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What will enter the public domain in 2022

publicdomainreview.org

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Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#171

Post by chrismorgan »

mchusma wrote: post #125
chrismorgan wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say go simple on the copyright extension formula. If you treat it as a tax (scaling by revenue or similar), it gets messy, encourages dishonesty, and pretty much forces a new subindustry to spring up. But if you keep it simple, you can achieve much the same result without needing more staff in the tax or copyright offices, or inspiring the existence of copyright lawyers or accountants. Ten years of free protection,…

I generally like this, but think it can be bought for 5 years at a time. Yearly stuff is annoying for everyone. Agree copyright as written is maybe ok for a ten-ish year period. Maybe 5.

Could do roughly what most domain name registries do: you can renew for between one and ten years at a time. So if you wanted to pay for years 11–20 all at once, you’d just cough up your $1,133.30 in one go rather than paying it annually as $10, $15, $22.50, …, $384.43.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#172

Post by d110af5ccf »

fastball wrote: post #167
chrismorgan wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see how it would favour people with money, as it should become simple economics: Disney can afford the $1,300,000 at year 40, but if they project that their revenue from the work will be $300,000 in that year, why would they renew the copyright? They would instead allow it to lapse, and probably get somewhat reduced revenue. Cash flow should be the only situation where people with money could be favoured, and…

I think jedberg's point is that revenue generated is not being factored in. So Disney, who effectively has a monopoly on certain popular content can copyright it for a long time because they're making so much money off of it, while a small time copyright owner who is making $10k a year will not be able to make money for very long.

I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. Depriving the public of free use should be compensated appropriately. The older it is the more it becomes part of our shared culture.

It makes sense that in some cases large players will be capable of realizing benefits from things at scales that small ones simply can't match. A small player could still presumably sell their copyright to a large one if it appeared lucrative to continue extending it.

It's a matter of balancing freedoms against monopolies in order to maximize innovation. Large players often enjoy intrinsic economic advantages and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing as long as it doesn't hurt consumers.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#173

Post by aosaigh »

nemo44x wrote: post #17
lucumo wrote: post #15

This design mimics a traditional advent calendar. I think it's kind of cute.

It's a really bad UX though. There should at least be a link to just a standard list of things.

Can you explain why it's bad UX if it's intended to be an advent calendar?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#174

Post by d110af5ccf »

chrismorgan wrote: post #171
mchusma wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally like this, but think it can be bought for 5 years at a time. Yearly stuff is annoying for everyone. Agree copyright as written is maybe ok for a ten-ish year period. Maybe 5.

Could do roughly what most domain name registries do: you can renew for between one and ten years at a time. So if you wanted to pay for years 11–20 all at once, you’d just cough up your $1,133.30 in one go rather than paying it annually as $10, $15, $22.50, …, $384.43.

I honestly never thought I'd see someone citing the ICANN DNS system as an example of a good thing but in this case I agree, it fits.

It's an interesting point. Yearly is terrible for individuals but if you think about it for a tax such as this large blocks are just paying for the smaller pieces all at once. It probably doesn't make sense to offer discounts since the express purpose is to discourage holding the copyright in the first place.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#175

Post by dragonwriter »

moffkalast wrote: post #42
xwdv wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are they expecting to live 100 years from the point of writing? Till death of the author seems most sensible.

> Are they expecting to live 100 years from the point of writing? Till death of the author seems most sensible.

Not really; a fixed term is more sensible than life of author; why should we want to take active steps to remove the incentive to/reward for creation for creators without a long current life expectancy?

I remain convinced that a reasonable fixed “free” term that can be extended with slowly escalating annual ad valorem taxation on a declared value that also serves as an offer price for purchase into the public domain is the ideal solution here.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#176

Post by aosaigh »

I find it hilarious that users are complaining about the UX. It's an advent calendar! It says so in the subtitle "A Festive Countdown". Did these same users complain to their parents if/when they got an advent calendar for Christmas? "Mother, this advent calendar has awful usability. Why can't I access all of the chocolate immediately?"

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#177

Post by dragonwriter »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #72
spaetzleesser wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> The artist typically gets the payment only long after completing the work.

Not that long; IIRC, the vast majority of the money made for most artistic works is received within the first decade after creation; the share of artistic works returning much after that compared to before is small.

Sure, the works you’ve heard of are often exceptions to this, but that's because you are vastly more likely to be aware of things way out in the successful tail end of the distribution.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#178

Post by d110af5ccf »

bruce511 wrote: post #135
jedberg wrote: post #82

This comes up every year so I ask a question: If you could fix copyright, how would you do it? Here is what I would do: 1. All works must be registered in a government registry. If it's not in there it's not copyrighted. If you want to register a work from before the law passes, you have to prove you own it under the current system. This would solve the orphan works problem -- if no one can prove they own it, it beco…

I tried to avoid your absurd fee idea, but failed. So here goes... A) which govt gets your fee? B) does paying 1 govt cover you in all countries? Or just 1? What if different countries set different fee levels? C) % of revenue? Not profit. Who's revenue? Creator? Manufacturer? Distributor? Portol? All 4? (think author, publisher, bookshop, amazon) D) $100 per what? Per blog posting? Tweet? Novel? Song? If I write a s…

Regarding "which government" don't we already solve that issue today? The holder of a copyright (or patent) today will often economically benefit the country they reside in. Recognition is mutual because otherwise the system wouldn't work. Sometimes there are disagreements, for example India and certain pharmaceuticals.

I guess the real issue is how such a system would cope with different countries setting different fees. Would this need to be agreed on globally in order to work? Otherwise you could register your copyright in a country with a more favorable fee structure yet enjoy the same global protections.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#179

Post by d110af5ccf »

chrismcb wrote: post #140
jedberg wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a beautiful utopia, but sadly I don't think it would fly in today's world. Also, short copyrights serve a useful purpose of encouraging invention. It's the length of time that's the problem, not that it exists.

Copyrights don't serve much of a purpose for inventions. Patents on the other hand...

Actually they prevent a competitor blatantly ripping off entire chunks of your work verbatim. This encourages spending time on R&D that you otherwise wouldn't be able to justify because "our competitor will just copy-paste it".

You don't need anything remotely like life of the author plus an additional half of a lifetime to realize that protection though.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#180

Post by iamtedd »

Starlevel001 wrote: post #163
jedberg wrote: post #82

This comes up every year so I ask a question: If you could fix copyright, how would you do it? Here is what I would do: 1. All works must be registered in a government registry. If it's not in there it's not copyrighted. If you want to register a work from before the law passes, you have to prove you own it under the current system. This would solve the orphan works problem -- if no one can prove they own it, it beco…

5 years flat, no extensions. Why should the government prop up your failure to market something?

How would this work for copyleft property? Once the work enters public domain, doesn't matter what the developers do, any company can incorporate their work and charge for it.
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