361–370 of 383 posts
> works by people who died in 1955 70 years. After death. The rules have to change. 70 years is way too long.
Just wait until they manage to keep creators artificially alive indefinitely.
As others have noted copyright duration is ridiculous. But more importantly it lacks severe counter-forces to balance out the explicit monopoly. Since the point of copyright is to offer an incentive (to profit) from works it should be tightly tied to the market value of said works and the willingness of its owner to present them for sale. If nobody keeps selling X there's no reason to let X enjoy the protection of co…
At the very least a system like this might force publishers to not drop ebooks from their stores just because. But others would point out that being able to not distribute a work is part of having the copyright. If a corporation doesn't want to sell old works because they want to encourage people to only buy new works then that's their right. The government saying that it's fair game simply because there's no legal o…
How does that "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"?
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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 "1…
So then "You're never going to win that one.” was just a random guess? Why pretend if there’s no substance at all backing it up?
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Part of the reason for that is precisely that copyright is too long so works get lost or forgotten before they enter the public domain.
No, it's because people don't care about it. If it had value they would.
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Note that the copyright is not about the source country of the work, but where do make/distribute the copy. Do you live in Japan, or are you interested in Japanese works? (Or both, possibly.)
I make https://reader.manabi.io for a living
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> 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.
> The question of interests is a cultural debate Not at all, that question has quite real and far reaching economic and political consequences, it's not about endless debating, it's about proper and timely deciding, precisely in the framework of economics and politics within the Constitution.
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> 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 inc…
> If I'm an (e.g.) accountant, my work does not generate income for my offspring after I pass. Because an accountant’s work is timely and transactional. Creative works may have lasting value for multiple customers. As a contrasting example: pretty much all other income generating assets can be passed down. Copyright is a compromise between society and authors, and I think that’s the right way to frame things. (Also s…
Which is why the artist may deserve royalties over a number of years: they did the work (a possible multi-year investment of time/effort can deserve a multi-year payback period). It does not explain why their (grand)children, who may not have even been born when the work was done, deserve royalties.
The Hobbit was published in 1937, and the final volume of LotR in 1955: does Simon Tolkien (b. 1959) deserve royalties?
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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…
A reasonable copyright term makes abandonware not a thing If copyright is hard stopped after 14 (or even 28) years, it doesn't matter whether the initial rightsholder dies or hates the world or refuses to do the legwork to make it accessible, they cannot stop anyone from distributing it anymore full stop. Abandonware is only a thing because of copyright. >A copyright holder shouldn't have exclusive control over which…
That was never the point.
Copyright was invented with the printing press. What was happening was that authors couldn't get compensated, because everyone with a printing press was re-printing their works. It never gave the author control over where their books were ultimately sold; just who could copy it.
Related: This is why the Bible became so popular and well-known. Printers could re-print the Bible because it wasn't protected by copyright.
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> they all say they are happy with copyright being lifetime of the owner + XX years "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." ~Upton Sinclair Copyright is meant to reward innovators while it's still an innovation, and reward society once it has been fully inculcated. Would the original creator prefer to rest on his laurels and collect checks instead? y…
Copyright has nothing to do with innovation. That's patents (publish your tech secrets in exchange for exclusive use for a period of time). Copyright is about protecting creative works, which are, by their nature, much much easier to copy than to make. If I write a book, and bring it to book printer to print 10,000 copies, I think we can all agree we prefer the world where that printshop can't turn around and print a…
You surprise me with a proposal for shorter copyright terms. Interesting!
For fun, here's an interesting discussion countering my own earlier statements - Once a work is in the public domain, it seems there's very little to do with an idea except drag it through the mud. Audacity is what drives commerce i suppose. For example as soon as Mickey Mouse entered public domain all the news could talk about was horror films and "adult" films capitalizing on the "what're you gonna do about it" of the moment.
Similarly when Peter Pan entered the public domain there was a short glut of "now he's a nightmare / villain" representations before becoming irrelevant again.
Imagine creating something like Sesame Street or Mr Roger Neighborhood then a mere 30 years later everyone has more fun making "Mr Grouch Goes On A Murder Rampage" bloodbath and "Mr Rogers + Freddie Kruger Teamup" art / film / trite youtube videos.
It'd be pretty soul crushing.
"Tragedy of the commons", as it were.
With this in mind, perhaps... your idea could deal with that via tiered pricing of "official / approved / canon" works are charged the standard fee whilst "unofficial / unapproved" works tithe a larger proportion of the proceeds to the original author...
The biggest annoyance here is the discussion always focuses on protecting individual creators whilst the laws and benefits seem to go to large corporations. e.g. Disney would have no problem using Peter Pan without consequence, while the rest of us wouldn't dare use Steamboat Willie.