5 ms·

The way to really enforce this is to reduce the copyright protection period from essentially forever (thanks to Disney) to being more like patents, ~20 years.

tptacek 4y ago
That's less than half the copyright term we had before Disney even existed.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  Sounds good to me!
- benj111 4y ago
  And....?
  - tptacek 4y ago
    And at the very least you can factor Disney out of your argument if you think copyright terms should be less than half of what they were in 1909.
    - benj111 4y ago
      I don't think they were. They were blaming Disney for ever increasing copyright terms. Then suggested their own copyright term. Just because the copyright wasn't (someone's idea of) perfect prior to Disney, doesn't absolve Disney of responsibly when they start shifting the term in entirely the wrong way.
- Jochim 4y ago
  20 years is still roughly a third of someone's working life. I'm not sure what the argument is for longer, even 20 years seems too long personally.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Again with this lifespan stuff. The term of copyright determines much of the value of the work, the very moment is put on the market by the author. The extra value realized by a term of 70 years versus 56 (the 1909 number) is, in significant part, realized during the author's lifetime. It gives them something more valuable to sell. There are other reasons to argue the term should be shorter, or that creators should be granted a less valuable right for their works. But "the current term doesn't track the lifespan of the author well" seems facially nonsensical. I mean, just to start with, there's the difference between John le Carre, whose last book (before he died) was published when he was 88 years old, and someone like Christopher Paolini, the Guiness record holder as youngest author of a bestseller. How does lifespan even make sense here?
    - Jochim 4y ago
      I made no suggestion of a term that ended on the author's death in my previous post. I was simply pointing out that even a span of 20 years is a significant proportion of the period we expect someone to be a productive member of society. I believe it reasonable to require that someone competes with others at least three times in their working life. Although, now that you've brought it up, 10 years with expiry on death of the author sounds fantastic. Authors are incentivised to create new works and companies are incentivised to purchase them. A balance must be struck between rewarding individuals for their work and preventing corporations from monopolising cultural touchstones. I feel like you're overestimating the financial longevity of the overwhelming majority of works. Most are forgotten about a few years after their release. The ones that aren't will typically have made more than enough money for the author to live lavishly for the rest of their life. > The extra value realized by a term of 70 years versus 56 (the 1909 number) is, in significant part, realized during the author's lifetime. It gives them something more valuable to sell. I sincerely doubt that for the vast majority of works publishers are signing contracts based on anything other than how much they think it'll sell in the first year at most. Given that authors struggle to be paid at all unless they've already found massive commercial success, it seems obvious that the only party benefiting from longer copyright terms is the company. There seems to be a belief that the expiry of the copyright period precludes the author from monetising the work further, whereas it simply means they will begin to compete with others for that monetisation. With a 10+ year head start and humans typically preferring to reward the original creator they should do okay for themselves. Our current intellectual property regime is fundamentally opposed to how human culture has developed and progressed. It's difficult to imagine how barren a world we'd live in if our predecessors had sought to limit any retelling of a story that wasn't approved by the original author. It's a condemnation of our society that the retelling of many of these stories has been criminalised by a company that found much of it's success in retelling the very same.
benj111 4y ago
Why even 20 though? Over what period of time do new works make most of their money? Over what period are production companies their payback over when deciding whether to invest in new works? I would suggest 5 years more than covers the above. To me the point of copyright, and the only way you can defend a state sponsored monopoly is to encourage creation of new works. If 5 years does that, any more just prevents derivative works, which are new creations in their own right. I'll grant that perpetual copyright is at least logically sound, but once you move away from that I don't see how you can make an argument for anything more than a minimal (enough to encourage creation) copyright term.
- tptacek 4y ago
  The most streamed TV IP on the whole Internet is The Office, whose first episode was shot 18 years ago. Seinfeld is closer to 35 years old. Houses of the Holy is 50 years old. So is Innervisions. There's A Riot Goin' On? 52. If you're trying to argue that success at the scale of Zeppelin or Seinfeld isn't somehow an incentive to creation, I mean, OK, but I guess I can rest my case, too.
  - benj111 4y ago
    Define 'success'? Financial or something else? Yes people do want their work appreciated. I dispute the fact that anyone makes something today based on the financial worth of it 70 years down the road. Pointing out examples that just so happen to have lasted a long time doesn't mean they made it with that expectation. Further if that is provably the case, you still have to answer why they have a right to a state sponsored monopoly. And after all that my second suggestion is to have an annual increasing fee. So that only things that the owners are willing to actually make use of and pay to maintain stay copyrighted. That would seem to answer your objection
- cool_dude85 4y ago
  The classic answer to ultra-short copyright terms, and one that I think has some legitimacy, is that short really decreases the cost of just waiting you out. Let's say you write something brilliant, the next Harry Potter in financial terms. You shop it around but none of the big publishers will touch it, of course they're all owned by 2 or 3 companies. You self publish and it sells a couple hundred copies; 5 years later, bang, a major Hollywood blockbuster and media blitz. No need to pay you a cent.
rekabis 4y ago
Why any copyright at all? Humanity did perfectly well building modern civilization without it; it’s only been within the last couple hundred years that we have had copyright to any degree, much less it’s innovation-stifling modern format. http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...
- tptacek 4y ago
  I don't think you'd be able to support with evidence the argument that copyright has stifled innovation, given that the "modern format" of copyright tracks an extraordinarily innovative period.
  - benj111 4y ago
    Even you aren't identifying cause and effect though. Copyright postdates the printing press. Is it copyright or the printing press that led to the explosion in books? Then if you look at technology like the internet, there's plenty of people creating things, not for monetary reward, but because they enjoy it. Not that I'm necessarily on the same /page/ as the parent. I would defend copyright as a tool to enable new works to be created and allow creators to make a living, and ultimately get works into the public domain. As such I would limit copyright to a much shorter period.
- Spivak 4y ago
  So I don’t know if there’s any good answers to this but in a world without any copyright today you would have some $tech_giant scooping all copyrighted content in real time and streaming it for pennies. There would be no avenue at all for someone to make money on the actual content. It would all have to be side-channels like merch and product placements. Distributors would make money on ads and subscription dollars but none of it would get back to the creators. Musicians at least have live performances but the spiritual equivalent, theaters, are no different than the streaming service and wouldn’t pay either. Nobody would have to license art for prints, shirts, use by other businesses. Copyright sucks in so many ways but replacing it with nothing at all would actually kill creative industries. My personal ideal solution is copyright with fair (as to be determined by courts so you can’t charge $1e100) mandatory licensing. Wanna make a derivative work, use someone’s art, show a movie, have a show on your streaming service? As long as you pay the royalties nobody can tell you no.

