5 ms·

The two natural states of "intellectual property" are public domain and trade secret. Everything else exists only because of legal systems creating new concept

The two natural states of "intellectual property" are public domain and trade secret. Everything else exists only because of legal systems creating new concepts. My problem is that copyright is misapplied: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." To my understanding, congress has no authority to issue copyright legalities for things which do not advance science and the useful arts (practical industry, etc). Happy Birthday does not fall under either of those categories. "If you don't believe in copyright, what do you think is my economic incentive to create original work, or anyone else's to commission/purchase such work?" Plenty of works are created without direct economic incentive associated with copying the work. Just look at non-commercial YouTubers or open source projects. Music, movies, etc, still come into being. Personally, I would trade the existence of higher-production media for more sane copyright laws.

anigbrowl 11y ago
Happy Birthday is undoubtedly a work of art, albeit a rather trivial one, and the copyright clause extends protection to authors as well as inventors; I just think that its term of protection is long since expired. I think things like literature, theater, and so on have considerable social utility and don't care for your restriction to industrial applications. Plenty of works are created without direct economic incentive associated with copying the work. Just look at non-commercial YouTubers or open source projects. As far as arts go, many non-commercial offerings are deeply lacking. Removing the economic incentive reverts the arts to a system of patronage and arguably subverts artistic freedom in many domains (eg theater) by limiting output to suit the whims of the economically powerful.
- white-flame 11y ago
  The term "useful Arts" is not about "art" as we use the term today. To my understanding, that phrase was specifically about practical skills in the language of the day this was written. It is not "my" restriction. And again, I would rather have "lacking" artistic offerings in exchange for more sane copyright laws. Besides, there's a certain passion that comes through underdog artists that isn't there in most larger commercial offerings.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    I am one of those underdog artists. Copyright protection is literally the only leverage point I have available in any sort of business negotiation. They don't typically give out subsidies or tax breaks for films with a sub-$1 million budget. And while I don't argue for the sort of extreme copyright terms we have now such as 95 years, I do want robust copyright protection at minimal registration cost because it creates a level economic playing field for creative people who do original work.
    - white-flame 11y ago
      I am a musician as well. I don't make money out of it, and I understand how hard it is to make money in arts. The question is, should these sorts of economic incentives exist, and to what scale, given their downsides? Any incentive will drive people into playing the game and optimizing their take, driving the global legislation problems we are currently facing. Art has always been a poor man's game throughout human history. I think the age we live in now is an anomaly with respect to personal arts and IP-based commercial funding. Historical economic success I can think of would be found in notable performance artists, instrument manufacturers, conservatory instructors, and patronage. None of these are really IP related, but personal skill related and involved in the trade of tangible goods & services found from a particular individual or group, regardless of their ability to be copied.
      - anigbrowl 11y ago
        I certainly don't favor 95 year copyright terms of the Disney variety, or even life + 70 for authors - more like 35-50 for collective/corporate works and life terms for authors, or maybe some combination of the two, although that would be tricky to administrate. I also think that there should be a few different levels of licensing (much like the Creative Commons approach) and possibly some sort of price controls for licensing, to be reflective of the fixed pricing for copyright registration that currently obtains. In general I'm against price controls, though, and going down that route could lead to mandatory licensing which would also be undesirable (eg you find your passionate song about freedom used in a political campaign commercial by a candidate whose values you find repellent, and can do nothing about it because anybody has the right to unilaterally license anything). Other people have proposed increasing copyright renewal fees over time, or renewal fees that were somehow keyed to the economic performance of a copyrighted work, though I think both these approaches are problematic.
