4 ms·

What happened to Google Books? I would argue the artist still deserves to retain value, regardless of the size of it unless they give it up. If it expires, sur

What happened to Google Books? I would argue the artist still deserves to retain value, regardless of the size of it unless they give it up. If it expires, sure it's public domain.

allturtles 4y ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-tragedy-of-google-books/523320/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-t...
thebooktocome 4y ago
But does the artist deserve to retain the value of their work seventy years after their death? Given the very large proportion of orphaned works, a very large proportion of living authors don't think their existing corpus has any residual value to them.
giantrobot 4y ago
If artists deserve money every time you read a book then your plumber should get paid every time you take a shit. Copyrights have been abused to the point of absurdity. They should last no longer than patents. A writer/artist/whatever can make some money off a work for two decades and then their work goes to the society that enabled its creation.
- MrVandemar 4y ago
  > A writer/artist/whatever can make some money off a work for two decades and then their work goes to the society that enabled its creation. -- Signed, Not an Artist. (Most artists are paid an absolute pittance for their work. Most work at least one other job. Almost none make even a basic income. I feel artists should have the benefit of the income from their work for their natural life, unless they waive their rights. That said, companies have sorely abused and influenced copyright law to the point that the advantage is highly asymmetric in their favour and that certainly needs to be addressed).
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then? Effective sewage systems prevent devastating diseases like cholera and typhus. Surely that's a higher social utility than a trashy Harlequin novel or any of the works of Kevin Federline? Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art. I'd be fine if anything I've drawn, painted, or written became public domain after twenty years. If I wanted to sell it that's plenty of time. Works entering public domain doesn't preclude me from selling the physical artifact even after its public domain. It doesn't preclude me from making new art to sell. A musician's work becoming public domain doesn't preclude them performing it for pay. It would be ridiculous if twenty years from now some poor bastard got sued into destitution because they downloaded some dumb thing I wrote twenty years ago.
    - MrVandemar 4y ago
      > Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then? Pretty sure the plumber is getting (very) decently paid for their work. Pretty sure the people who planned and installed the sewage system were well remunerated. Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication. > Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art. And thank you for speaking up on behalf of all artists and kindly telling us all that we should expect 20 years worth of almost nothing out of efforts, instead of a lifetime. > It would be ridiculous if twenty years from now some poor bastard got sued into destitution because they downloaded some dumb thing I wrote twenty years ago. So licence it CC-0. Or release it to the Public Domain. Knock yourself out.
      - account42 4y ago
        > Pretty sure the plumber is getting (very) decently paid for their work. Pretty sure the people who planned and installed the sewage system were well remunerated. These are generally not considered desirable jobs so why are you so sure they are paid their due? After all you are using the result of their labour every day, so why are you unwilling to pay more. > Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication. Medical costs don't affect artists more than others and in some countries we have come up with other ways to pay for them collectively. > And thank you for speaking up on behalf of all artists and kindly telling us all that we should expect 20 years worth of almost nothing out of efforts, instead of a lifetime. And you can speak for all artsts then? Of course the idea that only copyright holders should have a say about copyright policy is ridiculous in the first place - it has always been a deal between creators and everyone else. If one "side" (and really, these aren't separate sides but mostly overlapping groups) feels that they are getting less out of the deal then the other side can't just say "but I want to be paid forever". > So licence it CC-0. Or release it to the Public Domain. Knock yourself out. Or argue for copyright reform. We don't owe it to you to support your choice to make a living off of art - you could always work as a plumber if you thing they are very decently paid.
beej71 4y ago
The artist does deserve to retain value for some time, but the question is how long should that be such that all interests are balanced? As an author myself, I think the proper copyright term is ~15 years from the copyright inception. (Disclosure: I give my stuff away for free online--people buy paper copies if the want them, so I'm not a publisher's idea of a model author.) A relative handful of publishers/authors will lose out (e.g. Dune, Van Gogh), but the public domain will be well-served. 15 years seems like a good balance point.
- account42 4y ago
  > The artist does deserve to retain value for some time Hard disagree. We have chosen to allow the artist to retain a monopoly for a limited time because we though it would encoruage the cration of more art. The only valid argument for copyright is one that shows it benefits society as a whole.

