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Congressional Budget Office Studies Copyrights

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the closer-looks dept.

gorbachev writes "C|Net is reporting that The Congressional Budget Office has published a study on digital copyright issues. The study basically recommends not changing the copyright legislation in favor of any particular stakeholder, including consumers or lobbyists. It's refreshing to see a governmental agency coming out with a study on copyright issues that appears to take consumers' concerns into consideration." Granted, this is merely the CBO, not Congress itself, but it is one of Congress' first places to turn to for information.

10 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. The only trouble... by tkrotchko · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Today's status quo is not good for consumers. Copyright terms are far too long.

    I'd personally like to see a differentiation between corporate copyrights (short) to personal copyrights (longer, but shorter than present).

    Its a sad day when just keeping the current unfavorable copyright laws are considered a "win" by the voters.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
    1. Re:The only trouble... by adjuster · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Today's status quo is not good for consumers. Copyright terms are far too long.

      I'd personally like to see a differentiation between corporate copyrights (short) to personal copyrights (longer, but shorter than present).

      Copyright takes ideas and works away from general use and duplication by society for the good of the copyright holder-- presumably to the ultimate benefit of society. If we're going to have long terms for copyright, the copyright holder needs to give back to society throughout the term.

      Lots of ideas have been floated-- copyright renewal fees (potentially increasing as the term grows), automatic return to the public domain if works are no longer sold or "maintained", shorter terms for specific types of work, etc. I don't know what the "answer" is, but I think that it's vitally important that these proposals for "revision" to copyright become the fodder of discussion with lawmakers, not just between concerned citizens / geeks on Slashdot .

      Its a sad day when just keeping the current unfavorable copyright laws are considered a "win" by the voters.

      The public needs to be more involved, and better informed. If we, the concerned few, can figure out how to get the strength of public ire behind us-- e.g. if we can really make the public see how evil the copyright cartels are, we might just get somewhere. We need to work to teach the public the truth-- that copyright infringement is not "piracy", that the public's opinion of what copyright should be should define what copyright is, and that there are business models we haven't even thought of yet that can work for compensation content creators w/o requiring the leeches that are the "publishing industry" to exert their "tax" on the system.

      --
      The Attitude Adjuster, I hate me, you can too.
  2. Prediction for the future by MarsDefenseMinister · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Given the choices outlined in the news article (do nothing or set government royalty schedules) the current government is going to do nothing, favoring the free market approach. I think that anyone can see that coming.

    I don't think that anyone is afraid of piracy so much that they will accept government royalty schedules.

    --
    No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
  3. Just in time, too! by theluckyleper · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, after Mickey Mouse and Sonny Bono have had their pokes, and the DMCA has been enacted... NOW they decide "no more changing the copyright legislation"?!

    Isn't this a little LATE?!

    --
    Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
    1. Re:Just in time, too! by Patrick · · Score: 4, Interesting
      So, after Mickey Mouse and Sonny Bono have had their pokes, and the DMCA has been enacted... NOW they decide "no more changing the copyright legislation"?!

      Isn't this a little LATE?!

      What, you think Congress was done passing copyright-related legislation? If this recommendation prevents the Hollings bill, the INDUCE Act, Congressional endorsement of the broadcast flag, or any of the other proposals on the table now/recently, it will still be useful.

      I'd love to see the DMCA and the CTEA (the Sonny Bono act) repealed, but stopping future copyright madness is still better than nothing.

    2. Re:Just in time, too! by Aidtopia · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Those of us who are arguing for revisions of copyright law need to stop using Mickey Mouse as the example. Without the Sono Bono copyright extension, Mickey Mouse would not have entered the public domain. The cartoon the Mickey debuted in, Steamboat Willie, would have entered the public domain, not the mouse himself.

      What's the difference? Well, for one, Mickey Mouse is also protected as a trademark. If Steamboat Willie had become public domain, then you could have probably distributed copies of the original cartoon or used small bits of it in a larger work without getting Disney's approval. But you'd quickly be in hot water if you created and distributed a "new" Mickey Mouse cartoon, since Disney could rightly argue that you're infringing their trademark.

      Furthermore, Disney could claim that a new Mickey Mouse cartoon is a derivative of one of their more recent Mickey Mouse cartoons that is still within the copyright period. I suppose this would be a gray area. I've never heard a discussion of how copyright terms apply to a series of works that are derivatives of each other. Certainly the newer works are entitled to their full copyright term even after the original one expires. So unless the hypothetical new cartoon was demonstrably a derivative solely of Steamboat Willie and nothing newer, Disney could make a case.

  4. RIAA is the tail that wags the dog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Found this interesting... the RIAA is the one doing all the suing, legal nastiness, etc... but here's a quote from TFA...

    [i]The gross revenues of the core copyright industries totaled $441.4 billion in 2002 and were distributed as shown in Figure 1-1. Nearly a third of that total ($143.4 billion) came from the newspaper, periodical, and book publishing industries. [b]The music industry[/b], which generated $13.9 billion in gross revenues in 2002, [b]is the smallest segment[/b]. (See Box 1-1 for details on the interpretation of data on gross revenues.) [/i]
    (emphasis mine)
    The "Box 1-1" referred to is here: http://www.cbo.gov/docimages/573801.gif

  5. Re:duh? by xoboots · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I think that the government is a mere reflection of its citizens because it's pretty sad when someone makes a movie about eating at McDonalds and getting fat and the people rave about it.

    That's not sad--what's sad is that there is a NEED to make such a movie. Its sad that people can't connect the dots on their own. Its sad how stupid many people are willing to be--even WANT to be. It is also sad that some people truly believe that government is a reflection of its citizens. If that was ever true, it certainly isn't now. For one thing, it assumes that citizens are basically the same and that each wield the same power, which is ludicrous.

  6. Not as benign as it looks on the surface by norbert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you read the article carefully, you'll notice how they stress that the fair use rights aren't really rights and should be decided by courts on case-by-case basis. There is a fairly illuminating analysis of legality of ripping CDs in there for instance. In general the CBO's positions is pretty radical, in my opinion, on the issue of how little is actually protected by the fair use principle (as well as their meandering around the frist sale principle). This goes along the lines of the fair use area of the copyright law being unregulated (as opposed to, say, given by a statute), and while some people think that this is good (say Lessig seems to be of that opinion), CBO, on the other hand, seems to think that this is a good basis to declare these unregulated uses as infringing.

    I think the poster is a little more optimistic about this study than the content actually warrants.

    norbert

  7. Re:duh? by alptraum · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I never saw the film, however I honestly think it was a good idea, it hopefully awoken atleast a few people to the health risks of eating fast food.

    Now yes, I'm vegetarian and haven't touched burgers and frys and the like in years and you may know better too, but does the general populus know? Obviously not looking at the increasing waist sizes of Americans. Go to sit-down restaurants, the portions have absolutely ballooned in size, most restaurants serve entrees with enough for 2-3 people, and that's just dinner alone, not counting appetizers and desert, I have no idea how people can eat that much.

    To me, it would seem that after a while you would catch yourself, you'd wake up one day and wow, boy am I fat or your health starts to seriously degrade and you'd start thinking about all those Big Macs, but obviously not.

    The obvious, obviously isn't obvious enough for many.