- ximeng 11y ago
  It works both ways. Copyright restricts a lot of creative uses of prior works, sometimes unintentionally and with little benefit to anyone. There are also some non-commercial youtubers producing very professional work - see Peter Hollens for an example. Despite what you say about patronage he is pushing for a system of effectively distributed patronage, Patreon. There are obviously benefits to the current system, but it's far from clear that it's the best of all possible systems.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    I certainly don't think it's thee best of all possible systems, but discussion of the subject here often overlooks economics. Peter Hollens' work is nice, but let's be realistic: what are his expenses? A small sum for a performance license and another small sum to do the recording, a couple of thousand at most per work that he puts out. Now compare the costs of staging a theatrical work or making an independent film. It's not that that type of artwork is fundamentally better, but that the up front costs are much higher because of the resources involved. A distributed patronage model is no good here because you're dealing with a very different sort of product. While the funding models need to evolve (and I'm optimistic about Title III equity crowdfunding becoming available alter this year), I'm quite skeptical of people coming along and saying 'movie copyrights suck, because Disney' while having very little appreciation of how the majority of films get made outside the 100 or so well-financed pictures released by Hollywood major and mini-major studios.
    - ximeng 11y ago
      Can you elaborate on how they get made as you seem to have a major interest in this? Why couldn't distributed patronage work? Currently distribution and visibility seems to be equally problematic for movies, more engagement with producers as is required through crowdfunding would seem like a good solution. I could imagine episodic crowd-funding would give people who like a show a strong incentive to tell others and persuade others to contribute to a show. The model for films today seems to be mostly driven by critic reviews, 2 minute trailers, and whatever all your friends are seeing at the cinema that weekend, which doesn't seem like a particularly good model either.
- throwaway9324 11y ago
  "I just think that its term of protection is long since expired." Why do you think that, it hasn't been 95 years since 1935, or is that a suggestion? "I think things like literature, theater, and so on have considerable social utility and don't care for your restriction to industrial applications." I get that you think that, but it has no basis in intellectual property law. It's entirely the opposite, the more utility something has the less protection it gets.
  - anigbrowl 11y ago
    REad the lawsuit, or this summary is also good: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/08/05/happy-birthday-to-you-copyright-challenged-in-class-action/id=50684/ http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/08/05/happy-birthday-to-you-c... It's too complex to explain in a comment, plus it's late.
    - throwaway9324 11y ago
      That isn't really about the "term of protection" though, but rather the validity of the copyright claim.
      - anigbrowl 11y ago
        'Term of protection' == 'any valid copyright claim it might once had had or been eligible for if properly registered, as opposed to the questionable claims of the current licensors'. I don't want to type all that out every time, and I don't want to make a possibly-inaccurate claim that it was never ever in copyright because I haven't checked all the primary sources for myself. That's why I referred you to external sources for the lawsuit, because I don't want to make definitive comments about the legal merits of either side's case in this thread - it's been a few months since I even looked through the complaint.
        throwaway9324 11y ago
        I'm not sure how hard it is to say "[copyright claim] is not valid". It's kind of hard to discuss thing if you come up with your own meaning of things.

