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Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Only the companies who sell licen

Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Only the companies who sell licensed merchandise. Think about how many fan works we’ll never see because we bizarrely decided to grant creators a monopoly on whatever they create, even if the work enters the public mythology like with Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. The people of the country should own the stories and characters after a reasonable length of time, and 100 years is laughable.

bushbaba 5y ago
Funny as a patent is granted for much less time. You’d think patents and copyright would have the same duration
- CerealFounder 5y ago
  They used to be commiserate. For whatever reason media based rent seekers lobbied better than ones with technical products.
  - ggm 5y ago
    Spellchecker changed commensurate to commiserate. Most apposite!
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Patents cover discoveries, which, as a class, are limited, whereas copyrighted works are created, and therefore (in some sense) unlimited. Or, in other words: a patent can block access to something that is potentially irreplaceable, and that would have been discovered by others, eventually. Donald Duck just wouldn’t exist without Disney. The goal of copyright is to provide some incentive for creation. At the same time, it limits the distribution of those works and the benefit that brings, an effect called deadweight loss. Those two goals—amount & quality of creation and distribution—are in perpetual conflict, and the limited time is supposed to balance them for maximum benefit. Is death + 70/95 years too long? Yes, defjnitely. I remember seeing something like 15 years being floated as the true optimum, but it’s likely to differ by category. But it’s just as annoying to often see complete ignorance or denial of the basic mechanism (I. e. “Commercial music suxx anyway” or “why should I pay for news”) (Another item on this scale: trademarks, which are entirely imbued with value by the owner’s exclusive right to use them. They are not time-limited as long as they are used because, to a first approximation, the value of “Levi’s” has nothing to do with the beauty of the word (which one could consider a limited ressource), but depends on the company’s interest in maintaining its status)
  - wahern 5y ago
    > (Another item on this scale: trademarks, which are entirely imbued with value by the owner’s exclusive right to use them. They are not time-limited as long as they are used because, to a first approximation, the value of “Levi’s” has nothing to do with the beauty of the word (which one could consider a limited ressource), but depends on the company’s interest in maintaining its status) After subscribing to Disney Plus I immediately began to notice their use of a segment of Steamboat Willie in place of a static or simply animated trademark. It seems clear to me what Disney's strategy will be going forth: to get as far they can abusing so-called "motion marks" (i.e. animated trademark symbols) to re-capture as much of their expiring copyrighted content they can. However far they get--it will likely take decades for the dust to settle after years of intensely testing the legal waters and lobbying Congress for various tweaks--I don't doubt that it will prove very effective. Trademarks can in principal provide protection in perpetuity, as you say. Motion marks let you significantly expand the scope of the mark (and art), so you can protect a broader array of merchandise as well as films--not much market for public domain copies if segments have to be removed. Plus with their army of lawyers they can widen that moat even more through sheer intimidation, so they may very well be able to squash alot of otherwise highly marketable derivative works.
xwdv 5y ago
The 100 year expiration is necessary for encouraging people to make new things rather than just shitty fan works until the end of our lifetimes.
- est31 5y ago
  The greatest works of past times are "shitty fan works". In the eras before copyright, people were taking each other's works all the time, and improving upon it.
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    Reminder that Dante's Inferno was shitty fan fiction.
    - tapas73 5y ago
      Is there some story about it?
      - labster 5y ago
        Yeah, copyright pirates are all sent to the 10th circle of Hell, where they are forced to write CC licensed fanfic stories on GPL software like GNU/Linux for eternity.
        patmorgan23 5y ago
        Hail Stalman!
    - scollet 5y ago
      Shitty in that there was literal shit, but I get your point.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    LoL came from DOTA, which came from Warcraft (which also deviated into MMOs, a copy of Everquest), which came from them making a warhammer game and reusing assets. It never stopped.
GhettoComputers 5y ago
What’s the incentive for spending any resources on creative works, or research and development? The twilight fanfic 50 shades of gray benefited from becoming its own brand as did league of legends from DOTA which was derived from warcraft, when blizzard was making a warhammer 40K game, so you’re not making a great point.
- civilized 5y ago
  Why would we believe that the incentive is materially different if copyright is 50 or 30 years rather than 100? The vast majority of earnings on a creative work are in the few decades immediately following release. Who is going "I won't write this book because it might make me money for only 30 years rather than 100"?
