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The BBC commissioned a study [1] that claims the Charles Dicken's brand brings in about £280m/year to the UK's economy. This from a public domain "brand". Meanw

The BBC commissioned a study [1] that claims the Charles Dicken's brand brings in about £280m/year to the UK's economy. This from a public domain "brand". Meanwhile companies like Disney lobby for perpetual copyright to protect their own interest at the cost of all the lost opportunities that will never exist. I don't understand how politicians in the free enterprise countries, especially American republicans with their distaste of market regulation, could consider extremely long copyright protection to be a net benefit to the market/country. Is Disney going to stop producing movies if their copyright was only 20 years? Drug companies only receive 20 years protection and their products are ridiculously expensive to produce yet they're still very viable businesses. I wish we could turn the argument against long copyrights to be one of the damage they do to the economy. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16914367 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16914367

lincolnq 15y ago
I don't think that anyone who has seriously thought about / read up on the issue considers long copyrights to be of net benefit to society. This indicates a deeper issue. However, which deeper issue it indicates is a subject of much controversy.
moonchrome 15y ago
>The BBC commissioned a study that claims the Charles Dicken's brand brings in about £280m/year to the UK's economy. But who cares how much it "brings in" ? Why is money the sole metric of wealth. How much value does open source provide - take linux for eg. which is used in pretty much every aspect of computing these days - from cell phones to super computers - how much value has it provided to the consumers and allowed developers/researchers/manufacturers to produce ? Apply that to every major opensource software effort, things like IDE's, servers, programming languages/compilers. If you were granted a monopoly (like some software companies are, eg. Microsoft with Android patents) would it allow you to make money ? Sure. Would it create extra value ? Nope. This is why stressing revenue, GDP and all other metrics is loosing perspective, they are a useful tool/indicator of the economy but the goal is providing value to the consumers. Screw the producers it's their job to figure out how to capitalize on their business model. Government should never protect the producer. Will the demand go away if you eliminate the IP laws ? No. So the producers will have to figure out how to create new business models that work in a new environment. You probably want to have transition phase, but instead we are doubling down on IP protection, it's getting ridiculous.
- iamgilesbowkett 15y ago
  I think you raise a very good point with "how much value does open source provide", but this question: "Why is money the sole metric of wealth." is a) ungrammatical and b) basically a tautology. money is the sole metric of wealth because wealth, quantified, is money. not trying to detract from the point you raise, just getting a bit OCD about logic and grammar.
  - jjude 15y ago
    for me, discretionary time is real wealth
    - jlarocco 15y ago
      Arguing against money as a unit of value seems utterly silly to me. The monetary value of "discretionary time" is the amount of money you could have made if you did something else instead.
      - yxhuvud 15y ago
        Value is not the same thing as wealth.
      - barrkel 15y ago
        I have to disagree with you. The price of something is a function of supply and demand; monetary value is determined through price discovery in a market. But not all things are traded, nor are supply and demand perfectly elastic. You will get distorted prices for things through lack of markets and market inefficiencies. More specifically, you can't always do something else revenue-generating instead, and nor would you want to. What's the value of spending time with your children? Can you see how some people would not accept any amount of money to displace all of that time, whereas some others may would (in cases of paid-for adoption / slavery)? I think your outlook is lacking in a specific economic concept: utility.
        15y ago
nhebb 15y ago
You need look no further than primetime TV in the US. ABC and NBC both have shows based on Grimm's Fairy Tales - Once Upon a Time and Grimm. Both shows are doing well in the ratings and have the public domain works of Grimm to thank for it.
- josephcooney 15y ago
  Not to mention vast swathes of the Disney canon is ripped whole-cloth from folk stories.
