12 ms·
What’s entering the public domain on January 1
- jkepler 5y agoFor anyone interested in a Christian theologian's ruminations on whether copyright laws are just or actually prevent people from loving their neighbor, see "Copyrights and Copying: Why The Laws Should Be Changed" by Vern Poythress (Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia), https://frame-poythress.org/copyrights-and-copying-why-the-laws-should-be-changed/ https://frame-poythress.org/copyrights-and-copying-why-the-l....
- kragen 5y agoOnly in the US; Pooh was published in the UK, and there, it doesn't enter the public domain for several more years yet, because the UK sentences copyrighted works to life plus 70 years. Christopher Robin died of old age 25 years ago, never ceasing to hate the books, and his daughter (A.A. Milne's last descendant) died nine years ago, but still you can go to jail if you share your copy of the Pooh books with a friend using a computer.
- charcircuit 5y agoHow do you go to jail if there is no one to sue you?
- shakna 5y agoWinnie-the-Pooh hasn't belonged to the Milne estate for a very long time. Most of the rights rest with Disney. The estate has been involved in a multi-decade legal battle to get the books back, so that they could be released to the public domain. Source - I'm a Milne.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kragen 5y agoYou can't go to jail in the US or most countries for a civil case (a civil case is what happens if someone sues you), only a criminal case. Since the No Electronic Theft act, even copyright infringement without profit motives can be criminal copyright infringement, and so for example Aaron Swartz was hounded to suicide by state prosecutors even against the apparent will of the copyright holders. I don't know who owns Milne's copyrights, but given how profitable they are, I am sure they are jealously guarded.
- Spooky23 5y agoThe Swartz case was more about an overzealous US Attorney looking for scalps than copyright. It also highlights the ridiculously broad law at the Federal level that essentially allow US Attorneys to function like medieval inquisitors than prosecutors of a democratic state. Copyright happened to be the pretense.
- vanderZwan 5y agoI would be very surprised if the Disney company wouldn't be protective of their adaptations, at the very least. How would that interact with the book and its illustrations entering the public domain?
- kragen 5y agoIt's going to be interesting. Most of the copyright infringement going on is clearly of Disney's adaptations; so, for example, when a couple sold me a house in 01999 with a Pooh painting on the wall of the children's room, that was probably criminal copyright infringement of Disney's version, because the painting looked nothing like the illustrations in the books. (And I'm sure she didn't get a license from Disney to do her painting.) This legal situation is appalling; it makes a mockery of justice and humanity.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Jon_Lowtek 5y ago
- pjc50 5y agoActually getting jailed for copyright infringement is quite difficult, but getting sued is quite likely: the copyright is now owned by Disney. Like everything else. (Weirdly, the UK has a special law granting permanent copyright in Peter Pan, with the royalties going to Great Ormond Street children's hospital. https://www.gosh.org/about-us/peter-pan/copyright/ https://www.gosh.org/about-us/peter-pan/copyright/ )
- kragen 5y agoHopefully it isn't actually quite likely that you will get sued for copyright infringement just for copying some files onto a USB stick. That would involve the use of something like Apple's dystopian surveillance system being used for copyright enforcement, which I think is still two or three years out.
- lr1970 5y ago> Actually getting jailed for copyright infringement is quite difficult... May be actually getting in jail is difficult but a threat of jail in a criminal copyright infringement persecution can be devastating as the tragedy of Aaron Swartz [0] so vividly illustrates [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz
- pwdisswordfish0 5y agoHuh, this really surprised me, because Winnie The Pooh shipped for free with Apple Books when that came out, and I thought it was precisely because it was so old. So Apple actually licensed it then?
- kragen 5y agoI haven't seen the contract paperwork, but I assume so.
- reedf1 5y agoThis kind of thing is always so exciting, especially for mediums like comic books where classic characters can finally be deconstructed. Also - did anyone else read the title think "Winne-the-Pooh, Ernest Hemingway Classic?!"
- MichaelMoser123 5y agoToday i learned, that there is a latin translation of Winnie the Pooh. https://www.amazon.com/Winnie-Ille-Pu-Latin-Milne/dp/014015339X https://www.amazon.com/Winnie-Ille-Pu-Latin-Milne/dp/0140153... It even became a bestseller, and appeared on the list of New York Times bestsellers. Is it known, if translations of the work need to pay for copyright too?
- chrisseaton 5y agoYes it’s used in lots of schools.
- MichaelMoser123 5y agoFascinating detail. My father used the book to teach me some English as a second language, the book is written in a clear and simple language. I wonder if these qualities have been preserved in the translation.
- shakna 5y agoThe spine on my Latin translation is far too tattered for me to crack open and scan an example page, but, yes. It's very, very simple and easy to read. One of the peculiarities of the translation, that makes it so simple to read, is that it opts to use genderless words where possible. Using words like "illi" instead of "eae" for example.
- WalterBright 5y ago"they contain some subtle humor suitable to both adults and children" I enjoyed them as a child. As an adult, I discovered the sly humor in them, which I like very much. The first season of Spongebob had a lot of sly adult humor mixed in, which I enjoy a lot, too. Later Spongebob seasons seem to have lost it.
