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What will enter the public domain in 2026?

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Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#271

Post by forgotoldacc »

zozbot234 wrote: post #159
forgotoldacc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because then you miss out on a lot of more recent content that'll become a classic in the future. Also, translations are copyrighted. There's 500 year old public domain stuff that's been translated in the past few decades and those aren't in the public domain. Older translations may be, but even going back 30 years, people would translate every foreign work in the style of the King James Bible. Translations in natura…

> even going back 30 years, people would translate every foreign work in the style of the King James Bible. Translations in natural, modern speech are an oddly new thing. And yet, people used to read those older translations just fine. It's just a matter of literary style, it doesn't really impact the understanding of the text.

With vocabulary and grammatical changes over time, it does majorly affect understanding. People prefer to read things in a language and dialect they understand. Archaic English diverges pretty heavily from modern dialects of English.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#272

Post by moralestapia »

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…

>Ideally, a child could legally provide their own spin on IP they consumed by the time they reach adulthood.

Why?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#273

Post by shagie »

snohobro wrote: post #267
eudamoniac wrote: post #228

I genuinely don't understand the instinct of HN to decry copyright for fictional works in general. I would not find it distasteful for even a far longer copyright to exist. I just don't see it as a problem. What is the societal ill that is caused by being unable to sell Harry Potter fan fiction, ever? Why can the author not invent his own setting? I understand people want free things, but this sentiment seems to go b…

My issue isn’t so much derivative works, but the original content being sat upon by the owner and refusing to make it available to the public (for free or for sale) in any meaningful way. Keeping with the theme of Disney, I always enjoyed the Captain Eo attraction. I’d love to be able to regularly rewatch that short film. Other than a bootleg YouTube version, there is no way for me to access it right now, and there i…

As a photographer, why should I be forced to sell prints of the photographs that are hanging in a restaurant?

If the limitations on copyright weren't present, why wouldn't the restaurant make copies of the photograph that I took that they have hanging on the wall and sell it at the front door without reimbursing me in any way?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#274

Post by giancarlostoro »

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…

We've endlessly talked about it here on HN and I think most people agree. I'm in favor of charging the copyright holder and increasing amount (doubles every 5 years or so), which eventually forces them to give up paying for so many different copyrighted works, and also if the work is insanely old, they would cost way above ROI.

Alternatively sell "Subscription Copyright" licenses that renew every 10 years at 10 million dollars, that's per story, so Disney would have to renew for all of their movies, every 10 years. Could probably put that revenue to better use somewhere else anyway.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#275

Post by gwbas1c »

shagie wrote: post #270
gwbas1c wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question. IMO: 1: The formula dictates what you pay. 2: The money goes into a government-controlled escrow account. At that point, the rights holder has a reasonable amount of time (years) to claim the money. Otherwise, if the rightsholder doesn't come forward, the money is forfeited. (What happens to the money at that point? I think this is a great thing for people to argue about while the rest of us g…

Which government? Who controls the account? How do I claim it? How does this work across national boundaries? (e.g. how does someone in Wakanda license a work created by someone in the US? How does someone in the US license a work created by someone in Wakanda?) What happens if the government refuses to pay me (or return the money to me after the period of time has elapsed)? What happens if the government refuses to…

> I would contend that this suggestion puts too much faith in governments

Copyright only works if you have faith in your government to create and enforce laws.

Otherwise, if you don't have faith in your government, you have bigger problems than a poor system of copyright.

---

Anyway, all of your points are wonderful things to argue about while we get the kind of copyright reform we need. When we argue about details like this, we can assume that compulsory licensing is a good concept overall.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#276

Post by ghssds »

ssl-3 wrote: post #237
gwbas1c wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should mix in some compulsory licensing: IE, the copyright holder has exclusive rights for a period of time, and then afterwards there is a formula that's used to allow anyone to re-publish. It will help handle abandonware where the rightsholder can't be bothered to publish something; tries to limit where something is published; or otherwise tries to hold the fee artificially high. (This could be used, for…

Let's work through this statutory licensing concept. A work is published. Sometime later, the entity that created it falls off the face of the earth. The work is thus very much abandoned, and it remains copyrighted anyway. But tomorrow, that work will enter the timeframe where anyone can pay to license and publish it however they wish. And it just so happens that you wish to license this work and publish it as an ebo…

>Who do you pay? How do you pay them?

Create a non-government copyright collective[0] that manage copyright unrelated to music (musicians already have their).

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#277

Post by drob518 »

nmz wrote: post #239
drob518 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture is a great read in this space. It discusses all the societal issues with long copyright terms. Mostly, long copyright terms are driven by Mickey Mouse. Every time Mickey is near going into the public domain, Disney lobbies Congress for an extension. This has an impact on culture in that culture is a mashup of all the things that have gone before. Disney, for instance, made a fortun…

It's understandable that disney wants to hold Mickey as their symbol, I do not blame them for it, but, ironically as a child, I did not know Mickey Mouse, and I bet even fewer children know who Mickey Mouse is now.

