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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?
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 your work can't bring in enough money to support itself, it might as well be in the public domain, right?
"[paying to maintain copyright extensions]"
it's already done. They call it 'lobbying'.
Fleur de Sel
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
Steve Forbes takes a position I agree with.
It is brilliant, and unfortunatly it's also 'illegal' under the terms of the Berne Convention, of which the U.S. is a signatory.
As part of the treaty, a persons right of copyright may not be put in jeopardy even by small formalities. It is one of the problems that arise from the European conception that an artist has a 'moral right' to the work they've produced.
-R
Sounds great, except why allow people other than the current rightholder to extend? For that matter, why allow anyone but the original author to extend?
The first U.S. copyright laws restricted renewals to the original author. Going back to that idea would remove some of the "property" connotations that have appeared since then.
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.
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?
Instead of paying lobbyists for copyright extension for everyone, Disney pays the government to only extend their own. This is stupid.
No, this is a work-around to a stupid political system. Currently Disney and AOL/TW and their ilk have enough money and influence to get their copyrights extended perpetually. This system would allow them to buy infinitely long copyrights for their own stuff (which they are doing anyway), but still allow other works to go into the public domain in a reasonable amount of time. Neither of us (or our grandchildren) will likely live long enough to see a Disney movie go into the public domain. With a system like the one proposed here, we might have the *other* 98% of copyrighted material that nobody is really making money from anymore reach the public domain.
0 1 - just my two bits
First, one of the nice things about copyright, for the little guy, is that you do not have to register to be entitled to some copyright protection. You author something, and there is some protection you are entitled to without registration. Copyright registrations are inexpensive, and can usually be done without the assistance of an attorney. Requring a registration after 5, 10, or even 20 years to have a continuing copyright could make good sense -- the author would have a fair chance to assess what needed protecting versus what was not going to be worth paying a fee.
Second, because of the Berne Convention, we cannot burden copyrights resulting from publications in foreign countries in certain ways. For example, you have to register a domestic work before you file a lawsuit in the U.S., but the foreign work does not have to file a U.S. registration prior to a lawsuit. If done in a way such that the effect were to be to force Disney and Hollywood to move to Canada or Mexico, I can't say it would be a victory.
Third, is used in a way like present fee systems, the fees would not distinguish between big money works that pay for themselves in a year, and the rest is gravy, versus the smaller circulation works that need 10 or 20 years to gather a good income. In some ways a tax would work better -- it could be proportional to the financial value.
I think that copyright should be easy and cheap for short periods, cost money to maintain for long periods (although shorter than the current limits), be consistent internationally, and have an easy way for the public to figure out what is or is not copyrighted (E.g. not having to figure out when Joe Obscure Author kicked the bucket).
Didn't you hear about the Disney amendment? Congress sold^H^H^H^H passed it last year!
"Amendment 28: Article one, Section eight shall be amended to read as follows: To promote the profits of corporations, and to fight the evils of terrorism, the exclusive right of authors and inventors to their respective writings, recordings, video and audio discs, and discoveries shall be guaranteed in perpetuity.
Additionally, article three, section three shall be amended as follows: " Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort, being a terrorist or drug dealer, or by violating the patents and copyrights of any corporation. No person shall be convicted of treason except upon the secret testimony of the Attorney General or his deputies."
0 1 - just my two bits
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.]
I don't think you quite got the point beind the line "information wants to be free". The joke is *all* information "wants to be free", even top-secret or personal information. That's why you have to work at keeping it secret. It's kind of like a law of thermodynamics, information spreads and is "free" unless you stop it. Just because we build refrigerators does not mean the laws of thermodynamics are false.