7 ms·

I hope Disney wins. The 1998 Copyright Extension is over this year and WELL POSSIBLY we could get things back into public domain again!!! Can we please figure

I hope Disney wins. The 1998 Copyright Extension is over this year and WELL POSSIBLY we could get things back into public domain again!!! Can we please figure out how we can have renewable copyright law which cost over $1,000 a year per copyright item. That way Disney can keep Mickey Mouse and 99% of the rest gets released as public domain. If not they are looking to increase the Copyright to 125 years after death. I pray the reign of terror of Mickey Mouse might be over soon. https://boingboing.net/2018/01/08/sonny-bono-is-dead.html https://boingboing.net/2018/01/08/sonny-bono-is-dead.html

cwkoss 8y ago
Cost should rise proportionally to length of copyright to disincentivize retaining copyrights indefinitely. Ex. First 10 years - free Second 10 years - $1k/year Third 10 years - $10k/year Fourth 10 years - $100k/year and so on...
- waqf 8y ago
  So under your system, big blockbuster productions would have the longest copyright term. I'd like to try exactly the opposite: when a work has been seen by a million people, it becomes public domain — whether that takes one year or 100 years. Why? Because when you make a derivative work of Harry Potter or Star Wars you are not thinking that you can hoodwink your audience into believing that yours is the original, rather you're writing for a cultural context that assumes that people know the original. And to me that's exactly the underlying idea behind fair use.
  - true_religion 8y ago
    I think it's done this way as a compromise to the current copyright holders. Disney can and will easily pay 100,000 per year for all their productions in the vault, so no change in the status quo there. However, most sci-fi books from the 70s which are already out of print, will become public domain, and you can now write "fan-fiction" for it and get paid without having to seek out the original copyright holders (if they still even exist). It's questionable if Asimov's estate will pay 100,000 per year for each of his short stories, and lots of those make fantastic premises. If we didn't have eternal copyright, they'd make up a part of our literary landscape like Romeo and Juliet, or fairy tales do---something that can be freely alluded to, or redone.
    - baldfat 8y ago
      The Monster (Short Story) would make an unbelievably great movie. It was written in 1948 70 YEARS AGO and is still under copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_(short_story) Now that I thought about it. The Monster is the best story of the century and it can't be touched.
philwelch 8y ago
One idea that I had was to have copyrights expire after e.g. 20 years, but allow for renewals in exchange for an exponentially growing renewal fee. The first ten-year renewal would cost 1 million dollars (granting 30 years of copyright), and each subsequent renewal would last 5 years and cost twice as much. At this rate, holding a copyright for 75 years would cost about a billion dollars cumulatively, with another billion dollars required to hold it for 80 years and so forth.
PerryCox 8y ago
>Can we please figure out how we can have renewable copyright law which cost over $1,000 a year per copyright item. No fuck Disney and their reshaping of America's copyright law. For one stupid animated mouse they changed how the entire Public Domain worked. It's not really possible to boycott Disney at this point, but if I could I would because of this issue alone.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  >It's not really possible to boycott Disney at this point How not? I consume nearly no Disney media. My biggest consumption right now would likely be hulu, and that's a shared account that I don't pay for
  - bradyd 8y ago
    Disney owns 30% of Hulu and is purchasing 21st Century Fox which owns an additional 30% of Hulu.
    - toomuchgov 8y ago
      I thought Comcast was purchasing Fox now?
    - mrguyorama 8y ago
      Yes, and I didn't __need__ hulu. If it was my choice, I wouldn't have the account.
      - mburns 8y ago
        It is your choice, especially if you don't pay for it.
        mrguyorama 8y ago
        My mother pays for the account whether I use it or not. I cannot affect her purchase of it (I've tried). I don't have a choice on whether or not disney makes money from that account.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jayess 8y ago
Or just do what the original copyright law did -- you get 14 years with a renewal option for 14 more years. That's it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law_of_th...

cwkoss 8y ago

Cost should rise proportionally to length of copyright to disincentivize retaining copyrights indefinitely. Ex. First 10 years - free Second 10 years - $1k/year Third 10 years - $10k/year Fourth 10 years - $100k/year and so on...

waqf 8y ago
So under your system, big blockbuster productions would have the longest copyright term. I'd like to try exactly the opposite: when a work has been seen by a million people, it becomes public domain — whether that takes one year or 100 years. Why? Because when you make a derivative work of Harry Potter or Star Wars you are not thinking that you can hoodwink your audience into believing that yours is the original, rather you're writing for a cultural context that assumes that people know the original. And to me that's exactly the underlying idea behind fair use.
- true_religion 8y ago
  I think it's done this way as a compromise to the current copyright holders. Disney can and will easily pay 100,000 per year for all their productions in the vault, so no change in the status quo there. However, most sci-fi books from the 70s which are already out of print, will become public domain, and you can now write "fan-fiction" for it and get paid without having to seek out the original copyright holders (if they still even exist). It's questionable if Asimov's estate will pay 100,000 per year for each of his short stories, and lots of those make fantastic premises. If we didn't have eternal copyright, they'd make up a part of our literary landscape like Romeo and Juliet, or fairy tales do---something that can be freely alluded to, or redone.
  - baldfat 8y ago
    The Monster (Short Story) would make an unbelievably great movie. It was written in 1948 70 YEARS AGO and is still under copyright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monster_(short_story) Now that I thought about it. The Monster is the best story of the century and it can't be touched.

philwelch 8y ago

One idea that I had was to have copyrights expire after e.g. 20 years, but allow for renewals in exchange for an exponentially growing renewal fee. The first ten-year renewal would cost 1 million dollars (granting 30 years of copyright), and each subsequent renewal would last 5 years and cost twice as much. At this rate, holding a copyright for 75 years would cost about a billion dollars cumulatively, with another billion dollars required to hold it for 80 years and so forth.

PerryCox 8y ago

>Can we please figure out how we can have renewable copyright law which cost over $1,000 a year per copyright item. No fuck Disney and their reshaping of America's copyright law. For one stupid animated mouse they changed how the entire Public Domain worked. It's not really possible to boycott Disney at this point, but if I could I would because of this issue alone.

mrguyorama 8y ago
>It's not really possible to boycott Disney at this point How not? I consume nearly no Disney media. My biggest consumption right now would likely be hulu, and that's a shared account that I don't pay for
- bradyd 8y ago
  Disney owns 30% of Hulu and is purchasing 21st Century Fox which owns an additional 30% of Hulu.
  - toomuchgov 8y ago
    I thought Comcast was purchasing Fox now?
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    Yes, and I didn't __need__ hulu. If it was my choice, I wouldn't have the account.
    - mburns 8y ago
      It is your choice, especially if you don't pay for it.
      - mrguyorama 8y ago
        My mother pays for the account whether I use it or not. I cannot affect her purchase of it (I've tried). I don't have a choice on whether or not disney makes money from that account.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jayess 8y ago

Or just do what the original copyright law did -- you get 14 years with a renewal option for 14 more years. That's it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law_of_th...