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Taiwan Rejects US Copyright Extension Demands
An anonymous reader writes "Taiwan has rejected the US's demand to extend copyrights from 50 years to 70 years. Here's the news article on the Mercury News."
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I'm with the protesting students. Haven't the heirs of these long since dead artists recieved enough royalties from thier work? I am all for *certain* people getting paid for what they create, but the patent holders need to take some cues from Linus Trovolds and learn how to sustain on the satisfaction of millions gleaning pure joy from your creation. Not Money.
Does this mean that I can sue Taiwan for patent/copyright infringement?
Well it is well with in their rights to do so. What is America going to do raise the tariffs? Better yet what is Disney going to do? Not a damn thing. They can try to not sell movies anymore but then again where do you think a good portion of the bootlegs come from? Beside living overseas for a while I have noticed that American media "takes" allot of idea from foreign TV and adds them into theirs and visa-versa.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
In 1995 or 1996 due to US pressure copyright protection was extended from 10 to 50 years.
Now the US wants 70 years.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Perhaps they'll serve as inspiration to other countries.
There are a whole lot places that lose out on this - places that don't have giant entertainment industries with 100-year back catalogs to recycle endlessly.
Can anyone explain further how the harmonization treaties work, and whether everyone is for some reason actually bound to follow the US' lead?
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Absolutely not! It's an anonymously published work, which fully qualifies for copyright protection.
Washington, Taiwan's main trading partner and arms supplier, has said the island's failure to protect intellectual property rights is causing hundreds of million dollars damage annually to U.S. recorded music, software and motion picture industries.
But pirating music and software is what makes Bill Gates and Brittany Spears "Super-Stars Number One !!!! {:>" in those countries minds.
What's that you say? The movie industry is enjoying record profits? How is this possible, when in addition to Taiwan's criminal 50-year copyright protection, Jack Valenti assures me that 50 TB of pirated movies in DivX flows through the Internet each day?
Right....
This seems like an odd thing to do. The US has been one of Taiwan's biggest supporter in their fight against the PRC.
Personally, if I were in their situation, I wouldn't want to piss off anyone in the US. Especially not people in large industries.
The legitimacy of the copyright extension still remains a question. But it's in their best interest to play along with whatever the US wants. They might tick some politician off (Senator Disney??), and then our carriers might not be in the waters between China and Taiwan the next time China decides to run "Routine Training Missions".
Then why are you posting here???????
The point is that an issue that is undergoing some debate domesticly is being debated abroad as well. The copy protection in games/music cds/dvds/etc. isn't there as much for script kiddies who want to burn copies for their freinds as it is for the people in "shitty little third world aisian countrys" who are more likely to buy a bootleg copy than a real one.
It's people who think that America is the only place that matters who are make the rest of the world hate us. If you are too stupid to realize that everything you do is affected by the rest of the world, you are too stupid to post on slashdot.
I know lots of things. Most of them are wrong.
Regarding the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, aka the "Steamboat Willie Preservation Act" and Lawrence Lessig, the lawyer who argued the case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, there's a great article in this month's Wired magazine that gives a little bit of depth and insight on what the timely extension of copyright law means to the artistic world.
The big problem, as Lessig sees it, is that continual extensions of copyright prevent anything new from entering the public domain. This is most ironic, notes Lessig, since Disney dredged the public domain for its most lucrative properties... Because of the Bono Act, Lessig asserts, "no one can do to Disney as Disney did to the Brothers Grimm."
# Users are merely variables. I prefer to comment them out.
Its bad enough Taiwan's copyright duration was increased so much...10 years does seem a little short, but 50 seems too much, its still better than 70 or 99 though. It's good to see a country not give in to what was most likely pressure from the media.
The U.S. Supreme Court considered on Wednesday whether Robert Frost poems and Mickey Mouse movies made more than 75 years ago should become public property or remain in the hands of their owners for another 20 years.
...
``Why should we be blamed for pursuing knowledge?'' a student protester said on television.
Mickey Mouse is knowledge? Let me guess, he teaches people how to wildly swerve a steamboat and whistle....?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
It is lifetime PLUS 70 years... pretty silly, huh?
Recycling flamebaits, are we?
Disney's fortune has been made utilizing public domain works. Their entire movie list is made up from the works of the Grimm brothers (Grimms Fairy Tales is public domain). Now that they are being required to add pack to the public domain they are pushing to extend the time (which they do everytime the expiration period comes up).
