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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

#121

Post by csnover »

Gunax wrote: post #84
camjohnson26 wrote: post #24

Copyright law has damaged global culture. Who benefits when the copyright to Winnie-the-Pooh takes almost 100 years to expire? Only the companies who sell licensed merchandise. Think about how many fan works we’ll never see because we bizarrely decided to grant creators a monopoly on whatever they create, even if the work enters the public mythology like with Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. The people of the country…

Do you think we should have shorter time spans? How short? Should star wars be public domain? Harry Potter? It's not an easy answer. Not everything is a hit right away... Some things like Song ofnIce and Fire only became hits decades later.

I would personally argue that as the amount of money and time required for distribution has gone down, the duration of copyright should also go down. 14+14 years was the first federal rule in the United States, and that was in an era where even electric telegraphs didn’t exist and it took several days just to send a letter 100 miles.

Actually, don’t even listen to me. In 2007, an economist named Rufus Pollock did research to determine the ‘optimal’ copyright duration to answer this question using empirically-estimable parameters and arrived at an optimum of 15 years.[0]

It is important to keep in mind that (1) copyright was supposed to promote the creation of new works, and so allowing creators to make a single hit and collect royalties until the end of time is not its purpose (at least in the United States), and (2) just because something is in the public domain doesn’t mean that the creator is now unable to make money from it.

Taking your example of the Song of Ice and Fire: if its copyright had expired before it exploded in popularity, George R.R. Martin would still be able to make money consulting for the TV adaptation. He would be able to make money giving talks and appearing at conventions. He would certainly increase the number of people giving him money on Patreon and sales of his contemporaneous books still under copyright would go up. He could cash in by quickly preparing some bonus content related to the book that is under copyright and sell it alone or as a bundle. He could do a fresh run of printed copies and tout their superior physical quality versus other copies on the market.

[0] https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright_term_talk_...

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#122

Post by ggrrhh_ta »

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)

I think that's why the post said "starts a business and passes away"; they have stopped being salaried and rely on the good prospects of the ownership of an own business to do well (from salaried, to "stock" owner of something that still has very little financial value or that the financial value that it has depends on the founder still being alive).

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#123

Post by chrismorgan »

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 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, then costing $10 × 1.5 ⁿ ⁻ ¹ for each subsequent year. Year 10 costs $0, year 20 about $380, year 30 about $22,000, year 40 about $1,300,000, year 50 almost $75,000,000—and few fifty-year-old things will be worth $75,000,000 per year and growing to retain copyright to. And I doubt any individual work would be worth the $4.25 billion of year 60 (10 × 1.5⁴⁹, incidentally just 1% short of 2³²), so that’s a rough absolute cap of 60 years.

You could scale the $10 base figure to inflation, or you could just schedule a review every decade or so, or you could even ignore inflation altogether, which would slowly extend average copyright terms (e.g. year N today would cost similar, indexed, to year N+1 20 years ago).

Concerning your registry, I don’t think you want to require a registry for the first ten years, but only for any extensions—and make it that if anyone can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you actually published the thing earlier than the date you claim when you register it, then your work is thrown into the public domain as punishment.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#124

Post by dang »

imachine1980_ wrote: post #27
Arainach wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is THAT what's going on? What an awful, miserable, hostile website. Please stop trying to do silly Javascript tricks and just give me text and pictures.

Won't somebody please think of the engagement

publicdomainreview.org is a good site. It has obviously been a labor of love for many years and I've never known them to do shitty engagement tricks.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#125

Post by mchusma »

chrismorgan wrote: post #123
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 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.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#126

Post by myowz »

condour75 wrote: post #77
moffkalast wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only title on the list I recognize, such a timeless classic.

The movie was okay but I never pictured $$ as looking like Chris Pratt

The casting of () seemed consciously inclusive, in a good way

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#127

Post by hyfgfh »

owlbynight wrote: post #47

This is easily the worst UX of the year for me. Designed by an absolute alien. Do they really think I'm going to come to this site every day to see a GIS thumbnail instead of just doing a google search to find the entire, unopinionated list?

relax it`s just an advent calendar

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#128

Post by vbezhenar »

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…

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

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#129

Post by jedberg »

chrismorgan wrote: post #123
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 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 like your general concept, but my concern with any fixed fee is that it pushes out small publishers in favor of big ones.

A small publisher who is making say $300,000 from their work after 40 years can't afford to register it, but Disney can easily afford the 50 year fee.

Also, the reason for registration right away is because otherwise you can't be sure a work is in the public domain or who to license it from for at least however long the no registration period is. If it's 10 years, then you have to wait at least 10 years to find out if someone has a claim on it.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2022

#130

Post by jedberg »

vbezhenar wrote: post #128
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…

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

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.
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