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What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2018
- toyg 9y agoOne of the drawbacks of our increasingly globalised market is how one significant subset can hold back everyone else - because what's the point of investing significant money in this or that production (tv, movies etc) if I cannot sell it everywhere? And so, nobody can do what Disney did to bootstrap themselves.
- rambojazz 9y agoWhat did Disney do to bootstrap themselves?
- chii 9y agotake existing cultural icons and stories and create a version for sale.
- ajmurmann 9y agoIt's interesting to think about the term "existing cultural icons". On first glance it seems like the term weekens the issue because it makes it sound like these are folk tale like things that somehow magically manifested. What happened though is that someone actually invented a story, it got retold over and over and evolved into what we have now. This would have been prevented by modern copyright. The original author wouldn't have allowed others to reproduce their work. The work wouldn't have evolved and probably even been forgotten.
- mtgx 9y agoI don't know if this is what he meant, but Hollywood was basically invented by a bunch of pirates/patent infringers. Without that, there might not be a Hollywood industry today. http://mentalfloss.com/article/51722/thomas-edison-drove-film-industry-california http://mentalfloss.com/article/51722/thomas-edison-drove-fil...
- DiThi 9y agohttps://www.forbes.com/sites/derekkhanna/2014/02/03/50-disney-movies-based-on-the-public-domain/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/derekkhanna/2014/02/03/50-disne... Specially interesting those from works made in the 1800s: Most of those would have been copyrighted under the current law if it applied at the time they made the movies!
- toyg 9y agoAnd these are only the direct adaptations. Disney's very first work, "Alice's Wonderland" (not the movie, just a dreamlike short), was a riff on Carroll's work. It was published less than 30 years from Carroll's death and about 50 years from publication.
- deskamess 9y agoOn a country scale, see 'Top Hacker News Books 2017' #13 - Kicking away the Ladder. [https://hackernewsbooks.com/year/2017 https://hackernewsbooks.com/year/2017] Part of the synopsis: "... that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing countries from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used."
- caio1982 9y agoJust a tangential comment since I've read the book and often (very carefully) recommend it: the summary you gave of it could be interpreted in contexts like "if country XYZ polluted the environment this much to get developed so can we!" and such. In Brazil this is a pretty dirty and frequent argument to favor over-industrialist policies, so when I tell people about this book I explain its title/purpose a bit more. Great book anyways, thanks for bringing it up :-)
- erric 9y agoOtherwise know as: “Fuck you, I got mine!”
- Jaruzel 9y agoOffline for me, here's a cached (& text-only) link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:76sSM401lqAJ:https://law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2018/pre-1976/&num=1&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1&vwsrc=0 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:76sSM40...
- Jaruzel 9y agoThe original texts of these books may now be in the Public Domain, but in order for the lay-person to get a copy (assuming the current publishers don't upload a copyright-free version to say, Gutenberg), you have to scan/OCR an existing copy. This is where the problem begins, the text of a novel maybe in the public domain but the typesetting, binding and printing of most editions is not. As such you'll be in breach of copyright if you try to OCR a copy and distribute it. I'm sure someone will try to call me out on this, but my partner is a qualified librarian, with a specialism in copyright law.
- gonzo41 9y agoCoulnd't you just OCR >> utf-8. Problem solved.
- Doctor_Fegg 9y agoNot 100% sure on this. This is sometimes called a "thin copyright": the typesetting is in copyright, but you're free to reproduce the underlying text as long as no part of the copyright in the typesetting itself is infringed. So you could OCR or retype it, but not distribute a scanned image. (But I'm only an enthusiastic amateur so stand to be corrected.)
- cpach 9y agoI must say I doubt this. I’ve never heard before that typesetting could be copyrighted.
- Doctor_Fegg 9y agoCertainly can be in the UK: "Typographical arrangements - this is the layout of a page. The right protects the effort involved in, for instance, creating the combination of columns, headlines, typefaces, images and advertisements on a newspaper page." http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/copyright-related-rights.pdf http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-man...
- Jaruzel 9y ago
- hugh4life 9y agoI kind of wonder if a forced licensing scheme would be a solution. Anyone would be able to create derivative works but 10-20 percent of any profits would have to go to the original copyright owner. A shorter "copright" with an extended "profitright".
