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The status quo and abandoning copyright aren’t the only alternatives. It would also be possible to reform copyright. One obvious change would be to shorten the

by cpach 7y ago

The status quo and abandoning copyright aren’t the only alternatives. It would also be possible to reform copyright. One obvious change would be to shorten the time that a work can be copyrighted.

Rhinobird 7y ago
Like going back to the original 14 years?
- __david__ 7y ago
  Anything less than the current "infinite" would be a pleasant change.
  - chimeracoder 7y ago
    > Anything less than the current "infinite" would be a pleasant change. It's a long time, but it's not infinite. New works started entering the public domain again on January 1, 2019.
    - ixwt 7y ago
      That's yet to be determined. Disney is a big influence on the length of US copyright protections. Let's see what happens come 2024: > On January 1, 2024, we'll see the expiration of the copyright for Steamboat Willie—and with it Disney's claim to the film's star, Mickey Mouse.
      - chimeracoder 7y ago
        > That's yet to be determined. Disney is a big influence on the length of US copyright protections. Let's see what happens come 2024 I'm well aware of Disney's role in copyright law. Disney's opportunity to do extend the term was before Dec. 31, 2018. That's how they extended copyright durations in the past - preventing any new works from entering the public domain at all. It's much harder for them to retroactively amend the copyright term now that some of those works have begun to enter the public domain.
    - greycol 7y ago
      For works released in someones lifetime the effective limit is effectively infinite for ~25% of people based on actuarial tables and assuming the best case of the author published it the year you were born and died that very same year. If the author died when the reader was 13 that's less than 50% who will ever live to that point. If the author is anonymous(or work for hire) or lives for 20 years after they published the work then it is effectively infinite for ~91% of people assuming the best case. Say what you want about the old 14+14 system but at least it would have meant that by the time you were a parent you could almost certainly share the works that were influential with you as a kid with your kids. With the current system you have to cross your fingers that it was popular enough to remain in print rather than moving to some limbo of unable to be acquired except 2nd hand or illegally.
- delecti 7y ago
  Wasn't it 14 with the option to renew once for an extra 14? That seems pretty reasonable to me.
- tzs 7y ago
  I think that is too short for cultural reasons. I think it needs to be at least long enough that something new can come out during a person's childhood and become important to them, and still be under copyright when that person is an adult and has children of their own, so that they can introduce it to their own children. Maybe even long enough that this will work for grandchildren too. Short terms can make that hard. For example, suppose your childhood thing was "Calvin & Hobbes". With a 14 year term that would be public domain by the time you are an adult, and I have no doubt that advertisers would have immediately conscripted Calvin to push toys and cereals ("It's even better than Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs") and such and saturated children's media with this. So then you go to share with your kid what was your favorite comic strip when you were a kid, and they have no interest in a strip about the Kellog's and Mattel and such spokes character that they've been bombarded with already for years. Maybe it is time to consider different terms for different copyright rights? Shorter term for the right to make and distribute literal copies, but longer terms for the right to make and distribute derivative works?
  - _jal 7y ago
    > so that they can introduce it to their own children I must be missing something. Why is must something be under copyright in order for you to share it with your kids?
    - tzs 7y ago
      Not being under copyright doesn't stop you from sharing it with your kids. It just makes it less likely to be worth sharing it with your kids, for the reasons in the second and third paragraphs.
la_barba 7y ago
Do you think practicing civil disobedience on copyright law will lead us to fixing it? It seems like the opposition is just digging its heels even further. In addition to fighting for their right to control distribution, they're also pushing for DRM, which is making things worse..
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  How do we know that they wouldn't be doing all of those things and more in the absence of pushback?
  - la_barba 7y ago
    Starting an argument with "Anything can happen" rarely gets us anywhere. We can only make do with what we know..
- deathhand 7y ago
  There will always be a crackdown. This is how entrenched power works. It happened with India and immolation and the Boston Tea party. Standing up for yourself means someone will always try to knock you down. Ramifications of the Boston Tea Party: https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-aftermath https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-aftermath India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Sati_Regulation,_1829 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Sati_Regulation,_1829
  - sosborn 7y ago
    Comparing copyright to these situations probably turns more people away from your cause than it attracts.
  - la_barba 7y ago
    Err, are we on the same page here? I don't think so. Because I'm talking about copyright law. Comparing the morality of pirating a disney movie with opposing killing people is not a reasonable position. It cheapens the real struggle that people went through.
pergadad 7y ago
A big issue of reform was the switching costs. A number of countries specifically the Nordics and France, have very elaborate and somewhat successful systems for renumeration to publishers and (theoretically) authors. For these any shift to more lax rules risks upending the system in such major ways that they are opposed to it. So any EU reform faces a really uphill struggle, as the vetos are pretty much guaranteed.
- dpwm 7y ago
  Except that reforms that go the other way seem to be subject to majority votes in the council of ministers. [0] [0] https://torrentfreak.com/eu-ministers-approve-copyright-directive-including-article-17-13-190415/ https://torrentfreak.com/eu-ministers-approve-copyright-dire...
shados 7y ago
I'd LOVE for that to happen. Just so we can finally see if it makes even the smallest change in piracy.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  It seems almost certain that "piracy" would go down. Even if the only change was that people torrenting Firefly in 2019 would be doing so legally, that's that much less piracy. Then you get the effect that everything from the 20th century becomes available on YouTube, which is likely to cause increased viewership of that content over newer content pirated or otherwise. Which I suspect is the main reason Hollywood is really against shorter copyright terms -- not just losing the revenue from past works but having to compete with them when they're free.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  I'm also curious about this. Offhand I wouldn't expect it, since even the historical 14-year window is well past where most people buy or pirate a work. Of course, that also implies the time past 14 years isn't about giving creators time to monetize so much as letting a few behemoths protect their brands.

by cpach 7y ago

The status quo and abandoning copyright aren’t the only alternatives. It would also be possible to reform copyright. One obvious change would be to shorten the time that a work can be copyrighted.

