Happy Public Domain Day: Works That Copyright Extension Stole From Us In 2015

Jennifer Jenkins, Director of Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, points out what could have entered public domain in 2015 but won't and why we need to use the upcoming Public Domain Day to focus on the importance of copyright reform. She writes: "What could have been entering the public domain in the US on January 1, 2015? Under the law that existed until 1978 -- Works from 1958. The films Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Gigi, the books Our Man in Havana, The Once and Future King, and Things Fall Apart, the songs All I Have to Do Is Dream and Yakety Yak, and more -- What is entering the public domain this January 1? Not a single published work."

Comments

Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

"Attack of the 50-foot woman" might be interesting. The problem is that the copyright holder is not showing this movie anywhere - going public domain would fix that.

And that's still too long

[ChromeAeonium]

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman? Try the Lion King and Pulp Fiction. Works from 1994 should be in public domain. Twenty years sounds fair to me. Intellectual property is supposed to protect works, giving an ability and incentive to produce new works, not act as a perpetual revenue stream for whatever entity owns the rights to older books, music, games, and film. This life of the universe plus a month nonsense is completely counter to what IP should be.

Re:And that's still too long

[itzly]

someone who has never created a single patentable invention in his life? Or written a best-selling novel? Or composed a symphony? Or written a screenplay?

That's 99.99% of the population.

I'm sure it does sound fair to parasites who think they are entitled to other people's work without compensation.

You mean the people who inherit the copyright after the author's death ? Or the people who take stories from public domain, adapt them for the movie screen, and then get to keep all the rights and money forever ?

Re:And that's still too long

[optimus2861]

Does it sound fair to someone who has never created a single patentable invention in his life? Or written a best-selling novel? Or composed a symphony? Or written a screenplay?

It sounds plenty fucking fair. Architects & engineers don't get paid royalties for years & years on work we did ages ago. We certainly don't continue to get paid after we're dead. And if we fuck up, things fall apart. People can get hurt. People can die. If a screenwriter fucks up, nothing of any consequence happens.

I'm sure it does sound fair to parasites who think they are entitled to other people's work without compensation.

If you did the work 20 years ago, tough shit. Welcome to the world of everybody else.

Re:And that's still too long

[itzly]

So other poor artists can use them for their own creative works, for example.

Re:And that's still too long

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a fucking job and start to work like other people. If 20 years income is not enough from one gig you definitely need to find a steady job.

This whole copyright is ridiculous. Give 25 years only to creator and only to physical person, not companies. Make sure if this copyright is inherited cannot be extended over original 25 years. If author wants to setup company for management he/she hast to be involved physically as majority owner. If ownership is under majority limit copyright is void immediately. This would make a strong incentives to authors managing their property and it would prevent setting up companies like Disney or music studios. Otherwise they can still provide SERVICE for authors' companies for money but nor for shares.

In this 25 years period you should get strong protection no fair use policies anywhere, including personal use, backup but after 25 years everything is free for ever.

Re:And that's still too long

[dgatwood]

Twenty years sounds fair to me.

Twenty years from creation (copyright is currently defined as starting at creation) is way too short. I'm about to publish a trilogy of novels, and I started on the first one in 2001. By your standards, six years of profiting from my works should be enough. That's laughable.

Twenty years from first publication might be reasonable, but it is still problematic for works of fiction, because it is a short enough period of time that a film studio wanting to make a movie would be sorely tempted to wait out the copyright rather than paying the author for the use of his or her work.

On the one hand, you have individuals creating works, and on the other hand, you have big corporations creating works. The former need a lot more time to exploit their works, because they have fewer resources for doing so. The latter can adequately exploit their works in just a few years, after which, they're essentially leeching off the public domain. A reasonable copyright scheme needs to consider both of those situations and treat them differently. For example, you might set a twenty year limit for works for hire, but make the duration be 75 years for copyright owned by individuals. Or you might require the copyright to be renewed every fifteen years at 1% of the property's total gross revenue, so a movie that brought in $40 million pays a $400,000 renewal fee every fifteen years, but a book that made only $7,000 pays a $70 renewal.

