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Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

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Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

wang_li wrote: post #87
freejazz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A human's own likeness is not copyrightable. Hard to take posts about copyright doctrine seriously when they are premised on complete misunderstanding.

There is a legally protected right of publicity. You cannot take someone's likeness and use it for your advertising campaign/movie/endorsement without their permission.

> There is a legally protected right of publicity.

There is not a general right of publicity in federal law in the US; in certain states there is with different parameters, including as to who is even protected.

There is a false endorsement provision in the Lanham Act, 15 USC § 1125(a), that provides a very narrow protection around misleading commercial endorsement, though.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#92

Post by Angostura »

observationist wrote: post #78
goku12 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait! Are you talking about the history or the future aspiration? I thought that the IP laws were initially like what you described here, until the greedy class stuffed the politicians' mouths with cash (aka lobbying).

This is what I want copyright and patents to be. I could see a case for the initial patent period to go up to 10 years, but more or less operate identically. Make it apply retroactively. Clean, simple, no exceptions, grandfathered special interests, or variations for special industries. This nukes all the exploitative actors in the industry, like the textbook publishing industry, patent trolls, IP hoarders like Sony,…

The only disadvantage I see might be the increase in use of trade secrets if patents no longer look sufficiently attractive. The quid pro quo basically used to be 'tell us your secret sauce and in return you'll get monopoly use for a period. There's a bit of a balancing act. Of course that original concept has been corrupted

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#93

Post by observationist »

Angostura wrote: post #92
observationist wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I want copyright and patents to be. I could see a case for the initial patent period to go up to 10 years, but more or less operate identically. Make it apply retroactively. Clean, simple, no exceptions, grandfathered special interests, or variations for special industries. This nukes all the exploitative actors in the industry, like the textbook publishing industry, patent trolls, IP hoarders like Sony,…

The only disadvantage I see might be the increase in use of trade secrets if patents no longer look sufficiently attractive. The quid pro quo basically used to be 'tell us your secret sauce and in return you'll get monopoly use for a period. There's a bit of a balancing act. Of course that original concept has been corrupted

Yeah, but the advantage in the modern world is reverse engineering things is easy; if your tech isn't patented, it can be copied, and if existing patents don't cover it, they can file a patent on the copy, and then you're paying royalties to the ones that copied your tech, etc. We're almost at the point that you can take a video, give it to an AI, and have it produce CAD drawings, circuit schematics, and detailed process documents to rebuild something. We're going to need responsive, flexible, and clear laws around things. The current system is also designed around a court system and process that regularly drags out for 3+ years, and results in lawyers being paid obscene amounts of money. Having a clear claim and no legal technicalities means authors don't have to invest years of their lives and lots of money to fight big companies who don't care about losing a few hundred grand just on principle, and so forth.

A whole lot of the pacing and timing around copyright laws originate with conventions from pre-electricity times, and only get perpetuated because grifty people want their legalized scams to continue.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#94

Post by WalterBright »

Germany didn't have patent laws in the 1800s. Their economy rapidly industrialized and boomed.

I don't believe on balance that patents would be a net improvement. Are companies really going to stop making things better if they couldn't patent it?

Note that Tesla open sources its patents.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#95

Post by WalterBright »

theragra wrote: post #2

As always, copyright is a supressor of creativity, not an enabler. Copyright terms should be 10-20 years max, or up to death of an author. Even current regime is ridiculous.

I don't think Taylor Swift became a billionaire on copyrights of her songs - it was because she did very successful concerts performing them.