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    Historically there might be just as many authors (and other artists) who’s works didn’t become popular and make money until after their death, as those that became rich and famous during their lifetime. Of course it seems “times are a changin” and the vast majority of fame comes in the form of a viral and fleeting 15 minutes. Perhaps the law could catch up with the times, by having life imitate art and literally give copyright protection no more than 15 minutes.
- hobs 5y ago
  Having maybe less than double typical human lifetimes to exploit their work means "what's the point?" We are in a situation where there is no incentive to create new creative works because you can just exploit a dead person's stuff that's become popular until the end of time for your audience.
intricatedetail 5y ago
> Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Xi Jinping
vlunkr 5y ago
It's especially bad for video games, but I don't see people discuss that so much. Think about this, probably 99% of games that are over 10 years old cannot be played legally on any modern hardware (console games at least, PC games are probably a bit better, but still might require some tinkering), that's a pretty serious loss of cultural history. I think copyright needs to be shortened if publishers don't make games available in simple and reasonably priced ways. Just sell me a ROM, I'll gladly pay for it.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah for software it's ridiculous. Copyright should just expire for that at 10 years. Not IP though so they will still own the characters and stories to make remakes and sequels. But the games themselves in the original version should become public domain. All the money that can be made on the sale of the original versions will have been made. It's especially becoming a problem now that games need online activation or in some cases are online only (eg Google stadia). Right now we can just ignore copyright and pirate the games if we're getting nostalgic but I'm the future this won't be a technical possibility anymore once streaming exclusives appear.
  - d110af5ccf 5y ago
    Do you mean just a specific version of the binary? Because many games have been re-released and a few MMOs have been going for far longer than 10 years at this point. > this won't be a technical possibility anymore once streaming exclusives appear Just don't play them. I'm completely serious, why would I want to pay to support that model?
- d110af5ccf 5y ago
  > PC games are probably a bit better Understatement. 20 year old PC game? Those commonly run with a compatibility layer like Wine. Old titles for DOS, Amiga, whatever? Full blown emulation because the performance requirements are absolutely trivial relative to modern hardware. Lots of older consoles have impressive emulation efforts but it's definitely hit and miss. Such projects regularly pop up on HN. Copyright seems broken though, I agree.
Gunax 5y ago
Do you think we should have shorter time spans? How short? Should star wars be public domain? Harry Potter? It's not an easy answer. Not everything is a hit right away... Some things like Song ofnIce and Fire only became hits decades later.
- lbotos 5y ago
  I'd like for something like 10-20 years after the creator's death -- but even then, that gets complicated because if the owner is a corporation, then that work will probably never enter the public domain.
- csnover 5y ago
  I would personally argue that as the amount of money and time required for distribution has gone down, the duration of copyright should also go down. 14+14 years was the first federal rule in the United States, and that was in an era where even electric telegraphs didn’t exist and it took several days just to send a letter 100 miles. Actually, don’t even listen to me. In 2007, an economist named Rufus Pollock did research to determine the ‘optimal’ copyright duration to answer this question using empirically-estimable parameters and arrived at an optimum of 15 years.[0] It is important to keep in mind that (1) copyright was supposed to promote the creation of new works, and so allowing creators to make a single hit and collect royalties until the end of time is not its purpose (at least in the United States), and (2) just because something is in the public domain doesn’t mean that the creator is now unable to make money from it. Taking your example of the Song of Ice and Fire: if its copyright had expired before it exploded in popularity, George R.R. Martin would still be able to make money consulting for the TV adaptation. He would be able to make money giving talks and appearing at conventions. He would certainly increase the number of people giving him money on Patreon and sales of his contemporaneous books still under copyright would go up. He could cash in by quickly preparing some bonus content related to the book that is under copyright and sell it alone or as a bundle. He could do a fresh run of printed copies and tout their superior physical quality versus other copies on the market. [0] https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term_talk_stanford.pdf https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term_talk_...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

bushbaba 5y ago

Funny as a patent is granted for much less time. You’d think patents and copyright would have the same duration