- gus_massa 9y agoThe problem with profits is that it is very easy to just lie. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting > Hollywood accounting (also known as Hollywood bookkeeping) refers to the opaque or creative accounting methods used by the film, video, and television industry to budget and record profits for film projects. Expenditures can be inflated to reduce or eliminate the reported profit of the project, thereby reducing the amount which the corporation must pay in taxes and royalties or other profit-sharing agreements, as these are based on the net profit.
- JoshTriplett 9y agoWhy should we settle for that, rather than demanding public domain? What makes that tradeoff worthwhile? The critically important question: how many works would be created with a perpetual copyright (under whatever terms) that would not also have been created with a 14-year or 28-year copyright? The answer seems likely to be "not many", and certainly not enough to be worth trading away the the opportunities created by the public domain to get it. The public domain also tends to inspire the creation of many works. In talking about copyright, we're talking about trading off between two things people want: a useful and vibrant public domain with plenty of works in it, and the authorship of more works (that will eventually end up in that public domain). Trading off the former completely to get an extremely marginal increase in the number of works does not seem like a trade we should make. Now, that said, I would be in favor of the concept of having a shorter period of exclusivity, and a somewhat longer period of exclusive commercial use, such that non-commercial derived works become permitted after that shorter period. But even the latter shouldn't be perpetual, and both should be far shorter.
- rocqua 9y agoThere'd still be trademark issues. If anyone can make e.g. a Marvel movie, the franchise will be judged by those movies. It makes perfect sense to defend that.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zdw 9y agoWhy not treat I(ntellectual|maginary) Property like actual physical property, and levy a property tax on it, or the income earned? Maybe with a 14-28 year tax free period to encourage creators? I realize this would create a huge accounting burden... but only in cases where it's worthwhile to continue charging for the property.
- akkat 9y agoThat's actually a really good idea. Of course it is probably (unfortunately) politically impossible.
- derekp7 9y agoNot sure why, since the average voter won't be affected by this tax. Only the media companies. In fact, most voters would benefit greatly by having unlimited legal, free access to a vast library of content that is still relevant to them. And, it can be morally justified -- if someone is sitting on the rights for a work, and isn't using it, then it makes sense to levy a tax against it as they are utilizing the expensive resources of the world governments in order to defend the copyright.
- tempodox 9y ago> Only the media companies. Who will swiftly pass the additional cost on to their customers. Voters who see it that way won't vote voluntarily to pay more just so content creators can keep their copyright.
- JoshTriplett 9y agoEasy framing to get around that: "Only the less creative ones, who prefer to sit on their old works rather than making new ones."
- tempodox 9y agoAnd what stops them from adding those costs to the price of whatever they're currently selling?
- acd 9y agoExtending copyright terms into the future is the copyright extension law. Alsa known as Mickey Mouse Protection act brought to you by Disney. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
- jccalhoun 9y agoThings will go into the public domain in 2019 unless Disney gets Congress to extend it again. Even though Mickey Mouse wouldn't go into public domain until 2023, I have read that Disney will want to act before 2019 to keep the dam from bursting on new public domain works.
- pizza234 9y agoDisney has another trick up its sleeve (which will possibly bring the dispute to a permanent conclusion in their favour). Excerpts from a detailed Priceonomics article (https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-domain/ https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-...): > Even if Mickey’s copyright does expire in 2023, Disney has no less than 19 trademarks on the words “Mickey Mouse” [...] > According a precedent set in a 1979 court case, a trademark can protect a character in the public domain as long as that character has obtained what is called “secondary meaning.” This means that the character and the company are virtually inseparable: upon seeing it, one will immediately identify it with a brand. [...] > In other words, Disney has ingrained Mickey Mouse so deeply in its corporate identity that the character is essentially afforded legal protection for eternity, so long as Disney protects him (trademarks last indefinitely, so long as they are renewed).
- iambateman 9y agoI think this is a great compromise for something like Mickey, which clearly remains in commercial use. It’d be nice if we could find a way to handle Mickey while also releasing Catch-22 etc into public domain.
- zerocrates 9y agoGood. I don't really care about Mickey, rather everything else. It's much better if Disney uses the already perpetual nature of trademark rather than continuing to push for distorting copyright. I don't know that they really would be satisfied with that though, since they have so much under copyright that wouldn't get this kind of trademark treatment.
