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Forbes on Lessig and Eldred
scubacuda writes "In the Forbes editorial, Fact and Comment , Steve Forbes voices his support for Lessig and the Eldred case: 'Maybe Congress should just be done with it and declare that a copyright is forever....Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has proposed a sensible compromise..."[I]f Congress is listening to the frustration that the court's decision has created, [paying to maintain copyright extensions] would be a simple and effective way for the First Branch to respond." He's absolutely right.'"
Yes, but doesn't this spawn yet another "industry" of professional copyright maintainers? Sort of like domain name squatters?
Actually, noone is going to declare it forever because that would cut the revenue stream for the politicians as steady donations from the corporates are given everytime the copyright is exten-dead.
Of course he's right. It seems that the new era, money for lobbying gets you just the right laws if you can pull some wool over the right eyes. Piggyback it onto another bill, say it's to fight a certain crime, or just be one of the top supporters to the right Congressman and you got your bill on its way.
The only one the long copyrights really benefit are the large corporations. So why not just leave it that these corporations, who are making money off someone else's creative effort, have to pay to keep making money off this long after the creator's death? Makes sense, and it won't put items that need to be in the public domain because no one knows who rightfully owns the rights to it, into an unnecessary protection.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
The money should go towards enriching the public domain. The priveledge of extending copyright is at the public domain's expense, so that is the only thing that makes sense. I fear the money would just become part of the US military budget the way things are going.
Congress is really between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the Constitution of our United States says copyright can't be forever. On the other hand, Disney is giving many members lots of cash and nubile young fluffers to make their jobs less dreary.
They have an obligation to pass laws for their paying constituents, but the highest law of the land (Constitution) says they can't do it.
So they have to play this game whereby they pretend they're doing something good for the people of the United States when in fact they're loser lawmakers taking bribes.
On top of all that, they have to maintain a thin sense of professionality so people won't just vote someone else in the next election.
You gotta really feel sorry for those guys. What a tough job. I could never be a bottom-feeding liar for a living, personally.
fifth sigma, inc.
All a solution like this would do is protect large companies like Disney which have the money to pay for copyright extention. Frankly, Disney can also afford to compete in the public domain, and I don't think they are the people copyright really needs to protect.
The folks I worry about with copyright are small artists who either themselves make a living off of their work, or who have living relatives who do so. These are the people that copyright needs to protect, and these are the same people who cannot afford to pay to extend that protection.
Law, in general, should help those who cannot help themselves. In my view, large corporations have the ability to compete successfully in a free, public domain market. Unless the sums required to extend copyright are tiny (and therefore useless), the people who need protection won't be able to get it. For the most part, Forbes' solution would just maintain the status quo.
Narrative
If we end up with this deal with the devil, at least we should try to have the monopoly-maintenance fee double on each round.
If your work can't bring in enough money to support itself, it might as well be in the public domain, right?
Too bad it's not a good way to respond. Consolidated publishing will simply pass the cost of renewal to the reading public. Too large a body of information is owned by too few people for too long a time frame. They have the power, thanks to the DMCA, and now the technology to put us on the road to Tycho.
The only real solution is the original one, reasonably time limited protection of publication 14 to 28 years. The costs of publishing have only decreased since that original deal was made and so the incentives should have decreased since. How absolutly absurd it is that Einstine's orginal papers are still protected by copyright! What use are 100 year old technical publications beside historical research?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yep, and you tax the hell out of it.
There is a fundamental difference between cheap land that you develop and make productive and cheap land that is just left sitting there.
There is a sort of poetic justice if a book that is out of print is also out of copyright.
...disallowing corporations from holding copyrights of anything. reserve copyright for individuals only. that would protect the small time artist, enrich public domain, and do many other things i cant think of right now. it is four in the morning.
philanthropists need to realize there is a need for philanthropy in the first place
Depends upon the cost of maintaining the copyright.
As a suggestion, an original copyright will last no more than 10 years. If the original copyright holder feels a need to renew the copyright, he must do so before the end of the 10th year. He may renew for no more than 5 years at a time, with renewals happening within the last year.
The cost of the original copyright is the production of the work. The cost of renewals is 10 cents per megabyte of text, image or minute of music, and 1 dollar per minute of motion picture.
Works may be retained in a corporate copyright contract, however corporations are going to be interested in reducing their costs over time, so one of three things will happen. The corporation will recognize that the copyright is still earning them money, and renew the copyright, they will see no return on the copyright and will let it lapse, the company will go bust and the copyricht will lapse.
Personally I do not believe that a copyright should be handed down to heirs. The work will remain under the copyright that the creator maintaines, and the family or other heirs may benifit from that copyright, however they may not renew the copyright.
Any work for which the copyright has lapsed may not be put back into copyright.
That's just my opinion.
-Rusty
You never know...
