3 ms·

You're beating up a strawman. No one (sane and uncorrupt) is arguing for life+70. However, a mechanism which works for Star Wars and Mickey Mouse, but not for

by blagie 3y ago

You're beating up a strawman. No one (sane and uncorrupt) is arguing for life+70. However, a mechanism which works for Star Wars and Mickey Mouse, but not for a short story, a play, or a specialized piece of software written by a single individual which e.g. generates $20k / year, doesn't work for me. The length of the copyright shouldn't be proportional to the effort invested in the work. If a book my parents wrote is supposed to move into the public domain, so should Star Trek: The Original Series. That doesn't preclude mechanisms like: - Required (free) registration. I go to a government website, get a code, and from there on, it says: Copyright (c) 2022. Registration number 5f902b0a-f56c-402a-95fd-47f12f40e538 - Required (free) maintenance. I need to renew this to maintain copyright. - Anyone can look up the copyright owner (even though it might be Copyrights By Proxy, which is okay too -- anonymity is valuable). - Reasonable limits on duration. This handles your forum post, abandoned works, and to be frank, a majority of works under copyright. Most things move into the public domain. However, most things isn't the same as everything. I'd also be supportive of a radical expansion of fair use doctrine.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
>You're beating up a strawman. No one (sane and uncorrupt) is arguing for life+70. although I'm not agreeing with them they are not really beating up a strawman - in the EU it's life+70, because it has a different motivation for copyright than the U.S - this means that you may think something is in public domain but then you find out it isn't really because the person who made it in 1925 died in 1970.
benj111 3y ago
I not wedded to this system. My personal standpoint is that copywrite should be the minimum necessary to encourage and allow people to create works. That would suggest to me somewhere south of 10 years, possibly varying with the specific art form. The doubling fee thing is somewhat appealling because it acts as a tax on valuable works. If Disney wants to spend millions to protect Mickey mouse then there is that option, yes the public domain loses, but the tax acts as compensation for that. I don't see why this doesn't work for the little guy. If they want to pay the fees they can, the point is people are only going to pay fees if it's worth it. That applies to Disney or Joe blogs. If it isn't worth $1/$2/$4 why should you get to stop everyone else using it?
- blagie 3y ago
  Honestly, I think it depends on the form of the work. * I'd be supportive with 10 years for software, articles (newspaper or scientific journal), and similar things which go out-of-date quickly. * I would be supportive of 10-20 years for things which make most of the profit in the first few years, such as movies. * I'd be supportive of 20-30 years for music, where it often really does take a while to build up an audience and to cover costs. * I'd be supportive of the lesser of the authors' life and 50 years for things like books. A lot of books take a long time before they begin generating any sort of reasonable returns. * I'd be supportive of longer periods for things which are CC-BY-SA, GPL, and similar licenses, which aren't as burdensome as All Rights Reserved, and where the copyright has a motive beyond profit. The little guy won't be able to afford this for more than 7-11 years. The big guy will be able to do so much longer. I'd actually rather flip it around so the little guy has longer copyright than megacorps.
anticensor 3y ago
surreptiously loses the copyright guid for the work, slipping stuff to the public domain

by blagie 3y ago

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

>You're beating up a strawman. No one (sane and uncorrupt) is arguing for life+70. although I'm not agreeing with them they are not really beating up a strawman - in the EU it's life+70, because it has a different motivation for copyright than the U.S - this means that you may think something is in public domain but then you find out it isn't really because the person who made it in 1925 died in 1970.

benj111 3y ago

I not wedded to this system. My personal standpoint is that copywrite should be the minimum necessary to encourage and allow people to create works. That would suggest to me somewhere south of 10 years, possibly varying with the specific art form. The doubling fee thing is somewhat appealling because it acts as a tax on valuable works. If Disney wants to spend millions to protect Mickey mouse then there is that option, yes the public domain loses, but the tax acts as compensation for that. I don't see why this doesn't work for the little guy. If they want to pay the fees they can, the point is people are only going to pay fees if it's worth it. That applies to Disney or Joe blogs. If it isn't worth $1/$2/$4 why should you get to stop everyone else using it?

blagie 3y ago
Honestly, I think it depends on the form of the work. * I'd be supportive with 10 years for software, articles (newspaper or scientific journal), and similar things which go out-of-date quickly. * I would be supportive of 10-20 years for things which make most of the profit in the first few years, such as movies. * I'd be supportive of 20-30 years for music, where it often really does take a while to build up an audience and to cover costs. * I'd be supportive of the lesser of the authors' life and 50 years for things like books. A lot of books take a long time before they begin generating any sort of reasonable returns. * I'd be supportive of longer periods for things which are CC-BY-SA, GPL, and similar licenses, which aren't as burdensome as All Rights Reserved, and where the copyright has a motive beyond profit. The little guy won't be able to afford this for more than 7-11 years. The big guy will be able to do so much longer. I'd actually rather flip it around so the little guy has longer copyright than megacorps.

anticensor 3y ago

surreptiously loses the copyright guid for the work, slipping stuff to the public domain