Slashdot Mirror
Beyond Eldred v. Ashcroft
I thought I'd grab up some of the many commentaries and responses to the Eldred decision. If you read only one of these links, see Lessig's blog. Jack Balkin, another law professor who contributed to the case, is discussing it in his blog. The NYTimes has two distinct news stories on the decision (NYT1, NYT2), plus a biting editorial about the decision. Copyright scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan has a piece in Salon. The LA Times posts one of the very few stories to present the decision in a positive light. Reason is one of several to mock the mouse.
What boggles the mind is how little this really benefits the corporations. With rare exceptions (Snow White, Happy Birthday, and Gershwin), what percentage of content revenues come from old material? For record companies, a good year comes from a big hit created that year, not the old stuff.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
When your really think about it, the fact that they are trying to prevent stories from enterring the public domain is even more hypocritical.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
That is the power we have, a power that is woefully un-utilised. Look at the power slashdotting has over websites that are unprepared. Imagine if that were translated into letters to representatives, letters to the editors, and dare I say it, votes. 'If we don't hang together, we shall surely hang seperately.'
Internet now included in publication ban
Here's an idea: I've got to wonder if anything that Disney/RIAA has used something that if applied to their own greed would place them in violation. In other words, before fourty years ago the right was twenty years (or whatever it was). Find someone's work that fell into the public domain and should have "fallen back" if they had the same rules that the companies today have granted themselves. After all, it's only fair that they deserve the same benefit and attempt to sue the hell out of companies for "legalized theft." I know it's a long shot, but it would be great to see Disney's greed bite back.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
1st off, the moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that not everybody can use something at the same time, not from monopolies granted by a king in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy
2nd, copyrights are a fraud in that they don't help creators that much. Often you'll hear it cried from the rooftops that the artist is king and that anybody who finds a need to copy is a self centered brat that offers nothing of value to society. Perhaps this is intentional as to distract from the fact that for every artist that makes it big, 10000 are in dirt poverty.
3rd, they are worthless as a free market property right. If I said I had no incentive to grow apples unless I could plant them in your yard, or I said that I had no incentive to grow cotton without owning slaves on the plantation - people would see it as the worthless arguments that they are, but if I say I have no incentive to bring things into the public domain without a copyright monopoly - they just take it on faith, they don't even question it. If the govt gave someone a monopoly on growing peaches and then called it free market because he could buy and sell shares of that monopoly - people would see it for what it is, a fraud. The same is true with copyrights. Since peoples activities have a natural limit in supply and demand, and not information, it is the activities that should be equated to market value and not information.
4th, information is so easy to copy and manipulate that we are quickly reaching a point where either all of it must be controlled or none of it. The copyright industries know that and so should you.
There was a long article in the NY Times earlier this month (relating to the expiration of copyrights in Europe) stating that record labels made significant portions of their revenue from stuff issued before the 90's--
For instance, if I rememeber correctly, the label that owns the rights to Maria Callas's recordings gets 15% of their revenues from her alone... And she's been dead for decades
For many film, record and book companies, it's the back list that provides the strong base to their revenues--a hit this year may turn out profits, but that's only because the stuff they did 20+ years ago is keeping the lights on
The "other" CTEA challange is Golan v. Ashcroft which has been on hold while Eldred v. Ashcroft was being decided.
The CTEA took some works which were previously in the Public Domain in the US and restored their Copyright. Golan, a conductor, lost the use of some compositions which were formerly in the PD in the US. This case will now procede.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Like with computer security, you are not going to win a lawsuit like this based on keeping your strategy a secret. Although you give your opponents more time and information from which to formulate an attack, the process of discussing the approach is likely to expose flaws before those flaws can do damage in a court of law. No?
I've had some brushed with asshole IP a few times in my travels. Notably, I once worked on a set of commercial CD-ROMs for some classic rock bands. We had a spectacular - nay, epic - struggle with Jimi Hendrix's sister, who for all intents and purposes lives off the ghost of her dead brother. She has all rights, and doesn't actually *do* anything. Long story short, we spent weeks and weeks bending over backwards, crossing and dotting all letters, only to have her change her mind at the last minute.
Another example: Grateful Dead. There are exactly 2 approachable sources for interview footage of Jerry Garcia: the BBC, and Some Guy in the States. Some Guy purposefully bought up all this footage, and now that's his job. He lives off Jerry's ghost.
