4 ms·

> Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state. The United St

> Before people cheer too much, surprisingly works can retroactively be snatched back from the public domain and go back into copyrighted state. The United States is decidedly not going to extend copyright terms. The US only very reluctantly pulled works out of the public domain after it joined the Berne Convention in 1989. The reason ''Metropolis'' was in the public domain was because it failed to comply with renewal formalities, which are prohibited by Berne. Essentially, other countries threatened trade deals if the US made terms dependent on formalities for non-US works. So the law was changed and copyrights were restored. As someone who works in the field (and who isn't a fan of the URAA), I can tell you that isn't going to happen again.

echelon 3y ago
> As someone who works in the field What's your read on what's going to happen with AI? Will companies be allowed to train on copyrighted works? Seems like we'll fall behind international competition or supercharge monopolies if we don't allow it. Japan and China permit training on copyrighted works. China goes a step further and allows AI outputs to be copyrighted. Really interested in what insiders think or know about this.
- mod50ack 3y ago
  Well, to be clear, I am mainly a public domain and copyright theory guy. I do keep up to date with everything here. But I also don't write laws; if I did, they would look different. Companies are allowed to train on copyrighted works - or, to be more precise, there is no prohibition in copyright law on them doing so. On the other hand, there are no particular protections. The real question is to what extent an AI generator can return its copyrighted training data as a non-de minimis output. In other words, can I get one of the existing copyrighted works by putting in a prompt? This is something that AI developers are trying to avoid, but it's actuallg a pretty tricky problem. Allowing AI output to be copyrighted is one of the worst ideas in copyright. Thankfully, the US Constitution as interpreted by the courts only allows for copyright to inhere in works of human creativity. By the way, while I'm very excited about certain "AI" things, I have a very poor opinion of the merit of generative AI — and I mean in theory we well as how it stands today.
  - xorcist 3y ago
    > Allowing AI output to be copyrighted is one of the worst ideas in copyright What does that mean, in more specific language? If I create a poster in Photoshop, it is under copyright? What about if I use a smart fill plugin? What about if I use a prompt plugin?
  - Aloha 3y ago
    What would your ideal copyright regime look like? Mine would be different than what we have now, it'd be 20 years or artists lifetime, whichever is shorter - then 10 year long renewals are possible after that, but the cost of the renewal would ratchet up with each renewal. I've also considered using a percentage of revenue for the work - basically a tax on the revenue from that work, as a condition for the right of monopoly on it - which would also ratchet upwards with each renewal. I'd also consider a use it or lose it strategy for copyright like trademark, meaning if you are not making the work available for purchase/license within the copyright renewal period, for reasonable terms, you lose the ability to renew it. Mine is mostly designed to deal with orphaned works, ensuring they enter public domain in a predictable way, I think the biggest issue with our existing copyright system isn't enriching Disney - they're still putting those works out there, making them available - its all the works being lost to the sands of time.
    - hedora 3y ago
      Disney regularly censors or modifies classic films in its catalog, and also simply pulls things out of production. If you want to read more, look up the Disney Vault strategy.
      - Aloha 3y ago
        I'm well aware of Disney's business strategy. I don't care if they make their millions still. I care much more about all the works that cannot find an audience because of uncertain copyright status, and not enough commercial demand to justify figuring out who 'owns' it.
    - mod50ack 3y ago
vlovich123 3y ago
Well they did extend terms in 1998 but I agree the retroactive part is unlikely as is another extension.
pwdisswordfishc 3y ago
Uruguay Round Agreements Act?
- mod50ack 3y ago
  Correct.
BeFlatXIII 3y ago
> Essentially, other countries threatened trade deals if the US made terms dependent on formalities for non-US works. So the law was changed and copyrights were restored. Congress should have grown a spine and called their bluff rather than sell out the American public like that.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  The American public also likes being able to buy imports.
- ProjectArcturis 3y ago
  I'd rather Congress adhere to the agreements they made.
  - BeFlatXIII 3y ago
    If a future Congress cannot secure the votes to pass the necessary laws to implement a treaty their predecessors [or the House refuses to implement a treaty the Senate] ratified, who is at fault?
- hedora 3y ago
  You’re talking about the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act aka the Mickey Mouse Protection Act? Claiming that was due to foreign pressure was just scapegoating / misdirection from its supporters. The US forced all sorts of copyright extensions on the international community back then (including DMCA-style DRM protections). The support section of the Wikipedia page lists the main lobbyists for the bill. They are all US based, and Disney started lobbying for it in 1990 (the year after the US was brought into compliance with the Berne convention). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
  - mod50ack 3y ago
    No, they're talking about the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (1994), which is 100% about foreign works and formalities (copyright notice and renewal requirements). Disney was ''against'' that change because they benefited from foreign works (such as Prokofiev's ''Peter and the Wolf'') which were in the public domain in the US due to national ineligibility at the time.
est31 3y ago
The USA often ignores the international community in many things, if the right domestic interest groups are behind it. It's just that currently the USA has powerful domestic companies/interests that are against copyright term extensions, which are more powerful than the (also quite powerful) companies in favour of term extensions. In the past decade, the USA also has tried to spread the new extended period over the world via trade treaties, of life plus 70 years, going beyond Berne's life plus 50 years.
- abirch 3y ago
  What are the powerful domestic companies/interests who are against the copyright terms? I always viewed copyright extensions as being good for the masses but bad for corporations (the copyright holders)
  - bvrmn 3y ago
    > I always viewed copyright extensions as being good for the masses I have a hard time to find cases when it's true in the context of media content.
  - est31 3y ago
    Companies like Google for example. Their business model revolves around accessing websites of other people, downloading them, keeping that copy around and then presenting snippets to people who. Here is them arguing against retroactively applying a 70 year old copyright term in Canada to works published before 1978: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/strategic-policy-sector/sites/default/files/attachments/2022/Google.pdf https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/strategic-policy-sector/sit... > For instance, if an author created a work at 30 -- the average age for a first childbirth in Canada -- and died at the average age of 82, with a copyright term of life of the author plus 50 years, and if the average of 25 years for a generation, we are into the fifth generation after creation of the work. Adding on another 20 years only compounds the capacity of heirs of authors to leverage extended copyright to prevent Canadians from accessing valuable cultural (and by that time historical) works. We have seen numerous examples of distantly removed heirs leveraging old copyright to prevent commentators from quoting extensively from well established works, or preventing historical pictures, news-clipping and other primary sources from being used without payment. And indeed, it was implemented that way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Canada#Extension_of_copyright_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Canada#Extens...
gjsman-1000 3y ago
I think the biggest Rubicon for Disney coming up will be losing Snow White in 2032, assuming no renewal.
- gweinberg 3y ago
  Snow White the character was in the public domain long before disney made the movie.

