4 ms·

It would be so nice if copyright was 10 or 20 years and this was unquestionably legal.

by kevincox 4y ago

tommek4077 4y ago
Good that not everybody in the internet lives and hosts in the US.
- imhoguy 4y ago
  What is the friendliest place for pirate archivists now?
  - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
    Currently, probably Russia given that they've more or less pulled IP protection for non-Russian works. Well, as long as works on certain "sensitive" topics are avoided.
- account42 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention It's not just the US unfortunately.
hilbert42 4y ago
"...copyright was 10 or 20 years" Nice thought but unlikely give the copyright bloodhounds about. A better short-term approach would be to change copyright to make access to orphan and neglected works legal so long as one has no pecuniary interest in them. This would free up huge swathes of copyrighted works. Whilst that makes sense, it is opposed by new/existing copyright holders who see the freeing up of these works as competition—even if the orphaned works bear little resemblance to the new works (which is usually the case)—on the grounds that making these works available 'dilutes' the market for newer works (a spurious argument if ever I've heard of one). Another objection comes from a mob of carpetbaggers who want access to them for commercial purposes, that is if said works ever become available (all sorts of strange arrangements have been proposed). Thus the stalemate continues, nothing is done. No wonder piracy exists. BTW a while back I posted a link on YouTube to a 1920s audio recording whose author died about 80 years ago only to get a note from Google that someone still claimed copyright over the work. Seems this lark is done automatically by the mischievous copyright lobby even if there is no such claim by the original author. Incidentally, Google didn't remove the work (presumably on grounds that they were already aware of the 'scam' but were obliged to advise me anyway in case I objected). Right, the copyright system stinks as presently constituted.
- kevincox 4y ago
  I understand that getting copyright away from the current forever will be difficult, but it would be a shame if we ended up with a complicated system like that where you needed lawyers to argue that something was abandoned. The nice thing about a fixed cutoff from creation, even if it is quite long, is that it is fairly easy to know what is no longer protected because you just need to track how long it has existed.
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    Orphan works are reasonably easy to determine, they're usually many decades old and have had no royalties paid through the normal/usual channels for years—and they couldn't be paid anyway as the contact has long since been lost (address unknown). Just to be sure, schemes to protect owners exist and could be implemented. For example, all works in this category would appear in published lists with say a year's grace—if the copyright owner turns up within the grace period with proof of ownership then the work remains in copyright. There's another type material that we do not normally think of as being in copyright but in fact is. That's things like circuit diagrams, blueprints, plans, etc. from, say, obsolete equipment where the company has long gone bankrupt. Often there was no payment made for this info in the first instance as it came with the equipment (as manuals etc.). Denying it now on a copyright 'technicality' stops maintenance industries, hobbyists etc. from building repair infrastructures and such.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I dunno, some people's works are only discovered or are rediscovered years later - think Kate Bush and Metallica's recent surge in popularity due to the Stranger Things TV show. Or book authors whose work is picked up decades later as source material for a film or TV show - the first Game of Thrones book is from 1996, yet the TV show earned and is earning the channel (and the author, I presume) millions.
- kevincox 4y ago
  Copyright is about encouraging creation. I don't think that many people will not create because they are worried that they may not get discovered until after their copyright protection expires. In fact in cases like this the expiry of copyright may increase their visibility which may make this re-discovery more likely. Then they will be able to produce more with their newfound audience and profit off of that. > Or book authors whose work is picked up decades later This is an interesting one. I think this rings close to the "dilution" argument. Where movie studios will be more likely to wait until copyright expires than pay the author. I think this is a legitimate concern but I don't know how big of a deal it is. There are already many public domain works but studios still choose new stories where they need to pay the other. Obviously shorter copyright periods will shift this equation but IDK how much. Likely it makes sense to move slowly here, start at a high number like 80 years and slowly reduce it to see if this becomes a huge problem.
- dmonitor 4y ago
  Because Metallica clearly hasn't made enough money by now. They're practically starving artists
CPLX 4y ago
Not really. I think if a young musician or author creates an incredible work at 18 that touches the lives of millions they should be able to own and sell that work at the ages of 28 and 38 when they are trying to make a living and raise a family. As a society we do this policy selfishly, because we’d like people to be encouraged and incentivized to create original works that touch peoples lives.
- kevincox 4y ago
  If you touched the lives of millions at 18 you probably already made significant profit. Not only that but you can likely publish more work and all of these people will be happy to pay for it. I agree that the purpose of copyright should be to encourage production of work and culture. I don't think encouraging people to coast on one great artwork for their entire lives does that. At this point you are extracting value from society without adding anything new back. Of course this starts interacting with other policy decisions in interesting ways. I don't think you should struggle to live because you don't want to become a slave to making more, I think you could pair this with some sort of Universal Basic Income so that you will be assured basic comforts no matter what. However you are still encouraged to work more if you want more luxuries.
  - CPLX 4y ago
    It's incredibly common for creative careers to only catch fire after years of slogging away. What if you created the work at 18 but only after 15 years did anyone notice it? No dice? We'd prefer that all the profits from people reading on their kindles should go Amazon and some publishing service that aggregates out of copyright works instead of the guy who wrote it? We're better off as a society if the returns to the massive part of the Spotify library that is over 10 years old, that enriches the lives of hundreds of millions of people every day, just goes to Daniel Ek instead? This is better?
    - kevincox 4y ago
      Spotify would have to compete with other websites that can share these works so the price would be driven down so they won't be profiting much if any more. Instead people would have easier access to all of the works created years before.