CerealFounder 5y ago
They used to be commiserate. For whatever reason media based rent seekers lobbied better than ones with technical products.
- ggm 5y ago
  Spellchecker changed commensurate to commiserate. Most apposite!
KarlKemp 5y ago
Patents cover discoveries, which, as a class, are limited, whereas copyrighted works are created, and therefore (in some sense) unlimited. Or, in other words: a patent can block access to something that is potentially irreplaceable, and that would have been discovered by others, eventually. Donald Duck just wouldn’t exist without Disney. The goal of copyright is to provide some incentive for creation. At the same time, it limits the distribution of those works and the benefit that brings, an effect called deadweight loss. Those two goals—amount & quality of creation and distribution—are in perpetual conflict, and the limited time is supposed to balance them for maximum benefit. Is death + 70/95 years too long? Yes, defjnitely. I remember seeing something like 15 years being floated as the true optimum, but it’s likely to differ by category. But it’s just as annoying to often see complete ignorance or denial of the basic mechanism (I. e. “Commercial music suxx anyway” or “why should I pay for news”) (Another item on this scale: trademarks, which are entirely imbued with value by the owner’s exclusive right to use them. They are not time-limited as long as they are used because, to a first approximation, the value of “Levi’s” has nothing to do with the beauty of the word (which one could consider a limited ressource), but depends on the company’s interest in maintaining its status)
- wahern 5y ago
  > (Another item on this scale: trademarks, which are entirely imbued with value by the owner’s exclusive right to use them. They are not time-limited as long as they are used because, to a first approximation, the value of “Levi’s” has nothing to do with the beauty of the word (which one could consider a limited ressource), but depends on the company’s interest in maintaining its status) After subscribing to Disney Plus I immediately began to notice their use of a segment of Steamboat Willie in place of a static or simply animated trademark. It seems clear to me what Disney's strategy will be going forth: to get as far they can abusing so-called "motion marks" (i.e. animated trademark symbols) to re-capture as much of their expiring copyrighted content they can. However far they get--it will likely take decades for the dust to settle after years of intensely testing the legal waters and lobbying Congress for various tweaks--I don't doubt that it will prove very effective. Trademarks can in principal provide protection in perpetuity, as you say. Motion marks let you significantly expand the scope of the mark (and art), so you can protect a broader array of merchandise as well as films--not much market for public domain copies if segments have to be removed. Plus with their army of lawyers they can widen that moat even more through sheer intimidation, so they may very well be able to squash alot of otherwise highly marketable derivative works.

xwdv 5y ago

The 100 year expiration is necessary for encouraging people to make new things rather than just shitty fan works until the end of our lifetimes.

est31 5y ago
The greatest works of past times are "shitty fan works". In the eras before copyright, people were taking each other's works all the time, and improving upon it.
- moffkalast 5y ago
  Reminder that Dante's Inferno was shitty fan fiction.
  - tapas73 5y ago
    Is there some story about it?
    - labster 5y ago
      Yeah, copyright pirates are all sent to the 10th circle of Hell, where they are forced to write CC licensed fanfic stories on GPL software like GNU/Linux for eternity.
      - patmorgan23 5y ago
        Hail Stalman!
  - scollet 5y ago
    Shitty in that there was literal shit, but I get your point.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  LoL came from DOTA, which came from Warcraft (which also deviated into MMOs, a copy of Everquest), which came from them making a warhammer game and reusing assets. It never stopped.

