5 ms·

In an ideal world, copyright should last for maybe two or three years. It would still mostly fulfill its purpose to allow the creator to earn money, but would s

In an ideal world, copyright should last for maybe two or three years. It would still mostly fulfill its purpose to allow the creator to earn money, but would severely curtail the abuse potential. In an even more ideal world, copyright shouldn't be transferable.

elzbardico 5y ago
It is complicated. For very popular artists yes, their music is commercially short-lived and most of the returns will come in the first six months. But for the more obscure composers and performers the reality is completely different.
- t-writescode 5y ago
  It wouldn't. If a music studio needs to wait 4 years to not have to pay any royalties at all, then the song would be recorded (copyright created) and the music groups would just wait 4 years and then start playing it on radio stations. It needs to be something like 12 + 12 or 20 + 20, or even 20 + infinitely continuable for a gradually increasing cost. It still has the potential issue of waiting out that 24 to 40 years; but companies are less likely to do that, when a few years is basically nothing. It's been 2 years since covid started, for example.
  - grishka 5y ago
    Companies will go bankrupt. Their business models will break down. Yes. That's intended. There's no need for these middlemen in the age of the internet.
    - rhines 5y ago
      IMO if you want to end the commercialization of content, targeting copyright is not the most effective route. Big players will still be able to use their power to ensure that they have control over distribution, and will continue to profit off of content. Small players, such as the people coming up with new content, will find it harder and harder to make any money, to the benefit of the big players who no longer need to share profits with them. The more effective approach would be to simply remove the economy entirely. In a post-scarcity or communist or whatever you want to call it society, you could abolish copyright entirely without hurting anyone, because no one's able to profit off it in the first place and spending effort on things that don't pay off is no longer penalized.
t-writescode 5y ago
2-3 years is no time at all. Someone could hand a movie studio a script in hopes of it being made a movie, the movie studio could wait 4 years, and then make the movie, with no harm to them whatsoever.
- grishka 5y ago
  Huh. A movie studio. Yes, my proposal also has a nice side effect of filtering out those who are in it for the money, not self-expression. The world would become a better place if there were no "entertainment industry".
  - notJim 5y ago
    People who are in it for self-expression need to pay the bills too.
    - grishka 5y ago
      They usually start self-expressing just for themselves, so they still have a job. Most video bloggers started this exact way — first a hobby, then they quit their job and turned their vlogging into a Serious Business™ with obnoxious sponsorships, a studio, a ton of ridiculously expensive equipment, and optionally a crew.
  - codyb 5y ago
    No entertainment industry? So... nobody could sit and create a movie studio or a record label? What a weird thing to rail against. I'm certainly unconvinced the world would be magically better without people organizing to produce content. Maybe there's some issues with copyrights, but as far as I can tell, almost any organization would attempt to preserve profits. We, as a people, then go through and create legislation which curbs rampant abuses whether that's environmental pollution, or unsafe kids' toys, or overly lengthy copyright claims. But the idea people can't get together and make movies, that's a new one.
    - grishka 5y ago
mywittyname 5y ago
Three years is probably too short, but certainly something less than 30 years. That gives people plenty of time to enjoy the profits from their work (basically their entire adult lives) while allowing it into the public domain while it is still somewhat useful. I don't think the system would function without transferable copyrights. A movie might have 10,000 people who've contributed to it. Managing the copyrights without some kind of legal agreement would be a nightmare. I get the spirit of the comment (to prevent generations of people from owning and profiting from the works of people they never knew), but eliminating copyright transfership probably doesn't solve that.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Most movies make most of their money week one. Most songs make the bulk of income within a 3 month period. 3 years is longer than necessary. Perhaps this would affect less known artists. I would be willing to keep the copyright until the first 100,000 or 1,000,0000 worth of product is sold.
  - toast0 5y ago
    > Most movies make most of their money week one. Most movies are fixed in a tangeble medium months before week one. Sometimes years. Component parts (principle filming, scripts, original music, if any) are routinely finished at least a year before release. A rush to get everything out to enjoy the full 3 years of income potential would further push out the couple of films a year made where people actually cared to do things right. 20-30 years might be right, though. Or one of the escalating fees for renewal after a reasonable period, preferably with a required deposit of the work so when it becomes public domain it can be easily distributed.
    - jedberg 5y ago
      Copyright on a movie doesn't start until it's registered. The component parts are copyrighted upon creation but the entire work is a separate copyright. For example the Star Wars re-release is copyright 1997, even thought the bulk of it was created in 1975-76.
kube-system 5y ago
Three years is too short. The people who need these protections the most are not marketing powerhouses that can achieve instant successes. I feel like a two or three year copyright could be even worse that current state — large publishers would probably just wait out artists and steal their work. “Nice album kid, bet it’ll sell great 3 years from now”
- grishka 5y ago
  > large publishers would probably just wait out artists and steal their work But it's public domain. You can't exactly "steal" something that already belongs to everyone, including you.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I am clearly using the word in a functional, moral, non-legal sense. The entire premise of my point indicates that I understand what public domain means.
  - rhines 5y ago
    Sure, but a big company can absolutely find some little-known creator's work, spin off their own products with it, and use their size to absolutely dominate search results, marketing, and distribution. While it may no longer be legally considered theft, it does seem to be a shame that a creator has a window of only a couple years to find success with their work before they're at risk of it becoming worthless to them. In creative fields it often takes many years to build up a portfolio and a following, if you've not been picked up by a major promoter.
    - kragen 5y ago
      Wouldn't have been a problem for Charles M. Schultz. One month of copyright would have been enough to keep him well fed. Same for Nassim Taleb. In the age of the web, the big company's shitty bundled product may have a hard time competing with the creator's website. How many laptop vendors ship a custom fork of Ubuntu? But of course Ubuntu's kernel isn't exactly Linus's mainline, but I don't see him complaining.
handrous 5y ago
I'd be happy with it being short enough that middle-aged creatives could build on material from their childhood, and old ones, from their middle-age. Say, 20 years. People should, at least, have full ownership of a good portion of their contemporary culture.
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  Friend that's an IP lawyer had a rant that copyright law is applied for things it has no business being applied to. The law is built around single author books and sheet music. Where the authors lifetime output is small. And commercially valuable work smaller still. Not appropriate for things like ad copy, manuals, and software. It needs an overhaul. But the current system heavily favors entrenched interests so won't happen.
splitstud 5y ago
Abuse implies a right. What kind of right does anyone have to see IP become public domain? The only reason that it should sunset at all is to release society from the burden of enforcing old IP at some point.
- Zigurd 5y ago
  The term "intellectual property" is a relative legal novelty, and applying "IP" law to individuals, as opposed to rogue publishers printing works without a contract with the author and profiting from sales of that work, is an even more dubious novelty. The purpose of copyright protection, which was a controversial issue at the time the US Constitution was drafted, is written in the Copyright Clause: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Anything beyond that stated purpose is hindering "the Progress of Science and useful Arts." That copyright terms are limited is essential, and should optimize the purpose, not the profit of publishers who go unmentioned.

