Sherlock Holmes and the Copyright Tangle

spagiola passes along a New York Times piece on the copyright travails of Sherlock Holmes. "At his age [123 years], Holmes would logically seem to have entered the public domain. But not only is the character still under copyright in the United States, for nearly 80 years he has also been caught in a web of ownership issues so tangled that Professor Moriarty wouldn't have wished them upon him."

Comments

Well well...

[derGoldstein]

for nearly 80 years he has also been caught in a web of ownership

Watson, get me out of this web, for it would appear that the game is afoot!

Re:Well well...

[plastbox]

Aaaaw, damn! I just lost the Game!

Re:Well well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not playing.

heh.. captcha = supreme

Re:Well well...

[Sulphur]

for nearly 80 years he has also been caught in a web of ownership

Watson, I seem not to have aged for 80 years. Watson.

Watson the game has something to do with feet. There is a podiatrist in the hall. He is here to put opium on his

feet. Please let him in. His squeaking shoe is interfering with my violin. Have you found the jewel in my

perique.

Re:Well well...

[EmotionToilet]

Now we all lost!

Re:Well well...

[Ihmhi]

It's the only way to win.

Re:Well well...

[Nathrael]

You know the rules, so yes, you are.

Re:Well well...

[greyline]

Cool story, bro

Re:Well well...

[Labcoat Samurai]

Except that they are false rules. You cannot create a fundamental truth simply by asserting it as a rule. "Rule 1: You are playing the game" is no more valid than "Rule 1: I am way better looking than you" even if, by coincidence, it may happen to be true.

Re:Well well...

[Labcoat Samurai]

To expand slightly, even in the event that the game is *defined* by the fact that you are always playing it, that does not make it a valid game. You can define something out of existence by contradiction, after all, and if a person can not be playing a game that is defined by everyone playing it, then the game itself is not valid, which is just as reasonable as concluding that the person is playing the game.

Re:Well well...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a new game - every time you think about it, you win! it is called "The Game" Now you know the rules, and everytime you think of "the game" you will both win AND lose.

The copyright cash cow

[Brian Boitano]

Basically, nobody wants to give up rights to it because they can make money from it.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[derGoldstein]

Basically, nobody wants to give up rights to it because they can make money from it.

Not "Basically", but rather "Elementary"!

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Tim C]

"Elementary" is equivalent to "basic"; you'd be wanting "elementarily", though I appreciate it obfuscates the joke slightly.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[timmarhy]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works, completely undermining the whole arguement for copyright in the first place. how does this simple fact fail with law makers?

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't fail with them. They just don't care. They get paid to write more long-lasting, restrictive copyright laws, so they do it. All those "for the good of culture" arguments are just smokes and mirrors, so it's less obvious.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[derGoldstein]

Answer: Lobbyists.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[VShael]

Because the law doesn't say copyrights are eternal. Therefore you cannot milk something indefinitely.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

"if you can milk something infinitely, it removes all incentive to create new creative works"

For the holder of the original IP, yes. However, for other people this could been seen as a good thing - I can't write a book about Sherlock Holmes because he's still under copyright, etc. etc., so instead I create my own character and scenario.

Which is better? Taking a public domain character and inserting them into a story, or being forced to come up with something new - and possibly better - instead?

It depends on how you look at it - some people haven't got a creative bone in their body and would rather just take existing works and tinker with them. For others, they would rather come up with someone of their own invention.

Surely coming up with something new and original is preferable to delving into the public domain archives.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Hurricane78]

Huh? Incentive for creative work was an argument for copyright?

No. It wasn’t. Look at the word. It says copyright. The right to copy. To reproduce the work.
It has nothing to do with creativity or art. It has to do with publishers and money.

What you mean, is the author’s right.
Which, from what I heard, is nearly meaningless in the USA. Right?

In Germany we have the Urheberrecht instead of the copyright. The Urheberrecht (literally “originator’s right”) is the right of the one who created the work. And it can’t be given away. Ever. (The rule is, that if you’re payed by the hour, the payer is the originator. If you’re payed all at once, you are.)
Which is pretty nice.

Except that many people here start to think we are government by US laws. They always see the term “copyright“ and think that’s a German thing. Which results in silly things, like people stating to own the copyright on something they literally just copied. Like this idiot here, who really just scanned stuff in, and now thinks this entitles him to some right.

Nowadays, nobody needs publishers anymore. So they are clinging to the last twig they still got: Extending copyright as far as possible. Like with this thing here. If your life would depend on it, you’d do the same. It always gets looong and weird at the end.
But I don’t worry, since it’s impossible to keep this going forever. Sooner or later, there is no art and no artist left. New artists already couldn’t care less about them. And there will be a time, where their extensions will become just so silly, that everybody stops taking them seriously.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[interkin3tic]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works, completely undermining the whole arguement for copyright in the first place.

I'd point out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also very dead, which probably prevents him from making new creative works more than a lack of financial incentive, but I agree with you in principle.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[beowulfcluster]

Copyright laws were made at first because publishers made copies of authors' works without their consent or giving them compensation. The idea was to give authors control for a time to allow them to profit from it and thereby encourage more creative works. That's been twisted now of course but that was the idea at the time.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[timmarhy]

actually i wasn't touching on the meaning of copyright at all, but what it was supposed to achieve.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Incentive for creative work was an argument for copyright?

No. It wasn’t.

Yes it was.

The English Statute of Anne (1710) which predated the German grant of rights by nearly 85 years was in its own words enacted "for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books".

Re:The copyright cash cow

[bjourne]

Because it doesn't. I don't have anything I can milk indefinitely so the incentive to me to create new works appear to be higher because i would then be able to milk my product for the rest of my life. For someone who already owns something they can milk indefinitely the incentive is still there because even rich people want to get richer.

Logically, by making the reward massive (infinite copyright), the incentive also becomes massive.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[aussie_a]

Taking a public domain character and inserting them into a story, or being forced to come up with something new - and possibly better - instead?

Dunno. Let's look at Disney classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and compare it with one of their latest, Bolt.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[c6gunner]

You're right - who'd want to see some silly dame choking on an apple when you can watch a TALKING DOG instead???

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Wildclaw]

Yup. In fact, copyright in itself is self defeating as any increase in actual information produced is offset by the loss of actual copies of said information due to higher copying costs.

To be fair, that is not 100% true. If the extra information produced is of higher quality it can still be worth it. But that is pretty much the only situation where copyright can be motivated. However, in that case, I don't really see any evidence for copyright beyond 5 years, as quality information should have no problem earning back its money in that amount of time. And allowing non-quality information to profit from copyright laws is inefficient.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[westlake]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works

Sherlock Holmes is a piss-poor example for this argument.

The character is arguably the most famous and instantly recognizable in all English literature.

There have been hundreds if not thousands of new Holmes stories published. Countless books, films, stage, radio and tv productions. In each generation, a new actor becomes the definitive Sherlock Holmes.

There have puppet shows, comics, cartoons, graphic novels - Dover even publishes a set of paper dolls.

The modern mystery and detective story begins with Holmes. Doyle introduced three important and suggestive ideas:

1 Holmes is a private detective, in the modern meaning of the word.He is almost never reduced to solving a problem with a fist or a gun, I don't think of how fresh and novel that was.

2 Doyle separated the narrator and the detective.

Watson can tell the story in the first person without cheating the reader.

He can ask the questions the reader wants answered. He can be an Archie Goodwin or a Nora Charles.

2 Holmes is firmly anchored in a particular time and place - a time and place he instantly invokes.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[WWWWolf]

Dunno. Let's look at Disney classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and compare it with one of their latest, Bolt.

But Disney films don't exist in vacuums of their own. Disney can afford to fail. It doesn't matter to Disney whether Bolt was good or not; they figured out that if it's good, they get more money, if it's not, they still tons of money from their previous films so one film's failure is not a disaster. Whether a film succeeds or not depends on more than just the source material. Snow White was good because they made a damn good film; wherever they picked up the story is ultimately irrelevant.

The point is, when people bend common sense long enough, it stops working. Disney figured out a way to reverse this particular setup.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[MrNaz]

Disney would beg to differ.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you support that argument? Think of it this way; the copyright laws prevent anyone else from creating derivative works based on something that has already been created. Therefore, you can't piggyback your work on someone else's, you have to create something entirely new.

Would Phillip Marlowe exist if that author had been able to just write yet another Holmes-derived story?

Would "The Munsters" have existed if CBS could have just copied "The Addams Family"?

Derivative works can be very creative, but IMO having to create something entirely new is more creative.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they care. They care about money. They care about making the business of government bigger and more lucrative. The more complex and irrational the system of law, the more it costs to run it.

In the business of government, where you spend other people's money, the goal is to spend, not save. At the top of the power pyramid, as long as the money passes through your hands, you win.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd point out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also very dead, which probably prevents him from making new creative works more than a lack of financial incentive, but I agree with you in principle.

It never stopped L. Ron Hubbard...

(Posted anonymously to avoid the wrath of the Scientologists.)

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... Holmes may have popularized the formula but your key points are all true of the Dupin stories by Poe that predate Holmes by a nice margin...

Re:The copyright cash cow

[UnxMully]

For a second there I thought you mean Linda Lovelace. But then read the bit about the apple.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[IndustrialComplex]

Because the law doesn't say copyrights are eternal. Therefore you cannot milk something indefinitely.

If I passed a law that said copyrights now last 10^100 years our cowards on the Supreme Court would still say it was constitutional because it fit the definition of 'limited time'. even if that time would be some time after the heat death of the freaking universe.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Grimbleton]

Or Tupac.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[martyros]

But in theory, raising money for his heirs might have been a motivating factor for him to have written it originally... if the current laws had been in place at the time. :-)

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Ephemeriis]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works

Honestly, I'm not sure this is a great argument for copyright reform...

If you look at Disney (who are notorious for lobbying copyright changes/extensions) for example... They've got an absolute stranglehold on a lot of their original IP. They've extended those copyrights well beyond the original limits. But they're still turning out new material. When is the last time you actually saw Mickey Mouse in anything new? I don't even think I've seen him in much of their advertising lately...

So, Disney is obviously turning out new creative works. Well... Ok... Maybe not terribly creative, as it seems they're all just princess stories... But they're rolling out new characters and new movies and whatnot.

Yes, their stranglehold on the copyright of the old Sleeping Beauty movie allows them to re-release it every couple of years in limited numbers, and make money off of it over and over again... But they're still turning out new stuff.

The problem with extending copyright to infinity (and beyond!) is that it doesn't allow other folks to expand on the original creation.

H.P. Lovecraft's greatest contribution to literature wasn't any of the actual stories he wrote, but his correspondence with other authors. They freely shared ideas and information... Swapped plot elements and settings and characters... And now you've firmly established the Cthulhu Mythos as a genre all its own. The Necronomicon has become, quite possibly, the best-known evil book in existence. It shows up everywhere. And this would never have happened if H.P. Lovercraft (or his estate, or whoever managed to buy his rights, or whatever) had maintained a stranglehold on his IP.

Look at recent variations on the old Jane Austen books... Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters...

Or all the re-envisioning of Shakespeare's stuff... Romeo and Juliet becomes West Side Story becomes Romeo Must Die...

With the stranglehold that Disney has on its IP, nobody is going to be rolling out Mickey Mouse and Zombies anytime soon. Well, maybe if you could convince folks it was a parody or something... But you'd have one hell of a legal battle to fight.

And this is where perpetual copyright is harmful.

The original creators are going to create or not, according to their whims. Maybe they're content to milk a title forever... Maybe that title isn't interesting enough to be milked forever... Maybe they're just so full of ideas they can't stop creating... Maybe they'd like to create more, but they just don't have anything else to say...

No copyright law is ever going to magically flood the world with new creative works. No law or financial incentive is going to inspire creativity in somebody with absolutely no talent for creation. It isn't going to force some brilliant artist to take up the brush again just because he needs to eat. There are far easier ways to make a living.

But what it does do is prevent others from expanding on the original creation.

No West Side Story, no Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, no Re-Animator.

And I think Sherlock Holmes is a singularly bad example of this, as there are literally tons of derivative works out there.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

"Elementary" is equivalent to "basic"; you'd be wanting "elementarily", though I appreciate it obfuscates the joke slightly.

Whoosh!

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Moryath]

Consider the following point:

Holmes, in the country of his birth (Britain), has been public domain for TWENTY YEARS.
Holmes, in the US and thanks to our fucked up laws passed by paid-off, bribed, and otherwise corrupt legislators, is covered by "copyright" law in the US all the way until 2023. At which time the character will be 136 years old.

Keep in mind that the NORMAL term of our fucked-up copyright laws is supposed to be either 95 years for "works for hire" (bought and paid for by hookers sent to legislators courtesy of Disney Corp and Sonny Bono's widow), or "Death of the author plus 70 years", which means the copyright on all of Conan Doyle's Holmes stories should have passed into public domain in the US back in 2000 (Sir Artie died in 1930). Actually, they should have passed back in 1980 (and did), but every time it gets close, Disney sends another round of hookers and bags of cash to Congress to buy another extension.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[amitabh_mehta]

If I passed a law that said copyrights now last 10^100 years our cowards on the Supreme Court would still say it was constitutional because it fit the definition of 'limited time'. even if that time would be some time after the heat death of the freaking universe.

