6 ms·

If the goal is to ensure creatives can make a living at creating things that are trivial to copy, 14 years may be too short. And registering for renewals strik

by roc 15y ago

If the goal is to ensure creatives can make a living at creating things that are trivial to copy, 14 years may be too short. And registering for renewals strikes me as an unnecessary fig leaf to entrenched publishers (who else would have the money or inclination to register and pay for such?). 25 years seems fair.

_delirium 15y ago
The original motivation for renewals I believe was that orphan works and abandoned/discontinued projects would lapse, since nobody would bother to renew them.
- roc 15y ago
  Which is a reasonable goal. But I find such rules create little more than traps for the lone creator or industry outsider; someone who is already at massive disadvantage in the industry. Unnecessary bits of procedure are naught but hand-outs to those who have the time to professionally game the system. And companies [1] are highly unlikely to pass on paying a nominal fee [2] when the potential return is so high. [1] Only companies are likely to have orphan works that are even known to exist by anyone willing to appropriate them. [2] The fee must necessarily be nominal, lest you again disadvantage the lone creator/outsider.
m_eiman 15y ago
What could you possibly create that will take you more than 14 years to earn back that would only be protected by copyright?
- roc 15y ago
  The problem is that the copyright clock starts ticking the moment you've fixed an expression, not from any registration or publishing date. So a creation that is largely done but is being shopped around to publishers, or sitting in a drawer collecting small tweaks and edits is losing its monopoly. And if you erode much off 14 years, it starts to sound unnecessarily short. Just ask any writer, comedian or musician how long their original creations were kicking around before they got anyone interested in paying them for it. Several years is common for their pre-discovery work.
  - DannoHung 15y ago
    Just change it to "The moment the work is displayed, published, performed, or otherwise exhibited in a public venue under authorization from the creator" or whatever the equivalent legalese is.
    - roc 15y ago
      If copyright doesn't begin until exhibition, then the outright theft of private works is legalized. [1] You'll have reintroduced the problems that implicit copyright existing at the moment of creation was intended to solve. So to fix that, we can then either recognize the right of the author prior to publishing/exhibition with more complicated rules, or simply extend the term a little and maintain simplicity. [1] Joe writes a book. He shows it to Bob for notes. Bob publishes it under his own name. The copyright would belong to Bob.
      - sophacles 15y ago
        There is a sane middle ground. Copyright is granted upon creation, but infringement can only be pursued in cases where theft (or strongly probably) theft can be shown. Someone you don't know has the same idea? Tough cookies, you should have published. After public unveiling (registration, publication, etc), the timer starts. This puts some onus on the creator to not spread his work around willy-nilly, but allows him to shop publishers etc.
  - angersock 15y ago
    Several years would still give you nine or ten under copyright. Anyways, if you can't move product in a few years, you should be trying something new.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - Avshalom 15y ago
      Hopefully this will be less of a problem going forward with ebooks but the internet is full of stories of writers with several profitable books published who ended up sitting on novels for years when the horror market collapsed, good well edited books that went on to be profitable when "Urban Fantasy" started selling. Or just a case of publishers not wanting to publish more than X books a year from a given writer, regardless of output. Those are books of course. Movie scripts are notorious for floating around Hollywood for years, sometimes decades.
- JumpCrisscross 15y ago