It would be so nice if copyright was 10 or 20 years and this was unquestionably legal.

tommek4077 4y ago

Good that not everybody in the internet lives and hosts in the US.

imhoguy 4y ago
What is the friendliest place for pirate archivists now?
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  Currently, probably Russia given that they've more or less pulled IP protection for non-Russian works. Well, as long as works on certain "sensitive" topics are avoided.
account42 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention It's not just the US unfortunately.

hilbert42 4y ago

"...copyright was 10 or 20 years" Nice thought but unlikely give the copyright bloodhounds about. A better short-term approach would be to change copyright to make access to orphan and neglected works legal so long as one has no pecuniary interest in them. This would free up huge swathes of copyrighted works. Whilst that makes sense, it is opposed by new/existing copyright holders who see the freeing up of these works as competition—even if the orphaned works bear little resemblance to the new works (which is usually the case)—on the grounds that making these works available 'dilutes' the market for newer works (a spurious argument if ever I've heard of one). Another objection comes from a mob of carpetbaggers who want access to them for commercial purposes, that is if said works ever become available (all sorts of strange arrangements have been proposed). Thus the stalemate continues, nothing is done. No wonder piracy exists. BTW a while back I posted a link on YouTube to a 1920s audio recording whose author died about 80 years ago only to get a note from Google that someone still claimed copyright over the work. Seems this lark is done automatically by the mischievous copyright lobby even if there is no such claim by the original author. Incidentally, Google didn't remove the work (presumably on grounds that they were already aware of the 'scam' but were obliged to advise me anyway in case I objected). Right, the copyright system stinks as presently constituted.

kevincox 4y ago
I understand that getting copyright away from the current forever will be difficult, but it would be a shame if we ended up with a complicated system like that where you needed lawyers to argue that something was abandoned. The nice thing about a fixed cutoff from creation, even if it is quite long, is that it is fairly easy to know what is no longer protected because you just need to track how long it has existed.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  Orphan works are reasonably easy to determine, they're usually many decades old and have had no royalties paid through the normal/usual channels for years—and they couldn't be paid anyway as the contact has long since been lost (address unknown). Just to be sure, schemes to protect owners exist and could be implemented. For example, all works in this category would appear in published lists with say a year's grace—if the copyright owner turns up within the grace period with proof of ownership then the work remains in copyright. There's another type material that we do not normally think of as being in copyright but in fact is. That's things like circuit diagrams, blueprints, plans, etc. from, say, obsolete equipment where the company has long gone bankrupt. Often there was no payment made for this info in the first instance as it came with the equipment (as manuals etc.). Denying it now on a copyright 'technicality' stops maintenance industries, hobbyists etc. from building repair infrastructures and such.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

I dunno, some people's works are only discovered or are rediscovered years later - think Kate Bush and Metallica's recent surge in popularity due to the Stranger Things TV show. Or book authors whose work is picked up decades later as source material for a film or TV show - the first Game of Thrones book is from 1996, yet the TV show earned and is earning the channel (and the author, I presume) millions.

kevincox 4y ago
Copyright is about encouraging creation. I don't think that many people will not create because they are worried that they may not get discovered until after their copyright protection expires. In fact in cases like this the expiry of copyright may increase their visibility which may make this re-discovery more likely. Then they will be able to produce more with their newfound audience and profit off of that. > Or book authors whose work is picked up decades later This is an interesting one. I think this rings close to the "dilution" argument. Where movie studios will be more likely to wait until copyright expires than pay the author. I think this is a legitimate concern but I don't know how big of a deal it is. There are already many public domain works but studios still choose new stories where they need to pay the other. Obviously shorter copyright periods will shift this equation but IDK how much. Likely it makes sense to move slowly here, start at a high number like 80 years and slowly reduce it to see if this becomes a huge problem.
dmonitor 4y ago
Because Metallica clearly hasn't made enough money by now. They're practically starving artists

CPLX 4y ago

Not really. I think if a young musician or author creates an incredible work at 18 that touches the lives of millions they should be able to own and sell that work at the ages of 28 and 38 when they are trying to make a living and raise a family. As a society we do this policy selfishly, because we’d like people to be encouraged and incentivized to create original works that touch peoples lives.

kevincox 4y ago
If you touched the lives of millions at 18 you probably already made significant profit. Not only that but you can likely publish more work and all of these people will be happy to pay for it. I agree that the purpose of copyright should be to encourage production of work and culture. I don't think encouraging people to coast on one great artwork for their entire lives does that. At this point you are extracting value from society without adding anything new back. Of course this starts interacting with other policy decisions in interesting ways. I don't think you should struggle to live because you don't want to become a slave to making more, I think you could pair this with some sort of Universal Basic Income so that you will be assured basic comforts no matter what. However you are still encouraged to work more if you want more luxuries.
- CPLX 4y ago
  It's incredibly common for creative careers to only catch fire after years of slogging away. What if you created the work at 18 but only after 15 years did anyone notice it? No dice? We'd prefer that all the profits from people reading on their kindles should go Amazon and some publishing service that aggregates out of copyright works instead of the guy who wrote it? We're better off as a society if the returns to the massive part of the Spotify library that is over 10 years old, that enriches the lives of hundreds of millions of people every day, just goes to Daniel Ek instead? This is better?
  - kevincox 4y ago
    Spotify would have to compete with other websites that can share these works so the price would be driven down so they won't be profiting much if any more. Instead people would have easier access to all of the works created years before.