No Kidding... Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#Support Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. ... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Jason Levine]

Ah, but what if he returns from the grave to write another Sherlock Holmes book (and consume some braaaaiiiinnnns)? We need to protect the copyrights of zombie authors!

Re:The copyright cash cow

[gmuslera]

Capitalism is not about being creative, just about making money. While you keep doing money, all good. If that money flow could stop, then is time to make new laws to avoid that happens, like extending copyright time or limiting internet freedom

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Yamata no Orochi]

I think you may be the one whooshed here.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[danbert8]

Meta-woosh?
Wooshing spree?
C-C-C-Combo Breaker!

Re:The copyright cash cow

[gmuslera]

Putting fences in imaginationland should be against human rights. You aren't just avoiding working on some particular character or environment, but in anything similar "enough". And you could had a new/good idea about something existing already.

Derivative works are also creative, the kind of creativity that don't need so much the world building and background explaining as was being done in the original work and focus in the story itself, but it still could be something great, maybe even greater than the original work, or enrich it greatly (and even promote more people being interested in the original work/author/etc).

An example could be i.e. how the Foundation universe was further enriched or completed by works of other great sci-fi writers. This cases were approved by the copyright holders, but the idea could had being expanded a lot more if no restriction to that.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[ilsaloving]

Bah! "Basically", my elementary canal!

Re:The copyright cash cow

[TubeSteak]

Or Tupac.

Musicians and rappers tend to leave behind large bodies of unpublished works.
They almost always record a huge number of tracks before winnowing them down to the 10~15 which get released.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[mdwh2]

If I passed a law that said copyrights now last 10^100 years

But then you might get sued by Google! (It's not just copyright law that's gone messed up.)

Re:The copyright cash cow

[tehcyder]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works

The creation of the character Sherlock Holmes does not prevent anyone from writing/filming stories featuring a consulting detective from the 1890s (or whatever) as long as they don't call him Sherlock Holmes.
What sort of block on creativity is this? You just can't flat out copy someone else's work, but if you were going to do that it's not exactly creative to start with.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Cytotoxic]

When is the last time you actually saw Mickey Mouse in anything new? I don't even think I've seen him in much of their advertising lately...

You don't have kids, do you? Check out the Disney channels sometime... they have all kinds of Mickey Mouse stuff, including his own show - The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. CGI cartoon goodness for 5 year old kids. Ok, it pretty much sucks, but it is new.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[tehcyder]

I'd point out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also very dead, which probably prevents him from making new creative works more than a lack of financial incentive, but I agree with you in principle.

GP appears to be under the impression that creative people only work if they are being paid, and that therefore if they are being paid for existing work, they won't do any new stuff.
By this logic, no one should be allowed to have any savings or own any property as it will make them lazy by letting them not work all the time.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[tthomas48]

Or it could be that the number of people who lobby in favor of copyright reform is much smaller than the number who lobby against it. Having a defeatist attitude and whining doesn't get problems fixed.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[camperdave]

When is the last time you actually saw Mickey Mouse in anything new?

A few weeks ago. I flipped past the Family Channel and noticed that Mickey and the gang were given the "Pixar" treatment. They're now 3D CGI characters.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Jeremy Erwin]

Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote "Elementary, my dear Watson". Perhaps it derives from some derived work, and any extant copyright claim to the phrase rests in the hands of some other estate.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[SEWilco]

Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote "Elementary, my dear Watson". Perhaps it derives from some derived work

Read all of the snopes page and you'll see it states one derived work which used it. Although the screenwriter's inspiration is unknown.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[3vi1]

Disney, turning out new material

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Jeremy Erwin]

In some countries, copyrights include "moral rights", which are inalienable, but (IIRC) die with the author. Most often, the phrase is included in book written by pseudonymous authors.

Suppose a US publisher obtained the rights to republish John LeCarré's novels. If not specifically bound by contract, the publisher could print, say "The Spy who came in from the Cold, by David Cornwall", and David Cornwall would have little recourse. In other places in the world, David Cornwall could claim that he wants to be known as "John LeCarré", and his moral rights to be known by a pseudonym would outweigh inexpertly drafted contracts.

Monty Python's flying circus was adapted for American audiences in the 1970s by ABC. The adaptation was inexpert and missed the Pythonesque humor. The members of the Python troupe sued ABC for "trademark dilution", and failed. In a climate of "moral rights", Monty Python would have a strong case, but in the US, they had to go through the Lanham Act. (People who hadn't seen the Python show, but had heard that it was good, would now judge the Pythons on the basis of a bowdlerized import.)

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works

Which new creative works actually? The last two things I have seen are Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek, both from the XIX Century. Er...

Seriously though: I guess many have noticed, in Hollywood for sure, but far outside as well, how America exists no more concerning creativity. For a long time already.

It's all just remaking the existing, keeping it standing, procedurizing it even more and and milk to death as much as possible.

The way out is: at some point, ever, even the most weak and suggestionable customers will get fed up, and stop buying the same re-fried broken things again.
Then it's gonna be funny. Especially for economists.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[jbengt]

Except that copyright (in the US anyway) doesn't cover information.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Jeremy Erwin]

At least one derived work. There may be others that predate the 1899 stage play. A good lawyer could keep the courts busy for years, provided that the copyright claim hadn't yet lapsed.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Zordak]

they have all kinds of Mickey Mouse stuff, including his own show - The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Which in the grand Disney tradition, is a complete ripoff of an earlier source---in this case, Dora the Explorer. Pretty much the only high-quality truly original stuff to ever come out of Disney has had the "Pixar" name attached to it.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[jbengt]

Close.
Copyright laws were first made because competing publishers weren'r making money, so the Queen gave exclusive rights to one of her friends and patrons. Later, the law was established to give those rights to the first publisher to print the book (unless, of course, the Queen decided to grant exclusive rights to one of her friends and patrons instead).
Authors had nothing to do with it.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[JacksBrokenCode]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works

I see this argument a lot on Slashdot and it's absurd on its face. For as long as the copyright is in effect, there may be less incentive for the owner to create other works, however, there is more incentive for other creators to produce creative works. Since others cannot personally benefit from a previously created work (unless they own it), they are encouraged to create new works of their own. Your argument seems to assume that there is only one creator out there and this individual stops making new creations then there will be no new works.

If copyright was short term or nonexistent and Tex Avery chose to copy Mickey Mouse instead of creating Bugs Bunny, would that have contributed to art or culture? Walt Disney owned Mickey Mouse, but he didn't sit around "milking" that property infinitely - he created a whole cast of additional characters. He was then able to use his ownership of those creative works to build up a company that provided jobs for thousands of animators, construction workers, designers, unskilled workers, etc.

Allowing people to control their creative works fosters creativity, it doesn't stifle it. Even if a creator chooses to stop creating and live off his/her existing properties, that doesn't prevent the rest of the world from producing new and unique works.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Walt Disney got most of his ideas from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Volante3192]

And if copyright was infinite, would The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have existed? The play Les Mis? Kurosawa's Throne of Blood or Ran? West Side Story?

The only reason works like the priors can even exist is because the public has a vested interest in the characters and the stories. If no one gave a whit about Holmes, this article would never exist.

From the public works are created, to the public they must return.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[celtic_hackr]

Well, except for the fact the article is wrong on several accounts and so are the heirs, interesting article.

First, it was the 1997 Sono Bono copyright act that extended the copyright for the single Sherlock Holmes book published after 1922, but the rmaining Sherlock Holmes books have long ago entered the public domain. Therefore the character is public domain, but no derivative work based on the 1927 Sherlock Holmes book can be made until 2017.
But don't take my word for it, see for yourself at gutenberg.org.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[frogzilla]

I don't remember Holmes ever saying "Elementary" in the stories. Wikipedia confirms this:

A third major reference is the oft-quoted but non-canonical phrase: "Elementary, my dear Watson." This phrase was never actually said by Holmes, since it does not appear in any of the sixty Holmes stories written by Conan Doyle.

Now, do we trust wikipedia? Discuss.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[evil_aar0n]

Methinks you protest too much. Even Doyle gave Poe credit for being the "father of the detective story", and Dupin the "first" detective.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murders_in_the_Rue_Morgue

Doyle's contributions are certainly welcome and valuable, but he's not the alpha-and-omega.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that many of the members of the Supreme court don't understand scientific notation given that they
didn't know what the word "orthogonal" meant. Actually, they probably don't understand what heat death means either.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[oh2]

As long as politics in the US is decided by who has the largest wallet things like that will be the logical conclusion.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[AthanasiusKircher]

Yes it was.

The English Statute of Anne (1710) which predated the German grant of rights by nearly 85 years was in its own words enacted "for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books".

Yeah, and that wasn't the beginning of copyright. There were hundreds of years before that where various laws and restrictions were created to encourage various people and prohibit various things in relation to copyright.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law

So what was your point?

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Grimbleton]

Really? A thousand jokes you could have made off this and THAT'S what you go for?

Re:The copyright cash cow

[AthanasiusKircher]

What you mean, is the author's right.

Which, from what I heard, is nearly meaningless in the USA. Right?

Actually, no. It's only meaningless if an author gives away that right. By default, the author has it. Many publishers insist on taking it as a condition of publication, but not all.

The problem with the US system has little to do with book publication anyway, as authors have taken a back seat to Walt Disney and movie studios in the fight to retain rights. When you have giant corporations fighting legal battles and lobbying legislatures, of course things are going to get out of hand. And all of this is continued by giant corporations who buy up various rights from defunct publishers or estates. That sort of thing has nothing to do with the original intent of (US) copyright law.

But the creator of a work does have your "author's right" by default. The author has control of who gets to make copies, hence copyright. It's the author's right to give up, but it is NOT "meaningless" in the US.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[fruitbane]

According to US copyright law and Project Gutenberg, the original Sherlock Holmes stories are in the public domain. This means that the original form of the character is available for re-presentation and re-imagining. Now, it may be that there is some later, more potent version of Sherlock Holmes that is still copyright protected. Certainly all of the movies are. But the original stories, and the ability to create derivatives of the original character as written, that's no longer locked up. The Times article is not clear on what's protected and what's not. It's not like for a continuum of works there's simply an on/off switch, protected/not protected.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is not about being creative, just about making money. While you keep doing money, all good. If that money flow could stop, then is time to make new laws to avoid that happens, like extending copyright time or limiting internet freedom

If you think corruption is limited to capitalist environments, you are sadly mistaken.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, nobody wants to give up rights to it because they can make money from it.

No shit, Sherlock.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Musicians and rappers tend to leave behind large bodies.

Fixed that.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[BitterOak]

But the original stories, and the ability to create derivatives of the original character as written, that's no longer locked up.

But you still can't use the name or character of Sherlock Holmes, because the character did appear under that name in later works still under copyright. You may claim to be deriving from the earlier works now out of copyright, but the estate could claim that the works are also derived from later ones. It would be pretty much impossible to separate them, as the name of the character and his basic personality and sleuthing techniques didn't change all that much. So one would probably have to wait for the last Sherlock Holmes story to fall out of copyright before one could use the character free and clear.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Holmes nut and a believer in free software and free information, this is an easy question to answer with a one-liner:

$ echo; wget -q -O - http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/advsh12.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2350/2350.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2852/2852.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/834/834.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/108/108.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2097/2097.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/244/244.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3289/3289.txt | egrep -o -i 'elementary, my dear watson' | wc -l
 
0

Of course, the word 'elementary' isn't forbidden:

$ echo; wget -q -O - http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/advsh12.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2350/2350.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2852/2852.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/834/834.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/108/108.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2097/2097.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/244/244.txt http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3289/3289.txt | egrep -o -i 'elementary' | wc -l
 
5

Gotta love Project Gutenberg, which incidentally doesn't think the stories are copyrighted in the US.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Holmes does indeed say Elementary and several phrases close to this, just not exactly that phrase.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Meski]

At least one derived work. There may be others that predate the 1899 stage play. A bad lawyer could keep the courts busy for years, provided that the copyright claim hadn't yet lapsed.

There, fixed it.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[westlake]

Methinks you protest too much. Even Doyle gave Poe credit for being the "father of the detective story", and Dupin the "first" detective.

Poe is important. But Doyle nailed it.

There is a rural library in an unincorporated hamlet about ten miles east which inherited a delightful collection of Holmesiana. It's something wholly unexpected and exploring it can be very pleasant way to spend a quiet afternoon.

However important Poe's contribution to the genre, Holmes and Watson are iconic.
   

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Jeremy Erwin]

Morality is relative.

Disney

[BlackHawk-666]

You can blame Disney and their rodent for the current state of copyright laws. Don't think that when copyright period for Mickey once again draws to a close there won't be a large bundle of cash handed out to the nearest person able to extend the period another 20-50 years.