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
(overheard in deepest, darkest bowels of the White House and/or the Skull and Bones fraternity house) OK, Fine. We were looking for an excuse to let the ChiComs have it anyway. Now we can maintain our short position in semiconductor fabs and get that foosball table we've been wanting. Just make sure to withdraw military support after the election.
I'm not really that cynical. I actually agree with GWB more than half the time. It's just that making GWB jokes in irresistable. I don't really believe there are any such evil conspiracies in the
NO CARRIER
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Life plus X years is very bad law. Copyright should be the same period for everyone.
..."? The owner "of record"is a person not a corporation. Ever wonder how old that person is?
:)
So if you come up with the "next Mickey Mouse", just kill yourself before the copyright expires
Besides, what happens to the whole life plus X years argument when people stop dying? It seems an extreme example, but what if the medical nanotech Pollannas are right?
Certainly life expectancies have increased in the past 200 odd years. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that considered 19 years an upper limit based on the actuarial(sp?) data available at the time. His concern was for limiting the freedom of the living due to the acts of the dead. (like maybe someone with a genetic melanin deficincy wanting to perform Porgy and Bess)
Have you ever bothered to watch all the credits on a movie and then at the very nd see the notice that says "for Bourne Convntion purposes, the copyright owner of this work is
If copyright were for a uniform period of time it would be much easier to handle. Currently, everything written by Stephn King will fall into the public domain in 2070 (he did die last year didn't he?
But if copyright were for a uniform 20 years or so, we would already have his earlier (and arguably better) works already in the public domain. We also would not have silly legal arguments over the allowable name for an Austin Powers movie (as the original Bond novels would all be in the public domain)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
It's insignificant as a work, so of course there is no copyright, you yahoo.
C//
Outside the Board of Foreign Trade where the negotiation was held, dozens of college students protested against the U.S. demand, shouting ``Knowledge can't be monopolised.''
This excerpt of a previous post of mine explains some of the reasons why Chinese peoples (in China and Taiwan) have resisted or have not accepted the idea of intellectual property. I believe this quote is the most important:
"Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests.[15] Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s."
Read about more of those reasons here.
another country that's sticking to Life+50 (or, why you can download 1984 and The Great Gatsby from a legit server).
Way to go, Taiwan!
I think the way copyright works needs a major reform. Here's a few examples on how I think copyright could be reformed. (all numbers are just fictitious for the point of the argument and may not all work in conjunction).
* Standard copyright is 35 years. Everything falls into this.
* If something is still being produced. IE: Mickey Mouse, Superman comics, etc... by the original company/owner (Disney, DC Comics), copyrights for those works/characters can be extended up to 100 years.>BR> * There should be different copyrights for different mediums: litterature, movies, music would all have different lenghts of time for a copyright. Just a few ideas. I'm sure the lot of you have other ones that may be better than this.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
are being pirated in Taiwan anyway...?
-dameron
Actually this is more true than you realize:
70 years is anywhere from 2 to 10 years shy of the average Taiwan lifespan. This is significant because the US and Taiwan have pretty similar average lifespans. This rejection is about freedom of knowledge, not picking a magic number for copyrights to outlive most of their holders.
moto411.com
To see Spandex in Taiwan 20 years earlier....
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Jack Valenti assures me that 50 TB of pirated movies in DivX flows through the Internet each day?
Well it didn't yesterday - I was out. How does Jack Valenti know what I'm doing anyway?! Have the RIAA been haxoring my box?!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
That doesn't make a great deal of sense. What's so terrible about a work that you've produced entering the public domain?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I'd like to see copyright extended to 2,500 years, and it should be retroactive like the previous laws. That way I can copyright the Bible and *really* rake in the bucks.
Disney thinks so small sometimes...
US has suddenly changed it's view concering Taiwan, and after more than 50 years of protecting it, US has suddelny allowed PRC (China) To overtake it's long claimed (and lost)territory. Taiwan's pro independence president was never heard from again...
:) Oh well there is always the Malaysia (where Athlon is currently made :)
No, really this could happen, i lived in Taiwan for 5 years and it got really scarry when PRC did those missle tests... Though i doubt that US would let leading mobo manufacturers fall under China's rule
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
"Anyways, Taiwanese stink -- literally. There is no concept of personal hygiene whatsoever."
"Anyways, the one redeeming quality were the girls. I paid 1000 NT dollars (about $30 US) for a great fuck, with a 16 year old who seemed quite new and "unblemished" if you get my drift. Boy, was she tight, made all the right noises, sucked and fucked all night long and let me cum all over her."
