RFC Deadline Looms For "Orphan Works" copy

psychonaut writes "As previously reported on Slashdot, the US Copyright Office is currently reviewing the law as it applies to "orphan works" and "abandonware". The question is how to treat works (books, films, software, etc.) for which the copyright owner cannot be found so that permission can be granted to republish or create derivative works. "The issue is whether orphan works are being needlessly removed from public access and their dissemination inhibited. If no one claims the copyright in a work," they write, "it appears likely that the public benefit of having access to the work would outweigh whatever copyright interest there might be." The Copyright Office has been soliciting comments from the public since 26 January 2005. Now, as their 25 March deadline draws nearer, the EFF, along with freeculture.org and Public Knowledge, have teamed up to produce a website,Orphan Works, which gives some background on the issue and makes it easy to submit comments directly to the Copyright Office." And while you're at, contribute to the EFF. Good organization.

Comments

What's wrong with the current system?

[bigtallmofo]

Why would anyone have a problem with a totally unaffiliated company buying the copyright of a work from a bankrupted company for pennies and then holding that copyrighted content hostage for the next 75 years?

Anyone that has a problem with that is applying too much common sense to the copyright system.

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[Ubergrendle]

With the way copyright laws are going, we're lucky we see anything from the 20th century in the public domain. If the latest new copyright laws were grandfathered (e.g. 75 years after death of creator), we'd be looking at the 1850s.

"Get your 100% royalty free cotton-gin blueprints right here! For an unlimited time only!!!!"

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[Cylix]

I don't believe that is the issue.

It's simply cost prohibitive for the little guy to locate the rights to an obscure piece of footage or film. (two examples I'm familiar with)

Say for instance, you find a nice picture you want to incorporate and maybe it looks quite old, but maybe its unclear whether copyright has expired.

It seems more to be a CYA directive and would ease some tension when using /most likely/ interesting works that have been locked away by age.

Right now, it's not even an option to use such things even if the owner or estate owner has long since been gone. Simply because you just don't know and you probably can't afford the time or investment in something like that.

This sorta implies that older copyrights would have to be protected much like trademark. You can just buy it and forget it. (Now you have to catalogue it and forget it)

So if you did the leg work and came up with nothing you would have some defense in court should an issue arrise.

For someone with not-so-unlimited resources tracking down something like that can be tough. In the end, if you are cautious about being sued, you can't use it.

I believe the idea is that if you pursue a reasonable course of action to attempt to locate the owner and find nothing then it can be classified as abandonware.

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[zotz]

"Say for instance, you find a nice picture you want to incorporate and maybe it looks quite old, but maybe its unclear whether copyright has expired."

What about this idea?

Can't find copyright owner?

Compulsory license applies. Fees paid to government. Invested by government in safe investments. Government keeps half of profits on investments and other half goes to pay authors who create copyleft works. Actual copyright owners who find their works being used under a compulsory can claim monies fgrom the government. (Can't get the profits earned in the meantime though.

Compulsory license still applies to the works in question and to any derivatives.

all the best,

drew

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[oliverthered]

I would say copyright should last for 25 years or in the event of the death of the author until any children are 25 years old.

If you can find any work of mine 25 years old your welcome to it, and in 25 years time you can have all the work I've done up until today, I doubt I'll even be able to remember what most of it was, and it will no doubt be useless except for historical interest.

Tone of words is interesting

[barrkel]

"If no one claims the copyright in a work," they write, "it appears likely that the public benefit of having access to the work would outweigh whatever copyright interest there might be."

This indicates that the copyright office leans extremely strongly towards copyright interests. Is there any indication that they (the US copyright office) have the same perspective as most of the rest of us re copyright as enforced monopoly etc.?

Other copyright issues

[sandstorming]

I'd like to see the laws also fixed on how long it is before works pass into the public domain. The so called disney effect (the extending of copyright periods after authors death, being done just before disney stuff reaches public domain) really needs to be fixed. Someone (and I can't remember his name) did a fantastic conference somewhere on copyright issues. http://free-culture.org/index.html has some great info.

Re:Other copyright issues

[Anonymous Coward]

My child, you don't understand how the world works. He who has the gold makes the rules, you don't have any gold so what you want won't be the rule.

