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>> "If the copyright holder is an individual, the minimum copyright term would extend to the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years after her death." I'm quite
by k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "If the copyright holder is an individual, the minimum copyright term would extend to the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years after her death."
I'm quite a big supporter of copyright but that's absolutely ridiculous. I think the lifetime of the creator is very reasonable. I can even understand throwing in a decade after that so that the family of a creator who dies young/suddenly are supported for a while. 70 years is 3 or 4 generations of family.
- anigbrowl 12y agoI don't like it, but that's already the status quo in the US and Europe (which the US extended its terms to match, ie the Europeans did it first). The whole copyright system is in drastic need of reform, but you can hardly blame stakeholders for wanting to maintain the regime they currently have. It's worth bearing in mind that all the TPP negotiating countries are already signatories to the Berne convention and are therefore obliged to respect each others' copyrights: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?treaty_id=15 http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?treaty_id=15
- m_eiman 12y agoso that the family of a creator who dies young/suddenly are supported for a while To provide this case, make it "the maximum of [life of author, 10 years]". IMHO 25 years regardless of author lifetime would be more than enough.
- jstalin 12y agoThe original US Copyright law extended protection for 14 years with the availability of renewal for another 14. I think that's reasonable and allows the expiration of copyright after 14 years if the owner doesn't take the time to renew.
- unreal37 12y agoI agree it should expire and require active effort (and some $ amount) to renew. That way, Mickey Mouse can still be under copyright but most other artistic works will be available for public use.
- walterbell 12y agoHow about a separate copyright category for Mickey Mouse?
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoI'm opposed to regressive copyright charges - which this sort of arrangement could lead to. Perhaps a percentage of the gross of all items sold under the copyright could be charged. That way if I'm making pin money from a few ebooks I don't have to give up that money so that Disney can be charged [at least] the full cost of the registration/renewal? One needs to write the law/regulations very carefully and be prepared to strike down extremely hard on corps who will try to manipulate this, eg by saying for a movie that the copyright work is on the DVD and you bought that for 1 cent but the packaging and label cost $19.99 and the work isn't available without those (or saying the customer pays for the TMs used separately or whatever other Hollywood accounting means they concoct).
- sp332 12y agoI wouldn't even mind so much if extensions were potentially infinite. My real problem is that everything gets the maximum "protection" by default. Creative Commons was invented to let authors selectively give up overbearing "protections". We should make some of these opt-in instead of opt-out.
- AnthonyMouse 12y agoIt seems like a sensible plan would be to charge $1 for copyright registration that lasts 5 years, then allow as many renewals for another 5 year period as you like but double the fee each time. At the 150 year mark Disney can decide for themselves whether another 5 years is worth a billion dollars.
- msandford 12y agoAgreed in principle. I think the initial slope should be a little lower but after about 30 years things should REALLY start to take off. So maybe $10 a year for the first 15 years and then double it every year thereafter.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dunham 12y agoHe's proposing $7 _total_ for the first 15 years. ($1 for the first five, $2 for the next five, and $4 for the final five years.)
- msandford 12y agoGraph the two of them and get back to me. I'm talking about the slope. I do realize that the total sum is basically trivial either way. But slope is an actual mathematical term and I used it as such.
- deleted 12y ago
- nileshtrivedi 12y agoOr we could make it a gradual process using Creative Commons' layered licenses: Full copyright for 14 years, CC-BY-NC-NDSA license for next 14, CC-BY-SA for next 14 and CC-BY till the life of author and public domain thereafter.
- api 12y agoDepends on the work. For software absolutely. For books not so much. Author's lifetime would be better.
- esquivalience 12y agoLife + 70 is not new - it's standard in more than 70 world countries.
- JanezStupar 12y agoNow there's a nice recursive definition. First you pass a crazy law - then force your partners to adopt the same. And when you want to extend your crazy law just point at your partners and say: "Its not crazy, everybody seems to be doing it!".
- lost_name 12y agoesquivalience is correct, assuming wikipedia is also correct: http://www.publicdomainday.org/node/39 http://www.publicdomainday.org/node/39
- rayiner 12y agoI don't see why copyright terms need to be empirically justified. Land is passed down from generation to generation, and few people ask: "what's the empirically justifiable duration of land rights?" If we're going to have inheritance of property,[1] I see no reason to extend stronger protections to dirt peoples' ancestors stole from native Americans than to creative works they brought into the universe through their own ingenuity. [1] Which is a controversial issue, but a separate one.