Re:Disney

[TheoMurpse]

Interesting that we're talking about Sherlock Holmes and you refer to Disney's rodent (Mickey). Because Disney riffed on Sherlock Holmes with The Great Mouse Detective.

Re:Disney

[mlush]

Interesting that we're talking about Sherlock Holmes and you refer to Disney's rodent (Mickey). Because Disney riffed on Sherlock Holmes with The Great Mouse Detective.

Perhaps thats the turth behind the The Giant Rat of Sumatra>

Re:Disney

[myowntrueself]

You can blame Disney and their rodent for the current state of copyright laws. Don't think that when copyright period for Mickey once again draws to a close there won't be a large bundle of cash handed out to the nearest person able to extend the period another 20-50 years.

One way to stop this would be to turn Mickey into an pop culture symbol for a pedophile or terrorist...

Degrade the icon to the point where Disney would rather wash their hands of the rodent.

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to get 4chan to use Mickey Mouse instead of Pedo Bear

Re:Disney

[MikeFM]

What I hate is arguments that if the copyright is allowed to lapse that anyone will be able to create whatever derivative they want and sell them as legit. I've had educated people try to tell my that copyright is keeping Mickey Mouse porn from being sold at Walmart. Talk about a basic misunderstanding. This is the exact bullshit that lets them get away with extending copyrights over and over. I still think the easiest system is to charge a yearly fee that starts off at $1 for the first year and doubles each year afterward. Anyone that doesn't bother to register doesn't want copyright protection. When the cost exceeds the benefit people will let the copyright lapse. I think most material would let copyright lapse within 10-20 years then. Maybe provide an extra time of protection against commercial use if you wanted to be nice - allowing first just personal/non-profit use. One of the problems with patents for example is that companies are willing to wait for your protection to expire and then will use your idea with no renumeration - that IS a problem. I'd also block copyright for any material that uses DRM and hasn't filed a full raw copy with the LoC that can be obtained by the public after the copyright lapses.

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as the current state of the copyright law and the public domain pisses me off, I can't help but laugh at the rationale that was presented when they extended copyright from life of the author plus 50 years to plus 70 years. They really did argue that it was necessary as an incentive for artists to produce—it wouldn't be worth it to do the work if their heirs couldn't benefit from the work that long.

So, a bunch of lobbyists explained, with straight faces, to some congresspeople—who then went on to repeat the explanation in session, also with straight faces—that an author would actually sit around and say, "Let's see, if I finish this novel and it's successful, the revenue will feed my kids for the rest of my life, plus 50 years after I'm dead. Hmm. Nope, for the work I'd have to put in, I'm gonna need the rest of my natural life plus at least 60 years or so, ideally 70. To hell with this 50-year bullshit, I'm going drinking."

Re:Disney

[maxwell demon]

I've had educated people try to tell my that copyright is keeping Mickey Mouse porn from being sold at Walmart.

Then just ask them why there's no King Arthur porn sold on Wal Mart. Because the original King Arthur story definitely is out of copyright now.

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm going drinking."

Sounds like most artists actually...

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

I support that idea. Down with the rodent.

Re:Disney

[Nathrael]

One way to stop this would be to turn Mickey into an pop culture symbol for a pedophile or terrorist...

Oh, you mean like Fafour?

Re:Disney

[sootman]

Which makes Disney the worst kind of hypocrite, since they've built their empire on public domain works, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940) to The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Rapunzel (later this year) and many others in between. Over 70 years of taking from the public domain and what have they given back? NOTHING. Fuckers.

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

By Jove I think you're onto something!

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

What I hate is arguments that if the copyright is allowed to lapse that anyone will be able to create whatever derivative they want and sell them as legit.

Um, people could do just that. That's the whole point of the public domain. You can legitimately copy and make derivative works once something is in the public domain. No, you couldn't put Disney's name on it, because that's a trademark issue, but you certainly could make derivative works to your heart's content. And you could sell them at any outlet that would let you. This is why you can go to Barnes & Noble and buy scads of sequels to Pride and Prejudice. This is why you can buy Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's in the public domain. People can do whatever they want with it.

The reason you wouldn't see Mickey Mouse porn at Wal-Mart is that Wal-Mart does not want to be the kind of place where you can buy Mickey Mouse porn.

Re:Disney

[ckaminski]

Because we have these things called ratings boards, and that WalMart is very careful about, get this...

NOT SELLING PORN.

TYVM. HAND. :-)

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what, that is a terrific idea, we really should make mickey mouse the new symbol of pedophiles, that would teach those assholes that have been destroying the public domain a lesson.

Re:Disney

[mpe]

As much as the current state of the copyright law and the public domain pisses me off, I can't help but laugh at the rationale that was presented when they extended copyright from life of the author plus 50 years to plus 70 years. They really did argue that it was necessary as an incentive for artists to produce--it wouldn't be worth it to do the work if their heirs couldn't benefit from the work that long.

It gets ever dafter when copyright is extended on works which already exist. Even if you allow for the posibility of someone using a time machine to go and convince their ancestor that copyright isn't long enough you run into a classic time travel paradox :)

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, best 4chan related idea ever!

Re:Disney

[maxwell demon]

Score: -1 (completely missed the point)

Re:Disney

[roc97007]

> One way to stop this would be to turn Mickey into an pop culture symbol for a pedophile or terrorist...

's been tried -- LSD. Didn't take.

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, let's see. Seems like this has already been done [wikipedia.org], courtesy of Hamas, and continues. Remember Farfour (~= Mickey Mouse) [Wikipedia]:

On the show, Farfour has expressed radical views. He has stated such things as: "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists"[19] and "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."[18][19] In episode 103, he simulates shooting an AK-47 and throwing grenades.[4][20]

And Nahoul, the bumblebee (Maya the bee?):

On the show, Nahoul has expressed radical views. He has stated such things as: "We will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews,"[27] and "We will go on Jihad when we grow up."[27] In episode 204, Nahoul visits the zoo where streaks of cruelty become apparent for the (first?) time. Nahoul states: "The cats here are asleep - the poor, wretched, imprisoned cats. I feel like abusing them. This cat is asleep. I feel like attacking it." [28] Nahoul then proceeds to swing cats by their tails and throw them around their cage[28].

And Assoud the rabbit (Bugs Bunny):

Before Nahoul's death, Assoud lived in Lebanon; he returned "in order to return to the homeland and liberate it."[30] On his deathbed, he instructs Palestinian children that they must fight and die to liberate Haifa, Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities.[32][33] Assoud hinted in episode 302 that he would be replaced by a tiger when he was martyred.

And it continues:

Nassur, a brown bear, is the current co-host of Tomorrow's Pioneers. He claims to have come to the Gaza Strip to become one of the mujahideen and to defend the children of Palestine (although he gives evidence that he may have come from Iran). As such he has vowed in his debut episode on February 13, 2009, to "join the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades where his activities will include such things as "wag[ing] Jihad" and "carry[ing] a gun."

Needless to say, Disney was "not amused":

The Disney corporation initially had no public statement on the use of Mickey Mouse's image in the Farfour character; Disney CEO Robert Iger later said, "We were appalled by the use of our character to disseminate that kind of message." He explained the initial quiet by saying, "I just didn't think it would have any effect... I think it should have been obvious how the company felt about the subject." [24].

and

73-year-old Diane Disney Miller, Mickey Mouse creator Walt Disney's last surviving child, commented to the press that, "What we're dealing with here is pure evil and you can't ignore that." She further commented that, "It's not just [about] Mickey, it's [about] indoctrinating children like this, teaching them to be evil. The world loves children, and this is just going against the grain of humanity."[82]

Oh, and it isn't only Hamas that is doing that:

Other Palestinian children's programs have allegedly used the Mickey Mouse image to incite radical activities. According to the Anti-Defamation League, a 1998 episode of the program The Children's Club on official Palestinian Authority television had a "Mickey Mouse"-type figure amidst children praising suicide attacks against Israelis.[5]

and

In September 2008, Fatah also began broadcasting a competing show targeting children on the Official PA TV network. This program also features use of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.[38]

Sadly, the misuse of cartoon characters continues, and despite the fact that copyright gets extended. The honest people care about copyrights, and they are the ones who are onerously limited in their access to culture, while those who indoctrinate hatred don't give two hoots (well, they do periodically change the character to move on to offend another show character).

Re:Disney

[Macrat]

One way to stop this would be to turn Mickey into an pop culture symbol for a pedophile or terrorist...

Isn't the Dinsey Channel's sexualization of young teens already make it the pedophile icon?

Sherlock Holmes on Project Gutenberg

[Anonymous Coward]

Sherlock Holmes on Project Gutenberg

Re:Sherlock Holmes on Project Gutenberg

[Volante3192]

Yeah...which is why this is such a mess. Most of Holmes' original stories ARE public domain. (The last book isn't.)

So we've got a bizzare limbo where the character is still under copyright but (most of) the stories aren't.

What a crock

[davmoo]

The fact that none of the current living "heirs" is a direct descendant of the author is further proof of how screwed up our system is.

But I can understand why they fight so hard. If they didn't have Holmes, they'd have to all get real jobs and work for a living.

Re:What a crock

[derGoldstein]

The fact that none of the current living "heirs" is a direct descendant of the author is further proof of how screwed up our system is.

IANAL, but can't an "estate" be sold just like a copyright or a trademark?

Re:What a crock

[the_humeister]

If they didn't have Holmes, they'd have to all get real jobs and work for a living.

I wonder what the other Holmes's reaction would be? Thinking long and hard until he had an explosive idea I suppose.

Re:What a crock

[lordholm]

The only reason to extend after the death is to ensure that the husband/wife receives a pension and the children are supported until they can start working by themselves. For the first part, 70 years is most likely a bit excessive for most cases, and for the second case definitely excessive. How about: lifetime of spouse or until the youngest child is 25 years, whichever is greater. This may be difficult to administer, in that case, just make it 25 years after death and you have covered it in 95% of all cases.

Re:What a crock

[Tim C]

I don't see why not, and copyrights can certainly be transferred. The screwed-up bit, in my opinion, is this:

In 1980 Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle’s other works entered the public domain in Britain. In America the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976 gave an author or his heirs a chance to recapture lost rights; Conan Doyle’s daughter, Jean, did so in 1981.

So here in Britain they would appear to be in the public domain, as one would expect, but in the US his daughter was given the chance to say "no, actually, I'd like to keep the copyright for longer please"? Or am I misunderstanding that paragraph?

Re:What a crock

[LordLucless]

Huh? What's so special about an author, that they get life insurance for free? Everyone else has to pay for that sort of guarantee for our dependants. Copyright should be a fixed term, regardless of the mortal status of the author.

Re:What a crock

[derGoldstein]

This reminds me of the Smiley Face trademark escapades. The posters for the Watchmen movie were different depending on the country. There was also an issue with Wal-Mart using it, apparently.

Copyright lawyers have to earn their salaries somehow, I suppose.

Re:What a crock

[lordholm]

I am not defending it, I am just simply saying that those reasons are basically the only ones that hold at all for having copyright extended after the death of an author. I do agree with you, but if you want to reform the copyright system you need to come up with ideas that can gain acceptance from more than the slashdot readers. Saying 25 years with the motivation that it covers the children until they start working is pragmatic in the sense that it would be possible to accept it, even for the copyright mafia, since there are virtually no reasons that they can come up with for extending it. 25 years is also a lot less than 50/70 years as in the EU, and 90? as in the US.

Re:What a crock

[wisty]

I agree. Why should the works of a long-living author be worth less than the works of an author who dies early?

Re:What a crock

[LordLucless]

Bull. There will never be any reduction in the copyright term, regardless of what arguments you make, until the US government is not owned by the corporations. The copyright term has been set and extended based on what is good for those who lobby. Unless you can convince the copyright loby that a lower term will make their industry more profitable for them (good luck) or prevent them from exerting undue influence on Congress, the only change that will be made will be upwards.

They don't need reasons to keep extending it when they have dollars.

Re:What a crock

[Toonol]

In America the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976 gave an author or his heirs a chance to recapture lost rights; Conan Doyle's daughter, Jean, did so in 1981.

Yes, and it's a travesty. The heirs of Jack Kirby are using it in an attempt to steal dozens of characters that Kirby helped create while at Marvel back in the 60's, and the heirs of Siegal used it to reclaim the character of Superboy from DC. It is going to happen a LOT in the upcoming decade.

Re:What a crock

[Toonol]

How about: Copyright lasts 30 years.

Why all this 'x after death, or y if z' nonsense? The heirs receive the benefit of the money the creator makes from the work, after all.

Re:What a crock

[shutdown -p now]

I do agree with you, but if you want to reform the copyright system you need to come up with ideas that can gain acceptance from more than the slashdot readers.

Given that content consumers significantly outnumber content producers, I don't think getting wide acceptance for significantly reduced copyright terms (or any other similar scheme; my favorite is unlimited term, but with a fee required to sustain copyright after an initial period of a few years, growing linearly as time passes) would pose a problem.