Re:Other copyright issues

[Anonymous Coward]

The so called disney effect (the extending of copyright periods after authors death, being done just before disney stuff reaches public domain) really needs to be fixed.

It is fixed. The Constitution is pretty clear that copyrights have to be time-limited. The Supreme Court has ruled that that doesn't really mean anything, because Congress can extend them arbitrarily, but unfortunately, that's the Supreme Court. By definition, there is no higher appeal. "Fixing" the loophole would pretty much require some kind of "No, we really meant it, guys" amendment to the Constitution, but fat chance of that. The people with the power to amend the Constitution are too busy worrying about the total destruction of society that will obviously and inevitably result from giving same-sex couples the tax privileges currently reserved for heterosexuals.

Re:Other copyright issues

[jabuzz]

That's easy to fix. If Disney wants to extend the copyright from 50 to 70 years say, then it has to go and pay royalties (complete with interest) to all the copyright holders that had their works used royalty free by Disney because it had passed the 50 year mark but not yet reached the 70 year mark, at any point in the past.

It would then immediately become far less favourable for Disney (or any other organization) to presue such copyright extensions. Imagine thay they had to pay out the first 20 years earnings plus interest on Pinochio to the estate of Carlo Lorenzini! It is also morally and ethically fair. If Disney think that Steamboat Willy deserves added protection, then surely Pinochio does as well. Very hard to argue against and not look like obviously greedy and grasping.

Re:Other copyright issues

[Have Blue]

It wouldn't even need an amendment- all that needs to happen is for Congress to not pass another law extending existing copyrights when the issue comes up again in 20 years.

Re:Other copyright issues

[Alsee]

...and when the issue comes up again in 21 years.

...and when the issue comes up again in 22 years.

...and when the issue comes up again in 23 years.

...and when the issue comes up again in 24 years.

...and when the issue comes up again in 25 years.

Which is why it would pretty much take an amendment. And while we're wishing for the impossible, the amendment should also set the copyright term back at the original 14 years with a single option to renew for an additional 14 years, and would grant copyright only to works which explicitly claim copyright protection and deposit a copy with the government. Oh, and lets add a rider striping the citizenship and office from any legislator who introduces a bill with a cutesy name that spells out something the exact opposite of what it actually does.

-

Why doesn't Slashdot start a PAC?

[cybrthng]

Obviously in todays political environment Money Talks. Is there any interest in the collective pool of technically minded folks from Slashdot starting a Political Action Committee in the sense that we support progressive, technological and scientific issues & candidates with our money and not just our collective angst?

SlashPAC if you will.

It would be a great place for us to consolidate our beliefs (wiki) and put our money where our mouth is to support politics and issues that reiterate our beliefs and values as a community.

It would make calls for help like this easier to answer and give us some strength to lean on.

Re:Why doesn't Slashdot start a PAC?

[MurkyWater]

I don't know if this had previously been discussed but I've been thinking that something like this would be a good idea. We constantly see the effect Slashdot has on webservers. I would imagine a PAC consisting of even a portion of slashdotters could do great things. Especially if we worked together with other groups such as Citizen Works, the EFF, and the ACLU.

Re:Why doesn't Slashdot start a PAC?

[RobotRunAmok]

consolidate our beliefs

Yeah, and lemme take a look at that when you've pieced it together.

"Our?" Who's "us?" Do you mean to imply that there is some commonality among the people posting on slashdot beyond gadget-fetish? The editors would like it if we were all left-leaning anti-copyright urban CTO's (so would their advertisers, for that matter...), but you need only spend 20 minutes here to realize that there is no "typical" poster, that our politics are all over the map, and that today's high school and college kids aren't getting nearly enough exercise and fresh air...

support politics and issues that reiterate our beliefs and values as a community

Stop it. You're killing me.

Hey, no, seriously, what would you say are the shared values of an anti-copyrightist/artists-should-be-paid-only-for- their-performances guy and his comrade on the barricade who has obsessively collected every bit of Boba Fett-related merchandise manufactured since the mid-seventies?

Is there a wiki for that?

Re:Why doesn't Slashdot start a PAC?

[Guanix]

There's already IPAC, which supported several candidates financially in the 2004 US election.