  Conditional upon every book a publisher invests in being successful, yes, this would be okay. But you need to provide enough runway for publishers to earn enough profit on their successes to offset the losses. Otherwise you're reducing the returns on being a book publisher and implicitly discouraging publishing.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  To me the bigger problem is that after a short period of time any successful work would be fair game for large corporations to exploit without compensation to the creator. So they just wait it out instead of dealing with the creator.
- hartez 15y ago
  Consider things like movie rights. It's not unusual for there to be a very long time lag between print publication and the release of a movie version (e.g., Watchmen or Hitchhiker's guide). I've always liked the idea of setting copyright to expire n years after the expiration of the copyright owner (where n is long enough to handle the "take care of my family when I die" and "don't disincentivize publishing stuff made by older people" issues). n = 20 is my arbitrary proposal. Copyright owned by deathless entities (corporations and such) maxes out at another arbitrary number (I like 40) and there are no options for renewals in either situation.
- snowwrestler 15y ago
  Consider that "A Game of Thrones" was published 16 years ago, but its sales only really started taking off last year. I feel like it would be a shame if George R. R. Martin, who is still alive and writing the series, was getting absolutely nothing from this surge of interest. Some creative works simply take a while to get going in the culture. I don't think we should punish creative folks who are, for lack of a better term, "ahead of their time." Obviously this concept could be taken to an absurd extreme, but I would argue that 25 years is better than 14. It's at least closer to the duration of a full human generation.
  - mechanical_fish 15y ago
    I'm not going to argue too strenuously for any particular number, so long as your proposed number is lower than "70 years ranging upward to infinity" - don't look a fantasy gift horse in the mouth, right? - but I'll just point out that even if "A Game of Thrones" were magically out of copyright today, Martin would still be benefiting from the surge of interest. The interest would sell the sequels that were still under copyright. It would sell the sequels that have yet to be written. It isn't even obvious that Martin himself wouldn't benefit from the additional publicity of giving his earliest books away for free, then selling the sequels. Though I doubt it in this particular case, because of the whole HBO-series angle: presumably Martin is collecting royalties on the TV show, and collected option payments even before the show was made, and if the original book was out of copyright HBO needn't have paid these fees. But the works that are in peril aren't the ones that get optioned for movies and TV: Adapted works stay in print, if only as a form of tie-in merchandise for the show.
    - tesseractive 15y ago
      If A Game of Thrones were out of copyright, he wouldn't be collecting royalties on the adaptations -- unless he made such an agreement while it was still under copyright. One side effect of making copyright terms short, as is being discussed, is that studios could freely make movies (video games, etc.) based on all but the most recent works without seeking approval or paying royalties. And if HBO's adaptation of A Game of Thrones was popular but was relatively inaccessible since most people don't have an HBO subscription, any random person could make their own adaptation of the book and sell it cheaply and widely. I'm not convinced I understand the full implications of this enough to make a definitive statement about whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's definitely something that should be considered carefully.
nextparadigms 15y ago
20-25 years might be fine, but I still wish there were stronger fair use laws, and that people are more easily allowed to remix someone's work. Think about how much more "fan-art" could be created around more creative works, which would serve both the author by increasing the popularity of the original work through both increased awareness and loyalty from the fans, and also the public by enhancing the culture around it.
- roc 15y ago
  I absolutely agree. In an ideal world, Fair Use should have been codified long ago, and a more-broad 'non-commercial' qualification added. That said, given the state of lobbyists and legislation in the US, I sometimes feel that it's better for all of us that they aren't being given a shot at re-writing (and thus inevitably eroding) those rights.

