7 ms·

It'll be nice when we can finally get rid of copyright when the writers of a property are long dead. Looks like Dr. Seuss and Gene Roddenberry died almost 30 ye

It'll be nice when we can finally get rid of copyright when the writers of a property are long dead. Looks like Dr. Seuss and Gene Roddenberry died almost 30 years ago. It's kind of ironic that Star Trek envisions a post-scarcity society where we can abandon pettiness like this and build on each others works and explore the universe while in the real world the petty owners of the copyright use the power of the state to prevent people from writing their own book using their own labor, creativity, and funds using characters from the 1960s or earlier. In effect, the copyright owners are saying: "We own the society and its culture. Do not touch."

EvanAnderson 6y ago
But how will we incentivize Dr. Seuss or Gene Roddenberry to create new works if we don't "protect" their current works? /s (Don't even get me started about companies whose entire business is built on "monetizing" the public domain and locking it in a "vault"... >sigh<) Edit: I'm not anti-copyright. Egregious length of copyright term is my main beef. I think limited time monopolies (patents and copyrights) can produce a lot of good for society. The contract has to be favorable to both parties, though. Letting those who "own" items of "intellectual property" starve the public domain for too long, particularly when so many works end up being orphaned (and effectively unusable for anyone), is what I have a problem with. Right now the contract for copyright is too stilted in favor of the "owners", to my mind.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  Would you consider this an acceptable first step? It is clearly a compromise, as it does not attempt to reform 'sale of rights' nor does it place works into the public domain until fifty years after they're created, but it explicitly neutralizes the ability to perpetuate and renew copyright through inheritance, transfer, or inclusion wrapping, while protecting against hacks such as modifying the law (as Disney likes to do), since those modifications could only affect future works, per the immunity clause. "When this law takes effect, the following terms are irreversibly assigned to all past and future copyrights, and in case of contradictions, these terms have ultimate precedence over all past and future declarations: Copyrighted works enter the public domain in the sooner of ten years after the death of all persons identified as creators of the work, fifty years after the creation of the work, and fifty years after the registration of the work; those works where no persons are registered as the creators shall enter the public domain in the sooner of ten years after the dissolution of non-person entities registered as the creator, thirty years after the creation of the work, and thirty years after the registration of the work."
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    fifty years after the creation of the work, and fifty years after the registration of the work Is it possible to register a copyright before the work is created? ten years after the death of all persons identified as creators of the work Probably don't want this part. Murder for hire to reduce copyright terms by 40 years?
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      The entire "life of the author" thing is ridiculous. So you get a longer copyright for something you write when you're 20 than something you write when you're 70? Why? Are we trying to reduce the relative incentive for more experienced authors to continue writing? Just make it 50 years.
      - floatingatoll 6y ago
        Sure, I am persuaded, and it's much simpler that way, too. Works for me! I release it into the public domain :) I just wrote this in a few minutes during dinner so I'm not heavily invested in it or anything. It's just a way to learn more about the person I'm responding to. Easier to ask a question about a tangible than an imaginary and all that.
      - mjevans 6y ago
