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Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

blog.wikimedia.org

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Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#191

Post by Houshalter »

jdietrich wrote: post #179
Houshalter wrote: post #49

Please read this: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976 And also look at the graphic on this page: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-mi... Copyright serves a legitimate purpose. I doubt there would be many big budget games or movies produced without some degree of protection. The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce creative works. But it also needs…

I agree that copyright should be shorter in duration, but I think some of your suggestions would be disproportionately harmful to independent artists. Many songwriters rely on their back catalogue - a hit song serves as a pension, earning a steady trickle of royalties from radio play and sync usage. I don't see it as morally reasonable that, for example, a decade-old song could be used in a commercial without royalti…

Losing 1% of their income from that tiny trickle of royalties is not a big deal. 99% of the income a work will bring is made in the first 10 years or so, after that the royalties are tiny compared to the initial value. Nothing is preventing the artists from investing the income they make so they have something to retire on, as people in all other careers have to do.

I agree the registration/renewal process could be burdensome on small creators. However the process does not need to be difficult, it could be a simple online form. And the renewal fee could be really low, perhaps $100.

The point is just to keep every single photo ever taken from ending up copyrighted. Which usually means unusable, since no one can track down every copyright owner and negotiate licensing fees when they just want to use a photo in their power point demonstration. Instead of being automatic, only things people explicitly want to copyright are protected.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#192

Post by ddingus »

mixedCase wrote: post #158
ddingus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the National level, it does appear lots of money won't necessarily translate into a win. However, those who do win, unless they are named Sanders, will be bound by said money. On a local level, money does matter more, and it's effects are meaningful.

I bet it took a lot of hard work not to name Trump there.

How so?

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#193

Post by legulere »

kuschku wrote: post #125
legulere wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should foreign stuff not be protected by copyright? Think about american movies or software written in america not being protected abroad. It's also not the US that owns the copyright but the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, which got the copyright from her father.

If I live in a country where copyright term is 1 day, and I publish online every Disney movie ever created, the US will enforce US copyright terms on me. Why does the copyright of where the reader lives, not where the publishing person lives, matter?

Not if you only make it available to people in your country.

If you don't plan to travel to the US or to a country with an extradition agreement with the US concerning this you won't even need to care about that.

States want to be autonomous and set the rules that are in force in their country on their own. When you download stuff while sitting in the US, it's happening in the US. When the servers you're downloading it from are also standing in the US, like in this case, then it's even more clear that this is happening in the US.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#194

Post by jdbernard »

mindslight wrote: post #187
jdbernard wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I do not think there should be an obligation for a creator to give away their work after the copyright expires. They just no longer get the benefit of having a legal mechanism to prevent others from copying/using it.

And what does the public get from granting you this temporary monopoly?

Let's look at music for an example. Copyright provides a period in which they original artist had control over how the work is handled commercially. After the copyright expires the original artist can no longer use the law to prevent other people from redistributing or reproducing the work. However, the artist has no obligation to release the studio masters.

Copyright makes it more viable for the creator to actually make a moving from their work. So to answer your question, the public is encouraging creative work.

In the case of software, the work itself would no longer be protected from reproduction or duplication by others, but there is no obligation for the original creator to facilitate the reproduction by others.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#195

Post by mindslight »

jdbernard wrote: post #194
mindslight wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what does the public get from granting you this temporary monopoly?

Let's look at music for an example. Copyright provides a period in which they original artist had control over how the work is handled commercially. After the copyright expires the original artist can no longer use the law to prevent other people from redistributing or reproducing the work. However, the artist has no obligation to release the studio masters. Copyright makes it more viable for the creator to actually…

> So to answer your question, the public is encouraging creative work

Creative work which the public has no access to even after the limited monopoly period is up.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#196

Post by jdbernard »

mindslight wrote: post #195
jdbernard wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's look at music for an example. Copyright provides a period in which they original artist had control over how the work is handled commercially. After the copyright expires the original artist can no longer use the law to prevent other people from redistributing or reproducing the work. However, the artist has no obligation to release the studio masters. Copyright makes it more viable for the creator to actually…

> So to answer your question, the public is encouraging creative work Creative work which the public has no access to even after the limited monopoly period is up.