Even if you are the rightful descendant/heir to some great artist, I don't, in my opinion, think you have the slightest shred of 'rights' to that work. None. Son, daughter, whatever. The only cocnession that makes sense is a wife/partner, and even then it just seems unjust. The LA Times article crowed about how this woman can now 'lovingly restore' her ancestor's works at her own personal expense, but she's selling tapes on eBay. Better than it dissappearing, but what if she was the one misrepresenting, defiling, or otherwise tainting the name of her ancester? No recourse.
It just makes no sense to me. Someone tell me why its a good idea to 'inherit' copyrights. If they made a ton of money with those rights, fine, let the children inherit that money. Rights, I don't think so.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Mod me down for repeating what people have pointed out already in the thread about the decision, but certain things are worth repeating:
Maybe it's time to start lobbying. The CTEA is going to stand, but there shouldn't be another installment, and another one, and another one.
I have no problem with the Mouse. (Well, I do: I hate those warmed-over cutesy good-vs-evil fairy-tale fun-for-the-whole-family romanti-comedy-adventure-musicals Now-Available-On-Disney-DVD. Should I ever be forced to choose between seeing the latest Disney Animated Feature or an Adam Sandler / Rob Schneider "holiday" movie, it will be the Sandman and the Robmeister. But I digress.) I have no problem with Disney keeping the copyright on the damn Mouse forever and a day as long as they are actively behind it. If copyright is supposed to be an incentive for creating new works and they continue to create new Mouse droppings, fine, just don't expect me to watch it.
Copyrights are currently worse than submarine patents. You have to apply for a patent and once it's granted there is a list and it's theoretically possible to keep track of who owns what patents. Not so with copyright. A work may be out of print and unavailable and there may be no commercial interest behind it, but it's still protected. There's no obligation for the copyright holder to respond to inquiries or keep track of the work. But should you decide to do something with it beyond fair use, the copyright holder can then come forward and sue. This doesn't strike me as right.
So the radical proposal is this (it's never going to fly in this form, but you get the idea): copyright terms are 14 years by default, with an option to register and renew it on an annual basis afterwards. Registration would create an inventory just like a list of patents and trademarks. Renewal fees would be set at a certain minum high enough to serve as a deterrent against gratuitous copyright filings; fees for commercially highly successful works would be higher.
Oh, and a boycott of the music and film industry is not going to work, so forget about that right away. In the worst case, if CD and DVD sales were starting to drop, this would be attributed to online piracy and lobbying efforts would increase to find a legislative "solution" for that.
What I can never get over is how incredibly inexpensive it is for these companies to massively influence legislation. From another excellent Reason article, linked from that marsupial interview:
Say it with me in your best Dr. Evil accent: "One *thousand* dollars!". And from Disney's bank account? Boy, that's gotta smart. For that matter, why are the legislators and parties affected in the least by these paltry sums? They may not be paid huge salaries, but they can't be that broke. If this is all it takes to get laws passed, perhaps all we need to do is take up a collection. Even I can afford $1000 for some juicy bill.
(The same thing impressed me with the Salt Lake City / IOC scandal - so you can get your own Olympics for a few pizzas now?).
It just makes no sense to me. Someone tell me why its a good idea to 'inherit' copyrights. If they made a ton of money with those rights, fine, let the children inherit that money. Rights, I don't think so.
If the author dies immediately after finishing his/her magnum opus, it makes sense that their immediate family should recieve some benefit. Additionally, publishers would be extremely reluctant to publish a book by a 90 year old author, expecting that they would not have exclusive rights for long. That's the argument, at least, and I agree to an extent. That extent, for me, leads me to support a life+15* term. That way, the kids get a nest egg, but they can't live off the ghost. Also, publishers have at least 15* years to milk the profits.
* let 15 represent a number close to the average publishing run for a reasonably successful book.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
So, I guess what I'm asking, off-topic, is why the hell is Disney not re-issuing movies that were actually very good, instead of releasing crap every 4 months?
Actually, Disney does re-issue movies on VHS and DVD every few months. But Eisner still isn't getting any of my business unless and until Congress repeals the Bono Act.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The French reduced the term to 50 years (for books, films, music) in 1985, and so far as I understand this has been adopted across Europe. (In any event, the healthy industry of independant reissues which this decision spun also flourishes in Spain, Austria, the UK,...)
Of course as the limit now approaches the beginnings of the LP era, the RIAA is starting to call this piracy.
