5 ms·

As a sometimes-author and indie game dev, I find the sound of that to be exhausting. Tiny companies, and individuals especially, find it hard enough to deal wit

As a sometimes-author and indie game dev, I find the sound of that to be exhausting. Tiny companies, and individuals especially, find it hard enough to deal with weird regulations and costs. Like, some retired Grandma who writes popular mysteries is going to have to pay the government regularly to keep amazon from selling thousands of copies of her work without having to pay her? Everyone who makes a side project game on itch.io has to keep it online forever, or they lose rights to it forever?

concordDance 3y ago
This balances the good of people being able to see/read/play the work against the good of incentivising future people to make more of it. Grandma can make money from her new mysteries and get some from the first five years without needing to charge. As it is, many works are being irreparably lost to time.
- EatingWithForks 3y ago
  What happens if grandma became disabled and is living off the residuals of her books 10 years ago published? Should old artists just die in poverty like the good old days then?
  - californical 3y ago
    This is such an edge case that it makes me think that maybe copyright isn’t the solution that grandma needs. And by their proposal, the first couple extensions would be extremely cheap. It could be a simple form on some copyright.gov website to register your work.
    - EatingWithForks 3y ago
      The edge case is actually quite common-- many authors mostly survive off their entire body of work, not just the works published recently. This was an issue in e.g. Disney, who refused to pay royalties to Star Wars books published many many years ago because they claimed to have purchased assets but not liabilities. One of the authors who was suing for royalties needed the money for cancer treatments. Bad look. 5k/work is not cheap. That's how much publishers may pay for a book. 15k/work is prohibitively expensive for books.
      - account42 3y ago
        > One of the authors who was suing for royalties needed the money for cancer treatments. Ok but what if the author had not written a successful book but still needed money for cancer treatment. Maybe we should handle social security and healthcare separately from copyright.
        zchrykng 3y ago
        So you want to fix two hugely complicate systems where any change is hard at the same time? Good luck!
  - ncallaway 3y ago
    I would be happy to change the proposal so that the original author, and only the original author could pay for the extensions much more cheaply, if they have retained the copyright for its entire lifetime. So any work for hire, or other aspect would be expensive to renew. Anything owned by a corporation, LLC, or other non humane entity would be expensive. But if the original author has maintained control of the copyright since it’s inception, I’d be fine giving them a much cheaper renewal price.
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
      This would encourage companies to take more, more frequent, and smaller bets while iterating rapidly instead of milking endlessly like we see with Disney. I like it. I still feel protected with my personal creative endeavors while corporations are motivated to move on their ip or lose it.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    > What happens if grandma became disabled and is living off the residuals of her books 10 years ago published? The same thing that happens if grandma worked in a knitting factory and got disabled. Most likely: state pension
wing-_-nuts 3y ago
What ticks me off is situations where I literally cannot buy a game. I would gladly pay $60 today for a copy of civilization 2 that ran perfectly on modern operating systems with the sound track and everything. I literally cannot buy it. It's not for sale on GOG because no one knows who owns the rights.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
  So there’s a need for a copyright registry that is affirmatively maintained. Forget to register and exhaust a generous grace period that comes with a substantial fee relative to lifetime earnings of the work or Copyright lapses permanently and irrevocably.
ncallaway 3y ago
> some retired Grandma who writes popular mysteries is going to have to pay the government regularly to keep amazon from selling thousands of copies of her work without having to pay her Well, for the first 5 years after publication, no. She would need to do nothing exactly as the world exists today. She would have an exclusive period of 5 years to monetize the book exclusively without having to register it, pay anyone, or talk to anyone. After 5 years, she would have to pay $500 (again, exact value for discussion purposes, not a final proposal) and register it with a government website (with her contact information, and attesting that she still owns the work). After 10 years, she would have to pay again, and update the registration. Or, if the works are no longer valuable, she could simply not do that, and let the works enter the public domain. The _entire point_ is that works that _aren't financially viable_ enter the public domain rapidly, and works that are continuing to produce financial value would be worth registration. >99% of works produced would likely never be registered (since every comment on a website counts as a separate "work"), and would enter the public domain after 5 years. Only a small fraction would be extended for 5 years. But, yes, if you want exclusive rights to your game for 10 years, you'd have to pay a small amount of money and fill out a form on a website (my goal would be about the same difficulty as updating your whois information for a registered domain name). If it's not worth that amount of trouble, then the work enters the public domain. > Everyone who makes a side project game on itch.io has to keep it online forever My proposal had no _online_ requirement. So, no, that wouldn't be part of my proposal. Don't know where you got that requirement from.
- jamjamjamjamjam 3y ago
  As a consumer id just wait for indie games and smalltime books to become free. This ruins the demand and people have much less incentive to create. In general taking money away and giving it to a government is not a productive solution and definitely hinders creativity
  - condwanaland 3y ago
    I agree that some people would do this. However the proliferation of early access games and pre-ordered/special editions coming with an early access period suggests there is a significant chunk of consumers willing to pay to get something earlier

concordDance 3y ago

This balances the good of people being able to see/read/play the work against the good of incentivising future people to make more of it. Grandma can make money from her new mysteries and get some from the first five years without needing to charge. As it is, many works are being irreparably lost to time.

