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

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

law.duke.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 132 posts

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

#121

Post by barrkel »

tptacek wrote: post #70
ajays wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

The assertion that the longer a copyright term is, the greater its value, seems dubious to me. It sounds plausible in isolation, but when you consider that every new idea builds on thousands of older ideas, longer copyright terms would seem to me to make copyrights less secure owing to challenge by antecedent rightsholders.

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

#122

Post by barrkel »

tptacek wrote: post #98
follower wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excluding work-for-hire, does a copyright transfer affect the copyright term in a way that makes the date of the original author's death no longer relevant? (IANAL and couldn't find a discussion of this when I had a quick look.) Ignoring the impact of author death still doesn't change my original question of whether a longer term "significantly benefits everyone else making a living off intellectual property" and soc…

This isn't complicated. A copyright is worth more if it lasts longer. An author can sell her rights to a work for more money if copyright is going to protect that work for a longer period of time. People making a living off intellectual property can be expected to make a better living in a world in which copyrighted works have more economic value.

The stuff about death + N is an attempt to tie things to an intuition of moral rights; the business case is actually pretty poor in general. The net present values of an asset leased for (say) 30 years, versus 130 years, are surprisingly close in value, not least because of the uncertainty in predicting the future.

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

#123

Post by barrkel »

a_m_kelly wrote: post #53
forensic wrote: post #42

How do international books fit into this? Lord of the Flies and Tolkien among others are British books. If they enter the public domain in Britain, does that enable Americans to use them even if they are still copyrighted in the US?

That's an interesting question. My [minimal] understanding of copyright law suggests that whether the book's in public domain in Britain has no bearing on the rights granted to Americans to use it. If it is in the public domain in Britain, that doesn't give you a free license to start photocopying the book and reselling it here in the US. Those rights are assigned to a party here in the US. (and thanks to some oddnes…

This "interesting question" is, as I understand it, the basis for the usual ratcheting up of copyright terms. One side says "we must harmonize with the other side", but they go a little further, and then harmonization happens on the other side, and so forth.

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

#124

Post by crystalis »

MessagePad2100 wrote: post #71
chc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. Public domain works can still be commercially exploited. The only difference is that LOTR wouldn't have sat in preproduction hell for years because of squabbles over the rights. Peter Jackson could have gone ahead and made his very fine movies — instead, copyright almost got him forced out of The Hobbit.

Another possibility: Instead of squabbling with the publisher/Tolkien Trust, Michael Bay could have simultaneously made a movie as well to compete with Jackson's vision of the movie.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15028_attack-clones-suspiciou... ?

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

#125

Post by drdaeman »

forensic wrote: post #42

How do international books fit into this? Lord of the Flies and Tolkien among others are British books. If they enter the public domain in Britain, does that enable Americans to use them even if they are still copyrighted in the US?

Look here: http://publicdomainday.org/disclaimer

"...the fact that the works of a given author are in the public domain in a jurisdiction does NOT mean (unfortunately) that those works are also public domain in other jurisdictions. If you need to be sure about the status of a given work, check your national copyright law and, if needed, a lawyer.

For 2011, just as an example of how fiendishly complex copyright laws can be, we are told that Isaac Babel, the great Russian author who died in 1940, will NOT enter the public domain in Russia, his home country. In Russia, in fact, the terms of protection of oppressed authors begin with the date of rehabilitation, which for Babel was 1954. Another feature of the Russian copyright law is that the terms of protection of posthumous works start with the date of publication, which means that Bulgakov's masterpiece, "Master and Margarita", first published in 1966 (26 years after Bulgakov's death) in Russia will be under copyright until 2037."

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

#126

Post by woodrow »

bhickey wrote: post #27

Why was Eldred v. Ashcroft argued on 1st Amendment grounds? There seems like a relatively straightforward argument from the Takings Clause.

Lawrence Lessig explains how he "lost the big one" here: http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/March-April-2004/story_le...

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

#127

Post by rmc »

WalterBright wrote: post #110
cookiecaper wrote: post #10

Copyright law is really disappointing here. How do such long terms contribute to the progress of sciences or the arts? The writers and main contributors to most of the pieces named are dead. The publishers have made their cash time and time again and now most of these pieces are by no means "hot sellers", though they may be of cultural or historical interest. And, there's 40 years left before the copyright expires. A…

I make my living off of copyright. But I think the term should be 28 years, and it could be extended by the copyright holder for a few additional years at a fee of $5,000/year.

You could legally commit all your works to the public domain in 28 years?

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

#128

Post by rmc »

gridspy wrote: post #51
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.

Worth noting here that new works such as the LOTR movies would get a fresh copyright term.

Yes the LoTR films would be under new copyright. However the original books would be free. You would not be forking the film, but the book.

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

#129

Post by hxa7241 »

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.

No, there really isn't: it makes no sense when you examine it.

Normal property manages a limited resource -- material things. By restricting one person's access to something it ensures access for someone else. IP is fundamentally different: it imposes a restriction where there is none, essentially, needed. Everyone can make copies of something without anyone else losing access to it.

Why impose a restriction on a useful abundance? Is there some deep virtue in denying ourselves some benefit?

> The fact that it's physically easy to steal intellectual property does not make it right.

But this is really the crux. It is exactly this difference that makes all the difference. If I could steal your normal, material, property, but leave it all in your possession, what is there to complain about? In fact, you could copy my property, then we would both have two lots of stuff -- this is not bad, this is good!

And people are saying there is a 'natural right' here -- a 'natural right' to stop us from benefiting, costlessly, from each other? It is crazy.

You could say that, pragmatically, the best way to fund production is by copyright-like restrictions. That is a reasonable proposition at least. But it is no longer anything to do with 'natural rights': it is not based on any fundamental necessity or desire, it is purely contingent and economic, proven by practicality and evidence.

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

#130

Post by Fargren »

i_c_b wrote: post #104
griftah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright didn't seem to stop authors of D&D or many derivative fantasy novels that have more in common with Lord of the Rings than West Side Story with Shakespeare.

Why do you think D&D calls hobbits halflings, and ents treants? TSR has a vexed history with Tolkien's estate.

Has had. TSR doesn't exist anymore.
Post reply on HN