6 ms·

Dead people are not known for their appetite, yet copyright lasts 70 years after death. It's particularly egregious when copyright to some of the most popular

by mopsi 4y ago

Dead people are not known for their appetite, yet copyright lasts 70 years after death. It's particularly egregious when copyright to some of the most popular works of all time is inherited by people who had nothing to do with the author in his/her lifetime or had not even been born then: > The composer died unmarried and childless in 1937. His heir was his brother Edouard, who died in 1960, leaving the rights to his former masseuse, Jeanne Taverne, who died four years later. A tangled legal battle in following years saw the rights divided between a number of claimants, including Ms Taverne’s husband’s second wife Georgette. -- https://archive.ph/NOLb7 https://archive.ph/NOLb7

tptacek 4y ago
I've never been able to understand how this is even a colorable argument, and yet it comes up all the time. Yes: the term of copyright lasts long after the death of the artist. But it's that term that gives value to the work in the first place; it's what enables artists to sell their work to distributors.
- mopsi 4y ago
  It doesn't, because nobody knows what works have commercial value 70+ years into the future and thus current business is not conducted on that basis. That's how many popular works end up in random hands in the first place, like in the case of Ravel - they aren't seen as particularly valuable at the time, but become sleeper hits when they earn a special nostalgia or new technologies emerge (television, internet, etc). Good luck selling a movie to Warner Bros on the premise that it'll be a real money-maker in 2090s on telekinesis-vision platform.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    This argument requires me to believe that Warner Bros would see no difference in value between a property that becomes public the moment the author dies and a property that has 70 years of exclusivity after that point. Obviously, the difference in value between those two properties is immense, and that value is realized during the author's lifetime.
    - mopsi 4y ago
      Only the first few years after publication matter, because that's when virtually all of lifetime revenue is earned. Revenue earned beyond that is usually not enough to even justify proper preservation, leaving huge archives to rot away.
  - greysphere 4y ago
    I can make you a list. Cinderella, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Superman, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, Game of Thrones... You could sell WB the 2090 rights to any one of these, except the ones that are going into the public domain (and those they already own of course). Look at that, the system is 'working'.
- benj111 4y ago
  Do you buy anything based on what it may be worth 70 years after your death? Do you think any company thinks that long term? 1 year probably. 5 years pushing it. 10 years is basically off any reasonable financial projection any company is going to make.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Yes, clearly they all do. Media companies don't push for extended copyright terms just to spite you. They have easier ways of spiting you than that.
    - wahern 4y ago
      They push for extended copyrights because of a very small number of valuable assets that are nearing expiration, not because they care about increasing the value of content being churned out anew. A prospective term extension's marginal increase in the future present value (FPV) of new works is a rounding error at this point. Now, for those small number of extremely popular works, an extension does ensure continued investment, at least in the same manner of previous investments. But that has to be weighed against the unfathomable amounts of other content that will continue to rot. Defenses of patents and copyrights always discuss the theory--how in theory they promote investment. They rarely if ever discuss the empirically proven results. "Against Intellectual Monopoly" does explore the empirically proven results, though they do so more persuasively for patents than with copyrights, if only because there's much more data with patents, and the argument against copyrights is strongest as it concerns reducing terms, not eliminating copyright altogether, IMO. (Also, in their accounting the evidence does justify pharmaceutical drug patents as necessary for recouping costs to overcome other extreme regulatory burdens.)
      - tptacek 4y ago
        The marginal value of any random piece of content is a rounding error. It's a hitmaker business; the winners pay for the enormous number of losers.
        4y ago

by mopsi 4y ago

tptacek 4y ago

I've never been able to understand how this is even a colorable argument, and yet it comes up all the time. Yes: the term of copyright lasts long after the death of the artist. But it's that term that gives value to the work in the first place; it's what enables artists to sell their work to distributors.

mopsi 4y ago
It doesn't, because nobody knows what works have commercial value 70+ years into the future and thus current business is not conducted on that basis. That's how many popular works end up in random hands in the first place, like in the case of Ravel - they aren't seen as particularly valuable at the time, but become sleeper hits when they earn a special nostalgia or new technologies emerge (television, internet, etc). Good luck selling a movie to Warner Bros on the premise that it'll be a real money-maker in 2090s on telekinesis-vision platform.
- tptacek 4y ago
  This argument requires me to believe that Warner Bros would see no difference in value between a property that becomes public the moment the author dies and a property that has 70 years of exclusivity after that point. Obviously, the difference in value between those two properties is immense, and that value is realized during the author's lifetime.
  - mopsi 4y ago
    Only the first few years after publication matter, because that's when virtually all of lifetime revenue is earned. Revenue earned beyond that is usually not enough to even justify proper preservation, leaving huge archives to rot away.
- greysphere 4y ago
  I can make you a list. Cinderella, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Superman, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, Game of Thrones... You could sell WB the 2090 rights to any one of these, except the ones that are going into the public domain (and those they already own of course). Look at that, the system is 'working'.
benj111 4y ago
Do you buy anything based on what it may be worth 70 years after your death? Do you think any company thinks that long term? 1 year probably. 5 years pushing it. 10 years is basically off any reasonable financial projection any company is going to make.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Yes, clearly they all do. Media companies don't push for extended copyright terms just to spite you. They have easier ways of spiting you than that.
  - wahern 4y ago
    They push for extended copyrights because of a very small number of valuable assets that are nearing expiration, not because they care about increasing the value of content being churned out anew. A prospective term extension's marginal increase in the future present value (FPV) of new works is a rounding error at this point. Now, for those small number of extremely popular works, an extension does ensure continued investment, at least in the same manner of previous investments. But that has to be weighed against the unfathomable amounts of other content that will continue to rot. Defenses of patents and copyrights always discuss the theory--how in theory they promote investment. They rarely if ever discuss the empirically proven results. "Against Intellectual Monopoly" does explore the empirically proven results, though they do so more persuasively for patents than with copyrights, if only because there's much more data with patents, and the argument against copyrights is strongest as it concerns reducing terms, not eliminating copyright altogether, IMO. (Also, in their accounting the evidence does justify pharmaceutical drug patents as necessary for recouping costs to overcome other extreme regulatory burdens.)
    - tptacek 4y ago
      The marginal value of any random piece of content is a rounding error. It's a hitmaker business; the winners pay for the enormous number of losers.
      - 4y ago