tptacek 4y ago

That's less than half the copyright term we had before Disney even existed.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago
Sounds good to me!
benj111 4y ago
And....?
- tptacek 4y ago
  And at the very least you can factor Disney out of your argument if you think copyright terms should be less than half of what they were in 1909.
  - benj111 4y ago
    I don't think they were. They were blaming Disney for ever increasing copyright terms. Then suggested their own copyright term. Just because the copyright wasn't (someone's idea of) perfect prior to Disney, doesn't absolve Disney of responsibly when they start shifting the term in entirely the wrong way.
Jochim 4y ago
20 years is still roughly a third of someone's working life. I'm not sure what the argument is for longer, even 20 years seems too long personally.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Again with this lifespan stuff. The term of copyright determines much of the value of the work, the very moment is put on the market by the author. The extra value realized by a term of 70 years versus 56 (the 1909 number) is, in significant part, realized during the author's lifetime. It gives them something more valuable to sell. There are other reasons to argue the term should be shorter, or that creators should be granted a less valuable right for their works. But "the current term doesn't track the lifespan of the author well" seems facially nonsensical. I mean, just to start with, there's the difference between John le Carre, whose last book (before he died) was published when he was 88 years old, and someone like Christopher Paolini, the Guiness record holder as youngest author of a bestseller. How does lifespan even make sense here?
  - Jochim 4y ago
    I made no suggestion of a term that ended on the author's death in my previous post. I was simply pointing out that even a span of 20 years is a significant proportion of the period we expect someone to be a productive member of society. I believe it reasonable to require that someone competes with others at least three times in their working life. Although, now that you've brought it up, 10 years with expiry on death of the author sounds fantastic. Authors are incentivised to create new works and companies are incentivised to purchase them. A balance must be struck between rewarding individuals for their work and preventing corporations from monopolising cultural touchstones. I feel like you're overestimating the financial longevity of the overwhelming majority of works. Most are forgotten about a few years after their release. The ones that aren't will typically have made more than enough money for the author to live lavishly for the rest of their life. > The extra value realized by a term of 70 years versus 56 (the 1909 number) is, in significant part, realized during the author's lifetime. It gives them something more valuable to sell. I sincerely doubt that for the vast majority of works publishers are signing contracts based on anything other than how much they think it'll sell in the first year at most. Given that authors struggle to be paid at all unless they've already found massive commercial success, it seems obvious that the only party benefiting from longer copyright terms is the company. There seems to be a belief that the expiry of the copyright period precludes the author from monetising the work further, whereas it simply means they will begin to compete with others for that monetisation. With a 10+ year head start and humans typically preferring to reward the original creator they should do okay for themselves. Our current intellectual property regime is fundamentally opposed to how human culture has developed and progressed. It's difficult to imagine how barren a world we'd live in if our predecessors had sought to limit any retelling of a story that wasn't approved by the original author. It's a condemnation of our society that the retelling of many of these stories has been criminalised by a company that found much of it's success in retelling the very same.