So did she smell as well? BTW, I overheard some gangly, pimple-faced kid in my algorithms class bitch about how some Asian girl wouldn't go out with him even after using such romantic lines as "Me lub you long time". You wouldn't happen to be him would you? I'm a generous fellow, so I've devised an algorithm for Asiaphiles like you:
#include "asian porno"
while(yellow_fever) {
hit on girl who looks like Lucy Liu
quote Full Metal Jacket ||
say "ni hao ma" as opening line
if(girl says she's not a prostitute || Asian
guy comes to beat the shit out of you) {
print "Shit!"
exit(1)
}
If patents only lasted for 10-20 years and then became public domain. Widgets and sprockets could be produced by anyone, crushing monopolies and allowing new technologies to be created from the combining of previously uncombinable ideas.
The extension of copyright terms clearly is of no benefit to society as a whole, apart from the additional revenue they would generate into the United States from abroad. Literature from the period 1908 and 1928 will now be under the complete control of their owners, which are mostly major corporations. A work of art is now deprived from the view of the public, and will in many cases be unavailable completely. Copyright holders often like to hold onto their material EVEN IF they're not currently publishing and selling the work. This is because of ZERO benefit the copyright holders will receive by releasing it to the public, and the marginally possible benefit of a revival in the unpublished work's popularity. In essence art, which is undisputably helpful and necessary to the advancement of society as a whole, will either become more expensive (unaffordable), or unavailable. I fail to see how the additional money the US will make, justifies any concession from art to commerce.
Taiwan rejects some of U.S.' IP protection proposals at meeting
2002/10/12
The China Post staff
Taiwan yesterday flatly rejected the United States' request that the protection period for copyrights be extended to 70 years from the current 50 years.
Economics Minister Lin Yi-fu said the government has already imposed heavier punishments for violations against, and broadened the scope of, copyright protection. Thus, there was no reason to extend the protection period.
Speaking to reporters after a three-day meeting on intellectual property protection with representatives from Washington, the economics ministry said there is no reason for Taiwan to accede to all of the requests put forth by the United States.
But the government, said Tsai Lien-sheng, who is in charge of intellectual property-related affairs at the ministry, will definitely continue to improve its IP protection in accordance with World Trade Organization rules.
Representatives from Washington urged Taiwan to make 27 IP-related law revisions during the conference, ahead of the U.S. decision next week on whether to sign a free trade agreement with Taiwan.
Chen Chi-mai, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said some of the U.S. requests were unreasonable.
Taiwan rejected those it believed had no legal basis or was beyond what was required of a WTO member, said government officials.
In a statement, Joseph S. Papovich, assistant trade representative for services, investment and intellectual property, said Washington had hoped the discussions would lead to real progress towards the lowering of IP piracy and counterfeiting in Taiwan.
"Specifically, we discussed the importance of Taiwan revising some of its laws to conform with international IP obligations," said Papovich.
He added that Taiwan should continue to "increase its enforcement efforts by shutting down and seizing equipment from optical media plants and owners found to be pirating, stepping up its level of prosecutions against IP violators, and working to shorten delays of this process."
Papovich said Taiwan is considered one of the largest makers and exporters of pirated CDs, DVDs and other optical discs in Asia, and is perhaps one of the largest producers of such pirated discs in the world.
Tsai's deputy Lu Wen-hsiang said the U.S. representatives will bring home the proposals both sides have agreed upon for further discussions, before a formal agreement is signed in November.
The U.S. representatives were happy that Taiwan was planning to revise its laws to impose heavier punishments on photocopying for profit purposes, said Lu. According to Lu, Taiwan plans to make photocopying an offense subject to indictment, and offenders will face punishment including imprisonment between six months and five years, on top of a penalty ranging from NT$150,000 to NT$1.5 million.
But Taiwan did not agree to U.S. request that photocopying for non-profit purposes should also be made an offense subject to indictment.
<ProfessorCollins>I give it a B+</ProfessorCollins>
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I deducted points for "Taipei (which was no paradise itself, as that place has gone down the shitter since the Americans left)." Unlike the Hong Kong/Brits and India/Brits from his previous posts, Taiwan has never been a US territory or possession. Next time, s/Americans/Japs/. However, he gets extra credit for mentioning "chou tofu"... that's some nasty-smelling stuff :) Tasty though :)
Seriously. Look at every time the copyright term has been extended, and look at which vital piece of Disney's 'intellectual property' was about to enter the public domain. It's rather sad. You can learn more about this depressing trend in our shockingly greedy erahere.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
Just because I Chinese you think I pirate movie! Well that bullshit! I'm not a stereotype, OK? I eat rice and buy lots of CDs just like you! I'm not a stereotype!