I don’t blame Disney for having a copyright or for trying to protect it at some level. Again, we want creators to be compensated. But where does it end with Mickey? Does he ever become public domain?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#278

Post by ssl-3 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #262
ssl-3 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's work through this statutory licensing concept. A work is published. Sometime later, the entity that created it falls off the face of the earth. The work is thus very much abandoned, and it remains copyrighted anyway. But tomorrow, that work will enter the timeframe where anyone can pay to license and publish it however they wish. And it just so happens that you wish to license this work and publish it as an ebo…

That's a good question. IMO: 1: The formula dictates what you pay. 2: The money goes into a government-controlled escrow account. At that point, the rights holder has a reasonable amount of time (years) to claim the money. Otherwise, if the rightsholder doesn't come forward, the money is forfeited. (What happens to the money at that point? I think this is a great thing for people to argue about while the rest of us g…

Those are great answers.

I'd like to propose the following additions to help tie it all together:

Copyright must be registered. Registration requires sending a digital copy to some officious government body, such as the Library of Congress, for preservation. (It used to be ~about this way; it can be this way again. Disk is cheap. Git and email both exist. It can be figured out.)

This registration will be open and publicly-available to query (online, of course, but also by phone, and mail, and just by walking in the front door and asking), so the question of "Who to pay" is always easily answered.

All forfeited money from licensing goes to help pay for the preservation of the collected works, and for the ongoing expense of providing the registration database. It won't be nearly enough to cover those expenses, and that's fine: This means that the balance always has a place to land.

Copyright should not span generations. It should still time out completely, and do so after a period that is shorter than a normal human lifespan.

If a person saw a film when they were 5 that they really enjoyed, and if they manage to live long enough, then they should eventually be able to walk into the Library of Congress, give them some money, and walk out with a physical copy of it, and be able to freely upload that copy of it to YouCloud for their great, great grandchildren (and indeed, the world) to see, and be able to do all of this without becoming a criminal.

(How much money? Something in the realm of 15 Big Macs worth of dollars sounds about right.)

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#279

Post by pessimizer »

93po wrote: post #184
whamlastxmas wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't correct. It is infringement, for example, to write Harry Potter fan fiction in private on a typewriter, even if another soul never sees it. Copyright includes creation, not just distribution

Not sure why this is downvoted. It's factually correct and is said in what I believe to be a fairly neutral way?

Because people insist on discussing copyright as if there is any part of it that makes sense, and as if it operates how they think it should.

They derive a history of it from all of these principles that they made up, then propose a future which is always a moderate compromise between the guiding principles that they made up and the history that they made up from the guiding principles that they made up.

Things are as they are because powerful people made them that way, and built on that. The length of copyright is justified by the fact that it got past Congress and judges. What you're allowed to do is vague know it when I see it stuff, and has always been a patch on top of what you're not allowed to do which is always very clear: anything you don't have a written grant of permission to do.

People talk about "fair use" like it is a real abstract principle, rather than being some weird legal wording by a judge from a few court cases where something felt just too minor and silly to be a violation but was obviously, by the letter of the law, a violation.

I'm fairly sure that under the letter of the law you're allowed to read a book you own or listen to a record you own more than once, but I wouldn't bet on it. For all I know it could be an exception called "private repeat performance of licensed material" which is not a law but actually guidance written by the counsel for the Librarian of Congress based on two court cases from the 1930s.

edit: when I was a kid, you wouldn't put the song "Happy Birthday To You" in a movie, and you would edit it out of a documentary. This was never determined not to be a violation, it just got so embarrassing that it was somehow determined that the copyright had lapsed. Archive.org was in a years-long kerfuffle about 78s. It's not about sense, it's about power.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#280

Post by shagie »

gwbas1c wrote: post #275
shagie wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which government? Who controls the account? How do I claim it? How does this work across national boundaries? (e.g. how does someone in Wakanda license a work created by someone in the US? How does someone in the US license a work created by someone in Wakanda?) What happens if the government refuses to pay me (or return the money to me after the period of time has elapsed)? What happens if the government refuses to…

> I would contend that this suggestion puts too much faith in governments Copyright only works if you have faith in your government to create and enforce laws. Otherwise, if you don't have faith in your government, you have bigger problems than a poor system of copyright. --- Anyway, all of your points are wonderful things to argue about while we get the kind of copyright reform we need. When we argue about details l…

Which government do I need to have faith in for enforcing the copyright for a citizen of Wakanda who is infringing upon my work?

The floor of copyright reform is set by TRIPS and the WTO. That's 50 years. If one wants to try to set another floor, it involves every country in the WTO to agree on that. Setting an floor that expires sooner is likely a non-starter given concerns about things getting slurped up into AI models.

Mandatory licensing is a "no". I should not be required to license my material to anyone. I do not want my works of photography, fiction, or software development to be mandatorily licensed to someone who could then take it and make derivative works that I don't want them to. Consider how many people object to their CC work being included in AI models.

Much of the suggestions of copyright reform would involve the relevant country to leave the WTO and withdraw from the TRIPS agreement. That is unlikely to happen.

Resetting copyright to the floor dictated by TRIPS would be a possibility that a country could entertain.

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