What will enter the public domain in 2022 • Hacker News Board

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#71

Post by hobs » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

GhettoComputers wrote: post #39

camjohnson26 wrote: post #24

Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Only the companies who sell licensed merchandise. Think about how many fan works we’ll never see because we bizarrely decided to grant creators a monopoly on whatever they create, even if the work enters the public mythology like with Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. The people of the country…

What’s the incentive for spending any resources on creative works, or research and development? The twilight fanfic 50 shades of gray benefited from becoming its own brand as did league of legends from DOTA which was derived from warcraft, when blizzard was making a warhammer 40K game, so you’re not making a great point.

Having maybe less than double typical human lifetimes to exploit their work means "what's the point?"

We are in a situation where there is no incentive to create new creative works because you can just exploit a dead person's stuff that's become popular until the end of time for your audience.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#72

Post by johannes1234321 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #62

johannes1234321 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the creator who has a wife and family and passes away a day after publication in an accident? Sure, that example is a bit constructed and imo the death+50 years or 100 years are way too long, but I see value a) in the fact that artists need some time to finance their work and b) that some degree of inheritance is good.

That is no different from somebody who has a regular job or starts a business and passes away too soon. There is no security for the family either. In the end the main beneficiaries are big corporations and not creators.

The difference to a salaried worker is that the salaried worker gets the money for the work they do more or less immediately. The artist typically gets the payment only long after completing the work.

(Self employed are in a complicated way in between)

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#73

Post by scollet » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:36 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #43

est31 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatest works of past times are "shitty fan works". In the eras before copyright, people were taking each other's works all the time, and improving upon it.

Reminder that Dante's Inferno was shitty fan fiction.

Shitty in that there was literal shit, but I get your point.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#74

Post by KarlKemp » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

bushbaba wrote: post #26

camjohnson26 wrote: post #24

Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Only the companies who sell licensed merchandise. Think about how many fan works we’ll never see because we bizarrely decided to grant creators a monopoly on whatever they create, even if the work enters the public mythology like with Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. The people of the country…

Funny as a patent is granted for much less time. You’d think patents and copyright would have the same duration

Patents cover discoveries, which, as a class, are limited, whereas copyrighted works are created, and therefore (in some sense) unlimited.

Or, in other words: a patent can block access to something that is potentially irreplaceable, and that would have been discovered by others, eventually. Donald Duck just wouldn’t exist without Disney.

The goal of copyright is to provide some incentive for creation. At the same time, it limits the distribution of those works and the benefit that brings, an effect called deadweight loss. Those two goals—amount & quality of creation and distribution—are in perpetual conflict, and the limited time is supposed to balance them for maximum benefit. Is death + 70/95 years too long? Yes, defjnitely. I remember seeing something like 15 years being floated as the true optimum, but it’s likely to differ by category. But it’s just as annoying to often see complete ignorance or denial of the basic mechanism (I. e. “Commercial music suxx anyway” or “why should I pay for news”)

(Another item on this scale: trademarks, which are entirely imbued with value by the owner’s exclusive right to use them. They are not time-limited as long as they are used because, to a first approximation, the value of “Levi’s” has nothing to do with the beauty of the word (which one could consider a limited ressource), but depends on the company’s interest in maintaining its status)

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#75

Post by GekkePrutser » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

vlunkr wrote: post #69

camjohnson26 wrote: post #24

Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Only the companies who sell licensed merchandise. Think about how many fan works we’ll never see because we bizarrely decided to grant creators a monopoly on whatever they create, even if the work enters the public mythology like with Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. The people of the country…

It's especially bad for video games, but I don't see people discuss that so much. Think about this, probably 99% of games that are over 10 years old cannot be played legally on any modern hardware (console games at least, PC games are probably a bit better, but still might require some tinkering), that's a pretty serious loss of cultural history. I think copyright needs to be shortened if publishers don't make games…

Yeah for software it's ridiculous.

Copyright should just expire for that at 10 years. Not IP though so they will still own the characters and stories to make remakes and sequels. But the games themselves in the original version should become public domain. All the money that can be made on the sale of the original versions will have been made.

It's especially becoming a problem now that games need online activation or in some cases are online only (eg Google stadia). Right now we can just ignore copyright and pirate the games if we're getting nostalgic but I'm the future this won't be a technical possibility anymore once streaming exclusives appear.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#76

Post by labster » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

tapas73 wrote: post #68

moffkalast wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminder that Dante's Inferno was shitty fan fiction.

Is there some story about it?

Yeah, copyright pirates are all sent to the 10th circle of Hell, where they are forced to write CC licensed fanfic stories on GPL software like GNU/Linux for eternity.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#77

Post by condour75 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:44 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #45

djxfade wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh great! I have been looking forward to $$('.door-interior span.title').map(x=>x.textContent).join("\n")

The only title on the list I recognize, such a timeless classic.

The movie was okay but I never pictured $$ as looking like Chris Pratt

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#78

Post by eagsalazar2 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #32

camjohnson26 wrote: post #24

Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Only the companies who sell licensed merchandise. Think about how many fan works we’ll never see because we bizarrely decided to grant creators a monopoly on whatever they create, even if the work enters the public mythology like with Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. The people of the country…

The 100 year expiration is necessary for encouraging people to make new things rather than just shitty fan works until the end of our lifetimes.

This comment is fake. Right?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#79

Post by patmorgan23 » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:51 PM UTC

labster wrote: post #76

tapas73 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some story about it?

Yeah, copyright pirates are all sent to the 10th circle of Hell, where they are forced to write CC licensed fanfic stories on GPL software like GNU/Linux for eternity.

Hail Stalman!

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#80

Post by cma » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 11:55 PM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #62

johannes1234321 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the creator who has a wife and family and passes away a day after publication in an accident? Sure, that example is a bit constructed and imo the death+50 years or 100 years are way too long, but I see value a) in the fact that artists need some time to finance their work and b) that some degree of inheritance is good.

That is no different from somebody who has a regular job or starts a business and passes away too soon. There is no security for the family either. In the end the main beneficiaries are big corporations and not creators.

Why should a 70 year old's same work product be worth much less than a 20 year old's? It should just be a period of time, with possibly exponentially increasing renewal fees so funds go into the common good the more the public domain is deprived.