tomflack 15y ago
The stated goal of copyright protection in the United States is to "...promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Given Disney's fierce protection of ancient copyrights and attempts to have their length endlessly extended AND the importance Disney places on their old properties... would a shorter copyright term in fact meet this goal better by forcing Disney to produce new characters and new series? There is little "progress" in endlessly hashing out Mickey Mouse, so if he were forced in to the public domain Disney would be forced to create new characters to keep making money. Disney is just the example I am using to illustrate the point, this train of thought applies to most film studios. Long copyright terms are making it more desirable to keep squeezing your old work over creating something new.
- Joeri 15y ago
  Actually, disney makes very poor use of the characters that they keep rehashing. If mickey mouse was freed, we'd see tens of thousands of creative works every year based on him, instead of the handful we're getting now. The value to society of leaving disney the ownership of mckey mouse is a net negative. More people would make more money on a freed mickey mouse.
edanm 15y ago
Your mistake is thinking about brands like Charles Dickens and Disney. Of course they make money, and of course they would continue producing work if copyright was only 20 years. What you have to think about is the author who is not famous, but who makes his living off of selling books. Not the millionaires, the ones with a regular salary. They often sell old stories to short-story collections, for example, for a few thousand dollars. If this happens often enough, they can continue the life of book-writing. If not, we'll have less authors. At the end of the day, if less money goes into writing books, we're going to lose some authors who won't be able to afford writing. Some great authors will also never be discovered, because they couldn't afford to keep writing for long enough. It's a balance, and I'm not saying that the balance is right at the moment. But it's very disingenuous to say "Disney will still make movies", because they're not the only ones around. Note: I talk about books, but the same is true for indie bands, indie software developers, etc.
- lwhi 15y ago
  No. I don't buy it. This is exactly the sob story that's served up to us by corporations like Disney and conglomerates like the RIAA. People create art for reasons other than making money. We're never going to end up with a world that's devoid of musicians, artists or authors. However we could plausibly find ourselves living in a world without these multinational corporations.
  - edanm 15y ago
    It's not a sob story. It's basic logic. You haven't refuted anything I've said, except for claiming that the story is one given by the likes of Disney and the RIAA, which is irrelevant and untrue. The only valid argument you've said is that people create art for reasons other than making money. Which is of course partially true. But obviously, to a lesser extent. I'm sure many people on HN would still program without getting paid for it, but there should be no doubt in a reasonable person's mind that overall less good software will be created, and many of those individual people, artists though they are, will create less software because of lack of time due to having a day job.
seclorum 15y ago
>I don't understand how politicians in the free enterprise countries, especially American republicans with their distaste of market regulation, could consider extremely long copyright protection to be a net benefit to the market/country. Copyright doesn't just protect entertainment content - it protects enlightening content, as well. Science and technology are the real industry markets that will 'benefit' from these copyright laws going through - Disney is just the soft glove over the iron fist that will make it 'acceptable' to the general populace to maintain control over information that can be used to disrupt existing technocratic class cultures.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  What does society gain from extending the copyright of a dead artist? Will the artist then rise from the dead and start creating again, with such a powerful incentive?
  - seclorum 15y ago
    No, but the powerful organization they leave behind may do something with it. Or not.
njharman 15y ago
> American republicans with their distaste of market regulation Don't confuse constituents with politicians. Politicians esp at national level want whatever their corporate campaign donors desire. They are all for regulation that benefits their "friends".