- 9y ago
- pmoriarty 9y agoCopyright should be abolished. As it stands, copyright serves little positive social purpose. The overwhelming majority of creators get paid little if anything for their work, and still there is a glut of content. So there should be no fear of the world losing lots of great content if there was no copyright. Most of the benefit of copyright is reaped by the middle men, who profit off the work when the creatives that made it have long ceased to do so (if they ever did). Abolishing copyright will thus mostly affect these middle men, and have little effect on content creation itself. Those creatives that still want to get paid in a copyright-free era can find business models that don't rely on copyright, like performances, donations, or kickstarter-like models when one is paid for future work.
- rectang 9y agoIndividual creatives and individual technologists should be natural allies, in opposition to corporate middlemen. But this "Why, let them sell t-shirts!" attitude means we'll forever be at odds.
- tarboreus 9y agoNo copyright isn't the solution. But it probably would be better than the current situation. Bring back either a 20-year copyright or an "author's death plus 10 years" version. The latter would be easiest to litigate and would incentivize relatives pulling together and sharing papers and unfinished manuscripts.
- rlayton2 9y agoSerious question: how would "author's death plus 10 years" work for companies?
- LoSboccacc 9y agoor group works. would nirvana songs be public domain?
- bjoli 9y agoHave a fallback. Authors death +10 years or at most 30 years (numbers pulled out of my posterior. I am not suggesting anything)
- tobiasSoftware 9y agoThere needs to be a push for a nominal fee (even if it's one dollar every ten years). This would allow the big companies to have their copyrights as long as they want (which isn't okay but good luck with that), while putting 99% of copyrights in the public domain.
- padobson 9y agoWouldn't those copyrights effectively end up in the public domain anyhow? The defacto nominal fee is an attorneys retainer.
- jccooper 9y agoDe facto public domain is pretty different from official public domain. One ends up on, for example, Project Gutenberg and the other does not.
- dragonwriter 9y agoInstead of a nominal fee, there needs to be ad valorem taxation (at say a 1-2% rate per annum) on a declared value which also serves as a binding offer to sell the work into the public domain at the stated price. That way, anyone can keep their long copyright, but only as long as they are willing to pay a fair price for keeping the work out of the public domain. There should be an initial period of several years (somewhere in the 7-13 range) where copyright remains free.
- clairity 9y agoyes, and make the tax monotonically increasing, so that the majority of works are released as soon as the value of the work wanes.
- Testudio 9y agoI am going to be a contrarian here. The significance of the issue is overblown. Copyright does not meaningfully harm creativity. Sure, you can't publish your Harry Potter fanfiction. But you can borrow all the themes you want from it. Magic schools, mysterious back-stories, dark lords and flying brooms can't be copyrighted. Moreover, Disney cannot prevent you from using Pinocchio, Little Mermaid and the rest of the public domain stuff they have used.
- jmanderley 9y agoWhat about other types of work one would like to remix, but aren't written words? I don't think this argument holds.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago>Sure, you can't publish your Harry Potter fanfiction There is an enormous amount of Harry Potter fanfiction. You're restricted from selling it though. But, as an author of twilight fanfiction proved, when you're ready to sell you can just find and replace some names and be good to go.
- MereInterest 9y agohttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-hole-in-our-collective-memory-how-copyright-made-mid-century-books-vanish/278209/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/the-h... Effectively unlimited copyright leaves a hole in the availability of older books, making it impossible for there to be any growth on top of them.
- pasbesoin 9y agoMany TV shows in the 1990's and 2000's were iconic, here in the U.S. They didn't purchase the rights to include the music -- which had its own selection, err "casting" and was central to the shows -- in retail copies (VHS tapes, DVD's, etc.). And the eventual owners of the shows didn't want to pay to acquire those rights for those formats. Or for the streaming versions; I can think of at least one prime example on Netflix (yeah, a pun). As a result, we can't view those shows in their original, and as I described, iconic, format -- or sometimes, at all -- except haphazardly on syndication or through piracy. I mean, shows that e.g. everybody would sit down at home and watch on Monday evening. Tell me that doesn't have a cultural impact. As just one example. Copyright is in serious need of reform. You're granted a limited monopoly, not total, perpetual control -- nor the right to remove what were public, cultural objects from public discourse. Something similar is at risk with regard to the news and other reporting. Watch copy vanish from the Web. At a minimum, there need to be modern libraries of such content where access is guaranteed. It represents the continuity of our history.