Re:What a crock

[h4rm0ny]

Huh? What's so special about an author, that they get life insurance for free? Everyone else has to pay for that sort of guarantee for our dependants.

You get paid in real time. Do a month's work, get a month's pay, set some aside for life insurance or pension. An author is more like a long-term investor. They put in a lot of work up front and their rewards come in over years, sometimes decades. If you write a novel, die, and then a year later it gets its second larger print run after good reviews / word of mouth, or it gets bought for turning into a film, or whatever, your widow would get nothing to represent the value of the work. That's why copyright projects forwards in time, because the earnings project forward in time. What, if your partner invests all their hours and money into long-term stocks, you don't get the earnings back from that because they died?

Also, it reduces the incentive for movie producers to kill you so they can use your work for free. ;)

Re:What a crock

[LordLucless]

If you write a novel, die, and then a year later it gets its second larger print run after good reviews / word of mouth, or it gets bought for turning into a film, or whatever, your widow would get nothing to represent the value of the work.

Huh? Of course she does. I didn't say copyrights should expire on death - I said they should extend a fixed term. All other things being equal, your widow would get exactly what she would of got from that work had you lived out the entire term.

Re:What a crock

[foobsr]

How about: lifetime of spouse or until the youngest child is 25 years, whichever is greater.

Pff, they will ensure that offspring is created from a sperm bank each quarter of a century.

CC.

Re:What a crock

[JAlexoi]

Nope. Actually fixed term copyrights are the best countermeasure against "incentive for movie producers to kill you so they can use your work for free".
If the copyright is fixed at 70 years after publication, then nobody cares you are alive or dead. If the copyright is your life + 70 years, then there is a higher incentive to kill you to get the work in the public domain ASAP.
BTW this extreme privileges that writers, singers and actors get. Painters and sculpturers never had those, and are now fighting to have a cut of their work's re-sales.

Re:What a crock

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW this extreme privileges that writers, singers and actors get. Painters and sculpturers never had those, and are now fighting to have a cut of their work's re-sales.

Which God forbid, or we might end up in the crazy situation where you can't sell your house without tracking down everyone who has owned the property in the last 2,000 years to pay them their "earnings".

One sale, one sale only, applied to everything, is the only reasonable way to go. Bet it never happens.

Re:What a crock

[91degrees]

International treaties limit this to a 50 year minimum. For practicality it might make sense to have all copyrights expire at the end of a calendar year. Slight issue as to whether this is after publication or creation (should I get an effectively shorter copyright simply because I spent 30 years making sure it was perfect, or an effectively longer copyright because nobody bothered to publish it until I'd been dead for 90 years? Should my personal diary never be published even if it of considerably historical interest in 2510?)

Aside from that I agree.

Re:What a crock

[Wildclaw]

An author is more like a long-term investor.

In that case, they should either work for a salary for a book investment company or run their own company (which again needs investment of some kind). That is how business usually works. Not being able to collect a steady salary is something any upstart entrepreneur without backing has to deal with. There is nothing special about authors there.

They put in a lot of work up front and their rewards come in over years, sometimes decades

You will find very few cases were you don't have have an 80-20 distribution with the 80% being in the first 5 years. Small enough percentage that we shouldn't worry about that, just like we don't worry about the companies who go under because they fail to make a profit in the first five years.

What, if your partner invests all their hours and money into long-term stocks, you don't get the earnings back from that because they died?

What if your partner dies after having spent all their money into their startup company? Shit happens. That is why we have social safety nets.

Re:What a crock

[Wildclaw]

Why should the commercial copyright part be owned by private people in the first place? The right to be recognized as the creator is one thing. There shouldn't even be a time limit on that one. But the money part? Why is authorship treated so differently from any other type of work?

Re:What a crock

[TheLink]

> those reasons are basically the only ones that hold at all for having copyright extended after the death of an author

There's another reason: if copyrights ended on the death of an author, authors might somehow end up having lower lifespans than average.

Having it author's death + 25 at least makes them wait a bit longer...

Fixed term from creation date is better of course - decouples the death from the copyright.

Re:What a crock

[addsalt]

Given that content consumers donate significantly less money than content producers, I think getting wide acceptance for significantly reduced copyright terms (or any other similar scheme; my favorite is unlimited term, but with a fee required to sustain copyright after an initial period of a few years, growing linearly as time passes) would pose a problem.

You may want to think about that one again.

Re:What a crock

[maxwell demon]

One could make a combination of both, say 50 years after publication, or 100 years after creation, whichever happens first.

Re:What a crock

[icebraining]

A house painter works for hire; he's not legally the author of the work.

A work made for hire (sometimes abbreviated as work for hire and WFH) is an exception to the general rule that the person who actually creates a work is the legally-recognized author of that work. According to copyright law in the United States and certain other copyright jurisdictions, if a work is "made for hire", the employer--not the employee--is considered the legal author.

Re:What a crock

[delinear]

Maybe that's not a bad thing, if it gets used against some big studios maybe they'll be able to do something about getting it reversed - they certainly have deeper pockets/more immediate vested interest than the average Joe.

Re:What a crock

[delinear]

It wouldn't be too hard to administer, you just transfer the burden to the estate, say after 25 years it automatically expires unless the heirs meet your criteria and they fill out the relevant forms annually. If they're getting an income based on someone else's work, the least they can do is fill out a form to prove their entitlement, plus this will help works which nobody wants to protect enter the public domain sooner.

Re:What a crock

[stdarg]

Out of curiosity, do you see a difference between copyright and shares in a company?

The shares of a company that no longer provides anything of interest are worthless. The copyright of a story or character that nobody has interest in is worthless.

The owner of the shares doesn't have to do any work, just take the proceeds of the work others do. The shares only exist to make the ownership clear. Copyright holders also don't have to do any work, just take the proceeds of the work others do (via licensing etc... there's no pay in simply holding onto a copyright).

The only real difference is that ownership of shares doesn't expire.

Re:What a crock

[Anonymous Coward]

The "recapture lost rights" bit, in this case, only means that the author's descendants could get still-existing copyrights back from other entities (publishers, etc.) which owned them. It didn't take stories which had already seen their terms expire out of the public domain (as had happened to nearly all Sherlock Holmes stories).

For some works which had entered the US public domain due to failure to comply with technical provisions of pre-1978 US copyright laws other than term expiration, this act did take works out of the public domain. The Lord of the Rings books are probably the best-known example: the copyright of the first editions published in the US had been lost because the British publishers sold too many foreign-printed copies before having copies printed in the US.

Re:What a crock

[fgouget]

An author is more like a long-term investor.

In that case, they should either work for a salary for a book investment company or run their own company (which again needs investment of some kind). That is how business usually works. Not being able to collect a steady salary is something any upstart entrepreneur without backing has to deal with. There is nothing special about authors there.

There is: without copyright law anyone can make and sell copies as soon as the author has sold (or even shown) his first copy. That's an issue that companies that deal with physical products don't have to worry about... Copyright is needed whenever the value is not in the easy to duplicate physical good, but in the story / image / software it contains.

What, if your partner invests all their hours and money into long-term stocks, you don't get the earnings back from that because they died?

What if your partner dies after having spent all their money into their startup company? Shit happens. That is why we have social safety nets.

You inherit all his shares into the company so if it succeeds you get the corresponding dividends. I don't see any problem here.

Re:What a crock

[apoc.famine]

Naw, she'd get twice as much, now that your sorry ass is dead...

Re:What a crock

[tehcyder]

In that case, they should either work for a salary for a book investment company or run their own company (which again needs investment of some kind). That is how business usually works. Not being able to collect a steady salary is something any upstart entrepreneur without backing has to deal with. There is nothing special about authors there.

Not all human cultural activity can be equated with business. Thank God.

Re:What a crock

[mdwh2]

Sounds like being self-employed - do they get free life insurance and pension too?

For the other problems you list, this would be solved by either having it as a fixed term, or something like "life, or 10 years, whichever is longest".

Re:What a crock

[mdwh2]

without copyright law ...

Wait, who was arguing that copyright law shouldn't exist at all?

The argument was about the length of the terms.

Re:What a crock

[mdwh2]

Earning interest or money from shares is something you get because you've given your money to someone else. Obviously there are ways to make money without working, no one is questioning that - other examples would be hiring out a car.

But it doesn't follow that therefore copyright terms should be 70 years after life, or whatever it is now. I'm not sure how interest/shares is analogous to copyright. With interest or investment, or hiring, I have to continue to let the person have my money/car/etc. What does one have to do to earn money continually through copyright?

The only real difference is that ownership of shares doesn't expire.

Shares are ultimately physical property. This is just a variation of "But my ownership of my money/house/car doesn't expire!"

Re:What a crock

[jeffmeden]

If the copyright is your life + 70 years, then there is a higher incentive to kill you to get the work in the public domain ASAP.

Now that's thinking ahead... Except whoever killed you will also likely be dead before the work enters the public domain!

Re:What a crock

[Zordak]

Actually, there are two reasons you don't need to get a copyright assignment from the minimum wage guy who paints your house. One is that there is no creative input into painting a room a single, solid color. It is purely functional, therefore no copyright. Two, even if the next Michaelangelo came and painted a Sistine Chapel-esque mural on your ceiling, selling the house (with the mural) would not involve making a copy. So there is no copyright issue. Now, if you wanted to take pictures of your ceiling and sell them, then you'd have a problem.

Re:What a crock

[Jeremy Erwin]

It's really easy to conjure up a scenario in which the writer, surviving on pennies a word, is rather too busy to deal with the niceties of copyright law, leaving the task to lawyers twenty years after the fact. Hollywood accounting is often employed in the book trade.

Similar to how Quentin Tarantino and other Hollywood cognoscenti occassionally promote a third rate director of schlock films to the status of auteur, mass market authors sometimes create new audiences for once forgotten authors. HP Lovecraft, for instance, died of malnutrition, and yet his literary works are now celebrated by the like of Stephen King. Arthur Machen's popularity waxed and waned during his lifetime. This is not because the works were adapted by better writers, empowered by a climate of copyright uncertainty, but because those better writers were in a position to say: "This author is really good. Read him."

Re:What a crock

[Anonymous Coward]

A house painter works for hire; he's not legally the author of the work.

A work made for hire (sometimes abbreviated as work for hire and WFH) is an exception to the general rule that the person who actually creates a work is the legally-recognized author of that work. According to copyright law in the United States and certain other copyright jurisdictions, if a work is "made for hire", the employer--not the employee--is considered the legal author.

Generally no. A work is only a "work for hire" if it's authored by a regular employee, not a contractor. See 17 USC 101 (scroll down to "work for hire").

I don't know why house painters have anything to do with copyright, though. One, usually painting is non-creative. Two, you're generally allowed to sell a copyrighted work you've bought without consulting the author – you just can't make copies (thus the term "copyright"). So even if someone creatively decorated your house, you could still sell the house without asking them, you'd only have to get permission from them to take photos or such. This is the "right of first sale".

Re:What a crock

[fgouget]

without copyright law ...

Wait, who was arguing that copyright law shouldn't exist at all?

You were. By arguing that 'There is nothing special about authors there' you were denying any justification for its existence.

Re:What a crock

[Jeremy Erwin]

It would probably kill off the short story genre. For ten or twenty bucks, I can purchase a book containing stories by perhaps a dozen of my favorite SF authors, and a dozen more besides. Why? Good authors often possess a surfeit of short stories-- simple vignettes that are too difficult to develop into a novels, but remain unsold to the magazines who buy publication rights. So the remainder, the ones that don't fit current needs, pile up.
If the sale of manuscript meant that the author would lose control over the copyright, such manuscripts would be sold dearly, if at all. Consider film screenplays. Most truly good adaptations are not adaptations of novels, but adaptations of short stories and novels. Fans excoriated Peter Jackson for leaving out important parts of the The Lord of the Rings and the "theatrical editions" are derided as "worthless" or "bastardized". But the prospect of spending 4 and half hours in a movie theater does not appeal to most people. Novellas allow the director the freedom to make an independent artistic statement that is nonetheless faithful to the original.