Many of you are misguided about what Lessig plans to get out of the Eldred Act. He's given up on Mickey, and rightfully so. There is no way he can fight the money and power that is Disney. He is prepared to ceed the 2% of economically worthwhile copyrights that remain after the current term inorder to get access to the 98% that no longer have any protector. He's decided to compromise and accept the orphans, and that's what the Eldred Act gives him.
Lessig's motivation has always been the flourishing of the commons, and while a win in Eldred v. Ashcroft would have give him 100% of what he wanted, passing the Eldred Act will still give him 98%...and that's close enough.
-R
Instead of paying lobbyists for copyright extension for everyone, Disney pays the government to only extend their own. This is stupid.
How about instead of having time limits, we have profit limits? The copyright expires once your work has turned a 1,000% profit or after 50 years, whichever is less.
The purpose of intellectual property protection should be to foster creativity, not maximize profit. Disney will still create the next Pocohantas movie if they 'only' expect a 10x return, as opposed to the drag-it-out-for-50-years -get-40x-return thing they've done with Snow White, and the consumers will be far better served.
Copyright should be viewed as the minimum incentive necessary to maintain a productive, creative environment, no more.
Right. And since this plan doesn't put any cash in any Congress Critter's campaign fund coffers, there's no motivation for Congress to make it law.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Yes, but doesn't this spawn yet another "industry" of professional copyright maintainers? Sort of like domain name squatters?
It wouldn't create freelance copyright squatters. If I were to pay the copyright fee on, for instance, Star Wars, that would not give me the right to the Star Wars copyright. It would merely extend George Lucas' copyright.
However, it most certainly would create copyright fee maintenance companies, which is a problem.
People would pay the initial copyright fee, but no one would want to run the risk of forgetting to renew a copyright on any non-trivial published work, so they would look to hire someone to do the job for them.
For instance, let's say that copyright renewal costs $100 every 20 years, and there's 4 renewal periods. (80 year max) I could easily go into the business of submitting copyright renewals, and I could do it for $100 per copyright for the duration of the copyright (plus my up-front fee)
I invest the $100 conservatively, and receive 5.75% interest, compounded annually. By the time 20 years rolls around, that $100 has become $205. Now I withdraw $100 of that, and pay the copyright fee to extend the copyright, leaving $105. Repeat every 20 years until the copyright reaches the statutory maximum.
In other words, the company that produced the work could be out of business, the copyright ownership could be impossible to determine, but so long as the original copyright holder made arrangement with such a copyright renewal processing company, the unknown copyright would continue to be renewed decade after decade.
The problem is that modern copyright terms are so incredibly long that even a large fee 80 or 100 years in the future translates to a small investment now. For instance, if the fee to renew a copyright will be $1,000 100 years from now, I can cover that now by investing $3.00 at 6%, compounded annually, and placing that investment in the hands of a corporation that contractually agrees to pay the copyright fee for me 100 years from now.
In other words, regular renewal requirements don't necessarily solve the problem.
>>>They[congress] have an obligation to pass laws for their paying constituents, but the highest law of the land (Constitution) says they can't do it.
WTF
Congress has no obligation to be corrupt and do what "paying constituents" want them to do. Their real obligation is to do what is right for the people of the USA.
We have this problem with IP law out of control because congress is being corrupt instead of doing what is right.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
Seems inherently unfair to me. Unless you are rich, you lose the rights to your work?
It wasn't particularly fair to YOU when congress increased the copyright protection period. And your comment is particularly ironic, because it is precisely because large corporations (like Disney) ARE rich that you lost YOUR rights...your right to have the material become part of the public domain after a reasonable time to allow the copyright holder to benefit from his work. Isn't THAT unfair?
In other words, the artists copyright may not put in jeopardy, but when he passes his rights to a second party (e.g. Disney, Time-Warner, Sony, whatever), he already has willfully relinquished some of his rights in favour of said second party.
No one says, that the new owners rights to a piece of work have to be of the same quality as the original author had.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Firstly, Congress has no authority to change the US Constitution. (Even if that does seem to be legislative fashion these days
Secondly, Lessig's compromise also violates the US Constitution. According to this link, the document says in Article I Section 8:
Note it says "for limited Times". Allowing patent, copyright and trademark holders to retain their works as long as they pay for them, is not limited time.
The only two fixes that are moral and legal are to either amend the Constitution to allow for unlimited works rights, or to never again extend such rights. In fact, the time limits should be reduced
The remaining fix is to lob mortar shells at the US Capitol building until the Congresspeople begin to see the light. Myself, I prefer this option. The US Constitution is a body of rules, not guidelines, but the use of opinion and lassitude are making it a piece of paper. Is there any mystery as to why the populace has so little regard for the rule of law?
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
They entered into an unwritten contract with their parties. Without party support they wouldnt be where they are, they owe more to their parties than they ever did to the american sheepdom.
