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Consumers vs. IP Owners: The Future of Copyright
conJunk writes "The BBC has a thoughtful article about new challenges in copyright. The problem: The rights to the audio recordings of the Beatles first album will expire in 2013. While consumers stand to benefit from competing releases of the materials, the copyright owners are of course terrified. And the artists? This one doesn't even seem to affect them."
Thats the entire point of copyright- a limited monopoly in exchange for greater incentive to produce. It is expected to eventually run out. The problem here isn't that its going to run out, the problem is that its been over 40 years and it hasn't run out already!
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
It's highly likely that copyright in the USA will be extended again by then. History tells me that much.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
To get the laws changed. More than enough time. Ask Disney.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
And the artists? This one doesn't even seem to affect them.
Naturally - they still hold the copyright on the lyrics and music. So the performance moves into the public domain, but that doesn't mean nearly as much as the copyright status of the lyrics and music. Nobody will be performing songs from "Please Please Me" for free. But royalty payments for the album itself will dry up.
Of course, a lot can happen in seven years.
-h-
Just wait. The Bottled Head of Paul McCartney's gonna be pissed!
Please, stop using the words "owner", owns" etc. when you're talking about copyright and similar things. For that matter, please stop talking about "intellectual property", too - there is nothing here that's property or being owned.
What copyright *is* is a time-limited monopoly granted by the state, with the expectation that you will use this incentive to create stuff that society as a whole benefits from; it's not and never was supposed to be a never-ending money making machine.
Using words like "property" and "own" to describe copyright just reinforces the (wrong) idea that copyrights should not ever run out in the minds of the general, uninformed public.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Which is one of the reasons Disney was among those who fought tooth and nail to get copyrights extended to 70 years after the creator's death. Now they've re-acquired the rights to the first character Walt created and lost to someone else, back when he was paying his own dues.
Of course it's rarely the dead guy who cares about making more money, it's those who feel some eternal sense of entitlement.
Just imagine where we'd be if Mozart's works were still held by his heirs. Back in his day after the initial performance works fell to the public domain, which was to encourage the creator to be more productive. Now we have a system where the same tired crap gets dragged out for years and years and someone build theme parks around it.
When was the last time Mickey Mouse actually appeared in an original cartoon or film?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Limited copyright is an essential element to maintaining a consistent creative human spirit. By allowing works to be protected for a limited amount of time, the artist can comfortably turn some profit on their creation. But by allowing that protection to lapse, another creator can pick up the work of the original artist and manipulate it, turning it into something different. The whole of human creativity depends on building upon the works of others.
It's pretty frightening to think about the incredible lengths that IP holders are going to these days to increase the length of copyright ever further, all in the name of limited, short-term profits. They represent an immeasurable threat. Think about it: if copyright never expired, where would the motivation to innovate come from? There would be none, if you could indefinitely profit from one or two ideas.
Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig has some very enlightened analysis on this subject.This year marks fifty years since Elvis' performance of Heartbreak Hotel was released. It's not like this comes as some sudden surprise, though - recall the dozens of Elvis re-release compilations a few years back? Expect the same treatment for all the sixties classics in the next few years, as every last cent of cash is wrung out of them before they're finally, grudgingly handed over to the public domain.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
OTOH, the point is likely moot anyway, as copyright will be retroactively extended as soon as Mickey Mouse starts getting near entering the public domain again. Damn you Sonny Bono!!! Oh...
I like how they did that thing that news is supposed to do, you know, where they tell the whole story, without the spin. Anyone in the US remember that? no?
50 years still seems like a lot to me. I don't see how it would need to extend past maybe 25-30 years. There are very few bands that are still active at that point and even if they are, they make money from concerts still, reguardless of CD sales. If the record label hasn't sucked enough money out of the general public in 30 years, the band wasn't good enough to begin with.
It's a "problem" to the interests that currently make lots of money off the Beatles in particular. As the article points out, most works of the era (actually it mentions slightly older works, already free of copyright) are of little or no value. This isn't about preserving artists' rights at all, it's about "the industry" hanging on to a few sacred cash cows as long as possible--and the Beatles are among the cowiest.
fD
According to this, pre-1978 works had their copyright extended to 95 years from the date the copyright was first secured. This was done via the 'Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act". Why would works copyrighted in the 1950's or 1960's be expiring in the next decade?
