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European patents have an interesting fee structure that increases exponentially (IIRC doubling every ~3 years), with a 20 year limit. I think this (plus mandato

European patents have an interesting fee structure that increases exponentially (IIRC doubling every ~3 years), with a 20 year limit. I think this (plus mandatory registration if you want to enforce) is a great solution to copyrights, too, even if you let it run unbounded. If the registration fee is $1000, a registration 30 years later is $1000000 and if you want 60 years you have to pay $1000000000 over the life of the copyright. Any excess revenue could, theoretically, be redistribute as grants for the arts.

devsda 2y ago
I think it should be proportionate (& increasing exponentially) to the revenue(not profit because hollywood accounting). Big coporations like Disney can hold on to the material and pay the sum with profits from other ip if it's fixed.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  I completely disagree. The previous comment's idea is better: just charge fees. The government shouldn't be worried about exactly how profitable something is, because you can argue that too many ways (see Hollywood accounting). It's too easy for large corporations to invent "creative accounting" tricks, and just basing things on revenue penalizes any company that invests larger amounts of money in ventures that have lower profit margins (e.g. doing high-quality movie production with physical models, on-location shooting, etc. instead of just using some crappy AI to generate everything). With exponentially increasing fees, the copyright holder can decide for themselves if it's economically worthwhile to pay the renewal fees or release it into the public domain. If the cost to extend copyright another 5 years after 50+ years is $1B, for instance, very few copyright holders will bother with that unless it's a highly profitable property.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    The problem with "just charge fees" is that it wastes an excellent opportunity to make the copyright system more useful for individual authors and artists, and instead strengthens the status quo with even more incentives to consolidate copyright powers under mega-corporations. Long before the fees got high enough to incentivize a corporation to abandon a work's copyright to the public domain, they would force authors to sell out to a corporation in return for a share of future earnings, rather than accept an immediate loss of all royalties.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      Presumably you could set up "just charge fees" to have a grace period of 3-5 years to register your copyright (and pay any back fees) if you happen to want to enforce the copyright after that time. It's also possible that you could set up a smaller fee for a news article, etc. There are lots of implementation details that make "just charge fees" work.
      - benj111 2y ago
        Back fees? So I use a 4 year old work, that I assume is public domain, and then the creator, pays his back fees and sues me? alternatively, a creator creates a work, gets 5 years of protection, and never pays the fees that he owes.
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
        Yes, exactly that model. In practice, you would treat that 4-year-old work as "under copyright" the same way everything written is under copyright today. This sort of thing gives you a chance to market your creative work with protection and avoid paying fees until you know that it is valuable. That would then allow the fees to be relatively high since only people with valuable IP would pay. The alternative is that everyone's blog enters the public domain immediately upon writing unless they want to pay $XXX per article, which also seems wrong to me.
        benj111 2y ago
        why don't you just treat it as being x years free?
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        I think the first 5 years should be free; after that, fees apply, starting at probably $1000 for the next 5 years, and going up exponentially afterwards.
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
  - andrepd 2y ago
    > The government shouldn't be worried about exactly how profitable something is, because you can argue that too many ways (see Hollywood accounting). It's too easy for large corporations to invent "creative accounting" tricks This is also the core reason why tax systems should be simplified simplified simplified.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Why complicate things and allow for even more creative accounting? Elevating flat fees give you a term that is inversely proportional to revenue. With flat exponential fees, term is logarithmic in revenue.
- toast0 2y ago
  Assuming fee based renewal, proportionate to revenue is problematic for works that fall out of publishing. There's lots of works from when I was young that nobody is interested in publishing, even though I would like to see them again. They make zero revenue now (and probably didn't make much before), so I suspect the rights holders would abandon them if they had to pay any fee, especially an escalating fee. I'm personally less worried about works that remain in print.
  - zarzavat 2y ago
    Couldn't you print it yourself? If it's that obscure and that important to you to own a hard copy.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Print them how? Am I supposed to type up all the pages of that falling apart book - book scanning helps but still requires extensive effort? What about the page that got ripped out and is missing, how do I recreate that? While it is likely legal for me to go through all that effort for myself, it isn't legal for me to share the fruits of my effort with someone else who wants a copy so they need to do it themself. Even if they have a worn out copy themself it isn't clear that I can print them a new copy. If I want to share this work with someone else who might want it I'm stuck - I can only do the above for personal use.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    > I suspect the rights holders would abandon them if they had to pay any fee Wouldn’t that just put the works in the public domain, allowing others to legally publish the works? What would be the downside?
    - toast0 2y ago
      Yes, that's the upside. That's why people want a meaningful fee. If it's revenue based and there's no revenue, then the rightsholder will renew to protect their options.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  > Big coporations like Disney can hold on to the material and pay the sum with profits from other ip if it's fixed. I think that's okay, Disney has lots of money but they aren't stupid, i.e. they won't spend money unless they expect a return on investment. What you really want to prevent are orphan works which are copyrighted but no one can get a copy of.
silvestrov 2y ago
European Patent Office fee list: https://my.epoline.org/epoline-portal/classic/epoline.Scheduleoffees https://my.epoline.org/epoline-portal/classic/epoline.Schedu... has 4 pages of prices
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Looks like I was wrong about which patent office I'm thinking of, thanks for posting. Seems like it's the US that has doubling fees, doubling every 4 years.