- bediger4000 12y agoIf the general, constitutionally-enshrined idea is to increase the public domain, then don't we have an implied obligation to figure out what term actually does increase the public domain? As copyright stands in the USA, little to nothing enters the public domain. That's definitely not increasing.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> If the general, constitutionally-enshrined idea is to increase the public domain, then don't we have an implied obligation to figure out what term actually does increase the public domain? But that's not the idea in the Constitution. Instead, the Constitutional purpose of Copyright to "promote progress in science and the useful arts". The only thing in the Constitution that implicitly touches on increasing the public domain is the limitation on means to protection of exclusive rights with limited terms.
- bediger4000 12y agoI'll bite. How else does copyright or patents or any "Intellectual Property" romote progress in science and the useful arts other than by giving creators a limited monopoly in exchange for disclosing the invention or idea or creative work? "Disclosure" is in fact part of a patent application, and a required part, if I understand correctly. You're splitting hairs, and not adding to the conversation, but I'll correct my statement: If the general, constitutionally-enshrined idea is to romote progress in science and the useful arts, hen don't we have an implied obligation to figure out what term actually does increase the progress in science and the useful arts?
- bediger4000 12y agoGiven the purpose of copyright (to increase the public domain), experience with "lifetime+N" indicates subtle bad effects. That is, without a lot of research, you can't tell if something is in copyright or has entered the public domain. Finding the author is the first obstacle, then finding out if and when the author died is next. The ultimate effect is to keep people from re-using things that almost, but not quite certainly, have entered the public domain. A fixed term, with required notices, would be a lot better for our purposes in the USA.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago>> "Finding the author is the first obstacle, then finding out if and when the author died is next." Isn't that going to become less of a concern as most content and creators are very public online these days?
- nitrogen 12y agoIsn't that going to become less of a concern as most content and creators are very public online these days? I think you are experiencing a bit of sampling/availability bias. Sometimes the most obscure works are the most interesting.
- dredmorbius 12y agoIronically, the last time I ran into this issue personally was discussing with David Friedman (son of Milt) access to several of his referenced papers. One (of which he was the author) had been published in a collection by (the now deceased) Julian Simon. Friedman wrote: "The optimum population piece was published in one of Julian Simon's books, and he, unfortunately, is no longer alive, so I don't know how I would get permission to web it." https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/fsYycWa8now https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/fsYycWa8... This suggests a few things to me (a lack of clarity on the part of an author over rights to his own works, a surprising lack of knowledge of copyright or rights management, generally, etc.). But it's a quite tangible instance of an author of a work stymied by the question of copyright status due to the death of a publisher / editor.
- pgeorgi 12y agoThe life + x years (with x a significant number) is a European thing and has a different origin than copyright: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors%27_rights Since the Berne Convention mandates life + 50 for a large class of publications, it's hard to go below that (both for the EU and the US)
- acd 12y agoI think there is some saying that copyright has always been extended whenever Disney Mickey mouse was about to expire. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25/15-years-ago-congress-kept-mickey-mouse-out-of-the-public-domain-will-they-do-it-again/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25...
- Eric_WVGG 12y agoYup, and it’s coming up again in three years. I am hoping that we can put together some kind of grass-roots campaign to make this a major issue during the upcoming presidential election.
- jcl 12y agoOne thing I thought was particularly gutsy is that Disney started making The Jungle Book while the story was still under copyright, releasing it after the copyright expired: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120910/02485220325/disney-claims-house-mouse-built-with-copyright-ignores-public-domain-foundation.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120910/02485220325/disne...
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- easytiger 12y agowrong. it is 70 years of debt you can now borrow hedged against that copyright.
- icebraining 12y agoHow exactly is the post "wrong"? It only contains opinions, not statements of fact.
- easytiger 12y agoWell if you had a sense of humour you could see my attempt to convert the conversation into the real reason corporations want this. So they can hedge the ownership rights for $, get rich now based on future use of the IP
- icebraining 12y agoSorry, but we're on HN; your argument fitted in too well to believe it was a joke :)
- dak1 12y agoIt will be interesting to see how we deal with the lifetime aspect of copyright if/when lifespans begin to trend toward forever.
- mikeash 12y agoI don't understand why the creator's lifetime ever enters the picture. Nothing else works like that. Most property belongs to you until you explicitly transfer it, and if you die it goes to your heirs. Some things (like patents) expire at a fixed time. As it stands, the copyright term for a work written by a 20-year-old author will likely be decades more than the copyright term for an identical work written by a 90-year-old author. How does that make any sense? Come up with a sensible fixed term and use that, done, end of story. If the creator outlives the term, so be it. If the creator dies immediately, his heirs can manage the property until it expires just like they would with anything else they inherit.
- kbenson 12y agoHaving copyright end exactly at the point of death does raise the interesting possibility of people being killed for exactly this reason. Not exactly a likely scenario, but it is possible, and worth thinking about, IMHO.
- quadrangle 12y agoYou can't have "lifetime" that means there's an interest in someone dying. Much better to just have a fixed time period.