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Professional artists add both skill in the mechanics of art production and analysis that takes a broad view of art and culture. Can we manage without profession

Professional artists add both skill in the mechanics of art production and analysis that takes a broad view of art and culture. Can we manage without professionals? Sure, but --excepting some edge cases-- we'll miss out on a lot of cultural reflection and on a wealth of artwork. To my personal view, copyright is a good idea at the 7 year/14 year terms originally envisaged. Beyond that it becomes more of a harm to creativity and artistic cultural progression. However, you do need to protect individuals from corporations. If I submit a book to a publisher, they say "no", then they hold it for 14 years and decide to publish it ... I'd still want to be protected. Visual artists, painters say, often become popular later in their career; should commercial interests be able to exploit that lag to sell the person's earlier work without the person getting reward?

parminya 4y ago
I don't think your concerns about 7 or 14 year terms are actually necessary: > However, you do need to protect individuals from corporations. This is generally true, so much so that I think the only relevant action would need to be general, to protect individuals from corporations generally. Creators would benefit from protection regardless of whether the term is changed. > If I submit a book to a publisher, they say "no", then they hold it for 14 years and decide to publish it ... I'd still want to be protected. Presumably a much greater proportion of work would be prepaid (via mechanisms like the built-in ads on youtube videos) or self-published. Although they continue to add value, publishers are much less necessary at the moment than previously (as we can see from independent podcasts). The marketplace and output might be completely different if there are short terms, but it will not lead to a collapse in production or a failure to remunerate artists. In any case, the authors of copyright material are not presently engaged in free and equal relations with corporations. If nothing else, a corporation is generally able to sue you, whereas you're generally not able to sue a corporation. And a corporation will write contracts that regularly get tested in courts and get tweaked and improved, whereas you will rarely write contracts and you will rarely have opportunity to improve them based on problems. > Visual artists, painters say, often become popular later in their career; should commercial interests be able to exploit that lag to sell the person's earlier work without the person getting reward? This doesn't happen because their work obtains some additional quality through the passage of time, as though it were a wine ageing in oak. It happens because of the reputation of the artist; by buying the work, the owner has some kind of a relationship with a well reputed person. If anyone is selling a print, the print that is personally authorised by the artist will have a higher value. Therefore, I would suppose this isn't a problem that needs to be fixed. None of this means that everything would continue just fine. Reducing copyright to a few years would be revolutionary. It would result in actual cultural changes. For instance, right now you can use copyright to create artificial scarcity that lasts essentially forever. With a seven year copyright, the artificial scarcity only lasts a few years, so you need to make the most of it. That means that oldness is free and recency is expensive - a reversal of the current system (where oldness is expensive, because it costs more to get something that last a long time, but recency is cheap)
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > In any case, the authors of copyright material are not presently engaged in free and equal relations with corporations. If nothing else, a corporation is generally able to sue you, whereas you're generally not able to sue a corporation. And a corporation will write contracts that regularly get tested in courts and get tweaked and improved, whereas you will rarely write contracts and you will rarely have opportunity to improve them based on problems. I'm sorry to say this, but this is (from my personal experience as a one man company dealing with corporations) complete and utter baloney. Including suing them. I wrote my own contracts, and lawyers who looked at them later said they were pretty good, though I probably would have been smarter to use the lawyers in the first place. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER that would force you to accept terms from a corporation that YOU DON'T LIKE. Just say "NO". And yes, I have successfully sued a major corporation you've all heard of for cheating me out of 6 figures of royalties. I won't name the company because this was settled long ago. It was so blatant that my lawyer took it on contingency. Ordinary individuals can and do successfully sue major corporations all the time. All you need is a solid case.
TheCoelacanth 4y ago
I believe copyright term typically starts at the first publication, not when the work is created, so a work that was submitted to a publisher but never published would still be protected no matter how long the publisher waited.
- thombat 4y ago
  Copyright applies from creation: an unpublished work is still protected, although proving its origin will likely be easier following publication. The US Copyright Office summarises it as: The law automatically protects a work that is created and fixed in a tangible medium of expression on or after January 1, 1978, from the moment of its creation and gives it a term lasting for the author's life plus an additional 70 years. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
WalterBright 4y ago
> If I submit a book to a publisher, they say "no", then they hold it for 14 years and decide to publish it ... I'd still want to be protected. When I originally licensed my Empire game back in the 80s, I put a clause in the contract that if they didn't put it on the market within so many months, the contract was automatically cancelled and all rights were returned to me. There was also a minimum royalty clause, and a clause against diluting it with bundling. You don't need the government to get involved.

