Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

copyrightlately.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 171 posts

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#101

Post by danaris »

jcranmer wrote: post #98
observationist wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First of all, your timeline is off: A Game of Thrones was published in 1996, and the Game of Thrones series premiered in 2011.

Second of all, even if you were correct, that would only apply to the first book, not the subsequent ones, which were spread out across 1999-2011 (indeed, A Dance with Dragons came out the same year as the TV series premiered).

So perhaps you'd like to pick a different copyright maximalist strawman?

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#102

Post by elric »

jacquesm wrote: post #32
benj111 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the issue is estates (in this sense) in general. Did anyone in the estate actually know the guy whose legacy they're supposed to be protecting? How does paying money to Mondrian's great great great great grandchildren enhance society?

See also: Ravel.

Magritte is another such case, with a litigious Magritte Foundation. I guess he would have been somewhat amused at the absurdity of it all.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#103

Post by bobro »

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.

Just to try to understand this, do you think anyone should be able to make, say, a Harry Potter movie right now paying nothing to the author?

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#104

Post by [deleted] »

jcranmer wrote: post #98
observationist wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#105

Post by function_seven »

bobro wrote: post #103
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.

Just to try to understand this, do you think anyone should be able to make, say, a Harry Potter movie right now paying nothing to the author?

Yes. Copyright is intended to an encourage artistic works to be published, with the author of those works knowing that they can earn a living creating art. J. K. Rowling has earned quite the bundle from Harry Potter. She has been incentivized.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#106

Post by jimmydddd »

danaris wrote: post #101
jcranmer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First of all, your timeline is off: A Game of Thrones was published in 1996, and the Game of Thrones series premiered in 2011. Second of all, even if you were correct, that would only apply to the first book, not the subsequent ones, which were spread out across 1999-2011 (indeed, A Dance with Dragons came out the same year as the TV series premiered). So perhaps you'd like to pick a different copyright maximalist st…

Even if the timeline in the question is off, do you agree with the premise? If Stephen King puts out a novel in 2026, when should I be able to sell photocopies of the novel without paying royalties. 2027?

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#107

Post by jimmydddd »

function_seven wrote: post #105
bobro wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to try to understand this, do you think anyone should be able to make, say, a Harry Potter movie right now paying nothing to the author?

Yes. Copyright is intended to an encourage artistic works to be published, with the author of those works knowing that they can earn a living creating art. J. K. Rowling has earned quite the bundle from Harry Potter. She has been incentivized.

What about the other 99.99999% of authors?

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#108

Post by ElevenLathe »

jimmydddd wrote: post #106
danaris wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, your timeline is off: A Game of Thrones was published in 1996, and the Game of Thrones series premiered in 2011. Second of all, even if you were correct, that would only apply to the first book, not the subsequent ones, which were spread out across 1999-2011 (indeed, A Dance with Dragons came out the same year as the TV series premiered). So perhaps you'd like to pick a different copyright maximalist st…

Even if the timeline in the question is off, do you agree with the premise? If Stephen King puts out a novel in 2026, when should I be able to sell photocopies of the novel without paying royalties. 2027?

According to the regime this thread is discussing (in observationist's post upthread), 2037. This seems more than fair to me.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#109

Post by jandrese »

pyuser583 wrote: post #69
nullc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inheritors are in a better position to kill the author-- or just allow them to die from neglect-- and are incentivized to do so by postmortem profits. Any benefit from the work being public domain is diffuse, it won't create a windfall for any particular party. The residuals on the other hand are quite concrete, particularly when an author's preferences are capping the market for their work or when the publicity…

The distinction between author and their estates is fascinating: the stereotype is estates mismanaging the art, but that usually happens because the estates want to be “artistic” themselves. Most artists are terrible at business. They do dumb things for no reason. JRR Tolkein and his estate is prime example. JRR signed away all movie rights for a nominal sum. His estate fought tooth and nail for their rights, while s…

Imagine what a better world we would live in if the Tolkien estate was able to kill D&D in the cradle as they would have liked...

/s

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#110

Post by Aerroon »

jimmydddd wrote: post #107
function_seven wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Copyright is intended to an encourage artistic works to be published, with the author of those works knowing that they can earn a living creating art. J. K. Rowling has earned quite the bundle from Harry Potter. She has been incentivized.

What about the other 99.99999% of authors?

If they wrote a book 20 years ago and it didn't sell much it's not going to sell now either, no?

But I do like the idea of length determined by inverse correlation of size of the creator. 20 years might be too short where an author writes something popular and a movie company just waits 20 years to do something with it rather than pay the author.

Post reply on HN