(goddamned Mongolians!)
if you can't get renumeration in the 50 years that follows the creation of your work, then screw you.
How long is it before record companies consider a song which dosn't sell well a "miss", how long before movie companies judge a film a "flop", TV companies will cancel a TV series, book publishers will have unsold books destroyed? A lot less than 50 years, typically a lot less than 5, this was probably the case back in 1952 as well.
Gee, good thing Hans Christian Anderson didn't have a country that was adding 20 years of copyright extension every 5 years, or Disney would be losing billions to the very same policy they are pushing.
Actual creators don't tend to be demanding increased copyright protection. It tends to be either publishers, so they can squeeze some additional profits from their back catalogue and the descendants of popular creators (the way things are going great grandchildren) who would rather live off their ancestor than use their own talents. Indeed quite often still living, and youthfull, creators don't hold the copyright on their works.
...the world give in to all of the US's increasingly insane demands?
After all, they didn't vote for the US president or congress.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
In different words: don't expect Taiwanese opposition to last long. They know who they need to defend them and they are probably just using this as a bargaining chip in other negotiations.
I mean, if you can't make enough profits of your work in fucking 20 years...
FRA: STFU GTFO
So? Harmonize already... Taiwan is 50 years after the death of the author, Australia is 50 years after the death of the author. What part of "Don't think originally, and adopt everyone else's laws" doesn't the U.S. understand? I guess it only works with European laws...
I would say that this was an example of "Some pigs being more equal than others", but of course, since the Sonny Bono extension, "Animal Farm" is back to being copywritten...
-- Terry
For quite long we have been discussing the probability that the US becomes an empire. Well, some may state that the empire already exists but it is still a controversial point. However in the light of recent events we can say that the empire will be and when.
What is the fundamental motto of the US? - American Values. The American Values where mostly created and fundamented along the wars of Independence against the Brittish crown. Later these values were "exported" all over the world as an ideal of society and living. By doing this, the US didn't ask for much, it gave it mostly shareware or even freeware to everyone. And it didn't care too much to hold up its copyrights -we have clear examples of it on the French Revolution and several other Revolutions that happened all over.
Meanwhile, considering the recent events, we are pretty sure that this thing will not stay permanently for free. As copyright lifespan extends further and further, there will be a moment when the US may claim back its rights for Democracy, Freedom of Speech and Citizens Rigths. Considering the actual rate - that copyrights expand for 20 years more every 5 years, then, in the middle of the XXI century we will see the American values being covered by copyright laws. Then, we probably will see the American President saying "Ok, folks, you had too much fun with American Democracy for Free but that's over... time to pay the fees... Every vote - 1 cent, every word - 2 cents, every right - 1 dollar. And note that we are being cheap..."
Disney even stole stories from various Japanese anime series.
Lion King - based on "Kimba the White Lion", an anime series from the '60s (do you see the resemblance? "Simba" - "Kimba").
Atlantis - based on "Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water", made by Studio Gainax (which was based on books by Jules Verne, but at least Gainax give credit).
Sorry to hear you died today. Maybe your heirs can profit from this fine piece of literature
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Hmm, that's where the dog bites its own tail. I always thought the EU would blindly adopt US legislation.
When you go, the Copyright Goes.
That'd put a tremendous strain on U.S. states' police to enforce the laws against murder. I advocate a fixed term of x years, not life of the author plus x years.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Peter Pan from J.M. Barrie
No, Peter Pan was probably licensed. GOSH, a hospital in London, holds a statutory perpetual copyright on Peter Pan throughout the UK (I'm not sure about the EU). Either Disney licenses Peter Pan, or Disney can't sell Peter Pan in DVD region 2.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As long as corporations are allowed to own copyrights (and otherwise enjoy rights of ownership), then copyright (and domain name) extension will be indefinite
Not exactly. Copyright laws will either apply a fixed term of say 25 years plus whatever instead of life of the author plus whatever to corporate works (US law), or they will compute the life of the last surviving author based on (e.g. for films) the director, the screenwriter, and a couple other specified people (EU law).
Will I retire or break 10K?
... than is readily apparent. Some stuff, like Windows 3.1, will be completely useless in another 60 or so years. Do you think anyone will even be able to find the source code then?