You don't even need the US congress! I got an email just today:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
wait ... i'm not a citizen, i'm a consumer/taxpayer
i exist to provide revenue streams for corporations and governmentsDamn you Marx !! How could you let us down like this ??!!
/rant
long week in the cubicle forest. i'll shut up and go home now ... and drown my angst with ... consumption
+1 fashionably cynical
The most reasonable compromise I've seen suggested is to have them expire by default, but allow extensions for a fee. Making available all the out of print works that would languish in obscurity otherwise, while still allowing the truely valuable properties to continue.
But I would like to suggest one further refinement that would make it fair, any application for extension would automatically make ownership revert to the original creator or their heirs. Forty or fifty years ago when the rights were signed away it was under a framework that the rights were of limited duration. If they are going to continue in perpetuity, then fair selling price needs to be renegotiated.
The Constitution reserves for Congress the power to secure "for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
A lot of copyright problems would obviated if this were enforced as written. The Beatles' works for instance would be controlled by Sir Paul and Ringo. Mickey Mouse would be in the public domain because his inventor and author is dead. Bands, not labels, would control their music. Inventors, not IP holding corporations, would control their inventions.
You cannot sign away your inherent legal rights--no matter how many contracts I sign with you, it does not allow you to act fraudulently or negligently toward. Imagine if copyright worked the same way--if it were illegal to sign away your copyright. A lot of bullshit would be avoided IMO.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This about those who would treat copyright as a pure property right vs. those who don't. Almost everybody who wants copyright treated as a pure property right doesn't create anything. They are a publisher or corporation who aggregates the copyrights of all its employees, or some other entity concerned with the accumulation of coprights.
Accumulating an asset that has a built in time when it becomes utterly worthless is a very unpleasant proposition. It is much nicer and more convenient to treat the asset as some sort of durable good like a box of bolts or something. In fact, copyright has the potential for being the perfect asset since it doesn't decay at all!
But, the people who do create know that being able to create relies on a rich environment of ideas to draw from. Treating copyrights as a pure asset destroys that environment and creates an environment where the only things that get created are those the primary holders of copyrights are willing to allow to be created.
It really irritates me when I see the word 'consumer' when I hear talk about copyrights. There are no 'consumers', there are people. Everybody writes things and says stuff, and many people sing or dance or make up silly lyrics or any number of things.
This isn't about 'consumers', those incredibly dumb entities that eat products and shit cash. Casting it as that kind of a fight is inane.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I wonder if short copyright terms hurt other artists (i.e., not those whose copyright has lapsed) in indirect ways.
To me, the current world is drowning in media and choice. In many ways, media consumption is a zero-sum game. I can only listen for so many hours per day. Current iPods hold upwards of 1,000 hours of music -- you can listen for 8 hours a day and only hear the same song 3 times a year if you want. This massive supply of music makes each track less valuable.
Think of it this way. When my iPod has 15,000 songs, is the 15,001st song worth that much? For the most part that 15,001st song must be worth far less than $0.99 and maybe less than a penny. Sure, I may have a few hot favs that command a premium but, by and large, an iPod's worth of music provides all the fresh (or relatively fresh to me, that is) music that I could ever hope to listen to.
Short copyright terms help flood the market with large volumes of cheap music and current recording artists will find themselves competing against inexpensive copies of old, great songs.
As a consumer, I want music to be plentiful and cheap. In contrast, an artist wants music (including music created by others) to be rare and expensive.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Please, stop using the words "owner", owns" etc. when you're talking about copyright and similar things.
Precise discussion about law uses words defined in the letter of the law. The statute in question, 17 USC 101 et seq., defines and uses the phrase "copyright owner".
I know that there will be a lot of anti-recording industry comments on here, but it is clear that their main interest in extending the copyright period is to protect us from low quality Beatles compilations. Consider the irreversable damage that could be caused to children if their first experience of the Beatles has the songs in a less than ideal order.