That's not at all true. People have access to the work by virtue of owning copies of it. Music can be played. Software can be reverse-engineered or just copied. Artwork can be copied. The ideas which are the core unique value of creative work are already out in the world by virtue of the work being seen and handled by the public. Copyright exists to provide the creator protection so that they can release their creation to the world without fear of it being immediately devalued by duplication. Without copyright I don't want to release my new idea, I want to keep it secret and charge people ridiculous amounts to have access.

Society has never demanded people hand over their work without compensation. Copyright is not at all about handing over the source of your works. Copyright is about artificially preventing other people from duplicating your work for a period of time. When that time expires, others are allowed to reproduce your work, but you are not required to hand over your sources.

When a carpenter makes a chair he can claim copyright on the design of the chair. During the time that his design is under copyright nobody else is allowed to make chairs that are obviously copied or derived from his design. When the copyright expires the design is no longer protected, but nobody goes to the original carpenter to confiscate his inventory and release it to the public, nor to appropriate his designs. Those are his. He still owns the designs. They are just no longer protected by law from duplication.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#197

Post by mindslight »

jdbernard wrote: post #196
mindslight wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So to answer your question, the public is encouraging creative work Creative work which the public has no access to even after the limited monopoly period is up.

That's not at all true. People have access to the work by virtue of owning copies of it. Music can be played. Software can be reverse-engineered or just copied. Artwork can be copied. The ideas which are the core unique value of creative work are already out in the world by virtue of the work being seen and handled by the public. Copyright exists to provide the creator protection so that they can release their creati…

DRM directly destroys this "ownership" you speak of. There is no long-term access to a work that expects to phone home on every use.

You seem to be coming from the baseless framework of imaginary property wherein creation of property rights is a bona fide good thing, regardless of whether they're congruent with the underlying physics. However, the base law of this jungle is that copying is easy, creators have DRM, and the public has VHS and P2P.

Copyright is justified by the framework of a tradeoff whereby the naturally-existing public domain is retarded in order to encourage the creation of more works that will enter it at a later time. You still haven't directly addressed why the public should agree to restrict itself from copying media, only for the copyright owner to renege on their contribution when the monopoly period is up.

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#199

Post by scotty79 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #121
scotty79 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or, they get threatened with loss of their seats. They get seats by spending money on campaigns. Public is easily manipulated by political marketing. The only thing that could put them out of there seats would be more money spent for a smear campaign against them. > It's a lot more gratifying to live in this conspiratorial world where a romanticized resistance against our corporate overlords is the only way, but it…

>They get seats by spending money on campaigns. Public is easily manipulated by political marketing. The only thing that could put them out of there seats would be more money spent for a smear campaign against them. This is overly simplistic. If it were exclusively about cash resources, the most cash-rich candidates would win every time. We know that doesn't happen. Yes, money does play an important role (because it…

> This is overly simplistic.

Only in the same way law of conservation of energy is overly simplistic.

All the people that say "It's not only about money!" then give examples which boil down to "Tt's also how you spend it!" to which I can only reply "Duh!"

Re: Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law

#200

Post by jdbernard »

mindslight wrote: post #197
jdbernard wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not at all true. People have access to the work by virtue of owning copies of it. Music can be played. Software can be reverse-engineered or just copied. Artwork can be copied. The ideas which are the core unique value of creative work are already out in the world by virtue of the work being seen and handled by the public. Copyright exists to provide the creator protection so that they can release their creati…

DRM directly destroys this "ownership" you speak of. There is no long-term access to a work that expects to phone home on every use. You seem to be coming from the baseless framework of imaginary property wherein creation of property rights is a bona fide good thing, regardless of whether they're congruent with the underlying physics. However, the base law of this jungle is that copying is easy, creators have DRM, an…

First: I entirely agree with you regarding DRM. Second: the "baseless framework" of property rights is how it has worked for centuries. Hardly baseless. The new world is the exception and I don't see how it has materially changed the rights of a creator to their own works.

I will say that our current system is extremely broken with regard to the public domain, primarily because of things like DRM and intellectual property, both of which I believe are harmful to society as a whole. I also believe copyright had been extended for way too long. These are things we should push hard to change because I agree, they break the implicit agreement that justifies copyright.

But in the world you are imagining, every new work of any kind would have to be registered with someone to make sure the sources are made public when the copyright expires. Then of course, you would have the massive enforcement effort to ensure the sources actually get released. Little Jimmy starts working a little game on his parents' computer? Better register that with the copyright office so the sources don't get lost in ten years when the copyright expires. It's ridiculous. That's not the way it works and its not the way it should work.

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