4 ms·

This logic works, as far as it goes. But it also suggests that there is a large body of work not worth publishing or otherwise capitalizing on that is trapped

This logic works, as far as it goes. But it also suggests that there is a large body of work not worth publishing or otherwise capitalizing on that is trapped under IP protections. This a cost to society that is completely unaccounted for in the math folks tend to present when arguing for increased terms. There is a paper[0] that documents this effect to some degree, and it's overall high quality enough that I find the data presented and the reasoning behind it convincing. From their summary: > First, a random sample of more than 2000 new books for sale on Amazon.com is analyzed along with a random sample of almost 2000 songs available on new DVD’s. Copyright status correlates highly with absence from the Amazon shelf. Together with publishing business models, copyright law seems to deter distribution and diminish access. I think identifying and accounting for difficult-to-measure societal costs is key in pushing back on further copyright extensions. [0]: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/How_Copyright_Keeps_Works_Disappeared_-_Paul_Heald.pdf https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/How_Copyright_Keeps_Works...

tptacek 5y ago
I don't support extensions to copyright and am open to supporting cutbacks to terms. The problem I have is with the logic that gets tossed around in these threads, like the idea that there's no point to maintaining copyright after the death of an author (as if the author was the one extracting value from the work in the first place, or that extraction had nothing to do with the compensation the author received), or that copyright is only meaningful to a few breakout hits (as if those hits and the hunt for more of them didn't subsidize all the rest of the authors). There's a real Chesterton's Fence thing happening in these discussions.
- rpdillon 5y ago
  Your point about authors being compensated now for expected income from their works after their death is interesting. You allude to it above, but downthread, you also mention: > If value can only be extracted while the author draws breath, the market provides much less reward --- for the author, in this lifetime. I'm completely unaware of this practice! From the reading I've done about how authors get paid (typically for books), authors are paid royalties on sales. Sometimes they get an advance while the book is being written. Magazine/news writing is mostly contract work, unless the writer is employed by the publication, in which case they assign copyright with some author's rights to republish (sometimes). The model you're suggesting is much more like the stock market: the current stock price is a function of the expected earnings in the future. If I'm following you correctly, you're suggesting that a substantial portion of authors have contracts structured so that they will be paid now for earnings that are predicted to occur, potentially decades in the future. I tried to validate this by reading Author's Guild articles, Cory Doctorow's descriptions of how he sees the industry, and a few other sites that I'm less familiar with, but I wasn't able to. Is Neal Stephenson being paid for copies of Cryptonomicon that haven't yet been sold? If so, I'm astonished. Perhaps you're referring to large advances for well-established authors? That could certainly qualify, but I suspect it only applies to a few authors. I'm a copyright term minimalist, because when I read through how writers are getting paid (median annual income 2017: $6k, down 42% from 2009)[0], I don't see a problem with the terms of copyright. I see a problem with exposure (Tim O'Reilly's famous "you can't monetize obscurity"), I see a problem with market dominance by Amazon, and I see a problem with publishing houses cutting bad deals to many writers: > ...the Guild cited the growing dominance of Amazon over the marketplace, lower royalties and advances for mid-list books (which publishers report comes from losses they are forced to pass on), including the extremely low royalties paid on the increasing number of deeply discounted sales and the 25 percent of net ebook royalty. The blockbuster mentality of publishers who grant celebrity writers massive advances and markets them wildly at the expense of the working writers is also certainly a factor. In fact, copyright is never even mentioned as an issue. It would be a real coincidence of the Disney-fueled Mickey Mouse copyright extensions got it exactly right; I suspect 14/28 years was much closer to the optimal value. But perhaps I'm wrong! I'm very interested in this particular fence, why it was built this way, and how it can be made better. [0]: https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild-survey-shows-drastic-42-percent-decline-in-authors-earnings-in-last-decade/ https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild...
  - tzs 5y ago
    > It would be a real coincidence of the Disney-fueled Mickey Mouse copyright extensions got it exactly right. There have only been two copyright term extensions in the US that have affected Mickey Mouse, and only one of them could even remotely be called "Disney-fueled". The Copyright Act of 1976 changed the term from two 28-year term to one 75 year term. The Copyright Extension Act of 1988 added 20 years to that. The second one is that one that might be called "Disney-fueled". The 1976 Act was probably supported by Disney but that didn't matter. It had widespread support and very little opposition. This was because it was widely believed that the 1909 Act was very outdated and needed a major overhaul, and that as part of that overhaul the US should align itself better with how copyright worked in most of the rest of the world. The term changes were part of this effort to align with the rest of the world and pave the way for the US to join the Berne Convention.