Part 1: What I find _ok_ about copyright

[Moraelin]

Personally I have no problem with "copyright as enforced monopoly", because frankly that was the whole idea with copyright to start with. You give them a temporary "monopoly", in exchange for getting those works from them in the first place.

Thing is, most people only work for money. Yeah, in open source too. Check out the email addresses of contributors to all major components of Linux. Most work _is_ done by people paid to do so, even if they're paid by some OSS company.

So copyright is a way to say "ok, if you do publish a book, here's how we'll allow you to make money out of it."

I see nothing wrong with that. I _am_ willing to buy a good book, or a movie, or a music CD, rather than not have it available at all.

"Why your work should be available for free" demagogue theories are good and fine, but in practice it never works that way: practically _noone_ works for free nowadays. The freeloaders actually get something paid for by someone else, not for free. E.g., everyone who downloaded a SuSE Linux ISO for free, rest assured that SuSE's work was paid for by people like me who bought the boxed distro repeatedly. E.g., everyone who has some free Linux distro installed on ReiserFS, can know that ReiserFS was sponsored by SuSE, so again, it was people like me whose money went into making that.

So, again, I have nothing against copyright as a way for authors to make money. Beats not having those works available in the first place. Maybe it's not the perfect system, but it's the best we have so far.

Re:Part 1: What I find _ok_ about copyright

[swv3752]

See, the problem comes in that my taxes are being used to enforce your copyright. The deal is, for helping to enforce your copyright, we get free access after a limited time. The problem is that it becomes unlimited for any practical consideration. Anything created during my lifetime I can reasonably expect to die before a copyrighted work becomes public domain.

Re:Part 1: What I find _ok_ about copyright

[zotz]

"So, again, I have nothing against copyright as a way for authors to make money. Beats not having those works available in the first place. Maybe it's not the perfect system, but it's the best we have so far."

No, I disagree, in fact, I think we have had a better copyright system in the past and have been making it steadily worse.

I sometimes can't decide if I should fight to make it better, or fight to make it so bad that everyone cries foul and calls for scrapping the present system and trying to design a better one from scratch.

Hey, here is a new way for small countries to profit:

Sign on to the copyright conventions. Have citizens publish hugh quantities of material, never mind the quality. Then try to extradite foreigners for copyright violations. Have hugh fines and jail time on the books for such violations. Have local juries find them guilty, extract big money under threat of jail time in less than perfect facilities. Put fines in general fund so that citizens tax burden is reduced. This will "encourage" juries to bring in guilty verdicts.

Anyone see any problems with this? (I should hope so, but what actually would prevent it happening.)

all the best,

drew

Duplication of efforts?

[PornMaster]

Wouldn't it be wiser to support the EFF who's already working on these things?

Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[Moraelin]

What I find all wrong about copyright, as it is right now, is that it also gives the right to _kill_ a work of art or a program. You can buy the copyright to something for the _sole_ purpose of burying it 6 ft deep. I.e., making sure no more copies of it will be made.

Which was _not_ the purpose of copyright in the first place. The idea was to secure a source of income for those publishing books, _but_ that was only a means to another end: having those books available to society. Using copyright as a way to make them UNavailable, is IMHO contrary to the whole spirit and idea of copyright.

And just for the sake of a wanton comparison with Soviet Russia, I find it stupid that while we all were/are outraged when a dictatorship tries to suppress a book, we all shrug and find it normal when a corporation does the same via copyright. I mean, geesh, Stalin could have just bought the exclusive distribution rights in the USSR of the exact same works, and killed them via copyright, and we'd all suddenly no longer find it abhominable. It would be just normal business. Think about it.

So IMHO the copyright should only last as long as people can still order that book or program or music from you, for no more than the original price (i.e., no "yeah, it's still available, but we'll charge 10,000,000$ for it" scams), and have it delivered within a reasonable time frame. The moment that's no longer possible, the copyright should become public domain.

It would also be a self-regulating kinda thing. It's up to the company in case to decide when it's no longer profitable to keep that stock of old books, just for the 1-2 people per year still ordering it. When they decide it's no longer profitable to play that game, sure, make it public domain. But ffs, don't bury it.