elzbardico 5y ago

It is complicated. For very popular artists yes, their music is commercially short-lived and most of the returns will come in the first six months. But for the more obscure composers and performers the reality is completely different.

t-writescode 5y ago
It wouldn't. If a music studio needs to wait 4 years to not have to pay any royalties at all, then the song would be recorded (copyright created) and the music groups would just wait 4 years and then start playing it on radio stations. It needs to be something like 12 + 12 or 20 + 20, or even 20 + infinitely continuable for a gradually increasing cost. It still has the potential issue of waiting out that 24 to 40 years; but companies are less likely to do that, when a few years is basically nothing. It's been 2 years since covid started, for example.
- grishka 5y ago
  Companies will go bankrupt. Their business models will break down. Yes. That's intended. There's no need for these middlemen in the age of the internet.
  - rhines 5y ago
    IMO if you want to end the commercialization of content, targeting copyright is not the most effective route. Big players will still be able to use their power to ensure that they have control over distribution, and will continue to profit off of content. Small players, such as the people coming up with new content, will find it harder and harder to make any money, to the benefit of the big players who no longer need to share profits with them. The more effective approach would be to simply remove the economy entirely. In a post-scarcity or communist or whatever you want to call it society, you could abolish copyright entirely without hurting anyone, because no one's able to profit off it in the first place and spending effort on things that don't pay off is no longer penalized.

t-writescode 5y ago

2-3 years is no time at all. Someone could hand a movie studio a script in hopes of it being made a movie, the movie studio could wait 4 years, and then make the movie, with no harm to them whatsoever.