Please think of the children.
He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola
He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me
doesn't Michael Jackson own the publishing rights to the Beatles lyrics? so its not just Paul McCartney that has a stake in trying to extend the copyrights
Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer
So how does all this work internationally, then? Does this mean that in 2013, in the U.S., I'll be able to legally copy an import of "Please Please Me"? Or that if I'm in the U.K., I'll be able to copy any copy of "Please Please Me", regardless of origin? Or some other variation?
...
No, it means that in 2013, you can go to an EU country and make a legal copy of the Beatles song, and not pay royalties.
But if you make it or sell it in the USA, you'll be liable for royalties.
Not to worry, I'll have patented your genome too by that point, and start charging you royalties if you have any kids
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In 1790 Congress passed the Copyright Act, which set the period of a copyright at 14 years, with the opportunity for the original author to renew for a second 14 years if he was still alive. This law existed unchanged for the next 100 years. The feeling of the original lawmakers, who were, incidentally, the same people who wrote the Constitution for the most part, was that copyrights and patents encourage authorship, science, and industry by providing a limited monopoly to authors and inventors. This monopoly was required to expire after a short time so that the public could then reap the benefits of these new works in their turn. There was, therefore, a balance between the good of encouraging authorship and invention with a limited monopoly, and the good of public ownership after a short period of time.
Since 1890 Congress has seen fit to extend the term of a copyright eleven times. It has gone from a maximum of 28 years in 1790 to the life of the author plus 70 years currently, or 95 years if the ownership is corporate. The issue that prompted congress to enact all of these extensions had nothing at all to do with encouraging invention, art, or science, and everything to do with the fact that valuable corporate properties such as the copyright for Micky Mouse were due to expire. The clear and unequivocal result of this Congressional effort is that the public suffers by not being able to freely access and use works that would have long since become public property under the intent of the constitutional framers . . . and the corporate copyright owners maintain their lucrative legal monopolies. There is no question at all of public benefit here, only corporate subsidies at public expense.
http://breakthelink.org/Costs.php
On a related note: if you are in the EU (and maybe even if you are not), you may want to sign the petition for public geo data. Apperently, there is a proposal considered by the EU that would make geo data collected by public agencies no longer free to use.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
More like there are a few hundred to each big success. I don't see too many Foyles-sized book shops around the cities I visit most, to accomodate the millions of starving authors to go with Clancy, King, Rowling, Pratchett, Crichton, et al.
What you rather shamefully overlooked is for most trade paperbacks, the initial order by distributors and bookstores, immediately after publication, is where most of these authors sales are going to occur. After the store has returned unsold extras or tossed them on the bargain table, you're hard pressed to find them again except at a used book shop. A second run of a relatively unknown author is an exceptional thing and I do know a few who have been lucky enough to have garnered enough of an audience to see that, after several years on the shelf. Nothing is preventing them from doing that. But you seem to assume there are greedy bastards lurking around the land itching to reprint obscure books which are three years after publication. Considering the overhead of the printing business that's pretty silly.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yestarday, all my copyrights expired so far away
Now* it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I belive in royalty pay
*thanks to Evil Mega Corp (c) lobbying agency
This will scare you all. Currently, due to a bizarre and rather alarming interpretation of copyright law with the common law tradition in New York, it seem that Capitol Records (the holders of the sound-recording copyright to the beatles back catalogue) have won a landmark victory which means that in the US they have copyright FOREVER on the beatles music. Yes Forever. Read more at Groklaw here... this has distressing implications and shows that the record labels will do anything to hold onto that monopoly....
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Artist/vendor gets a government-mandated monopoly for their created work, and it is protected in law, for a limited period of time. It is a grant from the government/people. This protects the effort that went into the work, and lets the creators of it make more money from it than they would have otherwise, giving the incentive to create more.
Once that time expires, it is time for the artist/vendor to pay up on their half of the bargain: the work passes into the public domain.