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[Heian-794]

Are there many real-world examples of corporations saying things like, "Well, we can't be bothered to print up another hundred copies of that textbook just so your students can buy it. Go ahead and make photocopies if you really want to teach the class using our book."? This came up in a linguistics class of mine, which used Shiro Hattori's phonetics book (retail price, about $50). The professor had been using it for 20 years and found that the publisher wasn't receiving much demand.

It seems to me that even if corporations *could* bury their unprofitable work, it would be good PR if they chose not to, and it wouldn't cost them a dime. Are any publishers known for doing this?

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[shimmin]

Disney. Song of the the South. Also much of their WWII-era propoganda stuff. Now all-but-buried because it has become politically embarrassing.

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[zotz]

"What I find all wrong about copyright, as it is right now, is that it also gives the right to _kill_ a work of art or a program. You can buy the copyright to something for the _sole_ purpose of burying it 6 ft deep. I.e., making sure no more copies of it will be made.

Which was _not_ the purpose of copyright in the first place. The idea was to secure a source of income for those publishing books, _but_ that was only a means to another end: having those books available to society. Using copyright as a way to make them UNavailable, is IMHO contrary to the whole spirit and idea of copyright."

You are so right on this. There needs to be compulsory licenses at least to prevednt this practice. Perhaps they only need to kick in when the copyright owners refuse to keep the work available to the mass market at mass market prices.

"And just for the sake of a wanton comparison with Soviet Russia, I find it stupid that while we all were/are outraged when a dictatorship tries to suppress a book, we all shrug and find it normal when a corporation does the same via copyright. I mean, geesh, Stalin could have just bought the exclusive distribution rights in the USSR of the exact same works, and killed them via copyright, and we'd all suddenly no longer find it abhominable. It would be just normal business. Think about it."

You are certainly racking up the good points. Perhaps he could even have used "eminent domain" theories to take the work in the first place.

"So IMHO the copyright should only last as long as people can still order that book or program or music from you, for no more than the original price (i.e., no "yeah, it's still available, but we'll charge 10,000,000$ for it" scams), and have it delivered within a reasonable time frame. The moment that's no longer possible, the copyright should become public domain.

It would also be a self-regulating kinda thing. It's up to the company in case to decide when it's no longer profitable to keep that stock of old books, just for the 1-2 people per year still ordering it. When they decide it's no longer profitable to play that game, sure, make it public domain. But ffs, don't bury it."

This would work. An alternative would be to have all copyrights pass back to the original authors under something like a CC BY-SA or some other copyleft license. This would allow the authors to try earning some more out of their works and at the same time let the general public get access to the works as well for copying, creating derivatives and making money if they can.

Check some of these legal proposals:

http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Copyri gh t_Term_Reform#Legal_Proposals

especially this one:

http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Copyri gh t_Term_Reform/Default

Again, great points.

all the best,

drew

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[Moraelin]

If the company isn't selling those old comics any more, how is it profitting from them any more to start with? What would the income lost there? The exactly zero dollars that they're losing there?

And if re-printing old comics would be so profitable for you, what's keeping the copyright owner from doing the same? I mean, they don't even have the scanning costs in that equation?

Basically all I'm saying is that I _do_ support the idea that "ok, you're allowed to make money from creating something." But then comes the moment they're _not_, in fact, either making any money or even trying to make any money out of it. Then it seems to me like we're way past the point and the scope of what copyright was supposed to solve.

But I'm also for keeping in mind what copyright was supposed to solve: making those works _available_. The moment that's no longer happening, it seems to me like the copyright no longer fulfills its _main_ role and function.

As I've said: as long as it's still profitable to print those old comics (again, they don't have the scanning costs, so it's easier for them to be profitable than it is for you), sure, let them keep the copyright.

You'll also notice that I didn't really put any limits there on _how_ it is to be delivered. I just said I should be able to order it, for no more than the original price. It can be a PDF, if it's a book, or it can be printed-to-order on a nearby color laser printer for comics, or whatever. They just have to keep making it _available_ to keep the copyright.

Because, as I've said, that was the whole idea of copyright to start with. It was _not_ just supposed to support corporate money. So I hardly think it's that unreasonable to expect it to actually fulfill that promise.