- kpU8efre7r 9y agoLook at all that cool stuff stolen from us by greed.
- yason 9y agoI've sometimes wondered why patents and copyright have diverged so greatly. The latter has been inflated to near-eternity by corporate lobbying whereas patents still, in practice, have a limited lifetime which itself also hasn't really grown over the years. Is it somehow easier to lobby for longer copyrights than longer patents? Is owning copyrighted works more profitable than patents, yielding more funding for lobbying? Is the amount of turnover from copyrighted works so much greater than the turnover from patents that while both proponents are lobbying for longer durations the copyright guys beat the patent portfolio owners 10x (or 100x) in numbers and they cross a threshold for lobbying money where they get at least something done? Financially looking, is the lack of lobbying an indication that patents aren't really worth anything because nobody is willing to put money into protecting theirs by lobbying for longer durations? Is it somehow legally more difficult to lobby for longer patents as opposed to longer copyrights? Patents are especially rotten when it comes to "software patents" but their founding ideas would be a fresh gust in the copyright land. Limited duration, requires active renewals, any secrets are put on the open table straight from the beginning which ensures that the fall to public domain will actually be possible.
- freeone3000 9y agoPatents protect one business against other businesses. Copyright protects one business against the public.
- yakitori 9y ago> The latter has been inflated to near-eternity by corporate lobbying whereas patents still, in practice, have a limited lifetime which itself also hasn't really grown over the years. It's because there is no incentive for large corporations to stop the former while there is plenty for companies to stop the latter. Large tech companies have been fighting against patent trolling and they have the money and power to enact change.
- mikekchar 9y agoI think the main thing is that new technology routinely builds on top of old technology. Sure, it would be nice to still be collecting royalties for your 100 year old patent, but you can't build anything new unless you license all the technology that came after it. The cross licensing necessary would simply mean corporations having to shovel vast sums of money to legal firms. It's simpler, cheaper and better for corporations to have patents expire. As another poster commented, we are starting to see large software companies realise the massive downsides to software patents and I suspect that we will see those restricted even further in the next 10-15 years. For copyright, on the other hand, certain franchises are worth lots of money but there is a limit to how much you can build on past works. Disney could theoretically insert Mickey Mouse into every film they make, but that grows old fast. They have to create completely new stories, characters, etc to make money. There is very little incentive to cross license most creative works. Even where it is done fairly liberally, for example American comic books, I think you could argue that it isn't necessarily a good idea. Apparently the most lucrative approach seems to be to exploit something while it is popular, then sit on it for 20-30 years before you "reboot" it for the next generation. What the copyright lobby is protecting against is that potential "reboot". They generally don't want it to be used in the meantime. I think this is one of the areas where the FSF gets things right. It's really misleading (and potentially dangerous) to lump "intellectual property" into a single bin. All of the things commonly referred to as IP are really different in terms of motivations of actors and consequences to society. Would anybody seriously argue for time limits on trademarks, for instance? It would be an interesting world if anyone could sell "Kellog's Corn Flakes" just because the trademark was old ;-).
- pimmen 9y agoI don't hate copyright and patent laws, I really don't. But, are you telling me that the choice is between "no patent or copyright, everyone has the right to copy whatever you do and make all the money in the world from it" and "even if the creator is long dead, you will have to wait the better part of a century"? If that's my choice, then it's no copyright.
- CM30 9y agoSomething I've wondered is why we don't have other companies lobby against extending copyright, and have them make it as hard as possible for Disney to get a sympathetic ear from government. I mean, in theory the likes of Google and Facebook (who could potentially benefit a lot from less restrictive IP laws) would be rich enough to outspend Disney on lobbying here. Or is there a reason the government would listen to one multinational corporation or billionaire while simultaneously ignoring another?
- touristtam 9y agoInteresting thoughts, but I doubt Google and Facebook are considering themselves as original creative content provider, as opposed to the like of Netflix and Amazon, that don't seems to fight against these positions.
- jackfoxy 9y agoReturn to the pre-1978 copyright law. Done.
- nfoz 9y agoCopyright is such a strong measure by which we let government limit individual freedoms for the sake of upholding a particular kind of business model. It's just so draconian and bizarre.
- jcg8802 9y agoThanks Disney.