grishka 5y ago
Huh. A movie studio. Yes, my proposal also has a nice side effect of filtering out those who are in it for the money, not self-expression. The world would become a better place if there were no "entertainment industry".
- notJim 5y ago
  People who are in it for self-expression need to pay the bills too.
  - grishka 5y ago
    They usually start self-expressing just for themselves, so they still have a job. Most video bloggers started this exact way — first a hobby, then they quit their job and turned their vlogging into a Serious Business™ with obnoxious sponsorships, a studio, a ton of ridiculously expensive equipment, and optionally a crew.
- codyb 5y ago
  No entertainment industry? So... nobody could sit and create a movie studio or a record label? What a weird thing to rail against. I'm certainly unconvinced the world would be magically better without people organizing to produce content. Maybe there's some issues with copyrights, but as far as I can tell, almost any organization would attempt to preserve profits. We, as a people, then go through and create legislation which curbs rampant abuses whether that's environmental pollution, or unsafe kids' toys, or overly lengthy copyright claims. But the idea people can't get together and make movies, that's a new one.
  - grishka 5y ago

mywittyname 5y ago

Three years is probably too short, but certainly something less than 30 years. That gives people plenty of time to enjoy the profits from their work (basically their entire adult lives) while allowing it into the public domain while it is still somewhat useful. I don't think the system would function without transferable copyrights. A movie might have 10,000 people who've contributed to it. Managing the copyrights without some kind of legal agreement would be a nightmare. I get the spirit of the comment (to prevent generations of people from owning and profiting from the works of people they never knew), but eliminating copyright transfership probably doesn't solve that.

ipaddr 5y ago
Most movies make most of their money week one. Most songs make the bulk of income within a 3 month period. 3 years is longer than necessary. Perhaps this would affect less known artists. I would be willing to keep the copyright until the first 100,000 or 1,000,0000 worth of product is sold.
- toast0 5y ago
  > Most movies make most of their money week one. Most movies are fixed in a tangeble medium months before week one. Sometimes years. Component parts (principle filming, scripts, original music, if any) are routinely finished at least a year before release. A rush to get everything out to enjoy the full 3 years of income potential would further push out the couple of films a year made where people actually cared to do things right. 20-30 years might be right, though. Or one of the escalating fees for renewal after a reasonable period, preferably with a required deposit of the work so when it becomes public domain it can be easily distributed.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Copyright on a movie doesn't start until it's registered. The component parts are copyrighted upon creation but the entire work is a separate copyright. For example the Star Wars re-release is copyright 1997, even thought the bulk of it was created in 1975-76.

kube-system 5y ago

Three years is too short. The people who need these protections the most are not marketing powerhouses that can achieve instant successes. I feel like a two or three year copyright could be even worse that current state — large publishers would probably just wait out artists and steal their work. “Nice album kid, bet it’ll sell great 3 years from now”

grishka 5y ago
> large publishers would probably just wait out artists and steal their work But it's public domain. You can't exactly "steal" something that already belongs to everyone, including you.
- kube-system 5y ago
  I am clearly using the word in a functional, moral, non-legal sense. The entire premise of my point indicates that I understand what public domain means.
- rhines 5y ago
  Sure, but a big company can absolutely find some little-known creator's work, spin off their own products with it, and use their size to absolutely dominate search results, marketing, and distribution. While it may no longer be legally considered theft, it does seem to be a shame that a creator has a window of only a couple years to find success with their work before they're at risk of it becoming worthless to them. In creative fields it often takes many years to build up a portfolio and a following, if you've not been picked up by a major promoter.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Wouldn't have been a problem for Charles M. Schultz. One month of copyright would have been enough to keep him well fed. Same for Nassim Taleb. In the age of the web, the big company's shitty bundled product may have a hard time competing with the creator's website. How many laptop vendors ship a custom fork of Ubuntu? But of course Ubuntu's kernel isn't exactly Linus's mainline, but I don't see him complaining.

handrous 5y ago

I'd be happy with it being short enough that middle-aged creatives could build on material from their childhood, and old ones, from their middle-age. Say, 20 years. People should, at least, have full ownership of a good portion of their contemporary culture.

Gibbon1 5y ago
Friend that's an IP lawyer had a rant that copyright law is applied for things it has no business being applied to. The law is built around single author books and sheet music. Where the authors lifetime output is small. And commercially valuable work smaller still. Not appropriate for things like ad copy, manuals, and software. It needs an overhaul. But the current system heavily favors entrenched interests so won't happen.

splitstud 5y ago

Abuse implies a right. What kind of right does anyone have to see IP become public domain? The only reason that it should sunset at all is to release society from the burden of enforcing old IP at some point.

Zigurd 5y ago
The term "intellectual property" is a relative legal novelty, and applying "IP" law to individuals, as opposed to rogue publishers printing works without a contract with the author and profiting from sales of that work, is an even more dubious novelty. The purpose of copyright protection, which was a controversial issue at the time the US Constitution was drafted, is written in the Copyright Clause: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Anything beyond that stated purpose is hindering "the Progress of Science and useful Arts." That copyright terms are limited is essential, and should optimize the purpose, not the profit of publishers who go unmentioned.