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Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

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Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#41

Post by chrismorgan »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #34
chrismorgan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the solution we came up with earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163984 Ten years of free protection, then costing $10 × 1.5 ⁿ ⁻ ¹ for each subsequent year. Year 10 costs $0, year 20 about $380, year 30 about $22,000, year 40 about $1,300,000, year 50 almost $75,000,000—and few fifty-year-old things will be worth $75,000,000 per year and growing to retain copyright to.

Ah yes I love that, Disney keeps their rat and we all get more sane copyright.

I don’t think Disney would keep their rodent. Calculate the sum, and by about eighty years, $10 × 1.5 ⁶⁹ is some $14 trillion, so they’d have handily paid off the US national debt by then. Another fifteen years, to get back to the beginning of the sordid affair, would be mildly ruinous.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#42

Post by indigochill »

yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

I agree with the gist of this, but I'm actually leaning towards a shorter copyright lifespan. Maybe 20? The reason being that I feel this better balances the need to benefit from your work (20 years is quite a while to be exclusively entitled to something) with the need for society to build on your work without threat of litigation. I feel 50 years benefits the former a bit too much at the expense of the latter. Just look at what a huge divide there was (in some ways) between life in 1950 and life in 2000. Less so between 1980 and 2000, or 1990 to 2010.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#43

Post by brann0 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #7
giancarlostoro wrote: post #4

Given how quickly music becomes "old" I don't understand why copyright needs to chain up music any longer than two decades (I'm being kinda generous, some songs are old after a few months / one to five years). I hate the state of copyrighted works. Movies can stay copyrighted for a good 40 to 50 years, anything else is crazy. Books maybe 50 years too, but again, it's just crazy and clear that the extended years of co…

> Given how quickly music becomes "old" I don't understand why copyright needs to chain up music any longer than two decades You say that but the Beatles, Elvis, Beethoven, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson are all artists that had their heyday 30-60 years ago and are still the top selling artists. A lot of them are dead now because of varying reasons, but some are still alive and kicking and giving new performances of the…

Copyright isn't here to protect the creator, but the copyrights holder. The great extension of copyright (way beyond the artist life) is there so a few copies holders keep their IPs for a handful of mega-successful acts: Mickey, The Beatles, Elvis,...

Screwing us all because they are still able to milk the cow is unfair. Money-making cannot be the only factor taken into account. Public domain is something we, as a society, deserve.

What happens right now is unacceptable.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#44

Post by leetcrew »

jpttsn wrote: post #39
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

A longer exclusivity term makes it possible to recoup more investment costs, for those who invest in artists. This theoretically enables larger investments that can support the artist further up front.

if we're talking about the music industry, sure, more investment enables the machine to make bigger stars and more money. but if we're talking about music as a cultural good, how much money is really needed to make a top notch studio album? no more than a million dollars in most cases. maybe you need to multiply that by a small integer to make a really good music video for a couple of the singles.

is the purpose of copyright law to enable billion dollar stars, or million dollar albums?

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#45

Post by brann0 »

richrichardsson wrote: post #35
giancarlostoro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything I'm more for stripping record labels of their copyright, an artist can keep their copyright till they die for all I care. Their families shouldn't depend solely on one artist's income. There's many angles to copyright, it's a complicated subject cause of it, but we need to take away all the noise of it, this legalized censorship against allegedly copyrighted works doesn't actually work is the main issue.…

> Artists from what I recall make more money selling merchandise and doing concerts True, because every ass and his dog pirates music, thus the income from selling music is severely diminished. The amount of time it takes to produce/compose/record etc. music is not exactly trivial, and if you have to tour constantly in order to be able to pay the bills, then finding time and energy to create some new music to perform…

Can you provide some proof that "pirating" (I hate that word) had severely diminished sold copies? And I don't mean all those "studies" based on the false premise that downloaded records are lost sales.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#46

Post by Arnt »

jpttsn wrote: post #39
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

A longer exclusivity term makes it possible to recoup more investment costs, for those who invest in artists. This theoretically enables larger investments that can support the artist further up front.

This would be a good point, if either a) if were backed up by data or b) data weren't available yet.

I wish people would stop posting these "could be" arguments when real data is already available and either supports an "is" or doesn't.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#47

Post by plopilop »

yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

The best example about this I know is Moulinsart, which holds the rights of Tintin. Moulinsart is managed by Nick Rodwell, the husband of Hergé's former wife.

He takes a very strict stance on copyright law, and does not give a shit about parody, art or even hommages. Moulinsart will take every opportunity to strike down your Tintin webpage, even DMCA takedowns even though you're French and Moulinsart is Belgian (see what happened to [0], an explanation is available in French in [1]). Rodwell also wanted to publish a new Tintin episode, just to prevent the license to fall into public domain.

The guy has all powers on Tintin, because he married the author's widow. And that's it.

[0]: https://lepetitvingtetunieme.tumblr.com/

[1]: https://www.lesinrocks.com/2014/03/26/actualite/tintin-la-ma...

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#48

Post by dmitriid »

clon wrote: post #40
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

Lazy rich child A's dad built a house, which he and his children can benefit from for marginal costs (maintenance, taxes). Lazy rich child B's dad wrote some music, which he and his children can benefit from for marginal costs (publishing, taxes). I know - in one case it is a physical object, and in the other - immaterial. But both houses and music can offer enjoyment and can be benefited from financially, and thus h…

1. Immaterial rights are not material rights

2. Private property is a false analogy

3. Copyright was established for two reasons: a) to let the author (and only the author) to profit from their immaterial work. b) to facilitate the free exchange of ideas

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#49

Post by dotancohen »

yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

How about works for hire? When should the copyright on The Lion King expire when people of all ages had worked on it?

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#50

Post by mcny »

jpttsn wrote: post #39
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

A longer exclusivity term makes it possible to recoup more investment costs, for those who invest in artists. This theoretically enables larger investments that can support the artist further up front.

The main argument I can accept for copy right is that it allows for people to pool their tiny amount of money to vote for the kind of music they like so it is more democratic than a patron-focused model where authors and musicians would need to cater to a few patrons' tastes.

However, even though most of the money remains concentrated at the top, we no longer have this problem. It is fairly easy to support your favorite artist with a few dollars every month and indeed there was a big discussion here when Patreon said they could no longer support adult entertainers. None of them makes a big payout but historically not many do anyways.

I'd argue nobody deserves the huge payout that artists get. What we need is a sustainable way to fund a universal basic income so those who want to pursue the arts can do so without a fear of starving.

I'd even argue that we can afford to take copyright down to five or ten years and eventually eliminate it. Imagine the innovation at Spotify if there were no copyright! Copyright holds business down.

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