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

What will enter the public domain in 2026?

publicdomainreview.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 383 posts

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#251

Post by tialaramex »

wongarsu wrote: post #221
nkrisc wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spend a lot of time online, it would certainly seem that way.

Or spend a lot of time with certain demographics. My parents don't know what ao3 is, but a couple of female coworkers are huge fans Edit: according to [1] 93% of users are 44 or younger, and women outnumber men 10:1 [1] https://www.flowjournal.org/2023/02/fan-demographics-on-ao3/

I think you should also assume it's called "Archive of our own" because of the same sense that Woolf had in "A Room of one's own". This is our space to do our thing, precisely because if it was someone else's space sooner or later they, at least ostensibly for good reasons, prioritize something else over our thing and it's destroyed.

So it's at least not at all a coincidence that AO3's authors are predominantly women. This story of assuming that they can thrive in a shared space and then discovering that, again often for ostensibly good reason, they're not welcome to use it after all, is very familiar to women. Whether you're being thrown out of a cafe for breast feeding ("Nudity, not allowed") or turned down by employers despite having the same skills as successful male candidates ("Bound to have kids and then we'd just have to replace her anyway") it gets wearisome, better to have a place of your own.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#252

Post by ronsor »

nancyminusone wrote: post #235
throw10920 wrote: post #210

I would love to see a public poll on how long people think that copyright should be. I'm betting that the majority of the answers from normal people will be less than the current "author's lifetime plus 70 years" but also greater than 5 years. This is probably not a very profitable poll for Gallup to do, though...

My answer is "a generation". There's so many ideas and behaviors that don't persist between generations that it seems as natural of a division as you could have. The median age of new mothers is 27 around here, which seems about right.

A generation is usually considered to be ~20 years, which is less than 14+14, not that I'm complaining.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#253

Post by cool_dude85 »

fragmede wrote: post #154
nkrisc wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What fan fiction?

This is not an endorsement of the work, but there's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I hear 50 Shades of Gray is another fanfic that went mainstream. A book nerd could come up with a much longer list, but I know there's a ton more illegal unlicensed! Harry Potter fan fic.

50 Shades is decidedly not a fanfic for the exact reason that it couldn't be sold as one.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#254

Post by mrec »

ssl-3 wrote: post #229
Aromasin wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think would diminish independent author rights. Quite often, a novel will become popular only decades after publishing, and I think the author should be able to profit on the fruits of their labour without wealthy corporations tarnishing their original IP, or creating TV shows and the link with no reperations to the creator. Fantasy book are a good example. A Games of Thrones was first released in 1996 but had midd…

14+14=28 years. That minimum being proposed here is longer than a patent lasts for. Why should we protect the work of an author for a lengthier term than that of an inventor? (And remember: It's really not my problem, as a regular Joe, when an author or inventor creates something that doesn't catch on right away -- if at all. Success is not guaranteed.)

> Why should we protect the work of an author for a lengthier term than that of an inventor?

Well, independently coming up with the same solution to a given problem is a lot more likely than independently writing the same novel. Personally, the chilling of independent invention is the thing I find most obnoxious about patents.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#255

Post by realusername »

dismantlethesun wrote: post #190
bcrosby95 wrote: post #58

The length of copyright is absurd. Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. Ideally, a child could legally provide their own spin on IP they consumed by the time they reach adulthood. But also, people need to make a living. I actually think the original 14+14 year copyright is the right balance. It gives people time to make their profits, but also guarantees the right of people to t…

> Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. I feel like this is true, but anytime I speak with colleagues in the arts (even UX and visual designers), they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years. They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of…

Of course they are happy with that, they are not the ones affected by the problem and even benefit financially from it.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#256

Post by BobAliceInATree »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #244
dismantlethesun wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. I feel like this is true, but anytime I speak with colleagues in the arts (even UX and visual designers), they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years. They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of…

Sounds a bit unlikely, that most of them will make a living with stuff older than 14 or 28 years, their legacy creations. Sounds more like they are chasing a dream, which most likely will not be achieved by most of them.

Yeah, this sounds very similar to people who vote as if they're temporarily embarrassed billionaires. "There's a minuscule chance my work will become super lucrative for decades, so I want a super long copyright" when they don't realize that a much shorter copyright can help them creatively in the near term.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#257

Post by hgomersall »

adventured wrote: post #246
ronsor wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of their intellect. Copyright is a practical compromise between society and them; their interests are not absolute.

> their interests are not absolute The question of interests is a cultural debate, and also not an absolute either direction. In one culture the interests of the author could be held as an absolute; in another culture the exact opposite could be held as the value: no copyrights at all. That's up to the society to debate. We see considerable cultural variance across the globe on the matter.

Isn't the question whether it's reasonable for people to be rentiers? Clearly lots of the population are, but wouldn't it be better if they carried on creating rather than sitting back and doing nothing for the remainder of their place on earth?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#258

Post by hgomersall »

gwbas1c wrote: post #207
dismantlethesun wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. I feel like this is true, but anytime I speak with colleagues in the arts (even UX and visual designers), they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years. They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of…

Of course they do, their bias is to keep all the cards in their favor. Our (the consumer's) bias is to shorten copyright. Remember, ultimately it is the consumer who pays the creator; thus the consumer has a vested interest in negotiating how long copyright should last.

Which is absurd, because most creators would benefit hugely from an expanded public domain.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#259

Post by throw0101c »

dismantlethesun wrote: post #190
bcrosby95 wrote: post #58

The length of copyright is absurd. Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. Ideally, a child could legally provide their own spin on IP they consumed by the time they reach adulthood. But also, people need to make a living. I actually think the original 14+14 year copyright is the right balance. It gives people time to make their profits, but also guarantees the right of people to t…

> Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. I feel like this is true, but anytime I speak with colleagues in the arts (even UX and visual designers), they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years. They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of…

> I feel like this is true, but anytime I speak with colleagues in the arts (even UX and visual designers), they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years. They (a) want the income for their legacy in case their products are still in use or appreciated decades later and (b) they want to control the output of their intellect.

If I'm an (e.g.) accountant, my work does not generate income for my offspring after I pass.

Having children (and even grandchildren) coast on work that was created decades ago is ludicrous IMHO. If you can't profit off your work after 14+14 years (as per above) then I'm not sure what you're doing, but it's not (economically) beneficial to society.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#260

Post by bilsbie »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #58

The length of copyright is absurd. Corporations have hijacked a concept that should exist on human timescales. Ideally, a child could legally provide their own spin on IP they consumed by the time they reach adulthood. But also, people need to make a living. I actually think the original 14+14 year copyright is the right balance. It gives people time to make their profits, but also guarantees the right of people to t…

Even simpler is you have to register within a year to get a copyright on a work and renew each year with an exponentially increasing fee.

Ie If you want to hold the copyright to a movie for 40 years you’re welcome to pay 2 billion dollars.

Post reply on HN