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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?

#331

Post by MichaelZuo »

gwd wrote: post #189
basilikum wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the problem is most people being against shorter copyright terms but simply them not caring. I don't think a compromise with the devil will change anything about that.

Right; so according to your own assessment, for the "14+14 no extensions" thing , you're always going to have have "a minority of opinionated geeks" on one side, and "a minority of massively rich entrenched interests willing to fight tooth and nail for a gold mine" on the other side. You're never going to win that one. Whereas, for the "pay to extend copyright" thing, you have a minority of opinionated geeks and at l…

Can you write down your actual analysis of the disposition of political capital, factions, interest groups, etc.?

People aren’t just going to take your word that A outweighs B modulo C, or that B outweighs A modulo C. There needs to be some credible substance.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#332

Post by bigbadfeline »

bilbo0s wrote: post #269
zelphirkalt wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mmmm.. I don’t know man? I actually don’t mind 14+14 for corps. Because corps could conceivably never “die”. (In fact, I wouldn’t even be too opposed to getting rid of the +14 part). But for individual people who make things, I think if they’re alive, it should be theirs. And I’m a guy who’s not a creative. I just think if you come up with a painting, or story, or video game, why should a big corporate be able to swo…

> But for individual people who make things, I think if they’re alive, it should be theirs.

But it is theirs... well, until they sell it. We aren't talking about the things they make but about copies of them. I can't believe there are people who still don't understand the difference.

The copies aren't theirs to begin with, copyright isn't natural property and it's not a natural right, that much is set in stone. Don't be confused by the ridiculous name "Intellectual Property".

I'm not saying the legal right called copyright should not exist but it should be paired back to the terms it was originally limited to, there are good reasons for those limits.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#333

Post by kec »

pessimizer wrote: post #279
93po wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Fair use and the 4 criteria for determining if it applies to usage is literally written into the letter of the law, passed by congress in 1976: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

Its squishy and specific application relies on interpretation guided by precedent, but that's true of just about everything in legal systems guided by common law.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#334

Post by gwd »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #331
gwd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right; so according to your own assessment, for the "14+14 no extensions" thing , you're always going to have have "a minority of opinionated geeks" on one side, and "a minority of massively rich entrenched interests willing to fight tooth and nail for a gold mine" on the other side. You're never going to win that one. Whereas, for the "pay to extend copyright" thing, you have a minority of opinionated geeks and at l…

Can you write down your actual analysis of the disposition of political capital, factions, interest groups, etc.? People aren’t just going to take your word that A outweighs B modulo C, or that B outweighs A modulo C. There needs to be some credible substance.

Sorry, did I accidentally wander into a political action group working meeting, and you're mistaking me for the chairperson or something? If you have actual money and people working on this, don't take your cues form some rando on the internet!

I thought this was a site where we talk about ideas and see what people's perspectives are. @basilikum asked why on earth @mchusma would advocate "pay to extend" instead of "14+14 no extensions". I gave my own personal take. I'd be totally happy to be wrong about the political viability of "14+14 no extensions". If you have actual data, or even just a different take on the situation, I'm all ears.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#335

Post by shadowgovt »

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…

Especially now in a world where creating and publicizing abstract ideas is easier than ever, anything we're worried about people losing in duration they can make up for in volume.

And given that the actual purpose of copyright (in the US at least) is promoting the sciences and "useful" arts, making people a little "hungrier" by loosening the protection seems to be the way society should tilt.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#336

Post by shadowgovt »

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. If I could arrange for someone to hand me money over the course of my entire life for work I did 25 years ago, I'd absolutely take that deal.

... it may not be in society's best interest to offer it to me though.

(Honestly, the better deal would be for society to hand all of us money from a giant taxation pool monthly and, freed up from the need to put so many hours into working to eat, we could do a lot more writing, performing, and general making-of-art and fundamental-no-capitalist-benefit scientific exploration).

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#337

Post by BeFlatXIII »

shagie wrote: post #220
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…

This is largely a moot point unless the US wants to withdraw from TRIPS (and implicitly the WTO) and join the list of countries that don't observe it such as... Eritrea, Kiribati, North Korea, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPS_Agreement > Copyright terms must extend at least 50 years, unless based on the life of the author. (Art. 12 and 14) > Copyright must be granted automatically, a…

Perhaps Trumpian madness will do something good for once.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#338

Post by codyb »

jandrese wrote: post #312
codyb wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think citation would be needed on this. Obviously any artist producing fully original music or art doesn't. And many content creators might benefit from an expanded public domain, or they might not... There's already tons of creators, they seem to be getting by? Well, actually, some are getting by and most are probably hobbyists or underwater much like most arts. I'm not sure expanded quantities of available charac…

> Obviously any artist producing fully original music or art doesn't. I would suggest that artists who say they're producing fully original works are just poorly educated in art history. Making something that has no prior influences would be extraordinary in the modern world. Also, the entities most capable of exploiting long copyright terms are corporations. Individuals simply don't have the resources to keep someth…

I'm not even really advocating for or against the copyright position.

I also think you're missing my point a bit. Just cause you study lots of works and create an original creation which borrows influences isn't the same thing as requiring use of a copyrighted piece of work.

It's pretty silly to suggest I was implying artists have no influences cause I classified works without any copyrighted material as original.

My point was more... just cause a bunch of copyrighted work becomes available does not necessarily imply creators and artists lives will be substantially different or better off.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#339

Post by kmeisthax »

csallen wrote: post #297
gwd wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IP law was originally to protect artist and authors from the wealthy, but now it seems to have the opposite intent. I like Cory Doctorow's analogy: Artists are, to a large degree, at the mercy of big companies (publishers, music labels, etc), who have the leverage to force artists to sign over all of their rights. Giving artists more rights is like giving your kid more lunch money when it's being stolen by a bully:…

What's interesting is that this is true of all creators, not just artists. Making money means running a business, and running a business requires more than just creating something. You also have to identify a good market for that creation, and find a way to distribute to them, and provide a viable model for them to pay for it, and (the hardest part) out-compete all the other businesses who are doing the same. This is…

Artists are not the only ones who make a stink about this; it's inherent to the capitalist mode of production. Everyone involved in a venture is risking something, but the law only rewards specific kinds of risk with equity ownership over the venture. Other kinds of risk are solely rewarded with monetary wages at sub-profit margins. That's why labor unions exist, and why the nation's elites work tirelessly to stop them.

But with artists, there's a particular extra wrinkle, in that the law created a middle tier of reward specifically for the efforts of creative workers. Copyright was specifically intended to allow authors to have their own business ventures without necessarily having to share in the same risks that equity owners do. So, naturally, those equity owners all colluded with one another to steal this other form of equity and wear it as a second shell.

Re: What will enter the public domain in 2026?

#340

Post by kshacker »

actionfromafar wrote: post #107
raldi wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a novel you wrote 15 years ago becomes hugely successful you can capitalize with a sequel. Maybe GRRM would have written them a little faster in that universe.

Or you can't because 57 new sequels were published the week before.

How do the sequels affect this? I read this once more in the same discussion so I am curious.

Let's assume the 1st book goes public. I should be able to use those characters and their known relationship in any which way, no? What's wrong with that, copyright wise?

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