I'm not even sure the law is such that you are encouraged to release computer program source code-- but wouldn't that be something? But a kind-of long copyright term on other stuff, like.. great works of society (a tiny percentage of books, etc) deserve a longer copyright term. But what about The A-Team. The copyright on the A-Team should have long since expired, the same as Windows 3.1. www.archive.org contains a lot of early films.. but they complain that movie studios destroy the originals when a movie is about to expire... effectively hampering its descent into public domain. Extend this into a DRM enabled future, where it is unlikely that many people will have an "unauthorized" work, and media companies can revoke all DRM liceses just before something expires and then (digitally) destroy the only copy. This is highly irritating, wouldn't you say? But the examples here suggest that yet more complex laws need to exist to deal with (a) copyrighted works that suck need not be copyrighted long (b) two-part copyrighted things (i.e. programs and program source code (c) legal recourse for companies that knowingly inhibit works entering the public domain.
what? taiwan won't follow orders from the US? time to carpet bomb 'em.
Um, you can't go around copyrighting other peoples' stuff... the Bible is copyright (c) God,
Actually, the Bible is (c) a lot of crazy antisocial misfits and (c) some more moderate, less antisocial misfits, although to incorporate them all, including (c) a very social, prince gone bad and done turned revolutionary (Moses) you'd have to extend copyright terms to 6000 years or so.
Of course, the Catholic Church would probably own the copyrights on much of the new testament (and portions of the old) which bear little resemblence to the original gospels and torah, assuming of course there is no estate of the aforementioned Crazy Antisocial Misfits to sue the church for copyright violation in their own right.
And whether Moses was a raving, hallucinating lunatic driven mad by too much sun and too much sand (and lamenting his lost life of privelege), or whether he was in fact spoken to by a superior being (divine or otherwise), the fact is that the books of Genesis et. al. are his writings paraphrasing the alleged words of said being, and not the being itself. Therefor the copyright would belong to Moses as the authoring reporter of the event, not God as merely a participant.
In other words, God wouldn't enter the copyright equation regardless, even if he did have the bad taste to exist.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So? Harmonize already...
Agreed.
Taiwan is 50 years after the death of the author, Australia is 50 years after the death of the author. What part of "Don't think originally, and adopt everyone else's laws" doesn't the U.S. understand? I guess it only works with European laws...
Feh. Any law that expires a patent based on the authors death is stupid and flawed. You should be able to tell whether or not a book is in the public domain simply by looking at its copyright date.
8 years, 10 years, 14 years, 50 years, whatever, it should be from the time of the initial copyright, not some other event (like a human death) that cannot be determined by looking at the work itself.
Oh, and for good measure, copyright should only bestow tax incentives, not monopoly rights of any kind. Acknowledgement (no plagerism permitted) should be decoupled from copyright, and have no expiration (after all, George Lucas didn't suddenly stop being the creator of Star Wars simply because his copyright expired in 4078 when congress forgot to extend copyrights again in their fall session, due to being distracted in passing their legislation funding the War on Unauthorized Thought).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
MSK
It really makes me embarassed as an American to see our government trying bully other countries into making their laws more like ours. I'm glad Taiwan is resisting this.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
This is not offtopic.
Copyright on works produced by individuals lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. The poster is simply noting that, if the author asserts that his copyright is good for "70 years", this implies that the author is now dead. Perhaps, having achieved first post, he considered his life to be complete!
I can think of only one: Cuba. The US supported Castro's takeover of Cuba, and Castro backstabed the US immeadiatly afterwords.
The US made several (unsuccessful) attampts to get rid of Castro, but that was after Castro betrayed the US.
Fourteen years for the copyright, plus the option to renew it for another 14?
Copyright Act of 1790.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Someone else who does not really understand the concept of present value
Somebody else who doesn't understand the concept of the discount rate.
The problem is that future revenues from investment in books and art works are not like annuities. They aren't guaranteed any rate of return. Therefore as periods being considered stretch beyond five years or so, the expected future income has to be adjusted downward to affect the cumulative effect of future uncertainties.
Of course, there are times when investors forget the affect of uncertainty in their calucations, in which case things can be overvalued (e.g. the dot com bubble). However, even the most conservative investors do not consider the affect of income fifty years in the future, even on conservative and reliable investments. In fact on speculative investments like books and music, I doubt that potential income even five years in the future carries much weight.
The current debate is not about far future revenues of new works, but, near term returns on proven commodities like Mickey Mouse. It's a different kettle of fish.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.