Re:What a crock

[Sandbags]

I do prefer something slightly different: This provides a reasonable copywrite term for owners of original works, while also protecting and encouraging active investment in valuable works

1) Death of author plus 25 or death of surviving spouse plus 10, whichever comes second. If the initial author is in fact a registered business instead of a person, the copywrite will be 40 years from date of publication.
2) complete sale of rights from the author to a 3rd party sets the copywrite to 25 years from that date. Sale from a spouse to a 3rd party sets the copywrite at 10 years.
3) sale from one party to another not involving the author does not modify the current copywrite term (and that term must be explicetly spelled out in the sale of rights as confirmed by the copywrite office).
4) sale or bequeath from a 3rd party back to the original author or surviving spouse extends the copywrite back to #1 if it had been reduced by sale to a business or 3rd party.
5) a business or entity in possession of the rights may extend those rights by 10 years if at a point in the previous 10 years a product or derivitive work was produced and openly sold at FRAND prices (produced and sold on media available for general sale at non-exclusive merchants, or produced for which tickets to view were sold without restriction on purchasers). This can be done indeffinetly so long as new work is produced!
6) the ORIGINAL work (and each derivitiave) automatically becomes public domain for free access and redistribution in any form after 50 years from publication of that piece of work (if original publisehd in 2000 and derrivitive in 2004, copywrite is 2050 and 2054 respectively), only the rights to produce DERIVITIVE works remain after 50 years and only that right can be extended. (reworkings, remasters, re-edit, directors cuts, and "feat." etc do NOT count as derivitive works, only NEW work reshot/rerecorded and intended to be a completely new work (for example, sequals, complete franchize reboots, spin-offs count, but Metallica doing their old songs with a new symphony orchastra does not, nor would another band doing a cover of their work count).
7) Seperation of tracks/works: placing an old or remastered track on new media as part of a compilation does NOT grant protection to the other track any differently than had it been released indipendently. When works are released as collections, it must be indicated on the packaging which works have differing copywrites by year. Public domain works may be included in compilations, but they must not include any forms of copy protection the remainder of the work may be protected with.
8) "associated work" in the form of behind the scenes features, commentary, shorts, deleted scenes, lost episodes, etc, even if released later as features of another work, hold the copywrite of the original work the associated work is based on.
9) (likely most contravercial here) manditory sale of work: Should a 3rd party offer a copywrite holder who is not the author or surviving spouse a price equivalent to not less than 3 times the previous 25 years total profit on the collective work (adjusted for inflation), the work must be sold in any case where new or derivitive work has not been produced for sale within the previous 10 years, provided not less than 10% of the additional profit from the work produced by the new owner is provided to the owner forced to sell until such a time as the copywrite fully expires (including all extentions). This may not be enforced on any work less than 30 years from original date of publish, nor may the price offer be below the total costs incurred by the owner if the work was un/marginally profitable during the previous 25 years. (this clause is to enforce companies who bought rights from an author to either actively use the work for the intent of profit, or to sell it to someone willing to do so while covering the current owner for any losses as well as guaranteeing potential future profit should the buyer make any.

In a nutshell: If you made it

Re:What a crock

[T.E.D.]

But I can understand why they fight so hard. If they didn't have Holmes, they'd have to all get real jobs and work for a living.

Perhaps by writing a book or something.

Wait, what was copyright supposed to be for again?

Re:What a crock

[mpe]

The only reason to extend after the death is to ensure that the husband/wife receives a pension and the children are supported until they can start working by themselves.

Why should the spouse/children of authors get such special treatment in the first place?

For the first part, 70 years is most likely a bit excessive for most cases

If said spouse is young enough for 70 years not to be excessive he or she is probably also young enough to get a job. As might be the case for many other "Stay at Homes" who were widowed.

How about: lifetime of spouse or until the youngest child is 25 years, whichever is greater. This may be difficult to administer, in that case, just make it 25 years after death and you have covered it in 95% of all cases.

Actually anything which relates to the date of death of the author is difficult to administer. Even without such complexities as several authors collaberating and use of psudonyms.
The only easy to administer system one which relates to first publication/performance/broadcast.

Re:What a crock

[mpe]

BTW this extreme privileges that writers, singers and actors get.

It's not even as if this applies to all of these kind of people. There are "staff writers", "session musicians", "extras". Who do a "job" just like everyone else. In the same way that there are individual musicians and bands who provide live entertainment, but only get paid when they do this.

Painters and sculpturers never had those, and are now fighting to have a cut of their work's re-sales.

Do freelance writers get extra money if someone orders a back issue contining their writing?

Re:What a crock

[h4rm0ny]

We're in agreement - I misread what your parent wrote (he talked about "the only reason for extending beyond death" meaning the only reason to base the copyright expiration a fixed period after death. Clear in retrospect, but I took it to mean what he literally said, as viewpoints like that are floating around this thread. I seem to have been modded rather high for my post - there should probably be a +5 Sounds Confident mod. :)

There are arguments for and against it basing the extension after death. I personally don't make a judgement until someone comes along and actually starts talking details (this type of copyright, this number of years, etc.). There's too much absolutism on these boards.

Re:What a crock

[LordLucless]

Shares are different. They're a risky investment. They cost money to purchase, and there's just as much a chance they're going to vanish and you lose your money as there is that the company will prosper, or pay a dividend. Saying share's should expire is like saying that if you've got your money in a term deposit, the bank should be able to claim it. You earn money for putting your resources at other's disposal. If it's a risky one (shares), your return is likely to be higher. If it's less risky (term deposit) then you're basically being paid for the opportunity cost lost by not having access to your money.

Re:What a crock

[bit01]

Also, it reduces the incentive for movie producers to kill you so they can use your work for free. ;)

This nonsense keeps getting repeated. If you kill somebody it's out of copyright and anybody can copy it - while it has cultural value it then has very low monetary value. No financial incentive.

Not to mention there's already financial incentives to kill business partner/competitors or for an inheritance. Why should copyright be treated differently?

---

Who owns the copy?

Re:What a crock

[bit01]

There's another reason: if copyrights ended on the death of an author, authors might somehow end up having lower lifespans than average.

Please stop repeating this canard. If copyrights expired on an authors death then the work enters the public domain. That means anybody can copy it and it has little financial value due to competition. What's the incentive to kill again?

Besides inheritance and business competition can both create incentives to kill but normal law handles that just fine. There is no reason why copyright should be treated any differently.

---

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives." --Leo Tolstoy

Re:What a crock

[LordLucless]

Yeah, I was going to write that, then settled for "all things being equal" instead, as being less provocative.

Re:What a crock

[JAlexoi]

Technically you wouldn't be allowed to post pictures of that room in the "For sale" description. How stupid is that!?!?!?

Re:What a crock

[JAlexoi]

Ever heard of comparative adjective? I said HIGHER.

Re:What a crock

[JAlexoi]

A) Yes it does apply. But those people signed away their rights implicitly or explicitly.
B) I have no idea about freelance writers, but painters and sculpturers are fighting for exactly that.

Re:What a crock

[Zordak]

Just like if you were selling your collection of Twilight novels, you couldn't post the full text of each one with your advertisement. What you own is one physical copy. If you want to post pictures of your ceiling, either negotiate with the artist to assign the copyright to you, or get his permission to use the pictures in your advertisements.

Re:What a crock

[h4rm0ny]

An author is more like a long-term investor.

In that case, they should either work for a salary for a book investment company or run their own company (which again needs investment of some kind).

If copyrights expire for the author, then they expire for the publisher. Unless of course you're arguing for businesses to be able to hold copyrights that individuals can't? Disney would love you for that.

As regards your saying that authors should require investment by book company, be required to start and run their own company or be sufficiently wealthy that they can disregard making money from their time - why? Why do you want to put more power in the hands of big companies when selling things online finally grants small independent authors (and musicians) the chance to finally sell directly to the public without suffering for it. At a stroke, your "should" excludes not only a large majority of established authors, but denies entry to the field to a lot of potential authors, who usually start off this way. You'd turn everyone into beggars at the doors of big business. And why? There is no purpose to your answer.

What if your partner dies after having spent all their money into their startup company? Shit happens.

Some of us prefer to try and stop shit happening rather than just noticing it.

That is why we have social safety nets.

Brilliant. It's okay if someone gets ripped off because they can subsist on welfare. Yay - the welfare state.

Re:What a crock

[stdarg]

Everything you've said is true but it also applies to copyright.

1. Writing a book is a risky investment, most don't ever make money and you end up wasting a year of your life (or more).

2. Saying copyright should expire is like saying if you got "enough" money back, you forfeit the initial investment (indeed this is exactly what happens).

3. You earn money for putting your resources at other's disposal. In this case the copyright holders put their resources at the disposal of some movie producer, who they have to hope isn't going to make their resource look bad and depreciate in value.

And the key point I meant, which I just realized I completely forgot to include in my original post, is about inheritance (which is a lot of the focus in this Holmes case). You can inherit shares just like you inherit copyright. At that point, there's no more risk of capital or work involved, it's just taking a stream of income for as long as the underlying asset has worth.

Ah, greed

[derGoldstein]

Mr. Lellenberg said that Sherlock Holmes remains under copyright protection in the United States through 2023, and that any new properties involving the detective “definitely should” be licensed by the Conan Doyle estate. Asked about a recent Red Bull television commercial that features a cartoon Holmes and Watson, Mr. Lellenberg said he had not seen it. “Very interesting,” he said. “News to me.”

He then twirled his mustache, petted the Persian cat on his lap, raised an eyebrow, tilted his head, rubbed his hands together, and said: "release the lawyers!"

So much for public domain...

[Manip]

So you create copyright works in country A, and when that expires you then renew your copyright in country B? After that expires will they just transfer it yet again to another country and extend it yet again? Since all of these countries have [evil] trade treaties copyright in one is copyright in all....

Copyright is seriously out of control and I point the finger squarely at the US for creating this greedy flawed system...

Re:So much for public domain...

[interkin3tic]

Copyright is seriously out of control and I point the finger squarely at the US for creating this greedy flawed system...

That's fair, because after all we did invent greed and abusing outdated laws.

Re:So much for public domain...

[Psaakyrn]

Funny, cause the Berne Convention came first (in the sense of copyrights lasting longer than the author).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works

Re:So much for public domain...

[Chief Camel Breeder]

I thought, perhaps wrongly, that the copyright was attached to a particular edition of a book. Therefore, if a book was published separately in the UK and in the USA, I could make a facsimile of the British edition and distribute that in the USA while the American edition was still in copyright. Correct? Wrong? Different rules for images of the pages vs OCR'd text?

Re:So much for public domain...

[youn]

I'm surprised no one has patented greed... so he could be the only one to use it... all others would have to get a license

where does the 2023 date come from?

[Trepidity]

The article doesn't explain precisely why it's still under copyright, except that it was renewed in 1981 after falling into the public domain, as permitted by the Copyright Act of 1976. But why hasn't it fallen back into the public domain again? Looking through this chart, I can't find any combination of circumstances that would allow an 1887 work, whose author died in 1930, to remain in copyright until 2023.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[91degrees]

My guess is:

A few of the short stories are still under copyright because they weren't originally published in the US. Nobody owns the characters because they're in the public domain but the person/group who claims to own them (possibly wilfully) doesn't understand this. Guy Ritchie realised it was cheaper to pay them off than to win in court. The journalist doesn't have a clue but figures he can be vague enough and still get a good story.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[TheoMurpse]

Even unpublished works by a corporate entity only gets 120 years of protection in the US, which means an 1887 work would have lost copyright protection in 2007.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Pretzalzz]

The last sherlock holmes story was published in 1927 which would theoretically last under copyright until 2023. But the majority of the stories are pre-1920 and presumably public domain. The post-1923 are also considered the worst according to wikipedia. But mostly in the bookstore you see a large compilation of Sherlock Holmes with every story. To publish every story you'd need to pay a royalty for the 5% still under copyright. The estate charges an inflated amount for this 5% and the publisher pays it since he is spreading the cost over the stories that he doesn't have to strictly pay for.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

120 years.

One. Hundred. And. Twenty. Fucking. Years.

That's just obscene.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[CountBrass]

Interesting use of the word 'only' in the phrase 'only gets 120 years of protection'. 120 years is a lot more than 'only'.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[vrai]

But as an author, if I can't receive remuneration for a work I didn't publish 119 years ago, what's my incentive to continue to write unpublished material? People like you would have us live in an age denuded of ancient, unpublished authors!

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[TheoMurpse]

"Only" as in "It has been 122-3 years since 1887, and you only get protection for 120."

Emphasis is on how 120 122, not on the fairness of 120 year protection. You were just itching to read something into my post that I didn't write.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Dracul]

And consequently (particularly for those making movies) the key characters and associated details remain protected, preventing their use by others. This allows particularly devious estates the option of commissioning new stories with the same characters so as to create all new copyrights for the future (remembering that the plots of stories are not as well protected as the elaborate details that bring them to life).

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Donkey_Hotey]

And they say there's no need for a "-1: Obnoxious, Overbearing, and Clueless" moderation...

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[91degrees]

I think there's some cheat where you can reset by publishing in those 120 years.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[TheoMurpse]

No. The function is min{create+120,publish+95}

Source

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would suggest that facilitating the change of horrendous copyright laws by bringing their insanity to the fore of the public consciousness would benefit billions of people, in which case he is doing much more than you.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[gnupun]

I would suggest that facilitating the change of horrendous copyright laws by bringing their insanity to the fore of the public consciousness would benefit billions of people,

... at the expense of destroying thousands of people (starving authors) and destroying professional book writing. Who's going to write new books if there is no money to be made (without copyright)? A very few hobbyists. Copyright supports the writers with a decent standard of living. A few of them make tons of money, as it should be, if their work is very high quality. And the only people who complain about such people making money are a bunch of jealous nobodies or communists/socialists.