Either way, a flat twenty years is absurd.

Re:And that's still too long

[dissy]

Does it sound fair to someone who has never created a single patentable invention in his life?

Try three, and yes not only do I think it is fair, but clearly you too think it is fair by your actions (or you're just admitting to being a parasite criminal stealing my work... either way you look pretty bad)

To claim you don't think it is fair, you need to send me my first payment, and continue sending me payments every month for the rest of your life.
Until those checks clear, you're just being a lying hypocrite.

In fact, you seem to be arguing that even ONE payment is too much, let alone multiple ones.
So I thank you for your permission to take anything you make for free - or I would if you actually made anything.

Re:And that's still too long

[AthanasiusKircher]

I completely agree with you that 20ish years is plenty before a work enters public domain. The original 1790 statute which had a default period of 14 years was also plenty.

However, I think there are some things overlooked in your arguments...

It sounds plenty fucking fair. Architects & engineers don't get paid royalties for years & years on work we did ages ago.

That's because you have a choice to get paid up-front. Most artists/creators don't. If someone offered you a contract: "Hey -- you can design my building for me, and I'll give you X% of the rents for the next Y years, but I'll pay you nothing now," would you do it? What if the building was in the middle of nowhere in a completely untested market? What if your design was also very unconventional and you didn't even know if it would work?

Those are the kinds of things a novelist or even a non-fiction author, say, has to deal with all the time. They invest their time and effort spending months or perhaps years generating a work, often with no money up-front. And unless they're an established author, they're often breaking new ground, perhaps trying out something new which may or may not sell well.

I suspect most architects and engineers here wouldn't take such a risky deal. They'd prefer to actually get paid when they do their work, as do most people. Most creators take much bigger risks in the hope that MAYBE some day down the line they might recoup their expenses and time.

And -- of course -- the vast majority DON'T. For every creator who makes millions of dollars off of their books or songs or screenplays or whatever, there are thousands of creators who never really make a profit. But they try anyway, and maybe they get something back.

We certainly don't continue to get paid after we're dead.

I don't know why everyone is so obsessed with deaths of authors.

Look -- copyright is broken, but it's effectively a contract between creators and the public. If you signed onto a deal like I offered you above, where you got no money up-front, but I said you'd get a share of the rents on the building you designed for 20 years, that contract generally wouldn't void at your death. The rents would be paid to your estate or your heirs for the original term of 20 years.

Why should it be any different? The few creators who do actually make money often have kids to feed. If I spent a year writing a novel and with my family suffering without enough money expecting X years of possible revenue from my novel, why should they not get the expected years of revenue if I drop dead from a heart attack the minute after my book is published? Copyright terms should be fixed and short -- whatever they are. The death of the artist is irrelevant.

And if we fuck up, things fall apart. People can get hurt. People can die. If a screenwriter fucks up, nothing of any consequence happens.

Not sure what this has to do with anything. Are you saying that we shouldn't pay anyone anything if they don't do something "essential" enough or something? Why the heck do we pay sports players or actors or whatever? Most people spend significant portions of their days listening to music, watching TV, etc. Just because something is viewed by you as "entertainment" or something doesn't mean that it isn't hugely important to you or society -- and if we don't have a system that rewards creators, art gets worse. Good artists choose to do something else with their time. And there are also writers who contribute significantly to new ideas, knowledge, etc. -- if these people won't get compensation, they may not choose to do it. That's potentially "somethign of consequence" happening.

If you did the work 20 years ago, tough shit. Welcome to the world of everybody else.

Again, I think most artists/creators would LOVE to take a deal like most people and get paid up-front.