CDs and streaming are just advertisements for the concerts.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#96

Post by kube-system »

observationist wrote: post #93
Angostura wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only disadvantage I see might be the increase in use of trade secrets if patents no longer look sufficiently attractive. The quid pro quo basically used to be 'tell us your secret sauce and in return you'll get monopoly use for a period. There's a bit of a balancing act. Of course that original concept has been corrupted

Yeah, but the advantage in the modern world is reverse engineering things is easy; if your tech isn't patented, it can be copied, and if existing patents don't cover it, they can file a patent on the copy, and then you're paying royalties to the ones that copied your tech, etc. We're almost at the point that you can take a video, give it to an AI, and have it produce CAD drawings, circuit schematics, and detailed pro…

> Yeah, but the advantage in the modern world is reverse engineering things is easy; if your tech isn't patented, it can be copied

That's true for products that are freely distributed, less so for inventions that are more closely held.

If you're doing something like cutting-edge physics, aerospace, semiconductors, biotech, etc -- trade secrets have always been pretty compelling by default, and patents were seen as a way to encourage more sharing.

It's a balance, and I think we should be mindful that we don't get too caught up in worrying about mass-produced widgets of little importance "taking advantage" of patents so much that we eliminate out the incentive to share the real cutting edge advancements.

In an alternative software world, "Attention is all you need" could have been a trade secret instead of a public paper.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#97

Post by stego-tech »

theragra wrote: post #2

As always, copyright is a supressor of creativity, not an enabler. Copyright terms should be 10-20 years max, or up to death of an author. Even current regime is ridiculous.

I would argue that in a digital world, copyright should be inversely scalable to the size of the creator - that is, individual works by independent artists intended for exhibition rather than reproduction should receive more favorable terms than movies or games created by huge conglomerates intended for mass reproduction, licensing, and sale.

Or more simply: if you’re not selling it presently, you don’t get copyright on it. There, abandonware and lost media rights are solved, and we can all move on.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#98

Post by jcranmer »

observationist wrote: post #57
theragra wrote: post #2

As always, copyright is a supressor of creativity, not an enabler. Copyright terms should be 10-20 years max, or up to death of an author. Even current regime is ridiculous.

0-5 years commercial copyright - the author/creator has total say on any and all commercial use, fair use doctrine applies. Years 6-10, extended fair use: mandatory attribution and 15% royalty but otherwise unlimited for public use in any context, for any reason. Years 11+, goes to public domain. Simple system. Encourages creativity, 99% of all money made on media (books, music, movies,etc) gets made during the first…

So what you're saying is that you think George R R Martin should not see a dime of revenue from the hit TV series made off of his books? Because Game of Thrones came out 20 years after the first book was published.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#99

Post by closewith »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #64
closewith wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a solution to the problem raised by the GP - how to fairly value IP. This whole thread is about how many countries with land taxes don't similarly tax other assets like IP. Whether you think it's fair or not is another question - the blocker isn't fair valuation.

the solution to how to fairly value IP was provided by the owner, capital gains tax happens on sale of IP https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47220210 capital gains does not happen on sale of land generally. These two things are obviously taxed differently because it is to the value of the government to do so, and the value of the government is supposed in many countries to somehow translate into a value for society…

Profits from property sales are often tax as CGT. It's only a select few jurisdictions that don't tax property sales, often with both CGTs and stamp duties.

The difference in how their taxed in the US is certainly not standard globally, nor is it likely to be optimal.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#100

Post by input_sh »

otherme123 wrote: post #88
input_sh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life + 70 has always been an oversimplification, we still haven't even reached 70 years since the introduction of these rules (1973 in the US, in other countries depends on when the US strogarmed them into adopting similar rules). There's all sorts of quirks for anything published before that rule got standardised more-or-less worldwide, but in general 1930-1945 is still like a legal grey area that can be challenged…

Do you really think that the whole world is waiting for whatever the US say to make their laws? Spain copyright law is dated 1879: https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1879-40001 , based on the French _droit d'auteur_ laws of 1700's. About the matter being discused here, read Artículo 6: dead date + 80.

No I do not think it's an original concept of the US, more that it was the US that conditioned many other countries to adopt similar laws as a condition for trade deals / investments.

As a concept it existed in one way or the other pretty much ever since the printing press.

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