Billions of people would benefit if Bill Gates and the top 100 richest people in the world were robbed of all their wealth, after which it would be distributed amongst the poorest in the world, but that still does not make it right, legally or ethically. The rich people used their resources and talents to acquire wealth whereas the poor did nothing to deserve the free money.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[khallow]

Instead, they should simply hand over their hard-earned works to you goddamn leeches for free?!

I think we should go back to 14+14 years (14 years plus a one time renewal). If they still want it after that point, then they shouldn't have published it in the first place. And the only reason they had "hard-earned" works in the first place is because they stole a bunch of ideas from someone else whose copyright had expired.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[icebraining]

Yes, poor Conan Doyle. If we don't extend the copyright even further, he could die from starvation! Oh, wait...

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[91degrees]

Yes, you're right and I'm completely wrong.

The calculation assumes that the works were created by a corporate entity (which seems ludicrous on the face of it) and that the expiration of copyright for the character expires copyright on the last story expires rather than the first (also seems like a bizarre interpretation of the law unless a considerable portion of what make Sherlock Holmes who he is was written in 1927).

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Holmes stories come under the 1909 copyright act, which uses fixed terms--the author's date of death is irrelevant. Originally, under the 1909 act you got an initial 28-year term, and you could file a renewal for another 28-year term (56 years total). Later, the second term was extended, first to 47 years (75 years total), then to 67 years (95 years total).

This extension took place starting in 1978. So everything published before the end of 1922 (1976 minus 56) is in the public domain, but stuff published in 1923 (provided a renewal was filed in 1951) stays under copyright until 2018 (1923 plus 95).

Nearly all the Sherlock Holmes stories (and all of the famous ones) were published before 12/31/1922, and _are_ in the public domain in the US. But a few were published as late as 1927, and thus retain a US copyright until 2022 (1927 plus 95).

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[DavidTC]

Yeah, and despite what the estate may think, that renders the first part public domain.

You can make a Sherlock Holmes story if you make it only using pre-1922 sources. Like, oh, the recent movie, which is a new story set at a rather specific time in the Holmes Canon. (When Watson is about to get married and move out.)

And it's worth pointing out that some stuff just isn't copyrightable. If some post-1922 mentions Sherlock Holmes' mother is named 'Nancy' (It doesn't, but let's pretend.), that doesn't make some new work infringes if it just mentions that. If she was some important character in a post-1922 story, and showed up in a new work with the same traits, yeah, that would infringe, but certain things are regarded as background information about the character, and won't infringe.

You want to see an example of this in real life, watch the stage show Wicked, which is based off the public domain book, and not the copyrighted movie. (Actually, it's based of the book Wicked, which is based ff the public domain book.) Despite this, they're able to get away with recreating some of the sets from the movie, and integrating some of the changes from the movie plot in. For example, how the 'Wicked Witch of the East' dies is how she dies in the movie, not the book, including a total recreation of the iconic scene of a house on top of her and the yellow brick road stretching off into the distance. (With Dorothy having just headed down it.)

There's not some absolute 'You can never mention anything about this public domain character that is from stuff still under copyright' rule. They do still, however, have the silver slippers from the book, which is more a shout-out to the book rather than some sort of legal limitation...they could probably get away with ruby ones.

Incidentally, and people don't know this, but Superman is public domain also. There are public domain newsreel-style shorts from the 1930s and 40s with him in them. I don't really know how much of the Superman universe that gets you, though.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever done anything that benefits hundreds of millions of people?

Have you? No? Then STFU.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Luyseyal]

Mostly agreed here though I don't think the continuous-character-copyright issue is as clean cut in law as you make it. Definitely want to see a court ruling on that one (if you have a reference, send me one. My Google-fu not so hot on this issue).

IANAL,
-l

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Sandbags]

Simple, protect the FRANCHISE but not to work itself. After a time period, the original work enters public domain, period, it becomes free in any form of media someone's willing to release it on. If you're an author (or buy the rights) and actively produce something that is released to the open market for sale at least once everny 10 years based solidly on the original work (a sequal, spin off, re-imagining, etc, not just a "cover" or remastered work by someone new), then we'll let you protect the rights to DERIVITIVE works as long as you can still profit from them on your own (or until you sell them again).

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Dotren]

The rich people used their resources and talents to acquire wealth whereas the poor did nothing to deserve the free money.

I'm a bit confused... how are an author's children, grand-children, and great grand-children any more deserving of this "free money"? They didn't write the book or use their talents to acquire this wealth, one of their ancestor's did.

I do agree an author needs to get paid, otherwise what is to encourage them to write more beyond their personal enjoyment of doing so? However, current copyright is extreme and, if big business has their way, will eventually be extended to infinity and the public domain will die. It is VERY possible to lose great works of culture if a company decides they want to spike the price of a certain work by stopping it's production for x amount of years.

I still think a set duration is best. Anywhere from 12 to 20 years sounds reasonable to me and gives the creator plenty of time to not only earn money from their work but also start on their next project. If they die during the copyright of a work then it should pass on to their estate but it should still expire at the end of it's allotted time.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[ckaminski]

This is utter bullshit - people will write just to write.

Visit storiesonline.net sometime and see the many book-length stories created and posted there, for absolutely nothing more than the love of writing.

People aren't going to stop performing/creating artful works. The point of copyright was to get people to SHARE them rather than lock them up in a vault.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you know what, they should find a new line of work other than imaginary property. Entertainment is nothing more than information and information wants to be free. Dipshit Capitalists on the other hand use imaginary property to steal from the poor. Yes, the top 100 richest people should be robbed as they have robbed from the less wealthy, that is what capitalism is. Communism is all about equality. A fine example is the Native Americans. The soviet union was nothing more than fascist capitalism. COMMUNISM FTW!!!!!

"Sherlock Holmes was the Conan Doyle family curse"

[lordlod]

The Conan Doyle family would like your pity.

They were forced to obtain and maintain the copyright on the Sherlock Holmes stories. It's so terribly hard managing all those bank accounts.

In fact, Jean Conan Doyle said that "Sherlock Holmes was the Conan Doyle family curse."

I certainly feel something for the family now.

Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[mykos]

If IP owners are going to be such absolute children about this, maybe we should revert back to the old law.

It was once legally agreed upon that 14+14 years was an adequate amount of time to commercially exploit your copyright. With today's digital distribution and rapid-fire publishing houses, does it really need to be a HUNDRED years?

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Anonymous Coward]

better would be 1922-1790 laws

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Bahamut_Omega]

True enough; as well as making sure that the Mafiaa racketeers get their just desserts. Hmm; extortion, blackmail, fraud, bribery to name the few. Would there be a punishment that would be suitable enough for them? Exiling them to an arctic wasteland would be fun; at least we would lose some of them to either extreme cold; wildlife or starvation.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[IndieKid]

That only works if the IP you're planning on exporting isn't already public domain in the countries you plan on exporting to.

In this instance the IP is public domain in the UK (as I understand it) and you would think the UK would probably be one of the largest markets for Sherlock Holmes stories.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[IndieKid]

Oops, replied to the wrong post... see "Think Like a Politician" posted by Kriss below.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[TheLink]

Yeah, the recent movie Avatar made 1.6 billion USD worldwide after just a month. Not 5 years. Not 50. Not 120.

I say even 50 years is too long.

14 might be OK.

Microsoft has made plenty out of Windows 95. If Windows 95 going public domain is a threat to Windows 7, then maybe they should make something much better right?

And in 5 years they must release something way better than Windows XP. Which is harder, but hey if you want to encourage innovation and increase the pace of progress.

Say they fail, and the Windows XP compatibles and copies start hitting the market, would it be so bad?

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Jason Levine]

I'd like to see a study done on books, music, movies, etc that graphs out how much money they make each year after their release. My guess is that 95% (if not more) of the money is made in the first 5 years. After that, money made on most works likely plummets each year until it brings in a bare trickle of funds. Yes, some works (e.g. the original Star Wars movies) continue to make tons of cash decades after they were released, but I'm betting those are few and far between. We definitely shouldn't shape copyright law to protect 2% of works which are still making money thus locking the 98% of works which aren't from going into the public domain.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[jecblackpepper]

Of course the copyright holders want a long copyright not so much so that they can earn money from older works, but to prevent them becoming public domain and diluting the market for new works that they produce. If copyright were 25 years, then all the films, books, music and TV from before 1985 would be available for everyone. I would think that quite a lot of people would be completely happy to spend their leisure time with just that material - it is still within cultural relevance for most people; whereas century old material is of much less cultural relevance, except for the really great classics.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Jason Levine]

My point was that copyright holders keep saying they need these long copyrights as incentives to create new works. However, how much incentive does a 50 year old work give you if it brings in only pocket change every year? If a study proved that a vast majority of works don't bring in a significant amount of money after X years, then copyright holders' main argument for long copyrights would evaporate. For that very reason, I don't expect that they would cooperate with such a study.

As a side note, if such a study were performed, I wonder whether Hollywood Accounting would work against the movie studios in the study. How much did Lord of the Rings make? Oh, it operated at a loss (thanks to Hollywood Accounting) and continues to do so with no signs of "profit" on the horizon? Well, then, I guess you won't mind simply writing off the loss and releasing it to the Public Domain?

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[AthanasiusKircher]

Agreed. There was nothing wrong with this old law. Fourteen years is often plenty; if the author still cares after 14, he/she can renew it for another 14.

Almost 30 years is more than enough. It allows for the occasional work that might take a few years to achieve popularity. It's about half of most people's adult lifespan.

Then the work reverts to the public domain. Very few works take decades to become popular. And if for some reason the work does become popular 30 years after it was published, the author can always create something new and trade on his/her newly-found fame.

Copyright should not be the default status of a work. The default status should be public domain, with a "limited time" option available for creators (and distributors) to recoup their expenses in their initial public offering of their creation.

Note that the Constitution wants to promote "progress" -- it wants to encourage the production of new works, not allow creators (and their children) to live off one of them for their entire lives.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[mpe]

I'd like to see a study done on books, music, movies, etc that graphs out how much money they make each year after their release. My guess is that 95% (if not more) of the money is made in the first 5 years.

If not considerably less. There's also the complication of staggered releases. If a hardback should be considered the same as a paperback. If a film print should be considered the same as a DVD. Even if a rental DV should be considered the same as a for sale DVD.

After that, money made on most works likely plummets each year until it brings in a bare trickle of funds.

Assuming it is even still "in print".

Yes, some works (e.g. the original Star Wars movies) continue to make tons of cash decades after they were released, but I'm betting those are few and far between.

There's also a certain irony in that some of the most sucessful works nearly didn't get published.

We definitely shouldn't shape copyright law to protect 2% of works which are still making money thus locking the 98% of works which aren't from going into the public domain.

The former may not even be a high as 2%. There also don't appear to be many examples of works which made little or no money for decades then suddenly became popular.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Anonymous Coward]

I live by the 14-14 law. That's where I make my cut point for whether I'll have no whim about torrenting it.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Anonymous Coward]

With today's digital distribution and rapid-fire publishing houses...

This. The old term of copyright was up to 28 years. If publishing today takes one tenth the effort, and has ten times the potential audience, then the new term of copyright should be 28 * (0.1) * (0.1) = 0.28 years.

Think like a politician

[kriss]

If you extend copyright: Some number of jobs (thousands, tens of thousands?) saved. IP exports generating US revenue. No real downside other than "What, you extended it again?" and no clear loser.

No wonder they extend it. They have no real case against doing so.

Re:Think like a politician

[mykos]

I definitely can see how politicians could think like this. Now if we could only convince them that realy people can lose their livelihoods in favor of corporations--simply for watching movies they weren't entitled to watch, or reading books they weren't entitled to read--and this is wrong.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA who am I kidding?

Re:Think like a politician

[lattyware]

Except it'll destroy our culture by having no public domain works, and less incentive to create new works.

Re:Think like a politician

[El_Muerte_TDS]

If copyright is extended jobs are lost. You don't need to hire people to create new stuff because you can still earn money from the ancient stuff.

Re:Think like a politician

[shutdown -p now]

If you extend copyright: Some number of jobs (thousands, tens of thousands?) saved.

What jobs? Once the work is created, the author, strictly speaking, doesn't have a job, unless he starts working on a new one.

Or did you mean lawyers and accountants?

Re:Think like a politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up.

Imagine how many Hollywood Actors could have jobs, if they could just take use anything/anytime.

Oh, that's what China already does with manufactured goods.

Re:Think like a politician

[kriss]

Think bigger. The US has a net export of culture (if I may call it that for the sake of the argument) - Disney is one rather marked example, but say Hollywood in general and ignore all other sources of culture for the time being. There's still a metric fuckwad of products out there in the world with Mickey and Donald images on them. Some are even produced by outfits in places where you actually pay royalties. Disney series - even old ones from the 80's - are broadcast in quite a few countries, also generating royalties. There's still an interest in the older Disney characters (yes, the more recent shows obviously wouldn't be free-for-all even if the characters went free-for-all, but nothing would stop other firms from making their own shows with the same characters)

This translates into a steady stream of revenue coming into the country from the rest of the world. Mickey & Donald. Batman. Superman. Hell, even Popeye. Money translates, sooner or later, into jobs. Either directly in the corporate entity that owns the IP, or by the spending of said money. All this is somewhat tangible. The benefits of not extending copyright aren't.

