House Judiciary Chairman Plans Comprehensive Review of US Copyright Law

SEWilco writes in with news that U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte plans on conducting "...a comprehensive review of US copyright law over the coming months.""In a speech given in celebration of World Intellectual Property Day at the Library of Congress today, Goodlatte mentioned a few examples of the sorts of problems that he hopes to address in such a review: 'The Internet has enabled copyright owners to make available their works to consumers around the world, but has also enabled others to do so without any compensation for copyright owners. Efforts to digitize our history so that all have access to it face questions about copyright ownership by those who are hard, if not impossible, to locate. There are concerns about statutory license and damage mechanisms. Federal judges are forced to make decisions using laws that are difficult to apply today. Even the Copyright Office itself faces challenges in meeting the growing needs of its customers - the American public.'"

Comments

Head fake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think that the end result will be better, and not worse?

How can I buy if you won't sell?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd happily pay $100 for a certain movie -- but the copyright owner won't sell! BigCorpInc has decided there isn't enough profit to be made so they won't make it available. But a core of diehard fans has been trying to track down remaining copies. I've had a worldwide ebay search running for years now and zero hits. A few copies are known to exist in the private collections of actors who were in the film -- but they don't want trouble from a potential future employer, so they won't make "illegal" copies for us fans.

Once the copyright owner no longer offers the product for sale, the law should allow fans to distribute copies for free. The owner is essentially saying "I can't figure out how to distribute this." Well, we can. So get in gear or get out of the way. It's not costing you lost sales when you refuse to sell.

Re:How can I buy if you won't sell?

[IndustrialComplex]

I think that there need to be a few things which should be added to copyright law:

1. If you aren't making it commercially available it reverts to public domain.
(for a most 2x more than the average for the same mediatype. ie: $100,000 per copy shouldn't be considered making available. So a movie cannot be sold for more than $50 and still be considered available)
2. All copyrights must be registered, and rights must be defined by law and cannot be subdivided. The copyrights must be identifed as sold/transferred to a specific person. If the registry isn't updated within 5 years of the death of the person in the registry, it reverts to the public domain.
(To avoid issues where Bob Author died, and his estate was divided equally among 10 children who then sold portions of odd bits of rights to different corporations in 10 different countries which were then subdivided 100 different ways again.)
3. Property tax must be paid on IP.

Copyright sanity

[Jason Levine]

In a sane world, "a comprehensive review of copyright law" would lead to cutting copyright terms back drastically. Something on the order of 14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year extension. This would take care of abandoned works (after 14 or 28 years they'd be public domain) and would enable us to simplify copyright law. A sane world would also set different penalties for "non-commercial infringement" (you shared that movie on a P2P network for free) and "commercial infringement" (you burned that movie to a few dozen DVD discs and sold them for $5 each).

Of course, I don't think we live in a sane world. Instead, I'm sure we'll see proposals helpfully "guided" by the content industry. Perhaps terms will be lengthened. Maybe penalties will rise. Perhaps more criminal penalties will be enacted and law enforcement will be forced to take a bigger role in arresting individuals whose crime was installing a P2P program that shared out music files on their computer. (Because, you know, law enforcement has nothing better to do than help the RIAA/MPAA enforce their business model.)

I *really* hope that sanity will prevail, but I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Can help you out here

[Anonymous Coward]

You're on to the idea, but not quite there.

1) Shorten the term. It should be about 5 years. The first term is automatic and free. Subsequent terms require copyright-holder registration.
2) Require payment for the extension based on revenue generated in the current term. A copyright tax, essentially. And the amount of revenue should be worldwide gross, not local, not net, and certainly not open to loopholes and interpretation like other tax codes. The rate applied to it should be a flat percentage.
3) Do not limit extensions.
4) If you miss the extension deadline by even a day, it's public domain. No exceptions.
5) Public domain is permanent and irrevocable. No exceptions.
6) All transfers must be registered. A one-time filing fee may be charged. This does NOT reset the clock on the current term. Transfers during the first term are free, except for the filing fee.
7) Copyrights cannot be registered to non-entities (e.g. companies that went out of business) or foreign entities (e.g. foreign copyright havens) and retain copyright protection. This means that to retain a copyright in the US, a foreign entity must set up a local shell corporation to hold copyrights for them. Unregistered copyrights go to the public domain after the first term.

That gives everyone what they want. Disney can keep Mickey locked up for a million years, as long as they don't run out of money. Abandonware is public domain within a term length. No more abandonware that doesn't have an identifiable owner. And no more congressional shenanigans due to treaty pressure pulling stuff into an undefined foreign copyright term after it's been in the public domain.