Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

wikimediafoundation.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 321 posts

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#91

Post by dagw »

xamuel wrote: post #81
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given how quickly music becomes "old" I don't understand why copyright needs to chain up music any longer than two decades You say that but the Beatles, Elvis, Beethoven, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson are all artists that had their heyday 30-60 years ago and are still the top selling artists. A lot of them are dead now because of varying reasons, but some are still alive and kicking and giving new performances of the…

You say that like no-one would show up to a Paul McCartney concert if Beatles songs were public domain. In actuality, the examples you listed are especially painful because we could be enjoying incredible derivative works based on their music, if not for the stupid way copyright works.

Music is a bad example since the rights system around making covers is incredibly generous compared to other mediums. The fact that just about every Beatles song has a cover in just about every style bears witness to that.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#92

Post by MereInterest »

indigochill wrote: post #42
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

I agree with the gist of this, but I'm actually leaning towards a shorter copyright lifespan. Maybe 20? The reason being that I feel this better balances the need to benefit from your work (20 years is quite a while to be exclusively entitled to something) with the need for society to build on your work without threat of litigation. I feel 50 years benefits the former a bit too much at the expense of the latter. Just…

I absolutely agree with this. There is a human right to be a storyteller, to reimagine characters and themes, to expand settings and genres. To sit around the campfire and make new stories of King Arthur and Lancelot, new stories about Sherlock and Watson, new stories about Harry and Hermione.

Copyright is supposed to be a balance between the author and society. In exchange for releasing the full body of the work, the author gets paid in the form of a limited monopoly. Somehow, this became an argument about moral rights rather than repayment, and that the author has the right to prevent anybody from using certain characters, in perpetuity.

20 years is a perfectly reasonable time for copyright to last. On the side of the author, most profit comes within the first 5 years. On the side of society, 20 years means that the stories a child grew up with can then be built upon when they are adults.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#94

Post by clon »

markvdb wrote: post #69
clon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lazy rich child A's dad built a house, which he and his children can benefit from for marginal costs (maintenance, taxes). Lazy rich child B's dad wrote some music, which he and his children can benefit from for marginal costs (publishing, taxes). I know - in one case it is a physical object, and in the other - immaterial. But both houses and music can offer enjoyment and can be benefited from financially, and thus h…

This comparison is intellectually lazy or maybe even dishonest. One difference between a house and a recording is marginal cost of replication/reproduction: not zero in case of a house, effectively zero in case of a recording. Without a government granted monopoly on copies, the marginal financial value of a copy is close to zero in all but the most exotic cases. With a government granted monopoly comes a real cost:…

On the other hand, the society does not have a $DEITY granted right to benefit from the creations of an author, material or immaterial.

The fact that in one case the creation is easily reproducible with almost zero marginal costs, speaks not of the inherent value of the original creation (that was presumably undisputed at the author's lifetime), but is mere opportunistic thinking from the perspective of the society.

How would you vote against that if you were on your deathbed? You can burn your house, but you cannot undo music or literature.

I come from a former Russian occupied country that has maybe left me a bit overprotective of private property. The notion of requisitioning property "for the good of The People" is deeply repulsive - a lot of families here, including mine, actually were liberated from their house, farm, land and personal freedoms by the "liberators". So maybe after some decades, I should leave more room for "The People".

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#95

Post by ptero »

yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

> Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all.

There are, to me, two broad classes of copyright. One is for the "works of art", that is for things that people can enjoy (e.g., music). I suspect whatever choice we make the society would not be affected too much. I think your lifetime / 50 years is a bit too generous, but whatever.

IMO way more important is finding the right balance for the technology / know how. That is something that people want to replicate to learn, produce or improve things. The original idea of copyright makes sense, but with modern communication and prototyping speed, 5 years of exclusive use is the max we should give.

I think the society should focus on the technology part first; sadly, most of the discussion is about the royalties to noise generators :).

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#96

Post by plopilop »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #72
plopilop wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country, inheritance of more than 2 million € is taxed ~50% (20% tax for 500 000 - 1M€). Copyright inheritance is not taxed in any way.

>>Copyright inheritance is not taxed in any way. Michael Jackson's estate begs to differ: IRS argues that the pop star’s name and likeness should have been valued at $161 million; that would be down from 2013, when it valued those rights at $434 million. https://www.wsj.com/articles/michaels-jacksons-estate-faces-...

Well, as I said, in my country it's not the case.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#97

Post by maze-le »

FreakyT wrote: post #85
jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Boy you are generous, if it was up to me copyrights would have a life of 10 years, no extensions/renewals. Ten years ought to be enough to squeeze a healthy chuck of profits out of your material. If after 10 years you can't/haven't come up with anything new, then you better find a new job…

Agreed -- in addition, a shorter term like this fixes a major issue with using "life" specifically, which ends up unintentionally creating an incentive to murder the creator.

Wow, never thought about it this way. Its probably a nice plot for a crime novel.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#98

Post by jellicle »

Copyright should probably be about 5 years long, total, non-extendable.

This achieves 95% of the asserted benefits of the existing copyright system and gets rid of 99% of the problems. The boost to national innovation would be tremendous.

But of course it's about money (copyright is a just a privatized tax) and anyone advocating this would find themselves marked for death by the copyright industry.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#99

Post by JackFr »

The solution, of course, is to make legal arguments a class of intellectual property.

If a lawyer wants to cite a precedent, he's got to pay. Using a parallel argument without explicitly citing the precedent is a tort, and may be subject to lawsuit.

This will tie up all the intellectual property lawyers who will start suing each other. At that point the rest of us can go on with our lives.

(At least in countries with a common law based legal system...)

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#100

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

jaxtellerSoA wrote: post #76
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

> Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Boy you are generous, if it was up to me copyrights would have a life of 10 years, no extensions/renewals. Ten years ought to be enough to squeeze a healthy chuck of profits out of your material. If after 10 years you can't/haven't come up with anything new, then you better find a new job…

I don't understand why HN seems to want everyone to be a wage slave. If I create original work, I want to profit off it for my life. Anything else is just punishing people who are creators rather than property owners.
Post reply on HN