- ykevinator2 5y agoCopyright laws have outlived their useful laws. We give 72 years of public funded enforcement for leisure and entertainment but only 17 years for patents. This has overly incentivized leisure and created irrational wealth in exchange for very little work. We worship football players while biochemistry majors with a bachelor's degree struggle to find jobs.
- chrismcb 5y agoNot sure what football players have to do with copyright. But I guess your point is life isn't fair. And people like literature activities. It are you suggesting we should all sit signs watching biochem scientists work?
- unityByFreedom 5y agoLifetime of the author plus some time seems fair to me for copyright. And for patents, that's an exchange, the public sees the details and provides protection for some years. My major gripe is with software patents which are already covered by copyright.
- Archit3ch 5y ago> My major gripe is with software patents which are already covered by copyright. Software patents cover the invention. Software copyright (presumably) cannot cover software that has not been created yet.
- midasuni 5y agoWhy does it seem fair?
- unityByFreedom 5y agoBecause you deserve to be compensated for your work. And maybe there is value in allowing you to sell your work for continued publication and protection against copying. The idea is that copyright encourages quality content. I don't know what the exact duration should be, but lifetime of author as a basis plus some time seems fair to me.
- robin_reala 5y agoKeep an eye on https://standardebooks.org/ebooks https://standardebooks.org/ebooks on January 1st for some upcoming goodies.
- lostmsu 5y agoWinnie is still not available there. Do they track public domain?
- robin_reala 5y agoIt’s there now! https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/a-a-milne/winnie-the-pooh https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/a-a-milne/winnie-the-pooh
- midasuni 5y agoAfter an initial period of a few years 7 or 14 sounded good to the US founding fathers), Copyright holders should declare the value of their copyright, and have to pay an escalating fee based on that value (1% per year for the first 10 years, 2% per year for the next 10 years etc) as a tax. If anyone wants to put the work in the public domain, they simply have to pay the value the company declared. Disney could declare Star Wars is worth $5b, as it’s 40 years old they’d have to pay say $150m a year tax to deny the rights to the public. If they declared it to be worth $50m to save on that tax, then netflix could pay for it to go public domain.
- Gwypaas 5y agoSeems similar to a release or buyout clause often used in sports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyout_clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyout_clause
- samwillis 5y agoInteresting idea, although I want to understand why do this? What is fundamentally wrong with the current system, I honestly want to know? Also, this is a tax on unrealised gains is it not?
- dmitriid 5y ago> What is fundamentally wrong with the current system, I honestly want to know? It effectively locks away cultural heritage for more than a hundred years with no tangible benefit to the society. Disney became Disney because it used works in public domains (Brothers Grimm tales) and expired copyrights (Alice in Wonderland). Current copyright laws effectively blocks anyone from using 20th century works (and some late 19th century works) for ... well, anything, really. Additionally, great swaths of culture are simply lost because of: - the fear of potential copyright violations. This affects a great number of orphan works - copyright holders doing nothing with their properties and others not being able to do anything with them. Can't find it now, but at one point Amazon carried more new books with works from the 19th century, than books with works from the 20th just because of that But even that isn't the main problem. Copyright was intended to protect the author and incentivize them to create other works. I'm eagerly awaiting Tolkien's new works in 2047 (the copyright on The Fellowship of the Ring expires in 2050).
- aasasd 5y agoPooh written by Hemingway would probably feel quite weird.
- Zigurd 5y agoDamn. Bother.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hericium 5y ago
- mountainb 5y agoCopyright was intended to provide a means of support for individual artists, not as a means of guaranteeing profits to super-conglomerate shareholders for a period that nears on a century.
- chrismcb 5y agoNo. Copyright was intended to allow people to create. This might mean support for individual artists. Our it might mean profits for a super conglomerate. In fact, without that super conglomerate some things would never be created.
- mountainb 5y agoArticle 1, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies "authors and inventors," suggesting that natural persons were what the drafters had in mind. Those rights granted to individuals have been inferred to also be the rights of immortal companies over time.
- johnhowardstein 5y ago
- marcodiego 5y agoIANAL, current public domain rules are basically: - author explicitly uses public domain as a license, - 120 after publication, - 120 after registration, - 95 years after publication if it is corporate work or - 75 years after the death of the author; whatever comes first. Most significant arguments I hear defending current copyright status are: - author have the right to make money from what they create, - their children must still get some of it in the case their parents are authors and die early. I still think the time for content to become public is too long. There are old music recordings from the 50's and 60's which nobody is making any significant money out of it and you simply can't copy to anybody. The same applies to a lot of games from the 90's and the 80's. I think that it would be much more fair if copyright holders had to prove they are still making money out of a published work. If very little money is being made, this means nobody is paying for it or the copyright holder can't sell it well. In this case, the content should be declared abandoned and free to be copied unless the copyright holder demonstrates that money can be made with the content. Reason: abandonware sites are on the fringe of legality, GOG was able to contact a few producers but that is not an easy or even possible task for everything. There are also music from early 1930's to 1960's for which it is not easy to even know who are the copyright holders and you fall on the fringe of legality if you distribute sheet music of it. Also, there are other kinds of works: books, films, cartoons...