        It should be the speed of culture progressing. I'd be happier with something like 10 years, and paying exponentially increasing fees to renew it past that mark in exchange for keeping culture locked up. Trademarks? That's a consumer protection service and for a small percent of profits on marked items plus a flat fee should be allowed.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > It should be the speed of culture progressing. I'd be happier with something like 10 years, and paying exponentially increasing fees to renew it past that mark in exchange for keeping culture locked up. The exponentially increasing cost works well. Start off at a $10 registration for ten years, then multiply by 10 for each subsequent ten year registration. You want to renew that 120 year old copyright on an individual work? No problem, that'll be ten trillion dollars for the next ten years, see you in ten years when it's a hundred trillion. Meanwhile 90% of everything enters the public domain inside of twenty years because it's not worth paying a thousand bucks for another ten. > Trademarks? That's a consumer protection service and for a small percent of profits on marked items plus a flat fee should be allowed. Trademarks are fine the way they are. Nobody is complaining about the term of trademarks, which is as long as you're actually using it. It would actually be better if copyright required that -- so that if you want to retain a copyright it can't be out of print for more than ten years.
- TeeMassive 6y ago
  In French, copyright is called "author's rights". When I hear that copyright endures 70 years after death... well it's not longer the author's right
gfxgirl 6y ago
Star Trek doesn't really show a post-scarcity society. See Kirk's apartment in SF. He's clearly got an apartment with a view of the bay around the 30th floor of some building. Others don't get the view or the 30th floor since the both are scarce. So are positions like "being the captain". Replicators might lift everyone out of poverty but the won't change how people feel about others using their creative works.
- cma 6y ago
  Star Trek had lots of episodes based on public domain mythology and literature. Brother Grimm fairy tales Disney fairy tales were based on were almost newer to them at the time than those old Disney movies are now.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Bad example as that could’ve been a holographic view. Better would be the episode of Voyager where the Doctor’s holo-novel ends up in a legal dispute after they make contact with the Federation and he looks for a publisher, but the publisher publishes it without his permission and tries to argue he’s not a person and has no author rights. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Author,_Author_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Author,_Author_(episode...
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  "Post-scarcity" doesn't mean nothing ever is scarce - that's impossible to achieve (simply because humans can invent new categories of things to want). "Post-scarcity" means all the things you need to survive, plus a good chunk of the things you'd reasonably want, are so cheap to make or in such abundance, that they become effectively free and unlimited. Thanks to fusion power and matter replicators, that is the case for humans in Star Trek universe. The behavior of companies owning Star Trek IP stands in stark contrast with the values preached by the show. It's not just fictional post-scarcity vs. real-life market economy; the IP owners are aggressively and self-destructively greedy (much like the Ferengi of Star Trek). It's sad to watch, really - Star Trek has an extremely dedicated and creative fanbase that could be endlessly monetized if given a modicum of consideration. Instead, fan contributions are terminated with extreme prejudice. Yes, I'm still sour about how they treated Stage9 - a fan recreation of the entire Enterprise-D in Unreal Engine. See [0], [1] for some visuals. CBS lawyers killed this, because of course they did. Would they lose money because of this project? Nope. Would they make money because of it? Sure, through renewed interest. They could've done a number of things, including officially subcontracting the developers and selling the work officially. But they didn't, they killed it. And they'll never produce anything that even comes close to this. -- [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAM2dEEulBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAM2dEEulBk [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8wpO8ONYm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8wpO8ONYm8
aidenn0 6y ago
My favorite example of this hypocrisy is still that the Disney film sleeping beauty would have been illegal to make because Tchaikovsky's ballet would have still been under copyright had the rules that Disney themselves later lobbied for been in effect
- globular-toast 6y ago
  Don't forget "Peter Pan". J.M. Barrie, the original author, donated the work to Great Ormond Street children's hospital with the intention that they would earn royalties from it. Disney claims the work is now in the public domain and does not pay royalties. Applying their own logic, Disney is stealing from a children's hospital.