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[Moraelin]

1. It wouldn't hurt Marvel that much to keep January's Spiderman available for another month, if that's the problem. They can easily either print enough for a year in the first place, or just let someone get those comics scanned over the web for the full fee for a 20 years, or whatever. Again, I've stated no restrictions as to _how_ those works should still be available.

Frankly, neither of the above costs a fortune. If old Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes comics can still be viewed online for a minor fee, I fail to see why the same couldn't apply to old Marvel comics. No, really, what would be their loss there? If anything, it would be an extra (if small) source of profit.

And if even that's not worth their effort, then what's their loss anyway? That someone might not buy today, on account that in a few decades they'll get them for free? Somehow I doubt that that many people are willing to wait that long.

2. I think it's already possible to cover characters and settings as trademarks, rather than copyright.

E.g., in Marvel's case, witness the recent lawsuit against the makers of City Of Heroes. The issue there was _not_ one of copyright. It was entirely over trademarks.

E.g., even if half of Disney's stuff finally went public domain, you still couldn't make your own Mickey Mouse cartoons. Because Mickey is a trademark. You could, however, copy some old movies that Disney basically wants to bury.

This is humorous in a way.

[bigattichouse]

I was trying to secure rights to stream several movies.. and guess what, for all the MPAA and RIAA's heavy handedness over people not getting rights? I couldn't... couldn't even figure out who to talk to, and no one that I called could do more than refer me to some large outlets that said "We don't do that." So not only are they going after people for electronic distribution of their works, they make it damn near impossible to actually license said works for electronic distribution. silly bastards. To put this in the perspective of the post, I honestly felt that they had "abandoned" the electronic medium, I hope the law says "fire away" to people who can't find licensing channels for works.

Corporate influence

[wschalle]

Corporate influence will play more part in this than anything the public will ever say about it.

Re:Corporate influence

[the_2nd_coming]

why? if a copyright owner can not be found, a corporation can not buy the work. I see no corporate interest here.

Re:Corporate influence

[dallaylaen]

> why? if a copyright owner can not be found, a corporation can not buy the work. I see no corporate interest here.

Let's say a company that wrote some useful software a few years ago has gone. Now, only the competing software from Microsoft (tm) is widely awailable and supported. If the old sources went to public domain, they could easily be adopted by some new company or even a crown of hackers. And MS does not need yet another Firefox. They just don't like competition.

Consider a book that has gone to public domain. Everione can publish it at will, it's available on the net for free, etc. Unneeded competition to the new books (for which the copyright is "belong to us" (c) ).

So, the less public domain, the less competition in IP areas, the more profits.

BTW, when it comes to art, old works are usually filtered through the waters of Lethe: only the best ones remain. "Manuscripts do not burn" (c) M. Bulgakov. And they are hard to compete against.

Orpan works legislation is a trap

[Anonymous Coward]

Orphan works legislation ... it can be used in 2020 to again increase the length of copyright ownership. The unethical publishers and copyright holders will demand that the 99 year copyright expiration date be further increased because orphan works will be available for the public. I don't know sounds like they'll be given an easy path out.

Plus, how do you know when something is an orphan work? Is it fair that some copyright holders get more "rights" and others dont?

All creators and profitters of new works benefitted from public availability of knowledge, yet it seems some dont wish to give back. Especially with patents, patents are being awarded for 20 years when most of the inventions would have been invented by others within that 20 years. Only a few hundred patents a year should be awarded and the term decreased to 14 years.

It's ridiculous that 100 years ago when it took much longer for a person to profit off a work, that the copyright term was short. But nowadays a person can profit off their work much faster yet they maintain copyright for longer (99 years following death of creator). This 99 years will be extended again by the 2020's no doubt.

Re:But it's broken

[LetterJ]

The "system which has served us well for over 100 years" isn't a single, constant system reaching back to the Constitution. Rather, it's mutated quite a bit, especially in the last 30 years. To defend most of the major parameters of modern copyright is really to defend the changes of the last 30 years.

Up until then, you had to specifically register anything you wanted copyrighted. This ensured that the work that the "vast majority of people who produce IP" to make money from their works were protected, while allowing everything else to be public domain (the stuff created for reasons other than money). For most of the time before 1976, you also had to renew that copyright periodically to keep it.