lincolnq 15y ago

I don't think that anyone who has seriously thought about / read up on the issue considers long copyrights to be of net benefit to society. This indicates a deeper issue. However, which deeper issue it indicates is a subject of much controversy.

moonchrome 15y ago

>The BBC commissioned a study that claims the Charles Dicken's brand brings in about £280m/year to the UK's economy. But who cares how much it "brings in" ? Why is money the sole metric of wealth. How much value does open source provide - take linux for eg. which is used in pretty much every aspect of computing these days - from cell phones to super computers - how much value has it provided to the consumers and allowed developers/researchers/manufacturers to produce ? Apply that to every major opensource software effort, things like IDE's, servers, programming languages/compilers. If you were granted a monopoly (like some software companies are, eg. Microsoft with Android patents) would it allow you to make money ? Sure. Would it create extra value ? Nope. This is why stressing revenue, GDP and all other metrics is loosing perspective, they are a useful tool/indicator of the economy but the goal is providing value to the consumers. Screw the producers it's their job to figure out how to capitalize on their business model. Government should never protect the producer. Will the demand go away if you eliminate the IP laws ? No. So the producers will have to figure out how to create new business models that work in a new environment. You probably want to have transition phase, but instead we are doubling down on IP protection, it's getting ridiculous.

iamgilesbowkett 15y ago
I think you raise a very good point with "how much value does open source provide", but this question: "Why is money the sole metric of wealth." is a) ungrammatical and b) basically a tautology. money is the sole metric of wealth because wealth, quantified, is money. not trying to detract from the point you raise, just getting a bit OCD about logic and grammar.
- jjude 15y ago
  for me, discretionary time is real wealth
  - jlarocco 15y ago
    Arguing against money as a unit of value seems utterly silly to me. The monetary value of "discretionary time" is the amount of money you could have made if you did something else instead.
    - yxhuvud 15y ago
      Value is not the same thing as wealth.
    - barrkel 15y ago
      I have to disagree with you. The price of something is a function of supply and demand; monetary value is determined through price discovery in a market. But not all things are traded, nor are supply and demand perfectly elastic. You will get distorted prices for things through lack of markets and market inefficiencies. More specifically, you can't always do something else revenue-generating instead, and nor would you want to. What's the value of spending time with your children? Can you see how some people would not accept any amount of money to displace all of that time, whereas some others may would (in cases of paid-for adoption / slavery)? I think your outlook is lacking in a specific economic concept: utility.
      - 15y ago

nhebb 15y ago

You need look no further than primetime TV in the US. ABC and NBC both have shows based on Grimm's Fairy Tales - Once Upon a Time and Grimm. Both shows are doing well in the ratings and have the public domain works of Grimm to thank for it.

josephcooney 15y ago
Not to mention vast swathes of the Disney canon is ripped whole-cloth from folk stories.

tomflack 15y ago

The stated goal of copyright protection in the United States is to "...promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Given Disney's fierce protection of ancient copyrights and attempts to have their length endlessly extended AND the importance Disney places on their old properties... would a shorter copyright term in fact meet this goal better by forcing Disney to produce new characters and new series? There is little "progress" in endlessly hashing out Mickey Mouse, so if he were forced in to the public domain Disney would be forced to create new characters to keep making money. Disney is just the example I am using to illustrate the point, this train of thought applies to most film studios. Long copyright terms are making it more desirable to keep squeezing your old work over creating something new.

Joeri 15y ago
Actually, disney makes very poor use of the characters that they keep rehashing. If mickey mouse was freed, we'd see tens of thousands of creative works every year based on him, instead of the handful we're getting now. The value to society of leaving disney the ownership of mckey mouse is a net negative. More people would make more money on a freed mickey mouse.

edanm 15y ago

Your mistake is thinking about brands like Charles Dickens and Disney. Of course they make money, and of course they would continue producing work if copyright was only 20 years. What you have to think about is the author who is not famous, but who makes his living off of selling books. Not the millionaires, the ones with a regular salary. They often sell old stories to short-story collections, for example, for a few thousand dollars. If this happens often enough, they can continue the life of book-writing. If not, we'll have less authors. At the end of the day, if less money goes into writing books, we're going to lose some authors who won't be able to afford writing. Some great authors will also never be discovered, because they couldn't afford to keep writing for long enough. It's a balance, and I'm not saying that the balance is right at the moment. But it's very disingenuous to say "Disney will still make movies", because they're not the only ones around. Note: I talk about books, but the same is true for indie bands, indie software developers, etc.

lwhi 15y ago
No. I don't buy it. This is exactly the sob story that's served up to us by corporations like Disney and conglomerates like the RIAA. People create art for reasons other than making money. We're never going to end up with a world that's devoid of musicians, artists or authors. However we could plausibly find ourselves living in a world without these multinational corporations.
- edanm 15y ago
  It's not a sob story. It's basic logic. You haven't refuted anything I've said, except for claiming that the story is one given by the likes of Disney and the RIAA, which is irrelevant and untrue. The only valid argument you've said is that people create art for reasons other than making money. Which is of course partially true. But obviously, to a lesser extent. I'm sure many people on HN would still program without getting paid for it, but there should be no doubt in a reasonable person's mind that overall less good software will be created, and many of those individual people, artists though they are, will create less software because of lack of time due to having a day job.

seclorum 15y ago

>I don't understand how politicians in the free enterprise countries, especially American republicans with their distaste of market regulation, could consider extremely long copyright protection to be a net benefit to the market/country. Copyright doesn't just protect entertainment content - it protects enlightening content, as well. Science and technology are the real industry markets that will 'benefit' from these copyright laws going through - Disney is just the soft glove over the iron fist that will make it 'acceptable' to the general populace to maintain control over information that can be used to disrupt existing technocratic class cultures.

rbanffy 15y ago
What does society gain from extending the copyright of a dead artist? Will the artist then rise from the dead and start creating again, with such a powerful incentive?
- seclorum 15y ago
  No, but the powerful organization they leave behind may do something with it. Or not.

njharman 15y ago

> American republicans with their distaste of market regulation Don't confuse constituents with politicians. Politicians esp at national level want whatever their corporate campaign donors desire. They are all for regulation that benefits their "friends".