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Proposed Chinese Copyright Changes Would Encourage Re-Use
New submitter BBCS writes "The National Copyright Administration of the People's Republic of China ('NCAC') is seeking public comments on a controversial draft amendment to China's copyright law. A number of recording artists and musicians have reacted strongly against this proposed amendment because it appears to encourage using others works without compensation. The amendments that have drawn particular ire are article 46 & 48. Per Article 46, one does not need consent to make recordings of another person's musical work if 3 months have passed since such work was published. Per Article 48, to use such person's musical work, one must contact the NCAC, identify the published material and its author, and within 1 month of use, submit a usage fee as per the NCAC, to facilitate the distribution of payment to applicable parties. I wonder what happens when someone applies to make use of Chinese Democracy by Guns N' Roses." What would you do, if copyright were so strongly time-limited?
There's nothing here about using others works without compensation -- this is about manadatory licensing of works, with rates set by the state licensing board. Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on who you are.
...that we're talking about China a LOT lately?
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The lifetime of entertainment media is surprisingly short. Most movies make at least 1/3 of their ultimate revenue in the first weekend. Perhaps the way to define "orphan works" is to expire copyright when 95% of the ultimate revenue has been extracted. The movie industry already makes that calculation to decide when to end theatrical release.
Yes but it looks like its a one time fee. i.e. 3 months after Lady Gaga has released her single you can copy it, pay a 1-time fee of say $10, and then make as many copies as you like for your own ends. Unless the summary misses out that the fee scale is more complex than this, I'm not sure that the balance is right and normally I'm in favour of drastic cutback of Intellectual Property time periods.
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China has no history of embedded civil code; it has always been run from the *center*, by powerful interests that made the law punitive only when one upset "the natural order of things" - e.g. poisoning a rice paddy, or carrying a sign in 1967 that claimed "capitalism is good" - those things would get you killed. However, if you stole someone intellectual property, the dispute was settled strictly between the parties, without the intervention by a civil authority; essentially, it was between you and the thief. In those situations, the person who had the most political power, or local connections, would win. This is simply the way things have been, until very recently, in China.
In other words, no LEGAL sense of protected IP. That is starting to change, slowly, as the world gets wired up, but it will take a while. Another way to say this is that many, many people in China have no problem with lifting someone else IP, because that's the way things have always been. btw, this doesn't make China a thieving culture, but rather a culture where there have been no strictures embedded in civil code to prevent this sort of thing. This is one more reason why international companies need to be cautious with IP in China, and understand how to play hard ball when they have IP stolen.
What would you do, if copyright were so strongly time-limited?
Celebrate.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
How about making it 30 years after initial production. Seriously. Who else can sit back on their work and live it up? Even patents aren't as absurd.
Something like author's lifetime + 20 years.
If so, please explain to me why someone that does a single song could live out of it all of his life. That's not fair, IMO. Stallman (and others) are proposing date of publication + 10 years. THAT seems more fair to many, and I even think that's quite long. Originally, the first copyright laws were about publication + 14 years.
Okay, we've seen the real problems of locking up IP for a century in US copyright law.
Here come the Chinese to say "Hai. You have 3 months to sell it, then it's fair game."
That creates a rapid promulgation of culture. (I didn't read the article) but it doesn't prevent the original artist from using it. Same thing, you can grab someone else's stuff for your own project 3 months later.
It's a hyper-accelerated sharing cycle.
The final end is unknown. They "claim to want to educate children" (in the US) but after the stock basics of who was who in the civil war, "education" gets all tied up in Journal fees.
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China has Copyright laws?
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Well that's about the right price for Oracle stuff.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yes, exactly. Sounds fair enough to me. If you don't want your music "covered" then don't publish it. I don't see why anyone would need the copmoser's (or rather "rightholder's", nowadays) consent to play, record or remix any original works. As long as they pay royalties, if required.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
I never expected, in my lifetime, to wish I had some of the freedoms enjoyed by Chinese citizens.
Well, I think it's also a bit ironic also because in the US there's rather similar laws involving doing a cover version of a song. Yes, there is the issue of whether it's a one time fee or a continuous fee based upon units sold, but in either case it's a mechanical, compulsory process where the copyright holder has little to no say over it. The most interesting part to me of it is that such a law only covers music, AFAIK.
It could be argued this is because music is special, either in that each performance is unique and hence it is that which should be treated as copyrightable, but that leaves the question of why plays and other similar performance works aren't treated the same. After all, it's rather different in whether a group of children or a group of trained actors do Hamlet and whether the play's creator has the right to avoid some sort of "blasphemy" against his artistic vision.
It could also be argued that music is not unique enough in its production--given the seem argument of how few chords are available and how even a few notes might be enough to violate someone else's copyright--but then works like books are based upon a generally unique selection of phonetics and words, although of a grander scale, and based upon plot lines and characters of a generally limited flavor as well. At the same time, authors don't have to pay a "genre" fee and it's usually quite trivial to copy a work or character, so long as one makes a few alterations along the way; still, that would presumably be the same with music since clearly there are many sound-alike songs.
So, overall, I'm just curious about why compulsory licensing of the sort is accepted and whether it's more a means to expand the artistic availability of some authors or more of a money grab by authors (or likely their producers, given how it works in the US) to try to take in more money on copying that is presumed would happen regardless. To that end, it's more of a tax system meant for a subclass of people, and that seems rather dubious.
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I so wish 3 months was the standard for all IP. Imagine all the good it would do!
If obscure companies had no way of showing up years later and demanding payment for ideas they helped write the initial specs for but never put any effort into.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/04/01/2011245/australian-wifi-inventors-win-us-legal-battle
If you could sing "Happy Birthday" on tv without getting sued.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
If movie compression algorithms could be implemented on hardware based on what works best, not who's gouging the least or who's pet project it is.
The definition of IP is to intentionally HURT the end users of your own products as well as your competitors by maintaining a monopoly, retaining ownership even when sold, and requiring licensing long after the usefulness of such is insane.
I think it's high time to get rid of IP permanently.
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