anigbrowl 11y ago

Happy Birthday is undoubtedly a work of art, albeit a rather trivial one, and the copyright clause extends protection to authors as well as inventors; I just think that its term of protection is long since expired. I think things like literature, theater, and so on have considerable social utility and don't care for your restriction to industrial applications. Plenty of works are created without direct economic incentive associated with copying the work. Just look at non-commercial YouTubers or open source projects. As far as arts go, many non-commercial offerings are deeply lacking. Removing the economic incentive reverts the arts to a system of patronage and arguably subverts artistic freedom in many domains (eg theater) by limiting output to suit the whims of the economically powerful.

white-flame 11y ago
The term "useful Arts" is not about "art" as we use the term today. To my understanding, that phrase was specifically about practical skills in the language of the day this was written. It is not "my" restriction. And again, I would rather have "lacking" artistic offerings in exchange for more sane copyright laws. Besides, there's a certain passion that comes through underdog artists that isn't there in most larger commercial offerings.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  I am one of those underdog artists. Copyright protection is literally the only leverage point I have available in any sort of business negotiation. They don't typically give out subsidies or tax breaks for films with a sub-$1 million budget. And while I don't argue for the sort of extreme copyright terms we have now such as 95 years, I do want robust copyright protection at minimal registration cost because it creates a level economic playing field for creative people who do original work.
  - white-flame 11y ago
    I am a musician as well. I don't make money out of it, and I understand how hard it is to make money in arts. The question is, should these sorts of economic incentives exist, and to what scale, given their downsides? Any incentive will drive people into playing the game and optimizing their take, driving the global legislation problems we are currently facing. Art has always been a poor man's game throughout human history. I think the age we live in now is an anomaly with respect to personal arts and IP-based commercial funding. Historical economic success I can think of would be found in notable performance artists, instrument manufacturers, conservatory instructors, and patronage. None of these are really IP related, but personal skill related and involved in the trade of tangible goods & services found from a particular individual or group, regardless of their ability to be copied.
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      I certainly don't favor 95 year copyright terms of the Disney variety, or even life + 70 for authors - more like 35-50 for collective/corporate works and life terms for authors, or maybe some combination of the two, although that would be tricky to administrate. I also think that there should be a few different levels of licensing (much like the Creative Commons approach) and possibly some sort of price controls for licensing, to be reflective of the fixed pricing for copyright registration that currently obtains. In general I'm against price controls, though, and going down that route could lead to mandatory licensing which would also be undesirable (eg you find your passionate song about freedom used in a political campaign commercial by a candidate whose values you find repellent, and can do nothing about it because anybody has the right to unilaterally license anything). Other people have proposed increasing copyright renewal fees over time, or renewal fees that were somehow keyed to the economic performance of a copyrighted work, though I think both these approaches are problematic.
ximeng 11y ago
It works both ways. Copyright restricts a lot of creative uses of prior works, sometimes unintentionally and with little benefit to anyone. There are also some non-commercial youtubers producing very professional work - see Peter Hollens for an example. Despite what you say about patronage he is pushing for a system of effectively distributed patronage, Patreon. There are obviously benefits to the current system, but it's far from clear that it's the best of all possible systems.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  I certainly don't think it's thee best of all possible systems, but discussion of the subject here often overlooks economics. Peter Hollens' work is nice, but let's be realistic: what are his expenses? A small sum for a performance license and another small sum to do the recording, a couple of thousand at most per work that he puts out. Now compare the costs of staging a theatrical work or making an independent film. It's not that that type of artwork is fundamentally better, but that the up front costs are much higher because of the resources involved. A distributed patronage model is no good here because you're dealing with a very different sort of product. While the funding models need to evolve (and I'm optimistic about Title III equity crowdfunding becoming available alter this year), I'm quite skeptical of people coming along and saying 'movie copyrights suck, because Disney' while having very little appreciation of how the majority of films get made outside the 100 or so well-financed pictures released by Hollywood major and mini-major studios.
  - ximeng 11y ago
    Can you elaborate on how they get made as you seem to have a major interest in this? Why couldn't distributed patronage work? Currently distribution and visibility seems to be equally problematic for movies, more engagement with producers as is required through crowdfunding would seem like a good solution. I could imagine episodic crowd-funding would give people who like a show a strong incentive to tell others and persuade others to contribute to a show. The model for films today seems to be mostly driven by critic reviews, 2 minute trailers, and whatever all your friends are seeing at the cinema that weekend, which doesn't seem like a particularly good model either.
throwaway9324 11y ago
"I just think that its term of protection is long since expired." Why do you think that, it hasn't been 95 years since 1935, or is that a suggestion? "I think things like literature, theater, and so on have considerable social utility and don't care for your restriction to industrial applications." I get that you think that, but it has no basis in intellectual property law. It's entirely the opposite, the more utility something has the less protection it gets.
- anigbrowl 11y ago
  REad the lawsuit, or this summary is also good: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/08/05/happy-birthday-to-you-copyright-challenged-in-class-action/id=50684/ http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/08/05/happy-birthday-to-you-c... It's too complex to explain in a comment, plus it's late.
  - throwaway9324 11y ago
    That isn't really about the "term of protection" though, but rather the validity of the copyright claim.
    - anigbrowl 11y ago
      'Term of protection' == 'any valid copyright claim it might once had had or been eligible for if properly registered, as opposed to the questionable claims of the current licensors'. I don't want to type all that out every time, and I don't want to make a possibly-inaccurate claim that it was never ever in copyright because I haven't checked all the primary sources for myself. That's why I referred you to external sources for the lawsuit, because I don't want to make definitive comments about the legal merits of either side's case in this thread - it's been a few months since I even looked through the complaint.
      - throwaway9324 11y ago
        I'm not sure how hard it is to say "[copyright claim] is not valid". It's kind of hard to discuss thing if you come up with your own meaning of things.