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Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

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Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#51

Post by wolco »

btown wrote: post #42

The linked Lawrence Lessig op-ed [0] makes reference to a Supreme Court case he argued, where the 70-year version of this law was upheld. Luckily, unlike the sound recordings in question, Supreme Court oral arguments are available to posterity unencumbered, under a legal framework that encourages small, innovative providers like oyez.org to deliver them to the public. Here's the argument in question: https://www.oyez…

Gifting this to a private company like spotify because they have more eyeballs and could invest more is shortsighted. Spotify won't be the leader forever by allowing anyone to listen the music it can he spread to more places and used in newer ways. Youtube creators, indie tv shows, corporate training videos, ringtones are current platforms that could use this music.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#52

Post by skosch »

vkou wrote: post #46
tgamba wrote: post #20

So glad I live in Canada. American corporatist evil seems boundless.

We prefer to be taken advantage by Canadian Corporatists. Kinder-Morgan, our telecom cartel, etc.

KM is Texan actually, making the current headlines extra infurating.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#53

Post by jjoonathan »

JackCh wrote: post #6

> Music Modernization Act I don't know if/how it could legally be done, but I'd love to see "cute" names for laws barred from use in Congress. Refer to them all by number not brand names dreamed up by marketing professionals to make the proposed law seem unassailable ( "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" aka USA PATRIOT Act).

How about having a mechanism to allow the opposition to vote on a secondary name which will be included alongside the primary name in official correspondence?

Yes, it will degrade into "Bill to Save America / Bill to Destroy America" most of the time, but that's the point: it makes the absurdity easy to spot and difficult to ignore.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#54

Post by wahern »

infogulch wrote: post #38
stochastic_monk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important thing here is that primarily good MMA has been bundled with the CLASSICS Act. From the EFF commentary: "The CLASSICS Act gives nothing back to the public. It doesn’t increase access to pre-1972 recordings, which are already played regularly on Internet radio. And it doesn’t let the public use these recordings without permission any sooner. While some recording artists and their heirs will receive money…

There has got to be a way of preventing "bundling". Bundling unrelated laws together is the cause of so much strife. Tacking shitty laws onto good ones, sneaking in some obscure clause that gives some senator a tax break that nobody noticed or they ignore because they want the rest of the bill, a highly favorable bi-partisan bill turned into a partisan issue because a clause that furthers the interests of the party t…

One of the most prominent recent efforts was the line-item veto, but the Supreme Court (rightly) said that it requires a constitutional amendment.

You also have to be careful what you wish for. For years everybody bemoaned so-called earmarking. Congress finally prohibited earmarking in their procedures. But many academics have suggested that an unintended consequence was less compromise and greater partisanship in Congress. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earmark_(politics) At the end of the day lawmaking and especially budgeting is fundamentally an ugly business. We should be careful about being overly cynical or fatalistic about it. The most important thing is transparency, but that requires the electorate to be more practically minded and less idealistic.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#55

Post by dublinben »

ModernMech wrote: post #34
rhino369 wrote: post #5

Extending copyright long after the life of an artist is bad economics. Because of the value of future money any revenue from future sales 30+ is essentially worthless now. So it doesn’t induce people to create more works of art and entertainment.

> So it doesn’t induce people to create more works of art and entertainment. Promoting artists to create art has long been sidelined as a goal of copyright. Now, copyright is there to make sure already copy written works are profitable forever. I mean think about it. All they have to do is take old music and movies and repackage it as new media. Disney movies from the 30s can be remade today with CGI. Pop music from…

I'm not a lawyer, but retroactive copyright extensions seem to me like they should be unconstitutional. It's logically impossible to "promote the progress of science and useful arts" by dead creators after their works have already been published by extending their copyrights. These laws should only be able to apply to new works going forward.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#56

Post by wahern »

JackCh wrote: post #6

> Music Modernization Act I don't know if/how it could legally be done, but I'd love to see "cute" names for laws barred from use in Congress. Refer to them all by number not brand names dreamed up by marketing professionals to make the proposed law seem unassailable ( "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" aka USA PATRIOT Act).

Under traditional Parliamentary procedure the so-called long title of a bill circumscribed its effect. But for various reasons this was never a rule that courts felt empowered to enforce. British Parliament (to a greater extent) and Congress (to a lesser extent) adhered to the rule for a long time, but I think in the modern era it's really of no consequence any longer. Among other reasons, like corporate charters long titles now often include vague language that negate any limiting effect.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_and_long_titles_(legisla...

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#57

Post by giggles_giggles »

ModernMech wrote: post #47
andrei_says_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a great way to prevent polititians from framing the bills. For more on framing, see George Lakoff’s lecture on moral politics — reveals the way political language uses metaphors and How framing a debate ensures its outcome. Repeating the frame reinforces the intended meaning. Merely Using the name of the bill defines its outcome. “Tax Relief” - no one wants to fight a “relief” effort. Tax cuts for the r…

Last year, the senate called their bill that would strip millions of healthcare the "Better Care Reconciliation Act"

"Reconciliation" seems to be the choice euphemism for budget cuts. I was reviewing some legislation (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/sconres36/text) recently which failed to pass (budget slashing proposed by Rand Paul) and noticed that almost the entire text of the bill itself is "X Reconciliation", "Y Reconciliation".

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#58

Post by icebraining »

mijamo wrote: post #29
rayiner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Territorial creatures have possession, not property, which is completely different. Bashing someone's head in and taking their property is natural right. Having the State send men with guns in response to that action is a highly artificial deprivation of that natural right.

I think you should read about natural rights. The traditional natural righta are life, liberty, and property, which is the opposite of what you describe. And natural rights only exist in an organized society, they are just the limits of what a human should give in its social contract with the society.

I'm pretty sure rayiner knows what the concept is, he's criticizing it for misusing the term "natural" and he's replacing it for something that is actually natural.

Besides, current property is quite far from the Lockean concept of mixing your own labor and only taking it when "there is enough, and as good, left in common for others", which the original "natural right of property".

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#59

Post by francisofascii »

dsr_ wrote: post #17
dschuler wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that if the price is constant over that time? Couldn't you just price the product to reflect roughly constant value, giving you linear return over time?

Only if demand is relatively constant. Nothing is less constant than the demand for entertainment, and that's reflected in current pricing. A new blockbuster movie costs $15 in 3D, $12 in 2D. A month later it costs $6 at the second-run theater. Three months later it costs $20 on Blu-Ray for as many times as you want to watch it. A year later it's included in your HBO subscription. A year after that you can buy the di…

There are notable exceptions. The Bambi DVD, which was created in 1942, is listed on Amazon for $28. In 20 years, it will be $50.

Re: Congress wants to extend the copyright on some sound recordings to 144 years

#60

Post by erentz »

JackCh wrote: post #6

> Music Modernization Act I don't know if/how it could legally be done, but I'd love to see "cute" names for laws barred from use in Congress. Refer to them all by number not brand names dreamed up by marketing professionals to make the proposed law seem unassailable ( "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act" aka USA PATRIOT Act).

Completely agree. Take the branding out of law making. In my home country and I think most former commonwealth countries you instead see acts with names that are simple and semi hierarchical, e.g. this would just be something like “Copyrights (Ammendment) Act 2018”.

Got a new change to a crime? Well that all goes in the Crimes act, so that would be the “Crimes (Ammendment) Act 2018” instead of the “Drugs Are Anti Patriotic and Congress Persons Spensoring this Are Good Vote For US” act.

Far simpler and saner.

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