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> This is what today's IP oligopolists would have happen to the bulk of culture. I find it exceedingly unlikely that all IP will be maintained by the owner for
by tivert 4y ago
> This is what today's IP oligopolists would have happen to the bulk of culture. I find it exceedingly unlikely that all IP will be maintained by the owner for the life of the author plus 70 years. We know there are gobs of cultural artifacts from as recently as the 80s (videos, games, etc.) that are permanently lost.
> Without short copyright terms and the encouragement of independent archivalists, we ensure most cultural artifacts will be lost to time.
Firstly, copyright doesn't have anything do with the problem outlined in the OP, that 75% of "golden age" silent movies have been lost. The reason it identifies is that these films were "few, fragile, flammable" and that "almost no one thought they were worth saving." Copies weren't going to magically appear: if they were fragile, expensive to produce, and viewed as ephemeral nothing short of some kind of expensive government mandate would have led to much higher preservation rates. Such a mandate would not happen unless there was a contemporary interest in preservation, which there wasn't.
Secondly, running an archive isn't free. Short copyright terms might actually lead to less preservation, since that would make the creator be even less motivated to preserve the work for the long term. I'm not sure what you mean by "independent archivalists," but if it's data hoarders (individuals or collectively) that's not really going to cut it. The data on someone's hard drive array is very unlikely live past its owner, it will be almost certainly junked by the heirs to the estate. Preservation really requires an institution.
- cogman10 4y ago> Secondly, running an archive isn't free. Short copyright terms might actually lead to less preservation, since that would make the creator be even less motivated to preserve the work for the long term. Yet archives have very high public value. We've recognized that since the formation of the library of congress. The issue I think we have is we already have a system mandated to archive copyrighted material, yet it's not been advanced to accommodate the digital era and there's no mandate that IP holders aid it in retention. I think increasing public spending so the likes of archive.org can continue to function would be a net good for society.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago> Firstly, copyright doesn't have anything do with the problem outlined in the OP Sure but it will probably lead to the same thing happening again.
- tivert 4y ago>> Firstly, copyright doesn't have anything do with the problem outlined in the OP > Sure but it will probably lead to the same thing happening again. No. The "same thing" is was people didn't preserve things that other people now wish were saved... but only just barely. No one here actually aching to see the lost silent flim "The Devil Dancer" or would watch it if they could, they're just reacting to a statistic. Here's another statistic 99.9999...% of everything ever said has been lost. None of that has anything to do with copyright, and eliminating copyright would hardly change a thing.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoI don’t think your conclusion follows from your premise. Things were lost in the past because no copies survived. Now we have machines which can copy a million books a second and hard drives which can store thousands of movies, but we’ve created a powerful legal regime which discourages the proliferation of archives of this material. Google tried to archive every book in existence, and was stopped by copyright. In our lifetimes copyright has prevented preservation. The whole effort of google books was shut down half way through. Who knows what they would have preserved if they continued. Your suggestion that no one here really wants to see these films is irrelevant. Someone studying film might want to learn how film techniques progressed. Someone studying technology might want to learn how certain effects were achieved. Someone studying sociology might want to learn how social messages have evolved (or stayed the same) over the years. Lots of information will have been lost with these films. Punishing and discouraging copying will certainly help ensure that fewer copies survive. Discs will rot, licenses will change hands, and the few copies that survive will dwindle and vanish.