parminya 4y ago

I don't think your concerns about 7 or 14 year terms are actually necessary: > However, you do need to protect individuals from corporations. This is generally true, so much so that I think the only relevant action would need to be general, to protect individuals from corporations generally. Creators would benefit from protection regardless of whether the term is changed. > If I submit a book to a publisher, they say "no", then they hold it for 14 years and decide to publish it ... I'd still want to be protected. Presumably a much greater proportion of work would be prepaid (via mechanisms like the built-in ads on youtube videos) or self-published. Although they continue to add value, publishers are much less necessary at the moment than previously (as we can see from independent podcasts). The marketplace and output might be completely different if there are short terms, but it will not lead to a collapse in production or a failure to remunerate artists. In any case, the authors of copyright material are not presently engaged in free and equal relations with corporations. If nothing else, a corporation is generally able to sue you, whereas you're generally not able to sue a corporation. And a corporation will write contracts that regularly get tested in courts and get tweaked and improved, whereas you will rarely write contracts and you will rarely have opportunity to improve them based on problems. > Visual artists, painters say, often become popular later in their career; should commercial interests be able to exploit that lag to sell the person's earlier work without the person getting reward? This doesn't happen because their work obtains some additional quality through the passage of time, as though it were a wine ageing in oak. It happens because of the reputation of the artist; by buying the work, the owner has some kind of a relationship with a well reputed person. If anyone is selling a print, the print that is personally authorised by the artist will have a higher value. Therefore, I would suppose this isn't a problem that needs to be fixed. None of this means that everything would continue just fine. Reducing copyright to a few years would be revolutionary. It would result in actual cultural changes. For instance, right now you can use copyright to create artificial scarcity that lasts essentially forever. With a seven year copyright, the artificial scarcity only lasts a few years, so you need to make the most of it. That means that oldness is free and recency is expensive - a reversal of the current system (where oldness is expensive, because it costs more to get something that last a long time, but recency is cheap)

WalterBright 4y ago
> In any case, the authors of copyright material are not presently engaged in free and equal relations with corporations. If nothing else, a corporation is generally able to sue you, whereas you're generally not able to sue a corporation. And a corporation will write contracts that regularly get tested in courts and get tweaked and improved, whereas you will rarely write contracts and you will rarely have opportunity to improve them based on problems. I'm sorry to say this, but this is (from my personal experience as a one man company dealing with corporations) complete and utter baloney. Including suing them. I wrote my own contracts, and lawyers who looked at them later said they were pretty good, though I probably would have been smarter to use the lawyers in the first place. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER that would force you to accept terms from a corporation that YOU DON'T LIKE. Just say "NO". And yes, I have successfully sued a major corporation you've all heard of for cheating me out of 6 figures of royalties. I won't name the company because this was settled long ago. It was so blatant that my lawyer took it on contingency. Ordinary individuals can and do successfully sue major corporations all the time. All you need is a solid case.

TheCoelacanth 4y ago

I believe copyright term typically starts at the first publication, not when the work is created, so a work that was submitted to a publisher but never published would still be protected no matter how long the publisher waited.

thombat 4y ago
Copyright applies from creation: an unpublished work is still protected, although proving its origin will likely be easier following publication. The US Copyright Office summarises it as: The law automatically protects a work that is created and fixed in a tangible medium of expression on or after January 1, 1978, from the moment of its creation and gives it a term lasting for the author's life plus an additional 70 years. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf

WalterBright 4y ago

> If I submit a book to a publisher, they say "no", then they hold it for 14 years and decide to publish it ... I'd still want to be protected. When I originally licensed my Empire game back in the 80s, I put a clause in the contract that if they didn't put it on the market within so many months, the contract was automatically cancelled and all rights were returned to me. There was also a minimum royalty clause, and a clause against diluting it with bundling. You don't need the government to get involved.