All sound recordings prior to 1923 will enter the US public domain in 2022 • Hacker News Board

Re: All sound recordings prior to 1923 will enter the US public domain in 2022

#231

Post by ben_w » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #216

ben_w wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I think it makes very little difference whatever number you pick between “none” and “forever”. Earlier this year a few authors whose work I enjoy tweeted furiously about this topic. Similar arguments may apply to audio and visual copyright. If, for example, copyright lasted 14 years, then The Atrocity Archives (Stross) would already be public domain, which reduces incentive to create more in the series (n…

> Making copyright last 100(average of all x) fails to harm society by preventing the work from becoming public domain That does not follow. Even if literally everyone who was interested in the work already has a copy, copyright prevents others from building on top of it. That is the harm.

I don’t see this being a huge cost/limit.

Yes, sure, it would be a copyright violation to write today a novel set on a giant space artefact containing a flattened full-scale map of Earth, where a motley crew (including a bald human on anti-aging drugs) crash-lands and investigates, finding the machinery of the world breaking down, where those things are “the Ringworld”, Luis Wu, superconducting wire destroyed by a synthetic microbe, and Boosterspice; but that didn’t stop Pratchett writing Strata with “the flat world”, Kin Arad, general entropy, and Days.

Re: All sound recordings prior to 1923 will enter the US public domain in 2022

#232

Post by silexia » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

Copyright should expire 20 years after the work is created. Shorter and the author will not be able to monetize, longer and society is held hostage by rent seekers.

Patents should just be abolished altogether. Ideas are worthless, execution is everything.

Re: All sound recordings prior to 1923 will enter the US public domain in 2022

#233

Post by kragen » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

Epiphany21 wrote: post #218

kragen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should eliminate copyright. Zero years. Copyright was a reasonable bargain when printing a book involved a large up-front investment of typesetting it and then printing all the copies that would ever be printed from that setup. It didn't affect most people, just printers. And it enabled authors to make a living from writing. This held a fortiori for phonograph records. It became fairly dubious in the age of photoc…

There is still an up front cost associated with the creation of software or works that get distributed in a digital format. Even in the best case scenario where the hardware was free, the OS was free, and the software tools were free, the creator still has to spend his or her time on making the copyrighted work. They deserve to have options that allow them to be compensated for that labor. I reject the false dichotom…

Creators are free to choose to spend their time doing creative work, or not, as we please. I'm going to keep writing for the public, and so are lots of other people, and we don't care if you do or not. Amazon or anyone else can redistribute our work; that way it reaches more people. They won't have much luck selling it when you can just download it for free.

If you think the world owes you something in return for spending your time writing, you should take your ball and go home. We have a civilization to preserve here that copyright is threatening — children to educate, medical treatments to deliver, historical films to copy onto non-rotting stock, private communications it's intolerable to scan for forbidden information on which the government has granted you a monopoly — and any one of these is more important than what you think you deserve.

Our intellect is not your property.