4 ms·

No, it's our fault for having an archaic copyright system that people are still trying to enforce instead of fixing the root issues.

kajecounterhack 18y ago
Pray tell me, what are these root issues you speak of? I'm mostly in agreement with vaksel. I don't see how the copyright system has anything to do with how the MPAA/RIAA tries to enforce it's copyright upon meaningless things like dancing videos of babies. Which by the way happened http://www.switched.com/2008/08/21/dancing-baby-lawsuit-turns-tables-on-music-industry/ http://www.switched.com/2008/08/21/dancing-baby-lawsuit-turn...
- tutwabee 18y ago
  The DMCA seems to legally broaden the intellectual property rights of mega-corporations in nasty ways. The RIAA, MPAA, and many electronics corporations frequently abuse these rights, while staying within the law. Maybe the RIAA and MPAA are the good guys. They're just stress-testing the system to work out bugs. Legal loopholes and kinks will be discovered, abused, and patched up much more hastily this way.
- Xichekolas 18y ago
  Well just to throw it up for consideration, I think granting exclusive rights to a work for "life + 70 years" for an individual and 120 years for a corporation is rather absurd. If the point of copyright was really to encourage artists/writers to produce content, don't you think 25 years would be sufficient time to capitalize on a work? Although I'd even settle for simply "life". The original copyright terms (in 1790) were 14 years with an option to extend once for 14 more. The current system is in place so corporate copyright owners can continue to profit off their long-dead artist's creations... ahem Disney. Nothing made since 1923 has entered the public domain. So yeah, the MPAA/RIAA definitely make bone-headed enforcement decisions, but the underlying system is also broken.
  - Retric 18y ago
    IMO, I think life + 20 is reasonable. To avoid upsetting company's like Disney a fee per work to preserve valuable copyright seems reasonable. I would say 10k / year + 5% of the gross sales would be reasonable. That way you promote new works, but don't need to fight corporations that want copy write to last until the end of time. It's also a good divider between works that people are actually interested in preserving from works that generate little income.
    - Xichekolas 18y ago
      I think "life" is sufficient. With that, someone can capitalize on their work for their entire career. Anything past death simply serves to allow offspring to ride the laurels of their parents. As for corporations, I'd be open to a pay-as-you-go system like you propose, only I'd make the payment grow at some exponential percentage. Say the first year costs $1 and the fee grows by 25% a year. Adjusted for 3% inflation, the fees would be something like: Year Fee/yr 1 $1 10 $5.71 25 $104.17 50 $13,169 100 $210 million 150 $3.36 trillion This would put a natural limit on corporate copyright, due to their willingness to pay. With this system, Disney would pay $5,659,799 this year for the Mickey Mouse copyright (assuming it started at 10 cents in 1928, which is assuming 3% inflation backwards from now). By 2033 this would be a billion dollars a year... by 2064 a trillion. (Again, at 3% inflation, a trillion dollars in 2064 is like $200 billion today).
      - kajecounterhack 18y ago
        lol what if someone commits murder for the sake of obtaining a copyright? that's not actually that far-fetched if you think about it. well...maybe. big evil corporations are, after all, the stuff of movies haha
- jimbokun 18y ago
  The root issue of having copyright laws that enable corporations to sue people for dancing baby videos.
jackzombie 18y ago
I totally agree. I feel that if something is important, than the message should not be only available to people who can afford to read/hear the message, but should be readily available for anyone who is willing to learn. Whenever I read a great book, or hear a great song, I try to promote it as much as possible because I think that it is important that the artist's message is heard and understood by as many people as possible. Some of my favourite 'artists' (such as Franz Kafka and Carl Sagan) held day jobs in professional/scientific fields. I realize that their material is copyrighted, but my point is that art and learning/the spreading of ideas should be done for the sake of art itself or learning itself, not for the sake of profit. I chose those two as examples because they made their living (for the most part) by working at their day jobs, and created their art because they wanted to deliver a message, not because they wanted to get rich.
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  If someone gets paid for the art they produce, then they can spend their full time on tuning their art. I wonder what the world would be like if Michaelangelo had a day job.
  - moe 18y ago
    I hope you're saying this tongue in cheek because Michelangelo (like most of our great artists btw) ofcourse did have a dayjob. He was struggling for money for the better part of his life, taking on jobs that he hated. Where do you think the "poor artist" or "suffering for art" memes come from? There was no such thing as a "record deal" in the old times either. You had to suffer until your popularity would pay for itself - and without the leverage of mass media, too. There's a great book about Michelangelo by Irvin Stone that I'd wholeheartly recommend to anyone interested. It's not dry teaching material but his life told in the form of a novel: http://www.amazon.com/Agony-Ecstasy-Biographical-Novel-Michelangelo/dp/0451171357 http://www.amazon.com/Agony-Ecstasy-Biographical-Novel-Miche...
    - trapper 18y ago
      I'm not sure if what you are saying is that creative people should give their stuff away and suffer until the off chance they get popular and get paid? Just because you want to get their stuff for free? There was no such thing as medical treatment in the old times either, doesn't mean we should stop it. Hell, there was no such thing as reproducing someones creative work for zero cost in the old times either. Does that mean we should stop that? I think our world is better off by having creative people paid to be creative. I know the RIAA are bad news, but I haven't seen any realistic alternative offered.