tptacek 5y ago

I don't support extensions to copyright and am open to supporting cutbacks to terms. The problem I have is with the logic that gets tossed around in these threads, like the idea that there's no point to maintaining copyright after the death of an author (as if the author was the one extracting value from the work in the first place, or that extraction had nothing to do with the compensation the author received), or that copyright is only meaningful to a few breakout hits (as if those hits and the hunt for more of them didn't subsidize all the rest of the authors). There's a real Chesterton's Fence thing happening in these discussions.

rpdillon 5y ago
Your point about authors being compensated now for expected income from their works after their death is interesting. You allude to it above, but downthread, you also mention: > If value can only be extracted while the author draws breath, the market provides much less reward --- for the author, in this lifetime. I'm completely unaware of this practice! From the reading I've done about how authors get paid (typically for books), authors are paid royalties on sales. Sometimes they get an advance while the book is being written. Magazine/news writing is mostly contract work, unless the writer is employed by the publication, in which case they assign copyright with some author's rights to republish (sometimes). The model you're suggesting is much more like the stock market: the current stock price is a function of the expected earnings in the future. If I'm following you correctly, you're suggesting that a substantial portion of authors have contracts structured so that they will be paid now for earnings that are predicted to occur, potentially decades in the future. I tried to validate this by reading Author's Guild articles, Cory Doctorow's descriptions of how he sees the industry, and a few other sites that I'm less familiar with, but I wasn't able to. Is Neal Stephenson being paid for copies of Cryptonomicon that haven't yet been sold? If so, I'm astonished. Perhaps you're referring to large advances for well-established authors? That could certainly qualify, but I suspect it only applies to a few authors. I'm a copyright term minimalist, because when I read through how writers are getting paid (median annual income 2017: $6k, down 42% from 2009)[0], I don't see a problem with the terms of copyright. I see a problem with exposure (Tim O'Reilly's famous "you can't monetize obscurity"), I see a problem with market dominance by Amazon, and I see a problem with publishing houses cutting bad deals to many writers: > ...the Guild cited the growing dominance of Amazon over the marketplace, lower royalties and advances for mid-list books (which publishers report comes from losses they are forced to pass on), including the extremely low royalties paid on the increasing number of deeply discounted sales and the 25 percent of net ebook royalty. The blockbuster mentality of publishers who grant celebrity writers massive advances and markets them wildly at the expense of the working writers is also certainly a factor. In fact, copyright is never even mentioned as an issue. It would be a real coincidence of the Disney-fueled Mickey Mouse copyright extensions got it exactly right; I suspect 14/28 years was much closer to the optimal value. But perhaps I'm wrong! I'm very interested in this particular fence, why it was built this way, and how it can be made better. [0]: https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild-survey-shows-drastic-42-percent-decline-in-authors-earnings-in-last-decade/ https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/authors-guild...
- tzs 5y ago
  > It would be a real coincidence of the Disney-fueled Mickey Mouse copyright extensions got it exactly right. There have only been two copyright term extensions in the US that have affected Mickey Mouse, and only one of them could even remotely be called "Disney-fueled". The Copyright Act of 1976 changed the term from two 28-year term to one 75 year term. The Copyright Extension Act of 1988 added 20 years to that. The second one is that one that might be called "Disney-fueled". The 1976 Act was probably supported by Disney but that didn't matter. It had widespread support and very little opposition. This was because it was widely believed that the 1909 Act was very outdated and needed a major overhaul, and that as part of that overhaul the US should align itself better with how copyright worked in most of the rest of the world. The term changes were part of this effort to align with the rest of the world and pave the way for the US to join the Berne Convention.