You (I'm not a resident of the US myself) need to provide some good, solid arguments backed up by good, solid numbers in order to see any sort of change here. That's the tricky part.

Re:Think like a politician

[JacksBrokenCode]

If copyright is extended jobs are lost. You don't need to hire people to create new stuff because you can still earn money from the ancient stuff.

Perhaps you won't be hiring super creative types to make new properties, but your competitors will.

Creativity is not a zero-sum game...

Re:Think like a politician

[zzyzyx]

IP exports certainly wouldn't be generating revenue since other countries didn't extend the copyright and thus can copy the work for free.

Re:"Sherlock Holmes was the Conan Doyle family cur

[N3Roaster]

I suspect there are more than a few exorcists on /. who could devise some way of lifting that curse. Of course, the curse is borne by choice.

Unspeakable Evil...

[__aaclcg7560]

Wasn't Professor Moriarty put in charge of the U.S. Patent Office?

Re:Unspeakable Evil...

[Anonymous Coward]

Moriarty works for Disney? That insidious bastard!

"Really, sir?"

[Anachragnome]

"Yes, really, Watson. I'm sure the Traveler will allow us the use of his machine."

"Is there no other way, sir? This seems most excessive..." Watson trailed off, fully aware of the futility in trying to sway Holmes from his conviction. Perhaps Holmes is right. Nip this in the bud while the opportunity still remained.

"Sir, how do you suggest we approach this matter? Surely you cannot expect to drop in from a century in the future and expect tea and scones? The matter of that rather scary looking contraption you wish to employ needs to be addressed as well, sir."

"Quite simple, Watson. I intend that we should mount this "contraption", as you put it, and set the controls to precisely 19 feet in elevation, the corner of Glasshouse and Regent, on the morning of August 16 in the year 1974. Then return." Holmes removed his spectacles and gave them a quick rubbing with the bottom edge of his smoking vest, closely watching Watson from the corner of his eye. The smoke from his pipe cloaked his gaze from Watson.

Watson's eyes glazed slightly as he took in what Holmes had just said. Then they widened. Then they widened more.

"You cannot be serious, sir! You mean to crush Ms. Nina under that contraption?" Watson said, his astonishment tinged with an obvious air of distaste. "Sir, I implore you. Have we really come to this? Time traveling assassins?"

Holmes, more tired then he had ever been in his life, gave Watson a sad, almost regretful smile. "If we are ever to live the life Arthur intended, to solve the riddles that require solving, to live up to our potential, she must die. Then all will be right in the world of Sir Doyle."

Watson, always the one to find some solace in the worst of circumstances, flashed Holmes a quick grin of highly polished teeth. "Can I bring a camera?"

Quote from article

[gd2shoe]

He wasn't referring to the Great Mouse Detective. He didn't need to to be on topic. From the article:

But Mr. Lellenberg said the group pays careful attention to the management of other venerable pop-cultural properties: the Walt Disney Company, which is preparing to celebrate the 82nd birthday of Mickey Mouse, has “always been at the leading edge” of intellectual property law, he said.

(Yeah, I don't expect anybody to read them. Most of the time I don't either.)

Re:Quote from article

[TheoMurpse]

I very literally said he was referring to Mickey, not the Great Mouse Detective:

you refer to Disney's rodent (Mickey)

What part of that did you not understand?

Re:Quote from article

[gd2shoe]

The part where you weren't speaking in complete sentences*. You don't always have to speak in complete sentences to be understood, but sometimes people will misunderstand you. It's a simple fact.

(*Technically, neither of your statements was a complete sentence. It was the second that I misinterpreted, though, and not the first.)

Re:Quote from article

[Fjandr]

I took it as referencing the "Offtopic" mod to your comment rather than anything the GP said, albeit a bit unclearly. I could be wrong though.

Re:Quote from article

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be an arse, it was perfectly clear what he was saying, and you clearly just missed the "Mickey" in parentheses and immediately decided it was a great chance to prove your superiority. Maybe try reading the whole comment before your rage drives you to hit reply next time.

Re:Quote from article

[gd2shoe]

Was Mickey mentioned in the first sentence fragment or the second? Checking... yup - the first. What did I admit to misunderstanding? Oh, yeah, that's right... the second sentence fragment.

Each mistake that you think I made can be found in your post. Do us both a favor. Relax. Breath. Reevaluate the conversation from scratch. Don't come at it with a preconception. Now that you've had a fresh look, decide if you have anything to add.

(And please don't come at me as AC. I usually don't respond at all to AC. If you're going to call someone out, have the dignity to use your account.)

i don't understand

[fan of lem]

i don't understand.. why is one of his books being "sold" for free then?

Re:i don't understand

[Jiro]

Because this is a typical kdawson article, that in this case picked a New York Times article that was itself also clueless.

Most Holmes stories were published prior to 1923 and are in public domain in the US. The remaining stories are copyrighted, but if you don't use any elements from those copyrighted stories you should be fine, and since they are only a few at the end, it really isn't all that hard not to use anything from those stories. To say that Sherlock Holmes is copyrighted until 2023 is a little misleading--if you want to use material covering his entire Doyle career (his last Doyle story was 1927), then you have to wait until 2023, but you generally won't need to.

Re:i don't understand

[DrXym]

For me that page says - Print List Price: $3.99, Kindle Price: $2.35 includes VAT & international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet, You Save: $1.64 (41%). So maybe it's free to US Kindle owners, but not international ones. Poor dumb saps.

Re:i don't understand

[JAlexoi]

Or stay the fuck away from the US market. I pray to god, for you guys to have a revolution, since you are being fucked over by all of that "new royalty".

Re:i don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that. A big clue - all the companies that collect 'royalties'. The best state for Royals has been achieved - serfs who think they are free so they cause no trouble but are actually indentured up to their necks.

Re:i don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

You and me both, this is just a small issue compared to some of the others. I have been reading up on the revolution and I miss the crown!

Re:i don't understand

[houghi]

but if you don't use any elements from those copyrighted stories you should be fine,

You mean like acharacter called, well, Sherlock Holmes.

Re:i don't understand

[Adrian Lopez]

You mean like acharacter called, well, Sherlock Holmes.

No, because Sherlock Holmes is not exclusive to the copyrighted stories.

No shit, Sherlock?

[flyingfsck]

That Americanism says it all...

Re:No shit, Sherlock?

[TheLink]

I thought it would be:

No Sherlock? Shit.

Get rid of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to get rid of copyright. The endless greed of parasites who no longer make any real contribution to society disgusts me. I published my own stuff under Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike). I hope that in a generation or two things will be different.

Re:Get rid of copyright

[Andorin]

You do understand that Creative Commons licenses are legally based on the very same copyright you want to get rid of, right?

Re:Get rid of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the AC you replied to, but without copyright, the need for a Creative Commons license goes away.

I, however, am not for getting rid of copyright. It needs some huge reform to scale everything back to reasonable time spans. Forever less a day is not "limited times" and that's what Congress is essentially doing with all its myriad extensions.

Re:Get rid of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good point so is GPL, LGPL, and most other open source licenses.

Also lets be honest with ourselves folks as to why do we want to get rid of copyright? Should it be limited yes. Is the limit too big right now, absolutely. Bit the only reason you would want to get rid of it is to swipe a copy of something you like. It does however have its uses.

This shows very well what is wrong with copyright and what is right with it.
http://www.osnews.com/story/22716/Lessig_on_Copyright_and_Science_at_the_University_of_Amsterdam

The for profit motivation of copyright has become the elephant in the room.

Re:Get rid of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Pity you didn't post your name. I would have taken your works, replaced your name with someone else's in violation of the license, and reposted them everywhere possible. Watching you writhe with the dilemma of protecting your works using copyright and being branded a hypocrite or staying true to your principles and letting all the credit for your work go to another would be priceless.

I suggest any /.er with an iota of rationality should do the same to anyone who proclaims copyright needs to be abolished.

Moriarity was a professor?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll try to remember to ask about that, when I get around to his bar again.

Re:EAT IT LEFTARDS

[Anonymous Coward]

/me *buys* a lot of stock in insurance companies. They will continue to be able too trow you off for no good reason, and efectively destroying someone's life - what death panels ?

Bring back 50 years

[dugeen]

We should have left copyright at 50 years, never mind 75 or 100.

Jeremy Brett series is a good example

[Sockatume]

I have to wonder if the 1980s Granada series of Holmes adaptations starring Jeremy Brett, the definitive Holmes adaptations to myself and many others, could've been made had the copyright not lapsed.

Copyright laws are theft of culture.

[Greymoon]

Copyrights are granted as a contract between society and the creator. Society grants protection for an artist's work for a brief time, in return society becomes the benefactor of these works once copyrights elapse. Failure to release works to public domain and instituting new copyright laws to lengthen copyright duration violate this contract, in effect theft of culture. Copyrights - 7 years. Patents - 10 years. Anything more is stealing your culture.

In the words of Holmes himself...

[message144]

"This story presents some very singular features".

So many people that think 1989 had dinosaurs

[dbIII]

That was back in the 1800s and VERY different. The current idiocy under that name comes to us directly from the money going into Sonny Bono's pocket, and earlier events of greed and stupidity.
Take "Happy Birthday" as an example which has been protected by insane IP laws for years. It didn't suddenly get protected in 1989 did it? 1989 was when the USA enforced their IP stupidity on other places via joining and altering the Berne Convention.

You can't copyright a character.

[CrimsonAvenger]

You can Trademark a character, but you can't Copyright him.
You can Copyright "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (which is in the Public Domain), but "Sherlock Holmes" isn't Copyrightable.

Note that much of the Holmes canon is in the Public Domain, since it was originally published in the 19th century. There are only a few Conan Doyle stories (and a great many movies and Holmes stories by other authors) that were Copyrighted late enough to still be under Copyright.

Note also that owning the Trademark for Holmes allows one to play goalkeeper for anyone who wants to do an original Holmes work (and extract money in the process), but it doesn't actually allow one to control the republishing of the original Holmes stories from the 19th Century.

Re:You can't copyright a character.

[canajin56]

17 USC Section 101: "A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works..."

Further copyright law defines the distribution of a derivative work as copyright infringement. And that's that, I'm afraid. If you use a character from a book, your new book is based on that old book, therefore a derivative work, therefore a copyright violation. You might say "Well, that's pushing the definition too far!" Well, perhaps. But unfortunately, the courts disagree. At a time when Disney did not have trademarks on his characters, somebody put Micky Mouse in a comicbook. He got sued for copyright violation, and lost. Even though his comic was a parody making fun of Disney, the judge ruled it's a non-fair-use derivative work, since the character looked exactly like Micky Mouse, and to be fair use, it must be only as similar as would be enough to suggest Mickey Mouse to the reader. Even a sliver more similar than that, is illegal.

Now, this case is murky, since only a few of the most recent Holmes books are still under copypright. So, you could try to argue that you're derivative work is based on the early ones only, and not the later ones, since in your opinion, the last ones sucked. IANAL, I have no idea how that would go. I bet no lawyers have any idea how that would go, either, because it's never been tested. The definition does say "one or more". The sue-happy sons of bitches at the Doyle estate would argue that the Holmes character is defined by the sum total of the works about him, and therefore, any new use of the character is based on "one or more" still copyrighted books. Will that counter the defense argument that their new Holmes book is only based on the first few books, since after that, the new books don't add much to the character beyond new situations? No clue.

I wonder if they'll sue Fox over House, next? They freely admit he's based on Holmes, and after all, the law says, based on = copyright infringement. For that matter, look out James Cameron! You openly admitted that Avatar is based on Dances with Wolves! Michael Blake, call your lawyer, it's suin' time!

Re:You can't copyright a character.

[Luyseyal]

Right, but I'm not sure that if you created a derivative work based solely on the the public domain novels it wouldn't be legal. Has that been done in court? Lastly, I imagine there are restrictions on how you can use public domain characters in trademarks. E.g., Intel can't keep us from using the letter "i" as long as we're not selling computer equipment that might be confused with Intel's.

While I think Lessig's argument in the SCOTUS was (sadly) wrong, as the court ruled, I do think there could be an anti-perpetuity argument against trademarking a public domain character since trademarks can be renewed forever.

IANAL,
-l

Re:You can't copyright a character.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Further copyright law defines the distribution of a derivative work as copyright infringement. And that's that, I'm afraid. If you use a character from a book, your new book is based on that old book, therefore a derivative work, therefore a copyright violation.

Alas, derivative works only apply to things under Copyright. Since the Holmes canon is no longer under Copyright, there is no reason to believe that use of Holmes is a violation of Copyright (though it is clearly a violation of Trademark).

Wanna fix copyright?

[kenp2002]

IF you seriously want to fix copyright law why not start with this simple oath:

"I will not vote for a lawyer."
"I Will not vote for a Democrat"
"I will not vote for a Republican"
"I will not vote for a millionaire"

There problem solved, of course it requires the majority of people to take the oath... until then you get the government you deserve.