EvanAnderson 6y ago

But how will we incentivize Dr. Seuss or Gene Roddenberry to create new works if we don't "protect" their current works? /s (Don't even get me started about companies whose entire business is built on "monetizing" the public domain and locking it in a "vault"... >sigh<) Edit: I'm not anti-copyright. Egregious length of copyright term is my main beef. I think limited time monopolies (patents and copyrights) can produce a lot of good for society. The contract has to be favorable to both parties, though. Letting those who "own" items of "intellectual property" starve the public domain for too long, particularly when so many works end up being orphaned (and effectively unusable for anyone), is what I have a problem with. Right now the contract for copyright is too stilted in favor of the "owners", to my mind.

floatingatoll 6y ago
Would you consider this an acceptable first step? It is clearly a compromise, as it does not attempt to reform 'sale of rights' nor does it place works into the public domain until fifty years after they're created, but it explicitly neutralizes the ability to perpetuate and renew copyright through inheritance, transfer, or inclusion wrapping, while protecting against hacks such as modifying the law (as Disney likes to do), since those modifications could only affect future works, per the immunity clause. "When this law takes effect, the following terms are irreversibly assigned to all past and future copyrights, and in case of contradictions, these terms have ultimate precedence over all past and future declarations: Copyrighted works enter the public domain in the sooner of ten years after the death of all persons identified as creators of the work, fifty years after the creation of the work, and fifty years after the registration of the work; those works where no persons are registered as the creators shall enter the public domain in the sooner of ten years after the dissolution of non-person entities registered as the creator, thirty years after the creation of the work, and thirty years after the registration of the work."
- nitrogen 6y ago
  fifty years after the creation of the work, and fifty years after the registration of the work Is it possible to register a copyright before the work is created? ten years after the death of all persons identified as creators of the work Probably don't want this part. Murder for hire to reduce copyright terms by 40 years?
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The entire "life of the author" thing is ridiculous. So you get a longer copyright for something you write when you're 20 than something you write when you're 70? Why? Are we trying to reduce the relative incentive for more experienced authors to continue writing? Just make it 50 years.
    - floatingatoll 6y ago
      Sure, I am persuaded, and it's much simpler that way, too. Works for me! I release it into the public domain :) I just wrote this in a few minutes during dinner so I'm not heavily invested in it or anything. It's just a way to learn more about the person I'm responding to. Easier to ask a question about a tangible than an imaginary and all that.
    - mjevans 6y ago
      It should be the speed of culture progressing. I'd be happier with something like 10 years, and paying exponentially increasing fees to renew it past that mark in exchange for keeping culture locked up. Trademarks? That's a consumer protection service and for a small percent of profits on marked items plus a flat fee should be allowed.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        > It should be the speed of culture progressing. I'd be happier with something like 10 years, and paying exponentially increasing fees to renew it past that mark in exchange for keeping culture locked up. The exponentially increasing cost works well. Start off at a $10 registration for ten years, then multiply by 10 for each subsequent ten year registration. You want to renew that 120 year old copyright on an individual work? No problem, that'll be ten trillion dollars for the next ten years, see you in ten years when it's a hundred trillion. Meanwhile 90% of everything enters the public domain inside of twenty years because it's not worth paying a thousand bucks for another ten. > Trademarks? That's a consumer protection service and for a small percent of profits on marked items plus a flat fee should be allowed. Trademarks are fine the way they are. Nobody is complaining about the term of trademarks, which is as long as you're actually using it. It would actually be better if copyright required that -- so that if you want to retain a copyright it can't be out of print for more than ten years.
TeeMassive 6y ago
In French, copyright is called "author's rights". When I hear that copyright endures 70 years after death... well it's not longer the author's right

gfxgirl 6y ago

Star Trek doesn't really show a post-scarcity society. See Kirk's apartment in SF. He's clearly got an apartment with a view of the bay around the 30th floor of some building. Others don't get the view or the 30th floor since the both are scarce. So are positions like "being the captain". Replicators might lift everyone out of poverty but the won't change how people feel about others using their creative works.

cma 6y ago
Star Trek had lots of episodes based on public domain mythology and literature. Brother Grimm fairy tales Disney fairy tales were based on were almost newer to them at the time than those old Disney movies are now.
ben_w 6y ago
Bad example as that could’ve been a holographic view. Better would be the episode of Voyager where the Doctor’s holo-novel ends up in a legal dispute after they make contact with the Federation and he looks for a publisher, but the publisher publishes it without his permission and tries to argue he’s not a person and has no author rights. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Author,_Author_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Author,_Author_(episode...
TeMPOraL 6y ago
"Post-scarcity" doesn't mean nothing ever is scarce - that's impossible to achieve (simply because humans can invent new categories of things to want). "Post-scarcity" means all the things you need to survive, plus a good chunk of the things you'd reasonably want, are so cheap to make or in such abundance, that they become effectively free and unlimited. Thanks to fusion power and matter replicators, that is the case for humans in Star Trek universe. The behavior of companies owning Star Trek IP stands in stark contrast with the values preached by the show. It's not just fictional post-scarcity vs. real-life market economy; the IP owners are aggressively and self-destructively greedy (much like the Ferengi of Star Trek). It's sad to watch, really - Star Trek has an extremely dedicated and creative fanbase that could be endlessly monetized if given a modicum of consideration. Instead, fan contributions are terminated with extreme prejudice. Yes, I'm still sour about how they treated Stage9 - a fan recreation of the entire Enterprise-D in Unreal Engine. See [0], [1] for some visuals. CBS lawyers killed this, because of course they did. Would they lose money because of this project? Nope. Would they make money because of it? Sure, through renewed interest. They could've done a number of things, including officially subcontracting the developers and selling the work officially. But they didn't, they killed it. And they'll never produce anything that even comes close to this. -- [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAM2dEEulBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAM2dEEulBk [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8wpO8ONYm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8wpO8ONYm8

aidenn0 6y ago

My favorite example of this hypocrisy is still that the Disney film sleeping beauty would have been illegal to make because Tchaikovsky's ballet would have still been under copyright had the rules that Disney themselves later lobbied for been in effect

globular-toast 6y ago
Don't forget "Peter Pan". J.M. Barrie, the original author, donated the work to Great Ormond Street children's hospital with the intention that they would earn royalties from it. Disney claims the work is now in the public domain and does not pay royalties. Applying their own logic, Disney is stealing from a children's hospital.