benj111 4y ago

Why even 20 though? Over what period of time do new works make most of their money? Over what period are production companies their payback over when deciding whether to invest in new works? I would suggest 5 years more than covers the above. To me the point of copyright, and the only way you can defend a state sponsored monopoly is to encourage creation of new works. If 5 years does that, any more just prevents derivative works, which are new creations in their own right. I'll grant that perpetual copyright is at least logically sound, but once you move away from that I don't see how you can make an argument for anything more than a minimal (enough to encourage creation) copyright term.

tptacek 4y ago
The most streamed TV IP on the whole Internet is The Office, whose first episode was shot 18 years ago. Seinfeld is closer to 35 years old. Houses of the Holy is 50 years old. So is Innervisions. There's A Riot Goin' On? 52. If you're trying to argue that success at the scale of Zeppelin or Seinfeld isn't somehow an incentive to creation, I mean, OK, but I guess I can rest my case, too.
- benj111 4y ago
  Define 'success'? Financial or something else? Yes people do want their work appreciated. I dispute the fact that anyone makes something today based on the financial worth of it 70 years down the road. Pointing out examples that just so happen to have lasted a long time doesn't mean they made it with that expectation. Further if that is provably the case, you still have to answer why they have a right to a state sponsored monopoly. And after all that my second suggestion is to have an annual increasing fee. So that only things that the owners are willing to actually make use of and pay to maintain stay copyrighted. That would seem to answer your objection
cool_dude85 4y ago
The classic answer to ultra-short copyright terms, and one that I think has some legitimacy, is that short really decreases the cost of just waiting you out. Let's say you write something brilliant, the next Harry Potter in financial terms. You shop it around but none of the big publishers will touch it, of course they're all owned by 2 or 3 companies. You self publish and it sells a couple hundred copies; 5 years later, bang, a major Hollywood blockbuster and media blitz. No need to pay you a cent.

rekabis 4y ago

Why any copyright at all? Humanity did perfectly well building modern civilization without it; it’s only been within the last couple hundred years that we have had copyright to any degree, much less it’s innovation-stifling modern format. http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.ht...

tptacek 4y ago
I don't think you'd be able to support with evidence the argument that copyright has stifled innovation, given that the "modern format" of copyright tracks an extraordinarily innovative period.
- benj111 4y ago
  Even you aren't identifying cause and effect though. Copyright postdates the printing press. Is it copyright or the printing press that led to the explosion in books? Then if you look at technology like the internet, there's plenty of people creating things, not for monetary reward, but because they enjoy it. Not that I'm necessarily on the same /page/ as the parent. I would defend copyright as a tool to enable new works to be created and allow creators to make a living, and ultimately get works into the public domain. As such I would limit copyright to a much shorter period.
Spivak 4y ago
So I don’t know if there’s any good answers to this but in a world without any copyright today you would have some $tech_giant scooping all copyrighted content in real time and streaming it for pennies. There would be no avenue at all for someone to make money on the actual content. It would all have to be side-channels like merch and product placements. Distributors would make money on ads and subscription dollars but none of it would get back to the creators. Musicians at least have live performances but the spiritual equivalent, theaters, are no different than the streaming service and wouldn’t pay either. Nobody would have to license art for prints, shirts, use by other businesses. Copyright sucks in so many ways but replacing it with nothing at all would actually kill creative industries. My personal ideal solution is copyright with fair (as to be determined by courts so you can’t charge $1e100) mandatory licensing. Wanna make a derivative work, use someone’s art, show a movie, have a show on your streaming service? As long as you pay the royalties nobody can tell you no.