6 ms·

This is the value-destruction side of copyright protection. With more reasonable length and more easily determinable copyright status, efforts like google book

by dzdt 10y ago

This is the value-destruction side of copyright protection. With more reasonable length and more easily determinable copyright status, efforts like google books would be able to do so many more things. But without a permissive legal framework that innovation is shut down.

baldfat 10y ago
Blame it 100% on Micky Mouse and Disney that is where all the blame belongs.
- smnrchrds 10y ago
  Here is what I don't understand: how come copyright gets expanded left and right but patent does not. Does Disney the entertainment industry have more power than the entirety of traditional industries which depend on patents to make a profit (pharmeceutical, manufacturing, electronics, etc.) combined?
  - unabridged 10y ago
    For patents you have companies fighting on the other side to limit them, so they can use the technology eventually. For copyrights there is no resistance with deep pockets.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    A lot of businesses benefit from expired patents. Any business that uses technology would be impossible if patents never expired. No business really benefits that much from expired copyright. When Disney lobbies to extend copyright, who is going to spend millions to fight them?
    - baldfat 10y ago
      > who is going to spend millions to fight them? I am hopping one day everyone will be feed up and there will be millions in funding. Personally I don't think this gets fixed till we can give special copyright to Disney and other corporations and free up the other 99.5% of copyright.
      - ImSkeptical 10y ago
        That seems like a great compromise. Pay a ten million dollar fee to extend your copyright by ten years. Most material becomes public domain, some exceptionally valuable properties remain privately held and generate value for the holder. Plus, we get some additional tax revenue.
    - Pyxl101 10y ago
      > Any business that uses technology would be impossible if patents never expired. Not completely true. Businesses could exist even with indefinite patents by licensing them (see MP3 patent).
      - matt4077 10y ago
        But the tech stack is much deeper than derivative works ever could be. Some derivate three generations down from Donald Duck is probably no longer a derivative of it, judged by current standards. But the computer I'm using right now could reasonably be covered by tens of thousands of patents all the way back to the origins of metallurgy, if those didn't expire.
    - CM30 10y ago
      In theory, one of the large tech companies affected by these laws could do it. I mean, Google's been affected by this in regards to everything from search to Youtube. If they wanted to, I'm sure they could spend far more than Disney on lobbying. This feels like a fight that Silicon Valley companies should take on.
  - eveningcoffee 10y ago
    Patents regulated relations between more or less equal entities (in very broad terms). Copyright regulates mostly matters between large media companies and individual consumers.
  - andrewla 10y ago
    I think it's a lot less clear what the societal benefits of forcing copyrights to expire are. For patents, it's much more clear -- a patent prevents others from copying the invention, so its expiration allows other to use that invention for economically interesting purposes, which have a net societal benefit. So on the one hand, the temporary monopoly allows the inventor to profit from their invention, and costs others their ability to exploit it, and after a certain amount of time, those needs are reversed. For copyrights, in the purest form, what do you really get from letting it expire? The only really tangible benefit is to allow people to obtain the work without having to pay anyone, and (theoretically) make it easier to preserve and distribute orphaned works without the permission of the creator. It seems like as a lawmaker, it's really not that hard to rationalize saying "I can pass this legislation, extending copyright, or I can directly cause Disney to forfeit X million dollars in revenue". At least with a patent expiration, you can counterweight that by saying "I can extend the patent, and Boeing continues to get X dollars, or I can allow the patent to expire, and other companies get to use that invention to make Y dollars." The tradeoff is a little clearer. I would love to see better rules for copyrights moving to the public domain, not so much for the sake of Mickey Mouse, but rather for obscure and orphaned works, as well as simply decreasing the cost for the consumer to improve accessibility. But it's very easy in my mind to see why this is unlikely to happen.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      > For copyrights, in the purest form, what do you really get from letting it expire? The only really tangible benefit is to allow people to obtain the work without having to pay anyone, and (theoretically) make it easier to preserve and distribute orphaned works without the permission of the creator. You seem to be forgetting about derivative works.