You should not be able to renegotiate the deal after the fact. The Beatles or their agents knew the terms of the deal when they made the work, distributed it, and made loads of money off it. If they did not like the terms, they should not have distributed the work. They should have kept it to themselves.
We had a deal. It's now due (well, in 2013). Suck it up and live with it, or make us (the public, to which the artists/vendors now owe) a better offer.
For example, are copyright holders going to grant the public a little broader fair use terms? Or offer us a low, flat rate for certain types of copying? SOMETHING. You can't just say, after decades of making boatloads of money from the arrangement, that you don't want to pay off your side of the contract.
Worse is the fact that, actually, many copyright holders have done everything in their power to destroy/limit/technologically eliminate "fair use" using DRM and other such techniques.
As copying becomes easier, copyright becomes a heavier burden on society.
As copying becomes easier and digital processing becomes more of a commodity, creation of new materials becomes easier, thus requiring less of an incentive.
So as the years pass by, you would expect copyright terms to shorten and perhaps even disappear (Who knows? Maybe we have already reached a state where an artifical incentive to create is no longer necessary). But for some odd reason, copyright terms get longer and longer. The camel's back is already breaking, and in many countries, copyright lost society's respect entirely.
Currently, the difficulty in enforcing copyright is a huge release on the stress copyright is forming on the society, but if the new DRM technologies are successful, this release will also be blocked - and I anticipate an explosion. Perhaps a positive one, because it will almost surely result in the abolishment of copyright.
The copyright on the lyrics and music is held by its writers eg Lennon and McCartney in this case, along with their publishers. The 'publishing' rights are held by Michael Jackson who may have hocked them to Sony (?) which means that they collect all songwriting royalties payable on them, for the Beatles' own recordings and anyone else's cover versions. Publishers then pay writers a percentage of the gross royalty, usually 50%, but probably a bit more in McCartney's case.
The copyright on the recordings is held by the record company, in this case EMI. They collect on sales and performances (eg on radio or TV) of the actual record, and pay a set royalty to the artists, and also the producer. This is the copyright that is going to expire.
So, when it does, Ringo won't collect anymore on his royalties for drumming on the album, and since he didn't write the songs, won't get any of that money either. Paul will still collect on songwriting royalties for this and all other versions of the tunes on the album, but obviously won't get any royalties for having played on the album either.
Thought I would clarify since about 3 people above and below have got it wrong.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Think about it: if copyright never expired, where would the motivation to innovate come from?
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but Spider Robinson's excellent short story Melancholy Elephants discusses that exact idea. Its point is that, if copyrights are extended indefinitely, we eventually smother our own creativity.
Copyrights on songs by the Beatles are about to run out but Robert Jonhsnon's lyrics are still copyrighted? Robert Johnson died during the 1930s and his works should be public domain but apparenlty aren't. And who owns the copyright anyhow? It damn well can't be his heirs because he didn't have any (legitimately that is... you know how bluesmen are). Is Robert Johnson's work relevant now? Ask Eric Clapton. And since they aren't RJ's heirs why should they have the copyrights anyway? I mean, I can understand Janie Hendrix having the copyright to Jimi's work but someone unrelated to him decades from now?
As to the Beatles copyright holder being terrified... too bad. Want to make money? Do something! I haven't been living comfortably off something someone else did for decades, why should you? Why should anyone be able to do something like write a song or a book and live off it their whole lives when the rest of us can't live off a few months of work our whole lives? That's why the entire system is completely screwed. I don't know how many times every day it's pounded into our heads "think of the artists" but if they've made plenty of money off of something already why should I care? Not only that but some corporation can apparently just take the copyright to a dead man's work and keep it out of the public domain decades after it should've passed into that as well. The original 14 years is plenty of time and no one but the heirs of someone should be able to have the copyright after their death. It may be legal but as far as I'm concerned this is just copyright theft.
