)
- beloch 10y ago
  There's scads of money being made on the infrastructure, network, and equipment that's used to pirate films. Perhaps companies like Google and Apple should be paying Hollywood more for the material that people consume through their hardware/software. Hollywood's decline would be bad for both of these companies.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  Yet they are fining those people some millions on the basis that they made a profit...
- Asooka 10y ago
  > keep the current power structures intact All the more reasons to repeal it.
- curried_haskell 10y ago
hx87 10y ago
That's probably going too far in the other direction. Perhaps start by limiting all copyrights to 5-10 years with no extension? If you can't make good money from IP in 5-10 years you shouldn't be relying on income from it anyway.
pessimizer 10y ago
> Hollywood says we'll see a loss of culture (fewer movies, songs, books). One would hope so. Commercial culture is dishonest and shit, and crowds out everything interesting.
zby 10y ago
Join the Pirate Party!
tjic 10y ago
"At this point, the US should repeal the law that engineers need to be paid. People say it will result in unemployment. Let's find out." This is obvious a reckless idea. I personally think that copyright should last maybe 10 years or so, so we're kind of on the same side of this. ...but arguing that hundreds of thousands of careers, billions of dollars of market cap, etc., should all be potentially destroyed because "I wonder what will happen? YOLO!" is a bad way to approach the debate.
- grahamburger 10y ago
  There isn't a law that engineers need to be paid (or at least not any more than minimum wage.) I don't see how these are equivalent. A more apt comparison would be "The US should make a law that all software must be released open source." Would we all be out of jobs if that happened? Maybe, but it's at least a debatable point.
Asooka 10y ago
Nah. I see several people here say the law should be 10 years. That will never ever fly for one simple reason: Disney. Disney are going to own Mickey Mouse forever. Yes, I do mean FOREVER. They'll do whatever it takes to secure that property, consequences be damned. My proposal therefore is to introduce a gradually increasing tax on intellectual property. Say, you get 5 years for free. Then it starts off at some small amount like 100$/yr and increases exponentially until in 20 years it's equal to "50% of Disney's current legal expenses for lobbying for extensions to copyright". In general, whatever system you ask for, has to take into account letting Disney own Mickey Mouse forever via some mechanism. I think letting them keep the damn mouse locked up in perpetuity, while freeing up tremendous numbers of near-past works is a good trade-off. There are of course other ideas, too. Maybe physical people can have copyright ownership for no more than 10 years, but it's free, while legal persons (i.e. corporations) can have ownership in perpetuity while paying tax. Maybe you need to show that this property is generating more than X% of your revenue to be allowed to continue keeping it. Note: do not impose tax on property revenue, hollywood are absolutely adept at making negative profit on paper while reaping huge profits. By making ownership tied to proving profit, you also take care of the creative accounting, since now e.g. Lucas Arts have an incentive to show that Star Wars made tons of money. But whatever you do and however you spin it, your system must allow for Disney to own Mickey Mouse. Because they will.
GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
>Copyright law is too draconian. At this point, the US should repeal the law completely, and let the chips fall where they may. Repealing copyright law would render the GPL and all other OSS licenses unenforceable. Are you sure that's what you want?

GarrisonPrime 10y ago

Fewer media wide-releases sounds good to me. Perhaps we'll get better fare then. :P

FilterSweep 10y ago

>Hollywood says we'll see a loss of culture Seems like some scapegoating is going on here: (2011) http://www.slashfilm.com/infographic-hollywoods-waning-creativity/ http://www.slashfilm.com/infographic-hollywoods-waning-creat...