devsda 2y ago

I think it should be proportionate (& increasing exponentially) to the revenue(not profit because hollywood accounting). Big coporations like Disney can hold on to the material and pay the sum with profits from other ip if it's fixed.

shiroiushi 2y ago
I completely disagree. The previous comment's idea is better: just charge fees. The government shouldn't be worried about exactly how profitable something is, because you can argue that too many ways (see Hollywood accounting). It's too easy for large corporations to invent "creative accounting" tricks, and just basing things on revenue penalizes any company that invests larger amounts of money in ventures that have lower profit margins (e.g. doing high-quality movie production with physical models, on-location shooting, etc. instead of just using some crappy AI to generate everything). With exponentially increasing fees, the copyright holder can decide for themselves if it's economically worthwhile to pay the renewal fees or release it into the public domain. If the cost to extend copyright another 5 years after 50+ years is $1B, for instance, very few copyright holders will bother with that unless it's a highly profitable property.
- wtallis 2y ago
  The problem with "just charge fees" is that it wastes an excellent opportunity to make the copyright system more useful for individual authors and artists, and instead strengthens the status quo with even more incentives to consolidate copyright powers under mega-corporations. Long before the fees got high enough to incentivize a corporation to abandon a work's copyright to the public domain, they would force authors to sell out to a corporation in return for a share of future earnings, rather than accept an immediate loss of all royalties.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Presumably you could set up "just charge fees" to have a grace period of 3-5 years to register your copyright (and pay any back fees) if you happen to want to enforce the copyright after that time. It's also possible that you could set up a smaller fee for a news article, etc. There are lots of implementation details that make "just charge fees" work.
    - benj111 2y ago
      Back fees? So I use a 4 year old work, that I assume is public domain, and then the creator, pays his back fees and sues me? alternatively, a creator creates a work, gets 5 years of protection, and never pays the fees that he owes.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        Yes, exactly that model. In practice, you would treat that 4-year-old work as "under copyright" the same way everything written is under copyright today. This sort of thing gives you a chance to market your creative work with protection and avoid paying fees until you know that it is valuable. That would then allow the fees to be relatively high since only people with valuable IP would pay. The alternative is that everyone's blog enters the public domain immediately upon writing unless they want to pay $XXX per article, which also seems wrong to me.
        benj111 2y ago
        why don't you just treat it as being x years free?
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        I think the first 5 years should be free; after that, fees apply, starting at probably $1000 for the next 5 years, and going up exponentially afterwards.
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
- andrepd 2y ago
  > The government shouldn't be worried about exactly how profitable something is, because you can argue that too many ways (see Hollywood accounting). It's too easy for large corporations to invent "creative accounting" tricks This is also the core reason why tax systems should be simplified simplified simplified.
pclmulqdq 2y ago
Why complicate things and allow for even more creative accounting? Elevating flat fees give you a term that is inversely proportional to revenue. With flat exponential fees, term is logarithmic in revenue.
toast0 2y ago
Assuming fee based renewal, proportionate to revenue is problematic for works that fall out of publishing. There's lots of works from when I was young that nobody is interested in publishing, even though I would like to see them again. They make zero revenue now (and probably didn't make much before), so I suspect the rights holders would abandon them if they had to pay any fee, especially an escalating fee. I'm personally less worried about works that remain in print.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  Couldn't you print it yourself? If it's that obscure and that important to you to own a hard copy.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Print them how? Am I supposed to type up all the pages of that falling apart book - book scanning helps but still requires extensive effort? What about the page that got ripped out and is missing, how do I recreate that? While it is likely legal for me to go through all that effort for myself, it isn't legal for me to share the fruits of my effort with someone else who wants a copy so they need to do it themself. Even if they have a worn out copy themself it isn't clear that I can print them a new copy. If I want to share this work with someone else who might want it I'm stuck - I can only do the above for personal use.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  > I suspect the rights holders would abandon them if they had to pay any fee Wouldn’t that just put the works in the public domain, allowing others to legally publish the works? What would be the downside?
  - toast0 2y ago
    Yes, that's the upside. That's why people want a meaningful fee. If it's revenue based and there's no revenue, then the rightsholder will renew to protect their options.
Wowfunhappy 2y ago
> Big coporations like Disney can hold on to the material and pay the sum with profits from other ip if it's fixed. I think that's okay, Disney has lots of money but they aren't stupid, i.e. they won't spend money unless they expect a return on investment. What you really want to prevent are orphan works which are copyrighted but no one can get a copy of.

silvestrov 2y ago

European Patent Office fee list: https://my.epoline.org/epoline-portal/classic/epoline.Scheduleoffees https://my.epoline.org/epoline-portal/classic/epoline.Schedu... has 4 pages of prices

pclmulqdq 2y ago
Looks like I was wrong about which patent office I'm thinking of, thanks for posting. Seems like it's the US that has doubling fees, doubling every 4 years.