Essentially, for the first 200 years of American copyright, making money from IP was an active process: deliberately file for copyright, include specific notice on all published copies, renew to continue copyright, etc.

What we have now is a passive process: everything is automatically copyrighted, notice doesn't need to be included, no renewals are needed and your family gets to automatically keep these passive rights long after you're dead.

Those 2 systems, while both called "copyright", have little in common as far as their approach, intent and results.

The proper term of copyright.

[shimmin]

Let's give the creator the benefit of the doubt and say that whatever they have created is of enduring value, and the copyright on their creation is worth a perpetuity of some annual income A.

Then, the present value of the copyright is, and will remain, A/i, where i is the interest rate.

Meanwhile, at time t, the present value of the copyright they have already held is A/i * (exp[it] - 1).

So, at some time, it is fair to both the author and public to expire the copyright, because the present value of the copyright (that is being transferred from author to public) is equal to the present value of the copyright that the author has held in the past (that was given to the author by the public). This occurs when t = (ln 2)/i.

Then, the proper term of copyright depends on the interest rate, thusly:

2% 35 years
3% 23 years
4% 17 years
5% 14 years
6% 12 years
7% 10 years
8% 9 years

heh

[Moraelin]

Well, I never said I want it to be unlimited or anything. So we can easily aggree upon that part.

But on the issue of taxes:

<sarcasm type="heavy">
Yes, and _my_ taxes are used to protect your car from burglars and thieves. Hey, I don't own a car, so I shouldn't pay for it. Right?

_My_ taxes are used for government AIDS cure research. Hey, I don't screw everyone in sight, so why the heck should I have to pay for that? Let them just die, I say ;)

_My_ taxes are used to build highways. Maybe even the one you drive on to work. WTF? I always get a flat very near the company, so I don't have to commute. Why the heck should I pay for all those commuters? No, really.

_My_ taxes go into funding the school system. Piss-poor and under-funded as it is. Or to give a tax break to people with kids. Blah. I have no kids. Why should I pay for that? No, really? Did anyone even ask me if I want to subsidize everyone who's too stupid to use a condom? And let them pay out of their own pocket for their kid's schooling.
</sarcasm>

Again, that was sarcasm, if anyone can't tell. I am _not_ really advocating any of that.

I'm sure you probably get the idea already. Yes, society sometimes must use taxes to enforce things that are considered beneficial for society as a _whole_. Yes, there might be people who do not _directly_ get a ROI on their money, but the idea is that on the whole you get more good than bad out of it.

In this case, the whole copyright thing actually costs you _very_ little. Other than the copyright office itself, most other things are handled by lawsuits between companies. Or between companies and individuals.

You might notice, for example, that even the much villified RIAA lawsuits didn't involve the FBI taking the suspects into custody, nor a DA doing a criminal style prosecution. So that part has cost you exactly nothing.

So, well, I hope you'll excuse me if you're not getting much compassion out of me, over the fact that a couple of cents out of your taxes (and mine) go into sponsoring the common good. I do believe that on the whole the benefits far outweight those few cents.

Re:heh

[10101001 10101001]

Yes, society sometimes must use taxes to enforce things that are considered beneficial for society as a _whole_. Yes, there might be people who do not _directly_ get a ROI on their money, but the idea is that on the whole you get more good than bad out of it.

Society is made up of people. Copyright is set at the life of the author + 75 years. Given that you have to be alive to copyright something (at least, as far as I'm aware) and that the average life expectance is sub-75 years, that means that anyone born at the time a copyrighted work is created will be dead prior to the copyrighted work being put into the public domain. Hence, there's a serious lacking in the claim it "benefits society" or is "limited times".

One of the benefits of a copyrighted work, after all, is the time when it returns to the public domain. The whole "limited time" is there for the work to be created in the first place. The fact is, we're currently at the point that if we were to decide today to put all copyrighted works in the public domain, by law, while enacting in the same legislation that such a mass conversion won't occur again for a "limited time" (to make clear the risk reduction of one's copyright hence forth being nullified arbitrarily), we'd be in the possession of a ton of works and wouldn't be in some massive "need" for new works.

