7 ms·

If we merely had the same copyright we had when the country first formed, this entire "your books turn off thing" would possibly be completely acceptable: a sub

If we merely had the same copyright we had when the country first formed, this entire "your books turn off thing" would possibly be completely acceptable: a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them. Key here is that this means that within your lifetime this would quite possibly be the case. This also means that a very large variety of still-somewhat-recent works would be public domain, and thus creating tools to read them would be profitable. Right now, a "public domain" Kindle would be for what, works that are over a hundred years old or something? Few people will ever encounter public domain works they want to read so it's as if everything fits the rent model. The crazy thing is that everything is more amenable to "sharing" today, it is merely legal structure that prevents it now. Arguably the true utility of a library is that it would be (or would have been) absurd to duplicate a physical book for every person that wants it, and then when no one was actively reading them they'd take up a crazy amount of space. This is still true today! This world should be strictly better than the past. But instead we have nostalgia for libraries, not due to any essential reason, but because we've created an artificial environment where it is more appealing to potentially wait for a copy of something to become available vs. instantly duplicating it.

mullingitover 7y ago
> If we merely had the same copyright we had when the country first formed, this entire "your books turn off thing" would possibly be completely acceptable: a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them Also, the US didn't respect any other country's copyrights or patents so anything published outside the US would be free immediately.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- benj111 7y ago
  Yes, I believe Charles Dickens was the first to near simultaneously publish in both the UK and US. Cant imagine the US letting other countries get away with that now.
  - foobar1962 7y ago
    A story I heard about Dickens was him landing in the US and finding his latest book already in print there, unauthorised.
    - benj111 7y ago
      That's what I heard, so for his next book.....
sjy 7y ago
It could be longer than 100 years. I recently tried to find a copy of an article published in 1932. I can't find any version online and the nearest print version is in a library 1,000 km away. I asked the library if they could scan it and email it to me and they said no, it's still covered by copyright. This work was published early in the author's life; she died in 1983. So the Berne Convention would protect this work for 101 years after publication, and the domestic copyright will last for 121 years. I will be in my 60s before the copyright expires on a work published when my grandfather was born.
- lloeki 7y ago
  Well I can’t even read my own research paper (lost my tex source and final digital copy when both hard drive and backup drive failed within the same hour). I know for a fact that it is archived and basically exactly where but it’s beyond either one of an abusive layer of bureaucracy or a paywall, whichever I would choose to go through. Not that it’s worthy of anything or even remotely interesting but it tells a lot about the absurdity of it all.
  - romwell 7y ago
    Can you get it off SciHub?
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    Count yourself lucky. Most of us developers cant even read the code we wrote in a professional setting once we leave a company.
    - loup-vaillant 7y ago
      This idea that the original authors of the source code don't have any right to that source code (they're not even listed as authors most of the time), seems like a contradiction. If copyright is so important, why is it so easily stripped from its authors in some fields? It makes more sense when you understand that copyright was hardly ever about protecting authors, but about protecting the interests of the more powerful middlemen.
patmcc 7y ago
>>>a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them. Unfortunately, what would probably happen is more like what is happening to video games now; they are no longer profitable to publish, don't exist in an easy-to-backup, easy-to-share format (like an epub file with no DRM, for example), and so are essentially lost to time. If an ebook that no one can access is suddenly in the public domain, that doesn't help anyone one iota.
- nine_k 7y ago
  The AAA-class games with a budget of a blockbuster movie? Well, I'm fine with them following the movie locked-up route. New and original indie games? New Portal? New Monument Valley? Maybe even new Doom? I bet they would live with shorter copyright; Doom was released as free software much sooner than after 28 years.
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    The Doom source code was released, the game itself (notably, the IWAD files) was never released as free software.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  I thought all the console games get dumped so they can be emulated?
  - gordaco 7y ago
    If/when Stadia and the like take off, and streaming-only games appear, we can forget about that too. By the way, this is just one of the many reasons why I think that streamed games are very much an anti-consumer move and should not be paid for in any circumstance, to prevent normalization.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      That could easily be extended to "streamed media" in general - or, more accurately, Media as a Service. Going further, Software as a Service - or at least the part that falls under FSF's "Service as a Software Substitute" (SaaSS) - is an anti-consumer move too. Related, the trend of tying physical products to Internet services in a blatant attempt to turn ownership into renting is a hugely popular and a hugely anti-consumer practice too.
whenchamenia 7y ago
You can thank Disneys lawyers and lobbyists.

