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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?

#281

Post by wongarsu »

tialaramex wrote: post #251
wongarsu wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's an interesting perspective, I hadn't considered that the name might be a reference to A Room of One's Own.

My understanding was that the whole "of our own" thing is mostly in reference to fanfiction sites going through a predictable cycle of becoming popular followed by overmonetizing, enshittifying and losing touch with the community, which means everyone migrates to the next site which becomes popular and repeats the cycle. Hence Ao3 run by a non-profit "of our own". But that might not be the only way in which it's true. I would certainly agree that it is somewhat of a safe space for all kinds of disparaged groups, women in general being the biggest of them

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#282

Post by shagie »

ssl-3 wrote: post #278
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…

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 pub…

> Copyright must be registered.

https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm

    Members shall comply with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention (1971) and the Appendix thereto. However, Members shall not have rights or obligations under this Agreement in respect of the rights conferred under Article 6bis of that Convention or of the rights derived therefrom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

    Author's rights under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration.
This would require the country to back out of the Berne Convention and TRIPS (and by implication the WTO). Protection of copyright is automatic and does not require registration.

Just because I haven't sent the latest batch of photographs to the Library of Congress for registration (so I can collect punitive damages rather than just compensatory damages) doesn't mean that the images that I have created are not copyrighted and protected.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#283

Post by madduci »

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…

And if you think that OpenAI, Anthropic and others have all hijacked it to train their models, it's kind of crazy that these are only limitations applied to private persons or small companies, but don't touch big corps at all.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#284

Post by ssl-3 »

ghssds wrote: post #276
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…

>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

That's somewhat hilarious.

Last time I looked into trying to get pricing from ASCAP and BMI so I could legally stream some music for a small number of people, I found the following to be true:

1. There is no public pricing. (Why? Because fuck you, that's why!)

2. If I insisted, then the simplest way to get a price is to stream whatever I want and wait for a nasty letter from one or more lawyers that will most assuredly tell me how much I owe.

3. The only safe way to proceed is not to play the game at all.

That's gonna be a "no" on the cartels for me, boss. We might as well just throw all of the money and all of the copyrighted stuff into the memory hole for all the good they do.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#285

Post by purple_ferret »

hgomersall wrote: post #258
gwbas1c wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

maybe 'creator' in the youtuber sense

But most creative people I know aren't really that interested in trying to co-opt someone else's work

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#286

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

When asked "do you want more or less income?", most people, including me, will answer "more".

That doesn't mean it's always the right decision.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#287

Post by snickerbockers »

madduci wrote: post #283
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…

And if you think that OpenAI, Anthropic and others have all hijacked it to train their models, it's kind of crazy that these are only limitations applied to private persons or small companies, but don't touch big corps at all.

This whole thing pisses me off so much. I would be fine with an absolute anarchy in which copyright and patents no longer exist but these same dickheads have been terrorizing the entire planet with lawsuits and DRM for downloading Metallica CDs for the last 30 years and even now they don't actually want to reform the copyright system, just grant themselves a special exception because everything is supposed to unconditionally work in their favor regardless of circumstances.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#288

Post by ssl-3 »

shagie wrote: post #282
ssl-3 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pub…

> Copyright must be registered. https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm Members shall comply with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention (1971) and the Appendix thereto. However, Members shall not have rights or obligations under this Agreement in respect of the rights conferred under Article 6bis of that Convention or of the rights derived therefrom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Co…

I'm aware of the Berne Convention. It can be vacated. Sweeping changes have sweeping effects.

I can't conceive of a way for any of this hypothetical copyright system to work (ie, to not fall completely apart) without requiring registration.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#289

Post by shagie »

ssl-3 wrote: post #288
shagie wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copyright must be registered. https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm Members shall comply with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention (1971) and the Appendix thereto. However, Members shall not have rights or obligations under this Agreement in respect of the rights conferred under Article 6bis of that Convention or of the rights derived therefrom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Co…

I'm aware of the Berne Convention. It can be vacated. Sweeping changes have sweeping effects. I can't conceive of a way for any of this hypothetical copyright system to work (ie, to not fall completely apart) without requiring registration.

How would this impact open source? Would I be required to register every repository that I have on GitHub?

Would anyone be able to license that repository for $(legislated amount) and make it into a closed source product?

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#290

Post by officeplant »

drob518 wrote: post #277
nmz wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well his origin "Steam Boat Willie" became public domain last year.
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