echelon 3y ago

> As someone who works in the field What's your read on what's going to happen with AI? Will companies be allowed to train on copyrighted works? Seems like we'll fall behind international competition or supercharge monopolies if we don't allow it. Japan and China permit training on copyrighted works. China goes a step further and allows AI outputs to be copyrighted. Really interested in what insiders think or know about this.

mod50ack 3y ago
Well, to be clear, I am mainly a public domain and copyright theory guy. I do keep up to date with everything here. But I also don't write laws; if I did, they would look different. Companies are allowed to train on copyrighted works - or, to be more precise, there is no prohibition in copyright law on them doing so. On the other hand, there are no particular protections. The real question is to what extent an AI generator can return its copyrighted training data as a non-de minimis output. In other words, can I get one of the existing copyrighted works by putting in a prompt? This is something that AI developers are trying to avoid, but it's actuallg a pretty tricky problem. Allowing AI output to be copyrighted is one of the worst ideas in copyright. Thankfully, the US Constitution as interpreted by the courts only allows for copyright to inhere in works of human creativity. By the way, while I'm very excited about certain "AI" things, I have a very poor opinion of the merit of generative AI — and I mean in theory we well as how it stands today.
- xorcist 3y ago
  > Allowing AI output to be copyrighted is one of the worst ideas in copyright What does that mean, in more specific language? If I create a poster in Photoshop, it is under copyright? What about if I use a smart fill plugin? What about if I use a prompt plugin?
- Aloha 3y ago
  What would your ideal copyright regime look like? Mine would be different than what we have now, it'd be 20 years or artists lifetime, whichever is shorter - then 10 year long renewals are possible after that, but the cost of the renewal would ratchet up with each renewal. I've also considered using a percentage of revenue for the work - basically a tax on the revenue from that work, as a condition for the right of monopoly on it - which would also ratchet upwards with each renewal. I'd also consider a use it or lose it strategy for copyright like trademark, meaning if you are not making the work available for purchase/license within the copyright renewal period, for reasonable terms, you lose the ability to renew it. Mine is mostly designed to deal with orphaned works, ensuring they enter public domain in a predictable way, I think the biggest issue with our existing copyright system isn't enriching Disney - they're still putting those works out there, making them available - its all the works being lost to the sands of time.
  - hedora 3y ago
    Disney regularly censors or modifies classic films in its catalog, and also simply pulls things out of production. If you want to read more, look up the Disney Vault strategy.
    - Aloha 3y ago
      I'm well aware of Disney's business strategy. I don't care if they make their millions still. I care much more about all the works that cannot find an audience because of uncertain copyright status, and not enough commercial demand to justify figuring out who 'owns' it.
  - mod50ack 3y ago

