4 ms·

This idea is floated quite often in reformist discussions of copyright, but I think it would be a huge headache. I have worked with public domain material quit

This idea is floated quite often in reformist discussions of copyright, but I think it would be a huge headache. I have worked with public domain material quite a bit. Currently, anything published in the United States prior to 1923 is in the public domain in the United States [1][2]. Some works published after 1923 are also in the public domain if they meet certain conditions (e.g. a work published in 1925 with a copyright notice where the copyright was never renewed), but it can be an extreme headache to work out which post-1923 works are in copyright and which are not. Although I am in no way a fan of the current system, it at least has the advantage of clarity for pre-1923 works. In a proposed system of copyright extension, renewal or terms that are in other ways modifiable on a per-work basis, establishing whether or not works are still in copyright would become an absolute nightmare. Consider that, in the US, copyright applies to any eligible creative work at the moment it is "created and fixed in a tangible form" [3]. In the internet age, millions or billions or works are created each day that are protected by copyright. Most of these works do not have a title and will never be registered anywhere, but copyright applies none the less. A central registry of copyrighted works is impossible, much less a registry that records the specific extensions or renewal term on a per-work basis. In my opinion, the only possible system that can work is one based on fixed lengths of time. If copyright is extendable, the large majority of works will fall into a legal grey area where it is unclear whether or not the copyright has been extended and almost impossible to find out. Under such a system, the only safe approach to handling copyrighted works would be to assume each work had had its copyright extended to the maximum term possible under law, unless it was provable that was not the case (which, as I have argued, would be extremely difficult). Under a fixed-term system, it is simple to work out whether or not most works are still copyrighted, even in cases where the title, author of record or copyright holder are not identifiable. [1] There may be some obscure exceptions to this rule, but it holds broadly enough that I have never encountered any in practice. [2] http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm [3] http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

sp332 13y ago
Why is it impossible? If they're paying for a copyright extension, shouldn't it be clear which works they are paying for? Anything not in the registry would fall under the shorter term.
- gabemart 13y ago
  It's not impossible, but it can be extremely difficult. Consider a short story published in a literary journal last week. Allow a copyright system to exist that covers each eligible work for 30 years by default, and allows multiple extensions of 5 years at a cost of $1000 per extension per work, up to a total copyright term of 100 years. Someone in 2047 discovers a copy of this particular journal issue, which has now become obscure. They identify that this short story, though never being given acclaim, has had a subtle yet profound cultural influence. They decide to republish the story in their own commercial magazine, but want to check if the copyright has been extended. If it has not, the story is in the public domain. If is has been extended, the story is still covered by copyright. They can search the central registry for the title of the short story and the name of the author. But they also have to search for the names of the editors of the journal, because it isn't clear whether or not the copyright stayed with the author or was transferred to the journal as part of the submission process. In fact, the copyright might have been granted to the owner of the journal, which may be an individual or may be an institution. The entry for the copyright might be under the title of the short story, or under the title for the journal, or under the title of that particular issue of the journal. Furthermore, the author of the story, if they retained the copyright, may have submitted the story under a pen name, and/or may have registered the copyright of the short story under a different title than the title they used to submit to the journal, or the title might have been changed by the editors. Or, the author, after having the short story accepted by the journal, may have sold it to a publisher who published it in a short fiction anthology, the copyright for which is registered completely separately and is essentially invisible to our hypothetical future researcher. Any of these agents might have extended the copyright. It would be extremely difficult to prove to a high degree of certainty that the story was or was not covered by copyright.
  - icebraining 13y ago
jccooper 13y ago
A central registry of extended copyrights is not impossible; there's plenty of institutional inertia in government offices to assure continuity (USPTO has been around since 1871, Library of Congress since 1800), and the extension fees could easily pay for a database of works. Heck, we already do that with registered copyright. It won't even be a large corpus; the works that anyone would care about after 30 years (or, in better concert with the current system, 70 years) would be rather manageable. To eliminate "grey area", make the USPTO (or LoC or whatever) the final word on whether something is still registered. Ask 'em, they say "yes" or "no", and you're done. Instruct the registry to provide wide latitude in considering slightly different versions the same work to cut down on combinatorics. It actually puts more of a book-keeping burden on the copyright owners than the government, but if you have 30 year+ still-producing assets, presumably you can manage such a slow-motion system. It's not a perfect system, granted, but it's better than the alternative: eternal or eternally-extending copyright, with the original horizon being "Steamboat Willie". With a registered-renewal system, Disney can keep their crap and we can get the rest of the corpus. (For bonus points, the registration fee increases with each renewal, to make sure you really think it's valuable. Powers of two would be nice.)

sp332 13y ago

Why is it impossible? If they're paying for a copyright extension, shouldn't it be clear which works they are paying for? Anything not in the registry would fall under the shorter term.

gabemart 13y ago
It's not impossible, but it can be extremely difficult. Consider a short story published in a literary journal last week. Allow a copyright system to exist that covers each eligible work for 30 years by default, and allows multiple extensions of 5 years at a cost of $1000 per extension per work, up to a total copyright term of 100 years. Someone in 2047 discovers a copy of this particular journal issue, which has now become obscure. They identify that this short story, though never being given acclaim, has had a subtle yet profound cultural influence. They decide to republish the story in their own commercial magazine, but want to check if the copyright has been extended. If it has not, the story is in the public domain. If is has been extended, the story is still covered by copyright. They can search the central registry for the title of the short story and the name of the author. But they also have to search for the names of the editors of the journal, because it isn't clear whether or not the copyright stayed with the author or was transferred to the journal as part of the submission process. In fact, the copyright might have been granted to the owner of the journal, which may be an individual or may be an institution. The entry for the copyright might be under the title of the short story, or under the title for the journal, or under the title of that particular issue of the journal. Furthermore, the author of the story, if they retained the copyright, may have submitted the story under a pen name, and/or may have registered the copyright of the short story under a different title than the title they used to submit to the journal, or the title might have been changed by the editors. Or, the author, after having the short story accepted by the journal, may have sold it to a publisher who published it in a short fiction anthology, the copyright for which is registered completely separately and is essentially invisible to our hypothetical future researcher. Any of these agents might have extended the copyright. It would be extremely difficult to prove to a high degree of certainty that the story was or was not covered by copyright.
- icebraining 13y ago

jccooper 13y ago

A central registry of extended copyrights is not impossible; there's plenty of institutional inertia in government offices to assure continuity (USPTO has been around since 1871, Library of Congress since 1800), and the extension fees could easily pay for a database of works. Heck, we already do that with registered copyright. It won't even be a large corpus; the works that anyone would care about after 30 years (or, in better concert with the current system, 70 years) would be rather manageable. To eliminate "grey area", make the USPTO (or LoC or whatever) the final word on whether something is still registered. Ask 'em, they say "yes" or "no", and you're done. Instruct the registry to provide wide latitude in considering slightly different versions the same work to cut down on combinatorics. It actually puts more of a book-keeping burden on the copyright owners than the government, but if you have 30 year+ still-producing assets, presumably you can manage such a slow-motion system. It's not a perfect system, granted, but it's better than the alternative: eternal or eternally-extending copyright, with the original horizon being "Steamboat Willie". With a registered-renewal system, Disney can keep their crap and we can get the rest of the corpus. (For bonus points, the registration fee increases with each renewal, to make sure you really think it's valuable. Powers of two would be nice.)