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What will enter the public domain in 2022

publicdomainreview.org

181–190 of 235 posts

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#181
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 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,…

> or you could even ignore inflation altogether, which would slowly extend average copyright terms

Just what we need, a Disney incentivized to cause rampant inflation...

I originally thought of that in jest, but honestly putting money is more stable assets or other currencies and supporting and lobbying for inflationist policies would probably be in their best interest, and they're powerful enough that it probably wouldn't be a good thing.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remove copy right. Everyone must be allowed to copy. If you’re selling devices, you must provide schematics and software sources to users.

So Spotify should just keep 100% of revenue for themselves instead of paying royalties?

Why would Spotify have revenue? Surely we would all download our music at the tiny marginal cost of the required internet bandwidth.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thin…

I would even assume less than a decade. A music piece gets attention on release, but only few are remembered a year later. Many books sell the first edition and aren't reprinted.

While for some it is the long tail which makes it viable.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#185
Unfortunately the situation is bit complex for Ludwig Wittgenstein (who died in 1951 and whose works should enter the public domain in countries with death + 70 years copyright).

Wittgenstein only published the Tractatus during his lifetime (which will enter the public domain), but all of his later works were compiled and published posthumously (as the "Nachlass") by his literary executors, most importantly the Philosophical Investigations. At the moment, Trinity College Cambridge hold the copyright to most of the Nachlass and they have more or less publicly said that they do not consider the Nachlass to go out of copyright in 2022, as there seems to be an obscure exception in British copyright for posthumously published manuscripts that would extend the copyright duration to 2039 [0].

Of course British copyright law does not directly apply to the rest of the world, but I sadly do not expect to see many public domain editions from academics in the coming years, since most of them want to stay on good terms with Trinity College. Others would perhaps like to publish an edition, but are unsure about the copyright situation.

Are there any non-profit organisations that provide legal clarification in these rather complicated situations for individuals that want to publish new editions of these works? IANAL, so I would be reluctant to sink too much time into such a project if there is the chance that I might be sued into oblivion by Cambridge.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9razevgY6TA&t=1621s

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#186

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.

Moreover, Disney will just register its decade of works as a single multipart work, so this regime would encourage further monopolization

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#187
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 believe registration would be an unnecessary burden for smaller publishers (eg. I write something, I want some protection for it).

I like your idea of "renewal", and it might make sense to equate the patent term with copyright term: 15 years (maybe 10 years?) after publication (there's a bunch of edge-cases already covered by copyright law since "publication" can be way off from "creation", but one would certainly have to tread carefully).

After those initial 10-15 years expire, unless you register and renew, work moves into public domain. There should be financial incentive to not renew (iow, it should be expensive and perhaps proportional to the term and revenue from works), and I can't see why should anyone benefit from copy-protection past their lifetime. Perhaps even a shorter cap.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#188
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…

Fees are mostly to disincentivise keeping works from public domain (which copyright creators agreed was for the public good) which are not really benefiting the creator in any substantial way.

Regarding governments, just like we establish residency for income tax purposes, you could establish residency for copyrighted-work creation. If it's multiple countries you've been in while "creating", the one you spent most time in, or choose-one. If you register an off-shore tax-haven company today to receive your income while you reside (and work) in another country, when found out, you'll be charged with tax evasion. It's not that hard and we've got mechanisms to deal with it already.

All signatory countries to global copyright agreements would uphold the terms regardless of where works are registered.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#189
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…

As someone who makes decent income via royalties from my copyrighted work, I object to this proposal. Purely from a record keeping perspective, the additional work required for my small business would add a considerable burden. And my accountant would probably have to do the math - thus costing me even more in fees. Large corporations like Disney and MCI are not the only entities who use copyright to protect property…

Copyright is there to incentivise people to create more. If you can sustain yourself from royalties from, say, works you created 20 years ago, copyright has failed us (you included, even if it provides you financial stability, because it's not encouraging you to be your best self and create more great works!).

While you do raise some interesting points about financial aspects of the situation today ("deep pocket companies expect to use... for free"), I think they are rather symptoms of the current system.

Many companies are deep-pocketed _because_ of the copyright system like it is today. But if you were able to more easily reuse work of others to build on, which would benefit civilisation as a whole, wouldn't that bring the costs and difficulty of your work down as well? The benchmark should be how LITTLE protection we can give to creators for them to continue to create!

Sure, you've invested in yourself and your business with the rules as they are, but that should not stop us from thinking of what the rules should be for betterment of human kind.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#190
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…

so first off regarding your plan - there used to a be a funny checklist going around, why your plan to fix email won't work, (but I can't find that on the internet anymore because we all know search doesn't work) so I can't make a very precise parody of it but:

Why your plan to fix copyright won't work:

1. It does not take into account the different understandings of the purpose of copyright in other countries than the U.S.

2. It makes things more difficult for the creators of copyrightable works, and makes it easier for unscrupulous individuals to take advantage of creators of copyrightable works.

3. It makes things more difficult for small companies, meaning that bigger companies will be able to take advantage and increase their power.

On the first point, the understanding of the purpose of copyright in the U.S is that it is promote the common good, in the EU the understanding is that it is to protect the rights of people who have created something and have a moral right to ownership of the thing they have created - based on the Berne convention https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/summary_berne.html of which by the way the U.S is a signatory.

At any rate your fee setting and registration rules perfectly aligns with the purpose of increasing the common good, but does not align very well with the moral right to ownership of ones work. Now before when the U.S increased the copyright term limits obviously countries that believed in the Berne convention were willing to sign on to that because increasing the term limits can theoretically be helping the creator of a work (although in practice probably not) but all this other stuff not helping will mean if your rules were enacted in the U.S the international structure of copyright would have to fall apart.

On the second point, why is it difficult for creators of copyrightable works? Well, unfortunately not everyone is good at everything and it has been noted in the past that many artists, musicians, writers are not especially good at organizational skills and as such are often liable to get taken advantage of by unscrupulous people who are good at these things. Do I have to provide links to examples of this happening, or to the assertion that people in the creative professions are often lacking on the organizational front or can this be taken as a given? As such putting another thing they have to manage and they will have to keep managing for as long as they want to derive any profit from their labor on their plate is going to increase the chance of their being taken advantage of. Someone will now undoubtedly say but they will just hire someone to do it for them, which will be forestalled hereby by noting you have to be doing relatively well from your labor to afford to hire people to take care of these kinds of things for you (and this of course will keep some people from doing well enough to hire the persons needed to help them), and even if you are you can get ripped off by the people who are supposed to be helping you organize things.

On the third point, smaller companies will have trouble doing this has already been handled in the comments.

> If you have multiple works in one product (think Marvel movies) then all revenue goes to the oldest work (that way you can't avoid the fee by putting new and old characters together).

so a work is no longer a book or a movie, but a character?

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