Think about that the next time someone calls file-sharers thieves. Legally, a corporation can own the copyright long after the person who made the work is dead. They can legally steal from us, the people, but we can't legally steal anything back.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Not to worry :-) The usefulness of record labels is now at an end. Creation, publishing, distribution, and marketing can now be had practically for free. Check out Tunecore to see what I mean. Why would any band give up their copyright and settle for second class shelf space and loan payments when they can post their works in their pajamas? Create music with software and instruments, distribute online, done. There is no step three ;-) As more new bands go direct, more revenue streams disappear for the big labels. The big labels will eventually be unable to afford lobbyists.
I seem to recall Jon Katz doing just that several years ago, with everyone's posts. I doubt the book sold many copies, but still....
They own the copy right, not the work. The right is the exclusive ability to duplicate the work. A right is never property, even when it's artificially created by the state and may be traded for real property. People get confused about that, which lends to the disgusting coporate welfare known as perpetual copyright. If you can own a song, like a bag of marbles the ownership should never end. Your government is not yet so asinine as to say a song can be owned.
Indeed, Congress does not even believe in "Intellectual Property". While the terms occurs some nine times in the definitions and scope you cited mostly referencing a 2002 law which is named that way. There is no definition and, hopefully, never will be.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Whatever happened to him anyway? Did he fall into the Hellmouth?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Simple. Copyright is a social contract between the artist and society.
Society provides an incentive to the artist to produce works by gauranteeing the artist can have rewards sufficient to justify his labour. In return, society gets new creative works.
The problem with having infinitely long copyright is that there is no longer the same incentive for artists (or their children for that matter) to create new works.
It would be like you getting paid forever because of the first years work you did (as say, a doctor or something). There's hardly any incentive for you to keep going to work and making more stuff/fixing problems, and that hurts society.
What if a doctor kept getting paid forever by every patient that he had cured? or a plumber got paid for every litre of water that went down your pipes? You can see that you would be paying way too much for the benefit received, which prevents you being able to afford other things.
The third problem is that works can be lost forever.
In summary, there are three problems with infinite copyright:
1) Leaves you with less cash to spend on new creative works.
2) Gives artists less incentive to make additional new creative works.
3) old works can be lost because they are not allowed to be copied, yet have gone out of print (because they are not seen as commerially viable, or the publishing company wants to promote some other product they own - perhaps one that they have the artists even more screwed over on than normal). Result: Everyone looses.
I'll still have to buy the White Album again.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Finally a story that BeatlesBeatles should have submitted, and he's nowhere to be seen.
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
the copyright owners are of course terrified
Why, yes. And I'm terrified that my subscription to Motorcyclist is going to expire. And I'm terrified that my insurance policy will expire. Don't they realize that now I'm going to have to spend more money to get new magazines and spend more money to get renewed coverage? Shouldn't I just be able to buy some terminal product once and continue to benefit from it forever, even if I know going in that it will expire? The evil insurance company is just trying to get out of their responsibility to cover me forever once I pay them once.
Evil lying bastards, twisting the soft, smooth brains of our politicians. You know what spurs innovation in music? I mean beyond experience, suffering, love, anger, pain, joy, and a burning need to create that won't let actual musicians not make music? Short-term copyrights that require entertainers and labels to make an ongoing effort in order to earn a living. A couple million dollars for "Oops I Did It Again"? When the money comes that easy, I wouldn't put any more effort into it than she does.
You want musicians to put blood, sweat, and tears into their music on an ongoing basis? You want them to put the same dedication into their jobs that we do? Make them work for a living. Cut copyright to five years.
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Copyrights protect works of authorship fixed in tangible media, from unconsented reproduction, distribution and derivation FROM THE WORK and other exclusive rights, subject to a litany of limitations of those rights dedicated to the public. Patents protect novel, useful and unobvious inventions from the unconsented making, using or selling of the invention, whether or not they ever heard of the inventor or the invention, with very few limitations other than a very limited "experimental use" defense.
Copyright exists upon original creation, without respect to novelty, and requires no effort to protect. Patents do not exist until application is made and examined for compliance with statute.
The scope of copyright, which requires copying, is far far narrower than patents. This is why, for example, you can clean room a computer program to avoid copyright infringement, but clean rooming provides no protection.
Different rights to protect different things in different ways with different protections and limitations. This is why their terms are not necessarily the same.