It should also be undestood that "Copyrights" (or "Author's rights" as they call them) have a different meaning over there. For one thing they belong to the author forever -- publishing companies cannot buy them as part of their contracts.
(The day they can be bought is probably the day we'll hear a clamor to extend them in order to "protect the artists" :-)
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
Ok, I am not a lawyer and I am not even an American so I'm talking out of my ass here but:
1. Before the SBCTEA (Sony Bono Copyright Terms Extension Act) copyrighted works were owned for a duration of N years (for simplicity) and then it was public domain (owned by everybody) from N+1 to the end of time.
2. Since the SBCTEA the "contract" (a very solid contract, it was signed in a law) about the copyrighted works that were produced before its enactment has changed and twenty years that were by this contract owned by the public domain (everybody) have been "seized" by the government* and given to somebody else.
3. The US constitution says "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." (fifth amendment)
Unfortunately, the government has grabbed public property (public domain) for a private use so it probably doesn't apply but couldn't there be a way to argue something along the line that by taking these twenty years out of the public domain they have to compensate the American public for the value of what they have taken because it wasn't theirs?
In other word, they give N years to some private party and the rest to everybody else and then they go back on their word (only talking about retroactive extensions here) and take back twenty years that they had given to everybody and give it to the private parties, shouldn't they compensate everybody else for doing that???
Wouldn't it be worth a try to nail them on that? Imagine, given that they would have to compensate you justly (that is, for at least the amount what they have taken was worth) they would have to compensate you for each time you purchase a license to that copyright (say, a tape or DVD of Star Wars Episode IV) or, to see it in another fashion, these works (from 1926 to 1996 or whenever the SBCTEA was enacted) would be tax deductible
Even if this doesn't work (quite likely), if it went far enough (say, it wasn't thrown out of court from the go) it would be a good way to attract the public to the fact that a retroactive copyright extension is the government indirectly giving their money to big companies.
Ok, somebody will probably point out why this is stupid but at least I will have it out of my chest.
*It can't be argued to be government's property so they can do whatever they want with it given that they have to put copyrighted stuff they write in the public domain because they can't own it themselves.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
It's clear in his historical study that the granting of a copyright was intended as a two way deal between creators of works and the people. They get a limited time period (originally 14 years) of exclusive use to profit from, after which the public gets the benefit.
The only reason for the Government to originally issue the exclusive period is the payoff that the public gets it once that period has expired! If the public is not going to get access to the works in a reasonable period of time, than the government has no purpose in granting them the exclusive right to begin with.
Of course, since the Government now (mostly) only cares about the interests of the few who have their ear, most of them will never submit to the simplicity of this logic and we are probably stuck with a sham of a system.
Why couldn't I just have created Barney (TM) so I could be on the other side of the fence looking out!
Keep passing the open windows...
What part of ex post facto do you not understand? Any modification of a LAW after the fact, to effect prior acts is clearly unconstitutional. Would you be OK if the US Congress outlawed abortion, and then went back 30 years and charged almost 40 MILLION cases of murder?
The LA Times gives a good example of an advantage of extending film copyright. The grand-daughter of Harold Lloyd is spending a lot of money restoring and digitizing Harold Lloyd films. Without copyright protection, there's no way this could have been done since the guarantee of a return on the investment goes to zero if people can simply share the restored files over the internet.
Vote for Pedro
I like Bill Maher's opinions on abortion:
"I'm for the death penalty, I'm pro-abortion, I'm pro-assisted suicide, I'm pro-regular suicide. Anything that'll get the traffic moving." - Bill Maher
It doesn't matter if the brain is half way developed. There's millions of innocent people that die every year, thousands of them have fully developed brains and are killed by the US government with full support of the American public. Its called war. So tell me why should a mother have to ask you if she can kill her child.
We've already decided to kill anyone with the potential to be a "terrorist" (Or at least deny them humane rights). But everyone has the potential to be a "terrorist". So fuck it. What does it matter anyway? Its only life.
If a copyright is to be like real property, tax it annually to pay for the social cost (courts, jails, derived works defferred or never made, researching and negotiating rights, inefficiency, etc.). And let anyone put it into the PD by paying the owner the self-assessed value. Suddenly corporations might not be so eager to hold onto many IP hot potatoes. And if people fail to register IP and pay tax on it, it becomes PD immediately. The bargain of monopoly for a limited time has been broken and this remakes that bargain in a new way. Oh, and don"t enforce foreign copyright unless they pay this tax too (self assesment might need to be done for each country if this went worldwide).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.