7 ms·
That you would copy an image, apply a random filter, then call it your own and sell it, is ridiculous. But the real scandal is that copyright survives the arti
by bambax 3y ago
That you would copy an image, apply a random filter, then call it your own and sell it, is ridiculous.
But the real scandal is that copyright survives the artist. Marvin Gaye, Andy Warhol... Dead guys. So called "estates"... Insects feeding on corpses.
- sacrosancty 3y agoI'm a bit of a broken record on this, but copyright lasting beyond the death of the author is important so that near-death authors can still sell their work. It would be near-worthless to a buyer/publisher/etc. if it was about to enter public domain. Imagine the headline "Famous artist diagnosed with terminal cancer - suddenly can't sell her work to fund her treatment."
- smeagull 3y agoThis feels very similar to the "think about the children" lines when people want to keep their privacy online. It's stupidly specific, and if you have to twist this far to find an example, I think you have nothing.
- zanellato19 3y agoI don't think its _stupidly_ specific to point out that people should still be able to sell things when nearing death. But 10/15 years should be more than enough. The amount of years is beyond parody at this point.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoDavid Bowie died two days after his final album was released. Are the people who worked on it, put it out, somehow less entitled to make money because he died? It doesn't feel overly specific when the topic is copyright after death to think about how people die.
- realusername 3y agoThere's two solutions here, either they are co-creators and then all the creators aren't dead or they aren't and they were never going to receive additional revenue beyond their work anyway. Either way, that's not working as an argument against stopping copyright when the authors are dead.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoThere's a publisher, who did boring things like pay the cover artist, buy the plastic and vinyl, pay the printer. The record came out, they had a bunch of copies, and then two days later Bowie died. If they're exclusive right to sell they music disappears, they overpaid Bowie.
- realusername 3y agoThe cost of publishing a music online after it's been produced is close to zero nowadays. I could see how that argument was relevant 30 years ago though. And the initial costs are similar to any other non-copyright related work, paid per service.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoBecause the costs to publish online are zero there would be innumerable other copies of the work posted, meaning the initial outlay for the studio time etc cannot be recouped.
- realusername 3y agoIt's exactly like any other work, your plumber doesn't receive royalties whenever you use your bathroom, those costs should be paid upfront.
- kevinmchugh 3y agoYep! The costs to press vinyl and print sleeves and market the work _are_ paid upfront. So cutting off the revenue stream unexpectedly means no more expensive projects for old artists
- qzw 3y agoBut it's a plausible situation (terminal/severe illnesses are not that rare) and a relevant argument against the "expire on death" copyright proposal. Laws often need to deal with "stupidly specific" cases because they do happen in the real world.
- morvita 3y agoThis is why the lifetime of the creator should have nothing to do with copyright terms. All works get a fixed term of 20, 30, whatever years, if the creator dies before that term the rights can be transferred via their estate.
- pavon 3y agoThat doesn't just apply to people very close to death. If copyright ended right on death, the the work of someone in their 20's would have twice as long to earn revenue as the work of someone in their 50's. The former's work would still be covered when nostalgia bump came, while the later's work would not. This would create significant financial incentives for publishers/labels/etc to pick up younger artists instead of older ones, in markets that are already skewed towards younger people. Fixed term makes so much more sense. We should have never signed the Berne Convention.
- Pxtl 3y agoYou could do like 50 years or death of author, whichever comes 2nd. Then an author knows they own their work for life no matter what, but an author near working death still has something to pass on.
- sacrosancty 3y ago[dead]
- chefandy 3y agoYeah... Each time I see someone cashing in on a dead artists licenses I picture Sony Bono chiming in from an RIAA luxury lounge in the sky: "I got you babe!"
- dcow 3y ago> That you would copy an image, apply a random filter, then call it your own and sell it, is ridiculous. It's pretty easy to counter your assertion by simply saying, "I find no value in the original work but I find value in Warhol's rendition". Since the argument is that the court is supposedly defending Goldsmith's right to prosper from her works, then you cannot say that she would have benefitted unilaterally because I would not have paid her for her art, only Warhol. Personally I don't care for Warhol much and I'm using the royal I, but to say that applying a filter to an image cannot create a new work is, I think, preposterous. Personally I don't think this case has clarified "fair use" one bit. All it does is add more confusion into the mix. So if Warhol hadn't commercialized the work, would it have been fair use? That's now an open question after reading the supreme court's majority opinion/ruling. All this case does is demonstrate that in this specific instance 7 of 9 judges didn't obviously see how Warhol's work transformed the original source material enough to constitute a new work, or Warhol foundations' lawyers didn't make it obvious enough. And it now throws into the mix that "fair use" is not solely dependent on the idea of transforming a work, it's in fact way more complicated and so yes let's open the flood gates for a bunch of new copyright cases arguing that one artist, even though they did transform an original work, was too adjacent and not distinguished enough to constitute fair use. I mean honestly I'm super confused how to interpret fair use now. > But the real scandal is that copyright survives the artist. Marvin Gaye, Andy Warhol... Dead guys. So called "estates"... Insects feeding on corpses. Agree.
- ygjb 3y agoso.... no intergenerational wealth transfer then? if estates can't pass on intellectual property, then why should they be allowed to pass on physical property? If they can pass on physical property, then why not intellectual property, at least within the legally defined (and IMO far too long) windows of protection?
- anothernewdude 3y agoIt's almost like Intellectual property is some kind of made up thing that isn't really property, and people can make a distinction between actual property and IP. Weird, huh?
- kevmo 3y agoIt's Lynn Goldsmith's copyright, and she is still alive.
- chrismcb 3y agoThat is only because copyright is too long. Of course copyright should survive the creator. But not for 95 years(or even 75)
- Pxtl 3y agoOne big problem is that some things are a flat year number and others are N years past the death of the author, and it feels like the priorities are reversed. Like in music the composition has the longer copyright than the recording, so fun derivative works like cover songs are more protected than just selling somebody else's album.
- realusername 3y ago> Of course copyright should survive the creator. Why "of course"? What purpose does it serve after the creator is dead? Copyright is a temporary monopoly for the creator to be able to profit from their creation, when they are dead, there's no point to it anymore.
- Freak_NL 3y agoIn a broader sense, having your family profit from those works after your death may stimulate one to focus on creating creative works rather than a different source of income where assets accrued can benefit them. In particular in cases where your spouse and children are dependant on your income. That it should be restricted by a lot is obvious by now of course. Also: not having copyright expire upon your death prevents making your (untimely and assisted) death less attractive to anyone who would greatly benefit from those rights to disappear, although I do hope that is a hypothetical edge case.
- realusername 3y ago> , having your family profit from those works after your death may stimulate one to focus on creating creative works I'd argue the exact opposite, that reduce the incentive to produce new work, why creating new work when you can profit from old ones you haven't put any effort into it? > Also: not having copyright expire upon your death prevents making your (untimely and assisted) death less attractive to anyone who would greatly benefit from those rights to disappear, although I do hope that is a hypothetical edge case. That could be a good argument for it yes, I haven't thought about the external pressure.
- WalterBright 3y agoI'm still mad that the box set of Rocky & Bullwinkle, copyrighted in the 1960s, comes with the fun and apropos music replaced with generic crap. Copyright should expire after 5-10 years.
- Tade0 3y agoAll the more ironic considering how Prince himself approached copyright: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_Can_Wait https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_Can_Wait
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoIt should survive to some extent. Otherwise disney would just have you shot so that they could take your copyrighted material.