      - scandox 10y ago
        Yeah my Columbo novel should not be denied an audience.
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
  - mwfunk 10y ago
    It would probably be much harder to justify. IP law exists because it's considered a net good to society (everyone doesn't agree on this, but this is why we have it at least). Of course, it doesn't help that all the money goes into lobbying on behalf of IP holders who want to extend the reach of IP. In theory, patents have good and bad side effects. The good effect of a patent is that it encourages people to spend lots of money on R&D because it gives them a period of time to recoup that investment once they bring something to market. The bad effect, obviously, is that this artificial monopoly can prevent other people from bringing similar things to market. But it's (again, in theory) a net good because the end result is that it creates an additional financial incentive to create new things, and once the patent expires then the negative aspect goes away. You are left with new stuff that may not have otherwise been brought into existence. The goal of a patent system is to benefit the population as a whole, not patent holders, even though patent holders benefit from it as well. If it only benefitted patent holders, and didn't have this philosophical underpinning of benefitting everyone, we wouldn't have patent laws in the first place. Copyright is similar in that it is designed with known pros and cons, but is legally rationalized as being a net good for society. The goal of copyright is to create an environment in which more stuff is created overall. The ultimate legal justification for copyright is the overall positive effect on society, it is not to benefit the copyright holder (that's just a happy side effect for them). So it's a weird dynamic where both the patent system and copyright law exist to benefit society, but all of the money poured into changing it is going to come from IP holders who want to manipulate the law so that they can make more money than they are now. There are no lobbyists representing "all of society", unfortunately, so it's a very one-sided battle that only ends when judges and legislators push back on the IP holders. To answer the question, I'm guessing that it's much easier to push for extending copyright because the societal cost to that is much less clear. It's easy to make an argument that (for example) pharmaceutical patents should not be extended because people will suffer. Cheaper drugs don't come until patents expire and competition is allowed to take its course. On the other hand, it's harder to make a case for the harm done by extending the period of time in which (for example) only Disney can sell Mickey Mouse t-shirts, so it's a lot easier for the entertainment industry to lobby for longer copyright periods than it is for other industries to lobby for longer patent periods.
maverick_iceman 10y ago
Life plus 75 is insane. A period of 25 years from the date of publication will be more than sufficient for copyright.
- _nalply 10y ago
  Why 25 years? Why not 20 years? Or 50 years? We have been told that copyright makes it possible that authors can live from their hard work. This interest needs to be balanced against the needs of the common good. It is known that free access to information encourages innovation. Some works need more time to generate revenue for the authors, others hit the market furiously and could be released after a short time. Therefore I propose a minimal copyright time of 5 years from the date of publication. After that the owner sets a yearly fee to be paid by the owner. Someone can buy the work out of copyright by paying a multiple of the fee. Say the copyright should last around 75 years. The owner declares to pay a fee of $10,000 the first year after the minimum of 5 years. The multiplicator could be then 70. If someone pays the owner $700,000 the book will immediately and irreversibly fall into public domain.
woodandsteel 10y ago
I think it is because there are rich corporations that benefit when another corporation's patents expire, and so they lobby congress to not extend the term of patents. With most copyrights, you don't have that, all the money is in favor of extending.