mullingitover 7y ago

> If we merely had the same copyright we had when the country first formed, this entire "your books turn off thing" would possibly be completely acceptable: a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them Also, the US didn't respect any other country's copyrights or patents so anything published outside the US would be free immediately.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
benj111 7y ago
Yes, I believe Charles Dickens was the first to near simultaneously publish in both the UK and US. Cant imagine the US letting other countries get away with that now.
- foobar1962 7y ago
  A story I heard about Dickens was him landing in the US and finding his latest book already in print there, unauthorised.
  - benj111 7y ago
    That's what I heard, so for his next book.....

sjy 7y ago

It could be longer than 100 years. I recently tried to find a copy of an article published in 1932. I can't find any version online and the nearest print version is in a library 1,000 km away. I asked the library if they could scan it and email it to me and they said no, it's still covered by copyright. This work was published early in the author's life; she died in 1983. So the Berne Convention would protect this work for 101 years after publication, and the domestic copyright will last for 121 years. I will be in my 60s before the copyright expires on a work published when my grandfather was born.

lloeki 7y ago
Well I can’t even read my own research paper (lost my tex source and final digital copy when both hard drive and backup drive failed within the same hour). I know for a fact that it is archived and basically exactly where but it’s beyond either one of an abusive layer of bureaucracy or a paywall, whichever I would choose to go through. Not that it’s worthy of anything or even remotely interesting but it tells a lot about the absurdity of it all.
- romwell 7y ago
  Can you get it off SciHub?
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  Count yourself lucky. Most of us developers cant even read the code we wrote in a professional setting once we leave a company.
  - loup-vaillant 7y ago
    This idea that the original authors of the source code don't have any right to that source code (they're not even listed as authors most of the time), seems like a contradiction. If copyright is so important, why is it so easily stripped from its authors in some fields? It makes more sense when you understand that copyright was hardly ever about protecting authors, but about protecting the interests of the more powerful middlemen.

patmcc 7y ago

>>>a subset of works would be onerous and somewhat annoying for 28 years, after which you could literally do whatever you want with them. Unfortunately, what would probably happen is more like what is happening to video games now; they are no longer profitable to publish, don't exist in an easy-to-backup, easy-to-share format (like an epub file with no DRM, for example), and so are essentially lost to time. If an ebook that no one can access is suddenly in the public domain, that doesn't help anyone one iota.

nine_k 7y ago
The AAA-class games with a budget of a blockbuster movie? Well, I'm fine with them following the movie locked-up route. New and original indie games? New Portal? New Monument Valley? Maybe even new Doom? I bet they would live with shorter copyright; Doom was released as free software much sooner than after 28 years.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  The Doom source code was released, the game itself (notably, the IWAD files) was never released as free software.
saagarjha 7y ago
I thought all the console games get dumped so they can be emulated?
- gordaco 7y ago
  If/when Stadia and the like take off, and streaming-only games appear, we can forget about that too. By the way, this is just one of the many reasons why I think that streamed games are very much an anti-consumer move and should not be paid for in any circumstance, to prevent normalization.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    That could easily be extended to "streamed media" in general - or, more accurately, Media as a Service. Going further, Software as a Service - or at least the part that falls under FSF's "Service as a Software Substitute" (SaaSS) - is an anti-consumer move too. Related, the trend of tying physical products to Internet services in a blatant attempt to turn ownership into renting is a hugely popular and a hugely anti-consumer practice too.

whenchamenia 7y ago

You can thank Disneys lawyers and lobbyists.