Rhinobird 7y ago

Like going back to the original 14 years?

__david__ 7y ago
Anything less than the current "infinite" would be a pleasant change.
- chimeracoder 7y ago
  > Anything less than the current "infinite" would be a pleasant change. It's a long time, but it's not infinite. New works started entering the public domain again on January 1, 2019.
  - ixwt 7y ago
    That's yet to be determined. Disney is a big influence on the length of US copyright protections. Let's see what happens come 2024: > On January 1, 2024, we'll see the expiration of the copyright for Steamboat Willie—and with it Disney's claim to the film's star, Mickey Mouse.
    - chimeracoder 7y ago
      > That's yet to be determined. Disney is a big influence on the length of US copyright protections. Let's see what happens come 2024 I'm well aware of Disney's role in copyright law. Disney's opportunity to do extend the term was before Dec. 31, 2018. That's how they extended copyright durations in the past - preventing any new works from entering the public domain at all. It's much harder for them to retroactively amend the copyright term now that some of those works have begun to enter the public domain.
  - greycol 7y ago
    For works released in someones lifetime the effective limit is effectively infinite for ~25% of people based on actuarial tables and assuming the best case of the author published it the year you were born and died that very same year. If the author died when the reader was 13 that's less than 50% who will ever live to that point. If the author is anonymous(or work for hire) or lives for 20 years after they published the work then it is effectively infinite for ~91% of people assuming the best case. Say what you want about the old 14+14 system but at least it would have meant that by the time you were a parent you could almost certainly share the works that were influential with you as a kid with your kids. With the current system you have to cross your fingers that it was popular enough to remain in print rather than moving to some limbo of unable to be acquired except 2nd hand or illegally.
delecti 7y ago
Wasn't it 14 with the option to renew once for an extra 14? That seems pretty reasonable to me.
tzs 7y ago
I think that is too short for cultural reasons. I think it needs to be at least long enough that something new can come out during a person's childhood and become important to them, and still be under copyright when that person is an adult and has children of their own, so that they can introduce it to their own children. Maybe even long enough that this will work for grandchildren too. Short terms can make that hard. For example, suppose your childhood thing was "Calvin & Hobbes". With a 14 year term that would be public domain by the time you are an adult, and I have no doubt that advertisers would have immediately conscripted Calvin to push toys and cereals ("It's even better than Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs") and such and saturated children's media with this. So then you go to share with your kid what was your favorite comic strip when you were a kid, and they have no interest in a strip about the Kellog's and Mattel and such spokes character that they've been bombarded with already for years. Maybe it is time to consider different terms for different copyright rights? Shorter term for the right to make and distribute literal copies, but longer terms for the right to make and distribute derivative works?
- _jal 7y ago
  > so that they can introduce it to their own children I must be missing something. Why is must something be under copyright in order for you to share it with your kids?
  - tzs 7y ago
    Not being under copyright doesn't stop you from sharing it with your kids. It just makes it less likely to be worth sharing it with your kids, for the reasons in the second and third paragraphs.

la_barba 7y ago

Do you think practicing civil disobedience on copyright law will lead us to fixing it? It seems like the opposition is just digging its heels even further. In addition to fighting for their right to control distribution, they're also pushing for DRM, which is making things worse..

0xffff2 7y ago
How do we know that they wouldn't be doing all of those things and more in the absence of pushback?
- la_barba 7y ago
  Starting an argument with "Anything can happen" rarely gets us anywhere. We can only make do with what we know..
deathhand 7y ago
There will always be a crackdown. This is how entrenched power works. It happened with India and immolation and the Boston Tea party. Standing up for yourself means someone will always try to knock you down. Ramifications of the Boston Tea Party: https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-aftermath https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-aftermath India: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Sati_Regulation,_1829 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_Sati_Regulation,_1829
- sosborn 7y ago
  Comparing copyright to these situations probably turns more people away from your cause than it attracts.
- la_barba 7y ago
  Err, are we on the same page here? I don't think so. Because I'm talking about copyright law. Comparing the morality of pirating a disney movie with opposing killing people is not a reasonable position. It cheapens the real struggle that people went through.

pergadad 7y ago

A big issue of reform was the switching costs. A number of countries specifically the Nordics and France, have very elaborate and somewhat successful systems for renumeration to publishers and (theoretically) authors. For these any shift to more lax rules risks upending the system in such major ways that they are opposed to it. So any EU reform faces a really uphill struggle, as the vetos are pretty much guaranteed.

dpwm 7y ago
Except that reforms that go the other way seem to be subject to majority votes in the council of ministers. [0] [0] https://torrentfreak.com/eu-ministers-approve-copyright-directive-including-article-17-13-190415/ https://torrentfreak.com/eu-ministers-approve-copyright-dire...

shados 7y ago

I'd LOVE for that to happen. Just so we can finally see if it makes even the smallest change in piracy.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
It seems almost certain that "piracy" would go down. Even if the only change was that people torrenting Firefly in 2019 would be doing so legally, that's that much less piracy. Then you get the effect that everything from the 20th century becomes available on YouTube, which is likely to cause increased viewership of that content over newer content pirated or otherwise. Which I suspect is the main reason Hollywood is really against shorter copyright terms -- not just losing the revenue from past works but having to compete with them when they're free.
Bartweiss 7y ago
I'm also curious about this. Offhand I wouldn't expect it, since even the historical 14-year window is well past where most people buy or pirate a work. Of course, that also implies the time past 14 years isn't about giving creators time to monetize so much as letting a few behemoths protect their brands.