What happened to Google Books? I would argue the artist still deserves to retain value, regardless of the size of it unless they give it up. If it expires, sure it's public domain.

allturtles 4y ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-tragedy-of-google-books/523320/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/the-t...

thebooktocome 4y ago

But does the artist deserve to retain the value of their work seventy years after their death? Given the very large proportion of orphaned works, a very large proportion of living authors don't think their existing corpus has any residual value to them.

giantrobot 4y ago

If artists deserve money every time you read a book then your plumber should get paid every time you take a shit. Copyrights have been abused to the point of absurdity. They should last no longer than patents. A writer/artist/whatever can make some money off a work for two decades and then their work goes to the society that enabled its creation.

MrVandemar 4y ago
> A writer/artist/whatever can make some money off a work for two decades and then their work goes to the society that enabled its creation. -- Signed, Not an Artist. (Most artists are paid an absolute pittance for their work. Most work at least one other job. Almost none make even a basic income. I feel artists should have the benefit of the income from their work for their natural life, unless they waive their rights. That said, companies have sorely abused and influenced copyright law to the point that the advantage is highly asymmetric in their favour and that certainly needs to be addressed).
- giantrobot 4y ago
  Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then? Effective sewage systems prevent devastating diseases like cholera and typhus. Surely that's a higher social utility than a trashy Harlequin novel or any of the works of Kevin Federline? Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art. I'd be fine if anything I've drawn, painted, or written became public domain after twenty years. If I wanted to sell it that's plenty of time. Works entering public domain doesn't preclude me from selling the physical artifact even after its public domain. It doesn't preclude me from making new art to sell. A musician's work becoming public domain doesn't preclude them performing it for pay. It would be ridiculous if twenty years from now some poor bastard got sued into destitution because they downloaded some dumb thing I wrote twenty years ago.
  - MrVandemar 4y ago
    > Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then? Pretty sure the plumber is getting (very) decently paid for their work. Pretty sure the people who planned and installed the sewage system were well remunerated. Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication. > Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art. And thank you for speaking up on behalf of all artists and kindly telling us all that we should expect 20 years worth of almost nothing out of efforts, instead of a lifetime. > It would be ridiculous if twenty years from now some poor bastard got sued into destitution because they downloaded some dumb thing I wrote twenty years ago. So licence it CC-0. Or release it to the Public Domain. Knock yourself out.
    - account42 4y ago
      > Pretty sure the plumber is getting (very) decently paid for their work. Pretty sure the people who planned and installed the sewage system were well remunerated. These are generally not considered desirable jobs so why are you so sure they are paid their due? After all you are using the result of their labour every day, so why are you unwilling to pay more. > Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication. Medical costs don't affect artists more than others and in some countries we have come up with other ways to pay for them collectively. > And thank you for speaking up on behalf of all artists and kindly telling us all that we should expect 20 years worth of almost nothing out of efforts, instead of a lifetime. And you can speak for all artsts then? Of course the idea that only copyright holders should have a say about copyright policy is ridiculous in the first place - it has always been a deal between creators and everyone else. If one "side" (and really, these aren't separate sides but mostly overlapping groups) feels that they are getting less out of the deal then the other side can't just say "but I want to be paid forever". > So licence it CC-0. Or release it to the Public Domain. Knock yourself out. Or argue for copyright reform. We don't owe it to you to support your choice to make a living off of art - you could always work as a plumber if you thing they are very decently paid.

beej71 4y ago

The artist does deserve to retain value for some time, but the question is how long should that be such that all interests are balanced? As an author myself, I think the proper copyright term is ~15 years from the copyright inception. (Disclosure: I give my stuff away for free online--people buy paper copies if the want them, so I'm not a publisher's idea of a model author.) A relative handful of publishers/authors will lose out (e.g. Dune, Van Gogh), but the public domain will be well-served. 15 years seems like a good balance point.

account42 4y ago
> The artist does deserve to retain value for some time Hard disagree. We have chosen to allow the artist to retain a monopoly for a limited time because we though it would encoruage the cration of more art. The only valid argument for copyright is one that shows it benefits society as a whole.