The Supreme Court also declared that Congress can't just keep extending things in perpetuity by a series of legislation and that a future Court on observing this would have the right to step in. They just said that we haven't got there yet.
Forever is not a word that has to be used in the legislation for it to run afoul of the 'limited times' clause.
No, these are two separate issues. Having to pay, even $0.10/MB, to protect my legitimate copyright is totally unfair. I guess I adhere to the "European conception that an artist has a 'moral right' to the work they've produced." (see parent).
I'm actually not in favor of Disney's "perpetual copyright through lobbying." I feel 76 years is a reasonable length for creative works. But that has nothing to do with the core issue.
Imagine this: at one of the "renewal periods" for my photo library (which is already > 2GB, that's ~$200) I'm totally broke. Is it fair to lose my copyright?
Moreover, that amount of money isn't going to matter to Disney, and with no good reason not to renew, big corporations will just renew all their intellectual property in perpetuity. This whole idea perpetuates the concentration of intellectual property in megacorporations.
As another AC pointed out, you missed that Forbes was showing some sarcasm, and it was nice to see Forbes Magazine, The Capitalist Tool come out and speak the truth about Disney and the Congress that falls over itself for them.
But I didn't post to say "me too", I posted because you've mentioned something I personally think should have been the grounds for throwing out not just the DMCA, but most of the extensions.
The notion that a "limited time" can exceed the human lifespan is a wild, baseless leap the Supreme Court should have not tolerated. It defies reason and common sense. If the founders intended copyright to span many decades (soon to be centuries), they would not have used the word "limited".
By allowing this unconstitutional abuse to continue, the Supreme Court has disgracefully failed to fulfill it's obligations. Precedent set, is almost never undone.
When you die +50, 75, xxx years later, your work will be public domain, and everyone can enjoy your work from the original 100 free copies whether you want that or not. It would be a very unusual situation where after 20 years you would still insist on giving away your work for free to a select number of people, and yet still care that the rest of the world not see your work. Lessig's idea still doesn't satisfy me because Disney can pay to keep Mickey indefinitely. I don't particularly care for Mickey, but public domain or new, original Bugs Bunny cartoons would be great.
--or just perhaps, you have noticed that the old left/right paradigm is really a too-generic description to be used for automatic "I agree with such and such because they are left wing" or right wing, and etc? Perhaps ideas are inherently more "human" than a direction or geographical area and those pre conceived constructs are not relevant any longer? Like right and wrong might be a better way to look at things than right and left.
I know you got a funny mod on it and it was funny, but it's funny because it's true. I frequently find myself agreeing with a point some pol made, after which I don't agree much with them, and it goes across the political spectrum.
As I get older I am less enamored of labels-applied, as I am of consistenency and results and logic and reason as pertains individuals. I guess that means removing one's self from the herd more and being more independent in thinking, using the right tool rather than some clique's currently "popular" tool. Something like that anyway.
Simpler, party labels or identifying as a political "side" or "wing" are forced and artificial, and usually promoted from places that have an agenda that is primarily designed to keep people in general from unifying around their common ground. For instance, the "left wing" lately is becoming alarmed over the first amendment, some strict traditional right wing have long been alarmed over the second and the 4th, both wings are alarmed over the 5th, both should be alarmed over the 10th and 13th, so there exists enough common ground to stop and for both sides to look around and see if perhaps there is a commonality of agreement to see where these threats come from,and to note that the "other side" has had a valid point all along,that a lot of the supposed differences were induced rather than naturally occuring, and maybe it's time to cooperate instead of squabble.
What I like to term "the goons", those of whom really control the planet and adhere to no particular bloc or wing outside of power and profit outside of their virtual congame labels, love to continue the charade game of "divide and conquer" because it is so immensely profitable for them, and because it is so easy for them to perpetuate this congame.
That "game" is why they have been so successful. Now, that means, the more people who can admit to a certain amount of personal fake-out,just accept it and deal with it rationally, and who can then step outside the box and stop playing that game with "the goons", the better off all of us who are being exploited will be, no matter language, race, nationality, etc.
Just my O there, hope it makes some sense.
Well, that's only every 20 years or so, so as far as conspiracy theories go this isn't all that good. Or perhaps it was meant to be a joke?
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
But more to the point... you can't really even publish your copyrighted work, unless you are rich, or have produced something others (publishing company) thinks can make them rich (companies that are very likely to be "rich" compared to most individuals). Meaning that most publishable works can certainly earn enough money to allow them to be copyrighted for as long as they remain productive. So, even a poor (at least originally poor) author/composer can get copyright extended, as long as work in question is considered good enough (as measured by people buying copies of the work).
Plus, don't confuse copyright with authorship. Even if one doesn't hold a copyright on, say, a book, doesn't mean (s)he has lost authorship. That person just can not prevent others from reproducing (aka copying) the work in question.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes