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What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

law.duke.edu

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Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#61

Post by davidw »

uvdiv wrote: post #45
cookiecaper wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth is fine in literal terms. If you want to pass money on to your progenitors, that is just fine, as it is with all real property. The key here is that intellectual property and real property have some very fundamental differences. Ideas are assigned owners only to make it plausible to spread those ideas massively -- a stipulation that was necessary when it was expensive to spread ideas (printing). With the inter…

> Ideas cannot be owned; they are like fire and can only be equally shared. We assign monopolies to make publishing feasible, not to ensure the wealth of two or three generations that live off of the creativity of their grandfathers without contributing anything themselves. Here's an alternative ethics. Nontrivial ideas are not natural resources but are created by an author; just as a physical object is the property…

Here is some actual economics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

For many things, creating artificial property is a good solution, but it is of course a compromise more than real property ever will be, due to its nature.

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#62

Post by jbri »

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #34
ajays wrote: post #7

The current copyright law is a prime example of the impotence of the electorate in the face of the power of Big Money. It is in the public interest to have works move into the public domain, so that others can build upon them (I'll refrain from linking to the myriad talks by Lessig and others about how the current copyright system is broken). And yet Hollywood keeps buying the legislators and perpetuates this broken…

"It is in the public interest to have works move into the public domain, so that others can build upon them" Could offer some examples of "building upon" others' works which are not allowed without permission under current copyright law? I would like to understand what we as a society might be missing out on. More generally, I become concerned when I hear "public interest" arguments because they usually apply a relat…

We can get some idea by looking at the vast body of works created when copyright was significantly limited compared to today. While there may be a handful of "artists" who wouldn't end up creating works if they could only profit from them for thirty years instead of a hundred, that is likely insignificant compared to the new works created by building on prior efforts.

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#63

Post by griftah »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #54
patio11 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good question . LOTR is being actively commercially exploited and the commercial exploitations are darn good . Meanwhile, it's cultural impact hasn't been noticeably blunted by copyright -- that novel launched at least one industry , to say nothing of being repurposed by virtually every book in adjacent genres.

>LOTR is being actively commercially exploited and the commercial exploitations are darn good. Darn good, but not perfect. We are now denied the right to re-interpret LOTR, perhaps because we want to include the Scouring of the Shire--not because the movie was necessarily worse without it, but because we _want_ to. And heck, take a better example: the Harry Potter movies are in great need of re-interpretation, but do…

Do we really need more fanfics?

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#64

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

javert wrote: post #9
ajays wrote: post #7

The current copyright law is a prime example of the impotence of the electorate in the face of the power of Big Money. It is in the public interest to have works move into the public domain, so that others can build upon them (I'll refrain from linking to the myriad talks by Lessig and others about how the current copyright system is broken). And yet Hollywood keeps buying the legislators and perpetuates this broken…

There is a compelling natural rights justification for intellectual property. It typically gets ignored (e.g. by people like Lessig). Basically: The product of a human being's work is rightfully his property; that's part and parcel of living in a civilized society. Doesn't matter if that work is entirely "intellectual" or not. The fact that it's physically easy to steal intellectual property does not make it right. P…

"Basically: The product of a human being's work is rightfully his property."

It is. But a product of a human being's work could be ALSO my property when I bought it. Of course there is some restrictions of the right that society gives me with this property to make possible for the authors to earn a living, but this restrictions should be limited in time, and this time reasonable, like patents 20-25 years. It is not for the majority of the people of any country, just ask them. In a real democracy people create the laws, not the right holders(who are mainly publishing companies, not authors).

"Well, how is it good for the public to move Horton Hears a Who or Sports Illustrated into the public domain? Much less Waiting for Godot."

It is good for the public to have films that are masterpieces like Charles Chaplin's, or Orson Welles's, the kind of genius that are atemporal.

Isn't important that works of Stefan Zweig, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Auguste Rodin, Richard Strauss, Richard Feynnman, Isaac Asimov and hundreds of others authors from different disciplines are not going to be public domain in our entire life because the American congress continue extending copyright indefinitely as the lobbies order?

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#65

Post by sgift »

uvdiv wrote: post #40
slantyyz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my naive, idealistic understanding of the spirit of copyright, it's a social contract between the artist and society. Society will grant you a reasonable amount of time to make money off your work with legal protection. After that time's up, your work belongs to society. Seems like a fair economic exchange to me. As far as I know, it's been good for everyone that Shakespeare's works are in the public domain.

I don't see that as a "fair exchange". One side (the government) sets the terms unilaterally. There is no voluntary mutual transaction; the author doesn't consent to have his work forced into the public domain, or to the terms under which it is done.

The work is not "forced" into the public domain. It is, unilaterally, hold off from it. Without copyright (which is granted by the government) the work would be in the public domain the moment it is published/given to someone else.

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#66

Post by ajays »

javert wrote: post #9
ajays wrote: post #7

The current copyright law is a prime example of the impotence of the electorate in the face of the power of Big Money. It is in the public interest to have works move into the public domain, so that others can build upon them (I'll refrain from linking to the myriad talks by Lessig and others about how the current copyright system is broken). And yet Hollywood keeps buying the legislators and perpetuates this broken…

There is a compelling natural rights justification for intellectual property. It typically gets ignored (e.g. by people like Lessig). Basically: The product of a human being's work is rightfully his property; that's part and parcel of living in a civilized society. Doesn't matter if that work is entirely "intellectual" or not. The fact that it's physically easy to steal intellectual property does not make it right. P…

"There is a compelling natural rights justification for intellectual property. It typically gets ignored (e.g. by people like Lessig)." No, it most certainly does NOT get ignored. What the proponents of change are saying is that IP rights should not be granted in perpetuity. Even patents expire after 20 years; so why not copyrights?

Given the money that Disney is making, I would not be surprised if the copyright law gets extended again to "life + 100". This (modifying the law to benefit 1 corporation) is simply WRONG.

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#67

Post by uvdiv »

sgift wrote: post #65
uvdiv wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see that as a "fair exchange". One side (the government) sets the terms unilaterally. There is no voluntary mutual transaction; the author doesn't consent to have his work forced into the public domain, or to the terms under which it is done.

The work is not "forced" into the public domain. It is, unilaterally, hold off from it. Without copyright (which is granted by the government) the work would be in the public domain the moment it is published/given to someone else.

>Without copyright (which is granted by the government) the work would be in the public domain the moment it is published/given to someone else.

I think private contracts would be sufficient. The author doesn't yield his work to a publisher without terms; for the publisher to pretend it is in the public domain (e.g. to start distributing copies without royalties to the author) would violate a contract. The same could apply to end-users; without any explicit copyright protection, you could be required to sign a contract as a condition of purchasing a book, agreeing not to reprint/redistribute. I don't see that the essential parts of copyright protection add anything fundamental; enforcing IP can be reduced to upholding a contract. It's not artificial.

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#68

Post by Helianthus16 »

griftah wrote: post #63
Helianthus16 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>LOTR is being actively commercially exploited and the commercial exploitations are darn good. Darn good, but not perfect. We are now denied the right to re-interpret LOTR, perhaps because we want to include the Scouring of the Shire--not because the movie was necessarily worse without it, but because we _want_ to. And heck, take a better example: the Harry Potter movies are in great need of re-interpretation, but do…

Do we really need more fanfics?

when you accept that the LOTR movies are just fanfics we've spent millions on, you'll understand why we need more fanfics.

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#69

Post by uvdiv »

trezor wrote: post #47
uvdiv wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see that as a "fair exchange". One side (the government) sets the terms unilaterally. There is no voluntary mutual transaction; the author doesn't consent to have his work forced into the public domain, or to the terms under which it is done.

There is no voluntary mutual transaction; the author doesn't consent to have his work forced into the public domain In the absence of copyright the author would have no protection what so ever and would be at mercy of society at large. With copyright they gain protection from the public domain which we, the public, give them in exchange for the cultural creations this protection entices. If they in exchange of this p…

>If they in exchange of this protection returns nothing to society (i.e. infinite retro-active copyright extensions), then we as a society should have no reason to provide this protection for them.

Society isn't owed anything. Government (which is distinct from society) protects IP, not because they benefit from it or society maximizes utility from it, but because that is what justice is about. This isn't a free service; the authors pay taxes for (among others) the legal system that protects their rights and enforces their contracts.

Re: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

#70

Post by tptacek »

ajays wrote: post #66
javert wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a compelling natural rights justification for intellectual property. It typically gets ignored (e.g. by people like Lessig). Basically: The product of a human being's work is rightfully his property; that's part and parcel of living in a civilized society. Doesn't matter if that work is entirely "intellectual" or not. The fact that it's physically easy to steal intellectual property does not make it right. P…

"There is a compelling natural rights justification for intellectual property. It typically gets ignored (e.g. by people like Lessig)." No, it most certainly does NOT get ignored. What the proponents of change are saying is that IP rights should not be granted in perpetuity. Even patents expire after 20 years; so why not copyrights? Given the money that Disney is making, I would not be surprised if the copyright law…

It doesn't just benefit one corporation. It profoundly benefits one corporation, and significantly benefits everyone else making a living off intellectual property. The longer the copyright term is, the greater the value of a copyright is.
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