kajecounterhack 18y ago

Pray tell me, what are these root issues you speak of? I'm mostly in agreement with vaksel. I don't see how the copyright system has anything to do with how the MPAA/RIAA tries to enforce it's copyright upon meaningless things like dancing videos of babies. Which by the way happened http://www.switched.com/2008/08/21/dancing-baby-lawsuit-turns-tables-on-music-industry/ http://www.switched.com/2008/08/21/dancing-baby-lawsuit-turn...

tutwabee 18y ago
The DMCA seems to legally broaden the intellectual property rights of mega-corporations in nasty ways. The RIAA, MPAA, and many electronics corporations frequently abuse these rights, while staying within the law. Maybe the RIAA and MPAA are the good guys. They're just stress-testing the system to work out bugs. Legal loopholes and kinks will be discovered, abused, and patched up much more hastily this way.
Xichekolas 18y ago
Well just to throw it up for consideration, I think granting exclusive rights to a work for "life + 70 years" for an individual and 120 years for a corporation is rather absurd. If the point of copyright was really to encourage artists/writers to produce content, don't you think 25 years would be sufficient time to capitalize on a work? Although I'd even settle for simply "life". The original copyright terms (in 1790) were 14 years with an option to extend once for 14 more. The current system is in place so corporate copyright owners can continue to profit off their long-dead artist's creations... ahem Disney. Nothing made since 1923 has entered the public domain. So yeah, the MPAA/RIAA definitely make bone-headed enforcement decisions, but the underlying system is also broken.
- Retric 18y ago
  IMO, I think life + 20 is reasonable. To avoid upsetting company's like Disney a fee per work to preserve valuable copyright seems reasonable. I would say 10k / year + 5% of the gross sales would be reasonable. That way you promote new works, but don't need to fight corporations that want copy write to last until the end of time. It's also a good divider between works that people are actually interested in preserving from works that generate little income.
  - Xichekolas 18y ago
    I think "life" is sufficient. With that, someone can capitalize on their work for their entire career. Anything past death simply serves to allow offspring to ride the laurels of their parents. As for corporations, I'd be open to a pay-as-you-go system like you propose, only I'd make the payment grow at some exponential percentage. Say the first year costs $1 and the fee grows by 25% a year. Adjusted for 3% inflation, the fees would be something like: Year Fee/yr 1 $1 10 $5.71 25 $104.17 50 $13,169 100 $210 million 150 $3.36 trillion This would put a natural limit on corporate copyright, due to their willingness to pay. With this system, Disney would pay $5,659,799 this year for the Mickey Mouse copyright (assuming it started at 10 cents in 1928, which is assuming 3% inflation backwards from now). By 2033 this would be a billion dollars a year... by 2064 a trillion. (Again, at 3% inflation, a trillion dollars in 2064 is like $200 billion today).
    - kajecounterhack 18y ago
      lol what if someone commits murder for the sake of obtaining a copyright? that's not actually that far-fetched if you think about it. well...maybe. big evil corporations are, after all, the stuff of movies haha
jimbokun 18y ago
The root issue of having copyright laws that enable corporations to sue people for dancing baby videos.

jackzombie 18y ago

I totally agree. I feel that if something is important, than the message should not be only available to people who can afford to read/hear the message, but should be readily available for anyone who is willing to learn. Whenever I read a great book, or hear a great song, I try to promote it as much as possible because I think that it is important that the artist's message is heard and understood by as many people as possible. Some of my favourite 'artists' (such as Franz Kafka and Carl Sagan) held day jobs in professional/scientific fields. I realize that their material is copyrighted, but my point is that art and learning/the spreading of ideas should be done for the sake of art itself or learning itself, not for the sake of profit. I chose those two as examples because they made their living (for the most part) by working at their day jobs, and created their art because they wanted to deliver a message, not because they wanted to get rich.

jacoblyles 18y ago
If someone gets paid for the art they produce, then they can spend their full time on tuning their art. I wonder what the world would be like if Michaelangelo had a day job.
- moe 18y ago
  I hope you're saying this tongue in cheek because Michelangelo (like most of our great artists btw) ofcourse did have a dayjob. He was struggling for money for the better part of his life, taking on jobs that he hated. Where do you think the "poor artist" or "suffering for art" memes come from? There was no such thing as a "record deal" in the old times either. You had to suffer until your popularity would pay for itself - and without the leverage of mass media, too. There's a great book about Michelangelo by Irvin Stone that I'd wholeheartly recommend to anyone interested. It's not dry teaching material but his life told in the form of a novel: http://www.amazon.com/Agony-Ecstasy-Biographical-Novel-Michelangelo/dp/0451171357 http://www.amazon.com/Agony-Ecstasy-Biographical-Novel-Miche...
  - trapper 18y ago
    I'm not sure if what you are saying is that creative people should give their stuff away and suffer until the off chance they get popular and get paid? Just because you want to get their stuff for free? There was no such thing as medical treatment in the old times either, doesn't mean we should stop it. Hell, there was no such thing as reproducing someones creative work for zero cost in the old times either. Does that mean we should stop that? I think our world is better off by having creative people paid to be creative. I know the RIAA are bad news, but I haven't seen any realistic alternative offered.