by roc 15y ago

_delirium 15y ago

The original motivation for renewals I believe was that orphan works and abandoned/discontinued projects would lapse, since nobody would bother to renew them.

roc 15y ago
Which is a reasonable goal. But I find such rules create little more than traps for the lone creator or industry outsider; someone who is already at massive disadvantage in the industry. Unnecessary bits of procedure are naught but hand-outs to those who have the time to professionally game the system. And companies [1] are highly unlikely to pass on paying a nominal fee [2] when the potential return is so high. [1] Only companies are likely to have orphan works that are even known to exist by anyone willing to appropriate them. [2] The fee must necessarily be nominal, lest you again disadvantage the lone creator/outsider.

m_eiman 15y ago

What could you possibly create that will take you more than 14 years to earn back that would only be protected by copyright?

roc 15y ago
The problem is that the copyright clock starts ticking the moment you've fixed an expression, not from any registration or publishing date. So a creation that is largely done but is being shopped around to publishers, or sitting in a drawer collecting small tweaks and edits is losing its monopoly. And if you erode much off 14 years, it starts to sound unnecessarily short. Just ask any writer, comedian or musician how long their original creations were kicking around before they got anyone interested in paying them for it. Several years is common for their pre-discovery work.
- DannoHung 15y ago
  Just change it to "The moment the work is displayed, published, performed, or otherwise exhibited in a public venue under authorization from the creator" or whatever the equivalent legalese is.
  - roc 15y ago
    If copyright doesn't begin until exhibition, then the outright theft of private works is legalized. [1] You'll have reintroduced the problems that implicit copyright existing at the moment of creation was intended to solve. So to fix that, we can then either recognize the right of the author prior to publishing/exhibition with more complicated rules, or simply extend the term a little and maintain simplicity. [1] Joe writes a book. He shows it to Bob for notes. Bob publishes it under his own name. The copyright would belong to Bob.
    - sophacles 15y ago
      There is a sane middle ground. Copyright is granted upon creation, but infringement can only be pursued in cases where theft (or strongly probably) theft can be shown. Someone you don't know has the same idea? Tough cookies, you should have published. After public unveiling (registration, publication, etc), the timer starts. This puts some onus on the creator to not spread his work around willy-nilly, but allows him to shop publishers etc.
- angersock 15y ago
  Several years would still give you nine or ten under copyright. Anyways, if you can't move product in a few years, you should be trying something new.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - Avshalom 15y ago
    Hopefully this will be less of a problem going forward with ebooks but the internet is full of stories of writers with several profitable books published who ended up sitting on novels for years when the horror market collapsed, good well edited books that went on to be profitable when "Urban Fantasy" started selling. Or just a case of publishers not wanting to publish more than X books a year from a given writer, regardless of output. Those are books of course. Movie scripts are notorious for floating around Hollywood for years, sometimes decades.
JumpCrisscross 15y ago
Conditional upon every book a publisher invests in being successful, yes, this would be okay. But you need to provide enough runway for publishers to earn enough profit on their successes to offset the losses. Otherwise you're reducing the returns on being a book publisher and implicitly discouraging publishing.
waterlesscloud 15y ago
To me the bigger problem is that after a short period of time any successful work would be fair game for large corporations to exploit without compensation to the creator. So they just wait it out instead of dealing with the creator.
hartez 15y ago
Consider things like movie rights. It's not unusual for there to be a very long time lag between print publication and the release of a movie version (e.g., Watchmen or Hitchhiker's guide). I've always liked the idea of setting copyright to expire n years after the expiration of the copyright owner (where n is long enough to handle the "take care of my family when I die" and "don't disincentivize publishing stuff made by older people" issues). n = 20 is my arbitrary proposal. Copyright owned by deathless entities (corporations and such) maxes out at another arbitrary number (I like 40) and there are no options for renewals in either situation.
snowwrestler 15y ago
Consider that "A Game of Thrones" was published 16 years ago, but its sales only really started taking off last year. I feel like it would be a shame if George R. R. Martin, who is still alive and writing the series, was getting absolutely nothing from this surge of interest. Some creative works simply take a while to get going in the culture. I don't think we should punish creative folks who are, for lack of a better term, "ahead of their time." Obviously this concept could be taken to an absurd extreme, but I would argue that 25 years is better than 14. It's at least closer to the duration of a full human generation.
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  I'm not going to argue too strenuously for any particular number, so long as your proposed number is lower than "70 years ranging upward to infinity" - don't look a fantasy gift horse in the mouth, right? - but I'll just point out that even if "A Game of Thrones" were magically out of copyright today, Martin would still be benefiting from the surge of interest. The interest would sell the sequels that were still under copyright. It would sell the sequels that have yet to be written. It isn't even obvious that Martin himself wouldn't benefit from the additional publicity of giving his earliest books away for free, then selling the sequels. Though I doubt it in this particular case, because of the whole HBO-series angle: presumably Martin is collecting royalties on the TV show, and collected option payments even before the show was made, and if the original book was out of copyright HBO needn't have paid these fees. But the works that are in peril aren't the ones that get optioned for movies and TV: Adapted works stay in print, if only as a form of tie-in merchandise for the show.
  - tesseractive 15y ago
    If A Game of Thrones were out of copyright, he wouldn't be collecting royalties on the adaptations -- unless he made such an agreement while it was still under copyright. One side effect of making copyright terms short, as is being discussed, is that studios could freely make movies (video games, etc.) based on all but the most recent works without seeking approval or paying royalties. And if HBO's adaptation of A Game of Thrones was popular but was relatively inaccessible since most people don't have an HBO subscription, any random person could make their own adaptation of the book and sell it cheaply and widely. I'm not convinced I understand the full implications of this enough to make a definitive statement about whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's definitely something that should be considered carefully.

nextparadigms 15y ago

20-25 years might be fine, but I still wish there were stronger fair use laws, and that people are more easily allowed to remix someone's work. Think about how much more "fan-art" could be created around more creative works, which would serve both the author by increasing the popularity of the original work through both increased awareness and loyalty from the fans, and also the public by enhancing the culture around it.

roc 15y ago
I absolutely agree. In an ideal world, Fair Use should have been codified long ago, and a more-broad 'non-commercial' qualification added. That said, given the state of lobbyists and legislation in the US, I sometimes feel that it's better for all of us that they aren't being given a shot at re-writing (and thus inevitably eroding) those rights.