by dzdt 10y ago

baldfat 10y ago

Blame it 100% on Micky Mouse and Disney that is where all the blame belongs.

smnrchrds 10y ago
Here is what I don't understand: how come copyright gets expanded left and right but patent does not. Does Disney the entertainment industry have more power than the entirety of traditional industries which depend on patents to make a profit (pharmeceutical, manufacturing, electronics, etc.) combined?
- unabridged 10y ago
  For patents you have companies fighting on the other side to limit them, so they can use the technology eventually. For copyrights there is no resistance with deep pockets.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  A lot of businesses benefit from expired patents. Any business that uses technology would be impossible if patents never expired. No business really benefits that much from expired copyright. When Disney lobbies to extend copyright, who is going to spend millions to fight them?
  - baldfat 10y ago
    > who is going to spend millions to fight them? I am hopping one day everyone will be feed up and there will be millions in funding. Personally I don't think this gets fixed till we can give special copyright to Disney and other corporations and free up the other 99.5% of copyright.
    - ImSkeptical 10y ago
      That seems like a great compromise. Pay a ten million dollar fee to extend your copyright by ten years. Most material becomes public domain, some exceptionally valuable properties remain privately held and generate value for the holder. Plus, we get some additional tax revenue.
  - Pyxl101 10y ago
    > Any business that uses technology would be impossible if patents never expired. Not completely true. Businesses could exist even with indefinite patents by licensing them (see MP3 patent).
    - matt4077 10y ago
      But the tech stack is much deeper than derivative works ever could be. Some derivate three generations down from Donald Duck is probably no longer a derivative of it, judged by current standards. But the computer I'm using right now could reasonably be covered by tens of thousands of patents all the way back to the origins of metallurgy, if those didn't expire.
  - CM30 10y ago
    In theory, one of the large tech companies affected by these laws could do it. I mean, Google's been affected by this in regards to everything from search to Youtube. If they wanted to, I'm sure they could spend far more than Disney on lobbying. This feels like a fight that Silicon Valley companies should take on.
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  Patents regulated relations between more or less equal entities (in very broad terms). Copyright regulates mostly matters between large media companies and individual consumers.
- andrewla 10y ago
  I think it's a lot less clear what the societal benefits of forcing copyrights to expire are. For patents, it's much more clear -- a patent prevents others from copying the invention, so its expiration allows other to use that invention for economically interesting purposes, which have a net societal benefit. So on the one hand, the temporary monopoly allows the inventor to profit from their invention, and costs others their ability to exploit it, and after a certain amount of time, those needs are reversed. For copyrights, in the purest form, what do you really get from letting it expire? The only really tangible benefit is to allow people to obtain the work without having to pay anyone, and (theoretically) make it easier to preserve and distribute orphaned works without the permission of the creator. It seems like as a lawmaker, it's really not that hard to rationalize saying "I can pass this legislation, extending copyright, or I can directly cause Disney to forfeit X million dollars in revenue". At least with a patent expiration, you can counterweight that by saying "I can extend the patent, and Boeing continues to get X dollars, or I can allow the patent to expire, and other companies get to use that invention to make Y dollars." The tradeoff is a little clearer. I would love to see better rules for copyrights moving to the public domain, not so much for the sake of Mickey Mouse, but rather for obscure and orphaned works, as well as simply decreasing the cost for the consumer to improve accessibility. But it's very easy in my mind to see why this is unlikely to happen.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > For copyrights, in the purest form, what do you really get from letting it expire? The only really tangible benefit is to allow people to obtain the work without having to pay anyone, and (theoretically) make it easier to preserve and distribute orphaned works without the permission of the creator. You seem to be forgetting about derivative works.
    - scandox 10y ago
      Yeah my Columbo novel should not be denied an audience.
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
- mwfunk 10y ago
  It would probably be much harder to justify. IP law exists because it's considered a net good to society (everyone doesn't agree on this, but this is why we have it at least). Of course, it doesn't help that all the money goes into lobbying on behalf of IP holders who want to extend the reach of IP. In theory, patents have good and bad side effects. The good effect of a patent is that it encourages people to spend lots of money on R&D because it gives them a period of time to recoup that investment once they bring something to market. The bad effect, obviously, is that this artificial monopoly can prevent other people from bringing similar things to market. But it's (again, in theory) a net good because the end result is that it creates an additional financial incentive to create new things, and once the patent expires then the negative aspect goes away. You are left with new stuff that may not have otherwise been brought into existence. The goal of a patent system is to benefit the population as a whole, not patent holders, even though patent holders benefit from it as well. If it only benefitted patent holders, and didn't have this philosophical underpinning of benefitting everyone, we wouldn't have patent laws in the first place. Copyright is similar in that it is designed with known pros and cons, but is legally rationalized as being a net good for society. The goal of copyright is to create an environment in which more stuff is created overall. The ultimate legal justification for copyright is the overall positive effect on society, it is not to benefit the copyright holder (that's just a happy side effect for them). So it's a weird dynamic where both the patent system and copyright law exist to benefit society, but all of the money poured into changing it is going to come from IP holders who want to manipulate the law so that they can make more money than they are now. There are no lobbyists representing "all of society", unfortunately, so it's a very one-sided battle that only ends when judges and legislators push back on the IP holders. To answer the question, I'm guessing that it's much easier to push for extending copyright because the societal cost to that is much less clear. It's easy to make an argument that (for example) pharmaceutical patents should not be extended because people will suffer. Cheaper drugs don't come until patents expire and competition is allowed to take its course. On the other hand, it's harder to make a case for the harm done by extending the period of time in which (for example) only Disney can sell Mickey Mouse t-shirts, so it's a lot easier for the entertainment industry to lobby for longer copyright periods than it is for other industries to lobby for longer patent periods.

maverick_iceman 10y ago

Life plus 75 is insane. A period of 25 years from the date of publication will be more than sufficient for copyright.

_nalply 10y ago
Why 25 years? Why not 20 years? Or 50 years? We have been told that copyright makes it possible that authors can live from their hard work. This interest needs to be balanced against the needs of the common good. It is known that free access to information encourages innovation. Some works need more time to generate revenue for the authors, others hit the market furiously and could be released after a short time. Therefore I propose a minimal copyright time of 5 years from the date of publication. After that the owner sets a yearly fee to be paid by the owner. Someone can buy the work out of copyright by paying a multiple of the fee. Say the copyright should last around 75 years. The owner declares to pay a fee of $10,000 the first year after the minimum of 5 years. The multiplicator could be then 70. If someone pays the owner $700,000 the book will immediately and irreversibly fall into public domain.

woodandsteel 10y ago

I think it is because there are rich corporations that benefit when another corporation's patents expire, and so they lobby congress to not extend the term of patents. With most copyrights, you don't have that, all the money is in favor of extending.