EatingWithForks 3y ago
What happens if grandma became disabled and is living off the residuals of her books 10 years ago published? Should old artists just die in poverty like the good old days then?
- californical 3y ago
  This is such an edge case that it makes me think that maybe copyright isn’t the solution that grandma needs. And by their proposal, the first couple extensions would be extremely cheap. It could be a simple form on some copyright.gov website to register your work.
  - EatingWithForks 3y ago
    The edge case is actually quite common-- many authors mostly survive off their entire body of work, not just the works published recently. This was an issue in e.g. Disney, who refused to pay royalties to Star Wars books published many many years ago because they claimed to have purchased assets but not liabilities. One of the authors who was suing for royalties needed the money for cancer treatments. Bad look. 5k/work is not cheap. That's how much publishers may pay for a book. 15k/work is prohibitively expensive for books.
    - account42 3y ago
      > One of the authors who was suing for royalties needed the money for cancer treatments. Ok but what if the author had not written a successful book but still needed money for cancer treatment. Maybe we should handle social security and healthcare separately from copyright.
      - zchrykng 3y ago
        So you want to fix two hugely complicate systems where any change is hard at the same time? Good luck!
- ncallaway 3y ago
  I would be happy to change the proposal so that the original author, and only the original author could pay for the extensions much more cheaply, if they have retained the copyright for its entire lifetime. So any work for hire, or other aspect would be expensive to renew. Anything owned by a corporation, LLC, or other non humane entity would be expensive. But if the original author has maintained control of the copyright since it’s inception, I’d be fine giving them a much cheaper renewal price.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
    This would encourage companies to take more, more frequent, and smaller bets while iterating rapidly instead of milking endlessly like we see with Disney. I like it. I still feel protected with my personal creative endeavors while corporations are motivated to move on their ip or lose it.
- concordDance 3y ago
  > What happens if grandma became disabled and is living off the residuals of her books 10 years ago published? The same thing that happens if grandma worked in a knitting factory and got disabled. Most likely: state pension

wing-_-nuts 3y ago

What ticks me off is situations where I literally cannot buy a game. I would gladly pay $60 today for a copy of civilization 2 that ran perfectly on modern operating systems with the sound track and everything. I literally cannot buy it. It's not for sale on GOG because no one knows who owns the rights.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
So there’s a need for a copyright registry that is affirmatively maintained. Forget to register and exhaust a generous grace period that comes with a substantial fee relative to lifetime earnings of the work or Copyright lapses permanently and irrevocably.

ncallaway 3y ago

> some retired Grandma who writes popular mysteries is going to have to pay the government regularly to keep amazon from selling thousands of copies of her work without having to pay her Well, for the first 5 years after publication, no. She would need to do nothing exactly as the world exists today. She would have an exclusive period of 5 years to monetize the book exclusively without having to register it, pay anyone, or talk to anyone. After 5 years, she would have to pay $500 (again, exact value for discussion purposes, not a final proposal) and register it with a government website (with her contact information, and attesting that she still owns the work). After 10 years, she would have to pay again, and update the registration. Or, if the works are no longer valuable, she could simply not do that, and let the works enter the public domain. The _entire point_ is that works that _aren't financially viable_ enter the public domain rapidly, and works that are continuing to produce financial value would be worth registration. >99% of works produced would likely never be registered (since every comment on a website counts as a separate "work"), and would enter the public domain after 5 years. Only a small fraction would be extended for 5 years. But, yes, if you want exclusive rights to your game for 10 years, you'd have to pay a small amount of money and fill out a form on a website (my goal would be about the same difficulty as updating your whois information for a registered domain name). If it's not worth that amount of trouble, then the work enters the public domain. > Everyone who makes a side project game on itch.io has to keep it online forever My proposal had no _online_ requirement. So, no, that wouldn't be part of my proposal. Don't know where you got that requirement from.

jamjamjamjamjam 3y ago
As a consumer id just wait for indie games and smalltime books to become free. This ruins the demand and people have much less incentive to create. In general taking money away and giving it to a government is not a productive solution and definitely hinders creativity
- condwanaland 3y ago
  I agree that some people would do this. However the proliferation of early access games and pre-ordered/special editions coming with an early access period suggests there is a significant chunk of consumers willing to pay to get something earlier