Re:Wanna fix copyright?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I'd rather fix healthcare than fix copyright.

One keeps me from freely distributing Mickey Mouse cartoons that are 100 years old, the other could break me(But wouldn't if I were in any other civilized 1st world nation).

Re:Wanna fix copyright?

[ChrisMaple]

So you're another idiot who thinks that since the US is better off financially than all other "1st world nations", we should copy the countries that are worse than us.

"Universal healthcare" is universal theft.

To "fix healthcare", it is necessary to remove all incentives which make it more expensive than it should be.

• End laws which make employee health insurance an untaxed expense.
• Make possible the purchase of medical insurance across state lines.
• End the absurdly high lawsuit rewards that make insurance for doctors so expensive.
• End the FDA control over medicine approval
• End licensing of healthcare professionals.

There are many more, and the amount that these would reduce expenses is surprising. Did you know that insurance companies always negotiate payments, and usually end up paying about half the billed amount? Just the five above would cut medical expenses by roughly 75%. That brings medical care into the price range that any moderately careful person could afford without insurance, excepting only catastrophic events requiring intensive longterm care. For this last case one might buy catastrophic medical insurance, at prices much lower than the absurd rates we see today.

Re:Wanna fix copyright?

[mjwx]

IF you seriously want to fix copyright law why not start with this simple oath:

"I will not vote for a lawyer."
"I Will not vote for a Democrat"
"I will not vote for a Republican"
"I will not vote for a millionaire"

There problem solved,

How does voting for no-one help. If no-one votes, the government will simply pick itself.

You haven't thought this plan through have you.

Re:Wanna fix copyright?

[mjwx]

So you're another idiot who thinks that since the US is better off financially than all other "1st world nations", we should copy the countries that are worse than us.

Up yourself much? I'll clue you in on other 1st world nations, Australia, Finland, Sweeden (pretty much all the Nordic states) were relatively unaffected by the GFC that raised unemployment in the US by how much?

Youre just an ignorant USian, you really are a shame seeing as I've met so many Americans who are good people. Apologies to all Americans who have a clue.

"Universal healthcare" is universal theft.

How,

The only way I can see you explaining this is if healthcare is not a zero sum game. But health care is a zero sum game, the money has to come from and go somewhere. At the moment in the US this comes from the employers, which means unemployed or self employed Americans may not have decent health cover. This system does not remove the cost of health care, it simply hides it as the money that pays for it has to come from somewhere and I'll clue you in on where. The money comes from you, from a reduction in wages, an increase in product prices and from your productivity because it's not coming out of the companies bottom line.

So what is the difference between employee provided health cover and government provided health cover, besides the fact that the former only covers many whilst the later covers all, an entirely private health care system increases the number of middle-men and nothing increases prices like increasing the number of middle-men. Universal health care means you're paying directly.

To "fix healthcare", it is necessary to remove all incentives which make it more expensive than it should be.

* End laws which make employee health insurance an untaxed expense.
* Make possible the purchase of medical insurance across state lines.
* End the absurdly high lawsuit rewards that make insurance for doctors so expensive.
* End the FDA control over medicine approval
* End licensing of healthcare professionals.

Let's see, 1 will increase the tax you pay anyway (as you're already paying for health care, just not directly). 4 and 5 are just stupid as this reduces the quality of care down to a third world level. Without testing of medicines and ensuring doctors are competent we deliberately and knowingly place lives at risk. Look at Dr Jayant Patel, this is the doctors you get without oversight.

and the amount that these would reduce expenses is surprising.

then the corporations behind health care will pocket the difference because you're already paying those prices. When Australia's universal health care system, Medicare spends less then it makes that money goes into a holding fund for the next year which reduces the amount I pay. At current for what Medicare costs per person in Australia you'd need a family of six in the US to reach parity.

Re:Wanna fix copyright?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

So you're another idiot who thinks that since the US is better off financially than all other "1st world nations", we should copy the countries that are worse than us.

We're not better off financially than other first world nations. We're probably worse, thanks to relaxed regulations and regulation enforcement.

"Universal healthcare" is universal theft.

So is inflating prices so you can pay for a staff to handle gross inefficiencies in the medical billing system, so is inflating prices for drugs for the motive of profit.

To "fix healthcare", it is necessary to remove all incentives which make it more expensive than it should be.

        * End laws which make employee health insurance an untaxed expense.
        * Make possible the purchase of medical insurance across state lines.
        * End the absurdly high lawsuit rewards that make insurance for doctors so expensive.
        * End the FDA control over medicine approval
        * End licensing of healthcare professionals.

1) This would make healthcare more expensive and could cause my employer to reduce coverage through our group plan or drop it all together
2) This would cause a flight of insurance companies to flee to states like Texas where there are very relaxed regulations resulting in lower quality of care
3) Except this has been done in Texas, Nebraska and other states and insurance costs *didn't* go down for malpractice insurance, it kept going up.
4-5) So I can have a quack doctor prescribe something that is either ineffective or *worse* than science based medicine?

There are many more, and the amount that these would reduce expenses is surprising. Did you know that insurance companies always negotiate payments, and usually end up paying about half the billed amount? Just the five above would cut medical expenses by roughly 75%. That brings medical care into the price range that any moderately careful person could afford without insurance, excepting only catastrophic events requiring intensive longterm care. For this last case one might buy catastrophic medical insurance, at prices much lower than the absurd rates we see today.

The problems wouldn't go away. There'd be no price controls at all, your insurance would be horrible and it'd make life much worse for those who aren't absurdly wealthy independently.

You'd have quacks performing the Gonzalez Treatment and billing out the ass for it(or more than it's worth, which is nothing, considering it's likely it's worse than doing nothing) too. This is atrocious.

the books are public domain aren't they?

[Punto]

I got them all from Project Gutenberg. And kudos for getting the word "upon" into the summary.

Wrong. At first they were used to stifle dissent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. At first they were used to stifle dissent. They were a grant from the crown to a friend (either by paying lots of money or being very nice to the crown) and so the publisher could take someone else's manuscript and copy it and have exclusive right to do so.

If you said something nasty about the crown, you lost the right.

THAT is what it was first made for.

Again with the killing of the golden goose.

[Anonymous Coward]

Again with the killing of the golden goose. Why would you, a company, kill an author so that the copyright expires?

It doesn't go to the murderer on death of the author, you know.

If it did, then solving the crime would be easy.

But now you've also given the same benefit to all your *competitors* in publishing, all they have to do to remove you from the competition is show your guilt in the crime of murder.

They have nothing to fear from investigation into the author's death, since they didn't do it.

YOU did.

So please tell me why you risk EVERYTHING to get copyright removed for all your competitors, just so that you can get hold of it too?

First Sale Doctrine

[Gr8Apes]

The First Sale Doctrine covers the actual work. And in the case of photos/prints, I don't know how they could retain copyright to anything other than their own creations. Someone else can photograph an object and they're good to go. Now if they sculpted or painted something, and didn't sell it and hid it from the world or destroyed it and sold prints/video of them, then they'd retain all rights, as they'd be the sole copyright holders.

Re:First Sale Doctrine

[JAlexoi]

HA! Try to make or publish a photo of Picasso's artwork without Picasso estate's permission.

Jeremy Brett

[K-tWizel]

Funny no one seems to have mentioned the BBC version staring Jeremy Brett who, IMHO, was probably the best at Sherlock. Where does the BBC derive the rights from there?

Re:EAT IT LEFTARDS

[Anonymous Coward]

Best part of the Brown Senate win:

Massachusetts Democrats outnumber their Republicans by 3 to 1. This election was a bellwether... the people are pissed and maybe, just maybe, the incumbent government will figure it out. If not, well, there's nothing that says they have to remain incumbent. Looking forward to November 2nd, 2010.

Copy-Wrongs

[kellyb9]

While I'm not entirely anti-copyright. I just find it sad to think about all the works that could possibly fall into the public domain if this lunacy didn't exist. I'm so sick of these estates profitting on the backs of their talented relatives. If it were in public domain, maybe they could try and prove that the apple didnt fall far from the tree and find a way to profit out of it... or even, god forbid - come up with their own IP.

Laundering Copyright?

[Jeremy Erwin]

This bit seems a bit odd
At her death in 1997, Jean Conan Doyle bequeathed her father’s copyrights to the Royal National Institute of Blind People. The institute sold the rights back to the Doyle heirs, who transferred them into a family-owned company.

You might know that the British copyright to Peter Pan is currently held by the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital (GOSH). Even though Peter Pan is out of copyright in the United States, a British purchase of that same book will "help sick children", and, iirc, purchases will continue to do so indefinitely. The moral arguments against perpetual copyright are thus arrayed against innocent lives. This may be an unique arrangement, but the RNIBP exists for a similarly charitable purpose. Might they too have a special exemption from the normal rules of copyright, an exemption that somehow was transferred back to a private, non-charitable corporation?

Wrong!

[celtic_hackr]

And consequently (particularly for those making movies) the key characters and associated details remain protected, preventing their use by others.

How can I state this?
You're wrong, wrong, wrong.
You're completely and totally FUD spouting wrong.
You're blazingly , amazingly wrong.
Where did you ever get such an absurdly wrong notion, that characters are protectable as long as one version of the character, in a story is under copyright. Works are protected, not individual characters and elements. The characters are protected, because of the work, not the work because of the characters. This is why Disney is pushing so hard to keep people from knowing Mickey Mouse has entered the public domain, as long as you use the Steamboat Willy version of Mickey Mouse. The newer version is still protected. the older one not, due to a flaw in the registration of the copyright.

Re:Wrong!

[BitterOak]

And consequently (particularly for those making movies) the key characters and associated details remain protected, preventing their use by others.

How can I state this? You're wrong, wrong, wrong. You're completely and totally FUD spouting wrong. You're blazingly , amazingly wrong.

Then why is it that despite the fact that most of the stories have passed into the public domain, license fees still have to be paid to use the Sherlock Holmes character? My understanding is until the last story becomes public domain, use of the character has to be licensed. Am I wrong? And if so, why were such huge license fees paid for use of the character in the recent movie?

Re:Wrong!

[celtic_hackr]

Can't say, I wasn't in the meeting. Probably because the fees demanded were less than what a lawyer to defend would cost. But feel free to ask an IP lawyer. Also, if it were true that licenses needed to be paid, then why are the books available freely online at gutenberg.org. Why isn't the family going after them? Because they can't. By your logic, any use of the characters violates the rights in the still protected work and thus even those in the public domain aren't really in the public domain and can't be republished without paying licensing fees. You logic is circular and flawed. Yes, you're wrong. Whoever told them they needed to pay licensing fees was a fool, or had ulterior motives. Hope that clears things up for you.

Name (c)

[drkim]

You can't copyright a name. There are many books and stories that freely use the Sherlock Holmes name.

"...no one should be allowed to have any savings"

[drkim]

Yes... This system is called "taxation"

...ahhhhh, no.

[drkim]

Although Disney is a thriving media company, it's creative output is the sum of all the workers output - not just Walt's.

May I ask exactly what the Conan-Doyle heirs have been producing lately?

It would seem (from the article) that they spend a great deal of time and effort milking Sir Arthur's creative teat.

Perhaps without that free cash, they may have been impelled to go out and produce new creative works of their own.

Jes saying'

Dilemma...

[drkim]

So if the exterminators tent my house with plastic there is no implied copyright because there is no creative content; but if Christo tents my house with the exact same plastic... :)

Christo

Re:EAT IT LEFTARDS

[Anonymous Coward]

the people are pissed

And rightly so - unfortunately, they're pissed at the wrong people.

...ahhhhhhh, yes.

[JacksBrokenCode]

Perhaps without that free cash, they may have been impelled to go out and produce new creative works of their own.

Or perhaps they would have been impelled to pump gas or flip burgers. Who knows?

Using your logic, an author with rights to Conan-Doyle's work has no incentive to create new unique works. Therefore, we don't want Conan-Doyle's work to become public domain because then the masses have access to his work and nobody has incentive to be creative.

The point is... nobody is being prevented from creating, and the only people with any ability to rest on their laurels are people with rights to the work. Wouldn't it then make sense to limit those rights to as few people as possible to encourage the masses to do more creative work of their own?

...ahhhhh, no.

[drkim]

You've just missed my point.

I was not implying that "...an author with rights to Conan-Doyle's work has no incentive to create new unique works..."

I was implying that some people who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth are less motivated to go out and be productive than those who are born to less fortunate circumstances. (This is not a Paris Hilton comment. I promise.)

Even so; I have no idea how you extrapolated that premise into: (if the...)"...masses have access to his work and nobody has incentive to be creative..."

If a work is in the public domain, the masses don't benefit financially, they simply have more access to the work. They still need to be productive to earn a living - and I do consider pumping gas and flipping burgers to be useful, productive work that helps society.

BTW: Where are you getting gas that they still pump it for you? Cool!!!