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UK Copyright Extension Not Happening
chiark writes "In a surprising move (surveys said that the public supports extending copyright), the UK will not extend copyright to 95 years following a recent study. Back when this was was covered on slashdot last year, I wrote to my MP and thought no more of it, but recently a UK thinktank has called for fair use to be enshrined in UK Law. Looks like the government is realizing that the public are the ones that vote 'em in or out." From the article: "Sir Cliff Richard and Jethro Tull had been among artists lobbying for copyright to last 95 years, rather than the present 50. The decision means that from 2008 Sir Cliff's earliest recordings will start to come out of copyright. "
Brits here should check out the petition for private copying on 10 Downing Street's website. It's essentially asking that the government do what the think tank suggested.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
So, which is it?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I know that was tongue-in-cheek, but it's worth noting. You can always make the same arguement at any time, so it leads to totally unlimited copyright. What about the grand-children benefiting from the creations and hard work of their grand-parents?
To those artists who actually support this. Frankly, if you're an artist, and you want your heirs unto the fifth generation to have a special advantage over everyone else's equally remote descendants, you're a lunatic megalomaniac, with some kind of fixation about founding imperial dynasties, and it's about time your fans told you off. I'm still contributing to an anuity for my kid, hope you do something similar. I worked hard when she was growing up too - instead of complaining that she wouldn't continue to receive money if I died, I carried lots of life insurance. I carry less now that she's grown, educated and mostly independant. Shouldn't she benefit some more from that money I spent on life insurance earlier? And if not her, well she's gonna make me a grandfather someday (or so she says) - why can't I pass on some of the fruits of my old carreer to those cute little hypothetical grandkids?
"Ooohhh! Ooohhh! I want my highly evolved descendants living in the Omega Centauri region a million years from now to benefit from my hard work, won't someone please think of the 19 ft. tall, cylendrical, neutronium sheathed, stardrive-up-the-spine fitted trans-transhuman children?".
Who is John Cabal?
Regardless, why do the adult children (and especially grand-children) of a musician, author, etc deserve to get money for work they had no part in creating? Let them create their own income-producing works, or earn a living some other way. My parents have told me that I shouldn't count on any special inheritance from them (they expect to spend most of what they've saved), and I'm perfectly content with that because I've done nothing to earn that money.
Providing for one's minor children and/or dependent spouse is a noble and admirable goal, which should be supported by keeping copyrights valid for some term after the creator's death if he has dependents... but not a term so long that every person who even knew the creator is dead before it expires.
Personally, since I have no dependents, I've decided to draft a will that specifies that upon my death, all intellectual property I own will be bequeathed to the public domain.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
There is a fundamental philosophical principle in play. How far down the line of posterity should the "dead hand" control freedom of the living? In the English common law, which is the basis of US law as well, no conveyance of an interest in real property shall be valid unless it must vest in an ultimate, unrestricted owner within twenty-one years of the termination of a life in being. This means you can leave your realty to your son for life, and 21 years later to those of your descendants then living, but you CANNOT leave it to your son for life, then to your unborn grandson for life, then to your unborn great-grandson in perpetuity. If copyright protections were analogous, copyright would extend for the life of the creator plus a maximum of twenty-one years. Is that reasonable or not? It has been found to be so for how long you can control the vesting of your realty after your death. (I have left out some subtleties, but I think this poses the question.)
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
How about a system like this?
Traditional exclusive copyright - 15 years with an option to extend another 5 for a fee.
After the initial 15 years (or 20), the copyright goes to a Creative Commons license - Attribution, Share-Alike, Non-Commercial for a period of 50 years from when the work was originally created. So that would be 30 to 35 years under a CC license. This would allow others to create non-commercial derivative works based off the original, and the original creator would still have control over commercial uses of his/her work.
Then after 50 years from creation, the work enters into the public domain.
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10 years is a good idea, not so much because of the possibility of derivative works, but because it encourages people like Cliff Richard to continue to create new works himself. You are exactly right, a 50-year copyright is counterproductive, because it allows someone who produces a single number-one hit to retire immediately.
"Are we experiencing a wave of artists refusing to create works because copyright law isn't strong enough?"
wishful thinking,
Sir Cliff manages to release something around this time, every year - unfortunately
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