Sure, new works would be great, and I'm sure they'd be made regardless. And I think that's the core issue. The foundation of the claim for the need for copyright is that without protection there would be few new works. Yet I'm very sure that if copyright were rescinded for all previous works and only allow for works past date X, we'd still see new works. Ie, even with massive amounts of "free" works out there, there'd still be people willing to dish out money for new works.

One main reason is that, at least for software, there's a group of dedicated people who already have access and knowledge to the code and could make the proper updates. Reverse engineering the binary into source then updating it as necessary is a rather large financial investment. Because of this, it's not financially feasible for everyone to do the work. In fact, it's very much the prisoners' dilemma*. So, as long as the original software company has copyright long enough to recoup the costs by mass purchases by industry (and if you'll notice, NT 4.0 and OS/2 machines are being pushed towards Windows 2k/XP Embedded in those industries which are normally slowest to change), there's little reason to believe that any company or group of companies will work together to reverse engineer an already working product.

Having said all that, I would have to state that there's clearly inefficiency to this whole model** anyways. At least for software, having every couple reinvent the wheel unnecessarily doesn't help things. Yes, it does mean less of a monoculture, but it's hard to disagree that a combination of cooperation and open forks tend towards the minimal amount of redundant work. And all work requires time. And time is money. So, the actual cost imposed upon everyone by copyright is much more than the direct taxation that government imposes.

Is society gaining a net sum now days?

*Linux, et al are the exception, if only because they were never proprietary in the first place and each company who wants to become involved for their own benefit only has to dedicate a small detachment to help tune the source to their own needs. Getting to the point of there being an actually working OS that's already out there (no company wants to just "give away" a *lot* of their hard work to the competition) is the rough hump.

**The Free Market is based on a form of self interest with limited resources. The problem, of course, is that software is a mostly intangible good with nearly zero cost to redistribute. The real main cost then is the fixed cost of production. In a system where there was no copyright, surely there would be companies that release encrypted binarie

Re:Again, that's not the case

[Waffle Iron]

E.g., good luck finding someone who'll come over and take professional photos at your wedding, just for fame and recognition.

Wedding photos would work fine without copyright. You pay the photographer to take some pictures, you get your photos. None of this "Photographer owns pictures of your event that he was *hired* to make" bullshit.

My idea

[r6144]

If you don't make your work public, other people can't see it whether or not it is copyrighted. If you do, I don't think copyright should help you keep your privacy --- once it is public, it is public forever.

Also, I think if the work is unavailable to someone at a reasonable price and with reasonable terms (no overly bad EULA or DRM stuff), they should be allowed to copy them (e.g. via ftp or P2P networks) as long as the unavailability persists, at least if no profit is derived. It is not strictly necessary to put the work into the public domain as soon as the work becomes unavailable. We can allow the publisher to resume their exclusive right as soon as they publish the work again; in this way copyright won't be accidentally lost forever if the publisher's employees had a one-week strike, and we also have a solution when some work is available to only part of the population (for example, region-coded DVDs).

Oracle does it

[mangu]

Are there many real-world examples of corporations saying things like, "Well, we can't be bothered to print up another hundred copies of that textbook just so your students can buy it.

I don't know about textbooks, but I do have a real-world example in software. I tried to buy a copy of Oracle's Pro*Fortran and they wouldn't sell it to me, because it's "deprecated". I also tried to buy a copy of the game "Sorcerers Get All the Girls" from the original publisher and they refused to sell it to me. Fortunately, in this case I got a decent warez, but if you ever wrote any program in Fortran to access an Oracle data base, and now want to support it, Oracle's official answer to your problem is "Fuck You".

Berne Convention

[hacksoncode]

RTFA

The whole reason that copyrights no longer have to be registered in the US is the Berne convention, which requires that signatory countries may not impose registration requirements on foreign nationals in order to obtain copyright protection.

Since there's no way to acertain without finding the copyright holder whether that person is a foreign national or not, even if we required registration of copyrighted works as a way to get around this, it still would violate the treaty.

About the only solution would be one similar to that cited in Candadian law, where the Copyright Office can determine that a work is orphaned, set a compulsary license fee, and collect it in case the author is ever found. They've granted a whole 125 of these licenses to date.

Which doesn't really solve the problem at all...