GhettoComputers 5y ago

What’s the incentive for spending any resources on creative works, or research and development? The twilight fanfic 50 shades of gray benefited from becoming its own brand as did league of legends from DOTA which was derived from warcraft, when blizzard was making a warhammer 40K game, so you’re not making a great point.

civilized 5y ago
Why would we believe that the incentive is materially different if copyright is 50 or 30 years rather than 100? The vast majority of earnings on a creative work are in the few decades immediately following release. Who is going "I won't write this book because it might make me money for only 30 years rather than 100"?
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  Historically there might be just as many authors (and other artists) who’s works didn’t become popular and make money until after their death, as those that became rich and famous during their lifetime. Of course it seems “times are a changin” and the vast majority of fame comes in the form of a viral and fleeting 15 minutes. Perhaps the law could catch up with the times, by having life imitate art and literally give copyright protection no more than 15 minutes.
hobs 5y ago
Having maybe less than double typical human lifetimes to exploit their work means "what's the point?" We are in a situation where there is no incentive to create new creative works because you can just exploit a dead person's stuff that's become popular until the end of time for your audience.

intricatedetail 5y ago

> Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Xi Jinping

vlunkr 5y ago

It's especially bad for video games, but I don't see people discuss that so much. Think about this, probably 99% of games that are over 10 years old cannot be played legally on any modern hardware (console games at least, PC games are probably a bit better, but still might require some tinkering), that's a pretty serious loss of cultural history. I think copyright needs to be shortened if publishers don't make games available in simple and reasonably priced ways. Just sell me a ROM, I'll gladly pay for it.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Yeah for software it's ridiculous. Copyright should just expire for that at 10 years. Not IP though so they will still own the characters and stories to make remakes and sequels. But the games themselves in the original version should become public domain. All the money that can be made on the sale of the original versions will have been made. It's especially becoming a problem now that games need online activation or in some cases are online only (eg Google stadia). Right now we can just ignore copyright and pirate the games if we're getting nostalgic but I'm the future this won't be a technical possibility anymore once streaming exclusives appear.
- d110af5ccf 5y ago
  Do you mean just a specific version of the binary? Because many games have been re-released and a few MMOs have been going for far longer than 10 years at this point. > this won't be a technical possibility anymore once streaming exclusives appear Just don't play them. I'm completely serious, why would I want to pay to support that model?
d110af5ccf 5y ago
> PC games are probably a bit better Understatement. 20 year old PC game? Those commonly run with a compatibility layer like Wine. Old titles for DOS, Amiga, whatever? Full blown emulation because the performance requirements are absolutely trivial relative to modern hardware. Lots of older consoles have impressive emulation efforts but it's definitely hit and miss. Such projects regularly pop up on HN. Copyright seems broken though, I agree.

Gunax 5y ago

Do you think we should have shorter time spans? How short? Should star wars be public domain? Harry Potter? It's not an easy answer. Not everything is a hit right away... Some things like Song ofnIce and Fire only became hits decades later.

lbotos 5y ago
I'd like for something like 10-20 years after the creator's death -- but even then, that gets complicated because if the owner is a corporation, then that work will probably never enter the public domain.
csnover 5y ago
I would personally argue that as the amount of money and time required for distribution has gone down, the duration of copyright should also go down. 14+14 years was the first federal rule in the United States, and that was in an era where even electric telegraphs didn’t exist and it took several days just to send a letter 100 miles. Actually, don’t even listen to me. In 2007, an economist named Rufus Pollock did research to determine the ‘optimal’ copyright duration to answer this question using empirically-estimable parameters and arrived at an optimum of 15 years.[0] It is important to keep in mind that (1) copyright was supposed to promote the creation of new works, and so allowing creators to make a single hit and collect royalties until the end of time is not its purpose (at least in the United States), and (2) just because something is in the public domain doesn’t mean that the creator is now unable to make money from it. Taking your example of the Song of Ice and Fire: if its copyright had expired before it exploded in popularity, George R.R. Martin would still be able to make money consulting for the TV adaptation. He would be able to make money giving talks and appearing at conventions. He would certainly increase the number of people giving him money on Patreon and sales of his contemporaneous books still under copyright would go up. He could cash in by quickly preparing some bonus content related to the book that is under copyright and sell it alone or as a bundle. He could do a fresh run of printed copies and tout their superior physical quality versus other copies on the market. [0] https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term_talk_stanford.pdf https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term_talk_...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]