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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

#131

Post by cestith »

notarobot123 wrote: post #51
cestith wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a disincentive to authors in their later years if it’s a straight rule. We’d need something like a minimum of 20 years or up to their 100th birthday or something.

Imagine being in the last phase of life and finding your only motivation to create or share anything is the opportunity to extract as much value from society as possible.

Imagine being in the last phase of life and finding you have to work full time as a Walmart greeter because you can’t support yourself as a working artist anymore due to ageist pricks being in charge of policy.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#132

Post by ottah »

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.

Or maybe we have never needed an exclusive economic monopoly on a creative work to encourage the creation of art? Maybe we would all be in a better world were art and culture lived in the collective commons, free for anyone in the zeitgeist to adapt and proliferate? Can we really say commercial production of culture has been truly the best for society?

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#133

Post by OkayPhysicist »

TitaRusell wrote: post #120
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they wrote a book 20 years ago and it didn't sell much it's not going to sell now either, no? That's not a universal rule. Andrzej Sapkowski wrote a little short story called "The Witcher" in the 80's, that he expanded on into a novel series through the 90's. Then a game development studio made a series of wildly successfully videogames based on his work, which definitely made way more money than his books, to t…

He sold his rights to CDPro. Also the videogame made him famous- I for one read one of his books BECAUSE of the game and I'm sure that I am not the only one. There's a reason why writers want their books to become videogames and or movies. I would not be surprised if the Tolkien estate made more money after the Peter Jackson movie came out than in all the decades before... And most importantly artists are not childre…

> He sold his rights to CDPro.

Yeah, and why do you think he had those rights to sell? Copyright is a good thing, with flaws in its current implementation.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#134

Post by alsetmusic »

reedciccio wrote: post #130
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.

Mr. Martin was also paid to support the production of GoT, not just royalties. There is no reason to believe that he wouldn't be called to do the same sort of consulting work on the script, dialogues, visual, etc if the copyright expired.

> Mr. Martin was also paid to support the production of GoT, not just royalties. There is no reason to believe that he wouldn't be called to do the same sort of consulting work on the script, dialogues, visual, etc if the copyright expired.

I find it highly probable that the negotiation for the rights to adapt for the screen included contractual agreements for him to do so to prevent them from hiring someone cheaper who would screw with his intended vision. He had leverage to ensure this outcome. They didn’t pay him a great deal more than they could have paid some unknown name because they are nice and friendly.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#135

Post by bryanrasmussen »

closewith wrote: post #99
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK I did not know this about the U.S, having never owned property there.

Actually seems a bit weird to find a tax situation in the U.S that seems less beneficial to the person paying the tax than many other countries.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#136

Post by rcxdude »

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…

How easy reverse engineering something is varies a lot. Something where the production process is the secret can be almost impossible to reverse engineer, for example.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#137

Post by jimbooonooo »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #108
jimmydddd wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course it seems fair to you, it's not your IP that's being stolen before you were able to extract all it's worth from.

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#138

Post by simonh »

closewith wrote: post #27
simonh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK. Simply owning land does not incur taxes here, we don't have land value taxes. You pay capital gains tax on profits selling land. There are annual taxes on buildings such as council taxes on houses, specifically to pay for municipal services, but not generally on land. If I make goods I'm not taxed for owning them, only if I earn income from the sale or use of those goods.

There are some analogues of a land tax in the UK. Council tax for residential property, rates for businesses, and the upcoming mansion tax.

And I think that makes sense because residences impose costs on local services. However if I write a novel aged put it on my bookshelf, or if I paint a picture ad put it on my wall, I’m not imposing a cost on anyone just because these might have some theoretical value. How would their value even be measured?

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#139

Post by simonh »

toast0 wrote: post #80
brookst wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP is next to impossible to appraise, unlike land. It’s pretty easy to ballpark what a lot of house or office building is worth based on comparables that sold recently. IP doesn’t sell that much and comparisons are harder.

Copyright is easy to appraise. Estimate the stream of payments it will generate; take the net present value using an appropriate estimate of a safe interest rate. Will it always match the actual value? No, of course not. Sometimes popularity changes a lot, or interest rates change a lot. I'm not sure you really need a proprerty tax on copyrights though. They generate taxable income until they expire. It seems more fa…

So of I write a novel and never publish it, how should its value be calculated?

If what matters is actually revenue, well, revenue is already taxed when it’s incurred. Suppose there is no future revenue, do I get the tax back eventually?

Re: Mondrian Entered the Public Domain. The Estate Disagrees

#140

Post by AlotOfReading »

jimbooonooo wrote: post #137
ElevenLathe wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course it seems fair to you, it's not your IP that's being stolen before you were able to extract all it's worth from.

You've completely misunderstood the social contract inherent in copyright. There's no theft in adaptation. Copyright is an intentional trade-off by society to incentivise the creation of new works for society's benefit by giving authors a temporary monopoly. Perpetual copyright would obviously maximize the incentives for authors, but harm society by precluding the creation of new works based on the original. Instead, society chooses a limited period where authors can get most of the benefit while trying to keep the period short enough that works remain relevant.

Saying it's all theft entirely misses the point.

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