vlovich123 3y ago

Well they did extend terms in 1998 but I agree the retroactive part is unlikely as is another extension.

pwdisswordfishc 3y ago

Uruguay Round Agreements Act?

mod50ack 3y ago
Correct.

BeFlatXIII 3y ago

> Essentially, other countries threatened trade deals if the US made terms dependent on formalities for non-US works. So the law was changed and copyrights were restored. Congress should have grown a spine and called their bluff rather than sell out the American public like that.

shadowgovt 3y ago
The American public also likes being able to buy imports.
ProjectArcturis 3y ago
I'd rather Congress adhere to the agreements they made.
- BeFlatXIII 3y ago
  If a future Congress cannot secure the votes to pass the necessary laws to implement a treaty their predecessors [or the House refuses to implement a treaty the Senate] ratified, who is at fault?
hedora 3y ago
You’re talking about the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act aka the Mickey Mouse Protection Act? Claiming that was due to foreign pressure was just scapegoating / misdirection from its supporters. The US forced all sorts of copyright extensions on the international community back then (including DMCA-style DRM protections). The support section of the Wikipedia page lists the main lobbyists for the bill. They are all US based, and Disney started lobbying for it in 1990 (the year after the US was brought into compliance with the Berne convention). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
- mod50ack 3y ago
  No, they're talking about the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (1994), which is 100% about foreign works and formalities (copyright notice and renewal requirements). Disney was ''against'' that change because they benefited from foreign works (such as Prokofiev's ''Peter and the Wolf'') which were in the public domain in the US due to national ineligibility at the time.

est31 3y ago

The USA often ignores the international community in many things, if the right domestic interest groups are behind it. It's just that currently the USA has powerful domestic companies/interests that are against copyright term extensions, which are more powerful than the (also quite powerful) companies in favour of term extensions. In the past decade, the USA also has tried to spread the new extended period over the world via trade treaties, of life plus 70 years, going beyond Berne's life plus 50 years.

abirch 3y ago
What are the powerful domestic companies/interests who are against the copyright terms? I always viewed copyright extensions as being good for the masses but bad for corporations (the copyright holders)
- bvrmn 3y ago
  > I always viewed copyright extensions as being good for the masses I have a hard time to find cases when it's true in the context of media content.
- est31 3y ago
  Companies like Google for example. Their business model revolves around accessing websites of other people, downloading them, keeping that copy around and then presenting snippets to people who. Here is them arguing against retroactively applying a 70 year old copyright term in Canada to works published before 1978: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/strategic-policy-sector/sites/default/files/attachments/2022/Google.pdf https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/strategic-policy-sector/sit... > For instance, if an author created a work at 30 -- the average age for a first childbirth in Canada -- and died at the average age of 82, with a copyright term of life of the author plus 50 years, and if the average of 25 years for a generation, we are into the fifth generation after creation of the work. Adding on another 20 years only compounds the capacity of heirs of authors to leverage extended copyright to prevent Canadians from accessing valuable cultural (and by that time historical) works. We have seen numerous examples of distantly removed heirs leveraging old copyright to prevent commentators from quoting extensively from well established works, or preventing historical pictures, news-clipping and other primary sources from being used without payment. And indeed, it was implemented that way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Canada#Extension_of_copyright_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Canada#Extens...

gjsman-1000 3y ago

I think the biggest Rubicon for Disney coming up will be losing Snow White in 2032, assuming no renewal.

gweinberg 3y ago
Snow White the character was in the public domain long before disney made the movie.