CM30 10y ago

How about if a bunch of other large countries simply dropped the laws and outright encouraged their population to 'pirate' American media? If the countries/regions were large enough (like say, the whole EU, or China or Australia or whatever else), that'd really put the US in a bad situation. Either compromise and fix copyright laws, or 'fight back' against countries powerful enough to threaten them in return. How far would anyone go to 'save' the status quo?

zentiggr 10y ago
Hence TPP and every other confidential trade agreement negotiation.

maxxxxx 10y ago

Copyright and IP (and probably real estate) are pretty much the only way for capitalists to make money the more things like internet, 3D printing, AI, robotics and so on are available to the masses. To me it's the only way to keep the current power structures intact so for a lot of powerful people copyright laws are probably the most important laws. They don't need the state for personal protection (they can pay for security guards instead of police) but they need the state for protecting their livelihood.

pdkl95 10y ago
> They don't need the state for personal protection "The Hamptons is not a defensible position." ~ Mark Blyth (prof. of Political Economy at Brown), on the recent rise in populism rejection of traditional politics (e.g. Trump, brexit, etc) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzl4B3mrKQE
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  That's why there is a call for more military while cutting everything else.
- contingencies 10y ago
  What an awesome quote! I've added it to https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup (my fortune database .. have a browse)
beloch 10y ago
There's scads of money being made on the infrastructure, network, and equipment that's used to pirate films. Perhaps companies like Google and Apple should be paying Hollywood more for the material that people consume through their hardware/software. Hollywood's decline would be bad for both of these companies.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
marcosdumay 10y ago
Yet they are fining those people some millions on the basis that they made a profit...
Asooka 10y ago
> keep the current power structures intact All the more reasons to repeal it.
curried_haskell 10y ago

hx87 10y ago

That's probably going too far in the other direction. Perhaps start by limiting all copyrights to 5-10 years with no extension? If you can't make good money from IP in 5-10 years you shouldn't be relying on income from it anyway.

pessimizer 10y ago

> Hollywood says we'll see a loss of culture (fewer movies, songs, books). One would hope so. Commercial culture is dishonest and shit, and crowds out everything interesting.

zby 10y ago

Join the Pirate Party!

tjic 10y ago

"At this point, the US should repeal the law that engineers need to be paid. People say it will result in unemployment. Let's find out." This is obvious a reckless idea. I personally think that copyright should last maybe 10 years or so, so we're kind of on the same side of this. ...but arguing that hundreds of thousands of careers, billions of dollars of market cap, etc., should all be potentially destroyed because "I wonder what will happen? YOLO!" is a bad way to approach the debate.

grahamburger 10y ago
There isn't a law that engineers need to be paid (or at least not any more than minimum wage.) I don't see how these are equivalent. A more apt comparison would be "The US should make a law that all software must be released open source." Would we all be out of jobs if that happened? Maybe, but it's at least a debatable point.

Asooka 10y ago

Nah. I see several people here say the law should be 10 years. That will never ever fly for one simple reason: Disney. Disney are going to own Mickey Mouse forever. Yes, I do mean FOREVER. They'll do whatever it takes to secure that property, consequences be damned. My proposal therefore is to introduce a gradually increasing tax on intellectual property. Say, you get 5 years for free. Then it starts off at some small amount like 100$/yr and increases exponentially until in 20 years it's equal to "50% of Disney's current legal expenses for lobbying for extensions to copyright". In general, whatever system you ask for, has to take into account letting Disney own Mickey Mouse forever via some mechanism. I think letting them keep the damn mouse locked up in perpetuity, while freeing up tremendous numbers of near-past works is a good trade-off. There are of course other ideas, too. Maybe physical people can have copyright ownership for no more than 10 years, but it's free, while legal persons (i.e. corporations) can have ownership in perpetuity while paying tax. Maybe you need to show that this property is generating more than X% of your revenue to be allowed to continue keeping it. Note: do not impose tax on property revenue, hollywood are absolutely adept at making negative profit on paper while reaping huge profits. By making ownership tied to proving profit, you also take care of the creative accounting, since now e.g. Lucas Arts have an incentive to show that Star Wars made tons of money. But whatever you do and however you spin it, your system must allow for Disney to own Mickey Mouse. Because they will.

GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago

>Copyright law is too draconian. At this point, the US should repeal the law completely, and let the chips fall where they may. Repealing copyright law would render the GPL and all other OSS licenses unenforceable. Are you sure that's what you want?