Re:And that's still too long

[spire3661]

Copyright is a SOCIAL BARGAIN. Its a two way street. Consumers do not have to be creators to have a stake in the game. The Consumer side of copyright is getting fed up with infinite copyright and e have every right to speak out about it. Take your righteousness and shove it.

Re:And that's still too long

[dryeo]

The original 1790 statute which had a default period of 14 years was also plenty.

The original statute was written in 1710 with the title

An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned

Note that right from the beginning of modern copyright law the idea was for works to go into the public domain for the advancement of society and even as that law was being drafted the publishers were claiming that they needed infinite copyright "for the artists" and even then were actually ripping the artists off with a small payment to get all the rights to a work. This is the real tragedy of copyright, it usually benefits the publishers way more then the artists.
You have cases like Issac Asimov being amazed he could get paid multiple times for a work or the Beetles getting totally ripped off at the beginning of their career as they only expected one payment. More up to date is the sequel to Forrest Grump which will never be filmed due to the first film making no money and the artist not getting paid, good old Hollywood accounting.
If an architect got promised a percentage of the rent and then got paid nothing most people would consider it a ripoff, yet it is normal in the copyright world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:And that's still too long

[elgatozorbas]

For lack of mod points I'll answer, because I agree with this post and don't think it is fair to label this troll.
(In the below "you" refers to the critics)

1) if you appreciate a creative work, why not pay for it? Buy the DVD, buy the CD, buy whatever medium and you can view or listen as many times as you want. If you don't want to pay, you don't get to see the result of the creative process. If you don't want to pay, why would the creator of Pulp fiction let you to see the movie? What obligation does he have in the world to allow you to see it? I never understood, and most likely never will understand this typical /. logic of piracy vs theft etc. Thanks for sharing the fruits of YOUR labour through open software, but please allow other creative people to differ.

2) Why should an author's heirs not be entitled to the fruits of the labour of their ancestors? Why should they be entitled to his house, savings, but not future profits? Why would it be that, because coincidentally, someone dies, you get to see the movie for free? Why would you rank higher than the creator's children? Let's hope Stephen King dies just after writing a masterpiece, because now we are entitled to read it for free. What sense does that make???

Re:revolutionary idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could just go back to the original Copyright law.

It was more than adequate to give an incentive to the creators.

The suits on the other hand, are gonna be pissed because it will take away an avenue for rent seeking; which means it will never happen because suits own Congress. They get away with it because the electorate is stupid and easily manipulated with sound bites and bumper sticker reasoning.

Re:protecting intellectual property is... theft?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright infringement isn't stealing - the legitimate holder of the copyright still has it and is still free to use it however they want, including using it to prosecute infringement. Extended copyright terms do in fact steal from society, using the proper definition of "steal" - members of society are deprived of the means to use those works to build upon them, or to preserve them.

Please explain in detail how extended terms serve "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" as per the Copyright Clause (in the U.S., anyway). The concept of "limited times" has been deliberately misinterpreted, and was never intended to extend to the creator's entire lifetime, much less 50 years beyond that.

No

[rsilvergun]

so we can make new works using them. You know, Disney didn't write the story in the Lion King, right? It's an age old story. They don't write _any_ of their own stories (even Lilo and Stitch was just something they bought because they thought they could get 626 toys out of it).

The idea was that copyright and patents encouraged people to share information so that it wouldn't be lost. The entire point was to get the works into the public domain at some point. We've turned it into a rent seeking scheme. If it started out this way we'd all be paying royalties to some Nords and a few Egyptians who claimed ownership of stone tablets from 200 B.C..

Re:revolutionary idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright should be limited to the original creator's natural life and cease within 12 months thereafter allowing time for the estate to be settled. No corporation should own a copyright which outlives the creator(s) of the work plus a decade.

Wouldn't this create an unfair advantage for corporations to higher younger creators?

Re:Generic drugs; intellectual property tax

[dgatwood]

Twenty years from first publication might be reasonable, but it is still problematic for works of fiction, because it is a short enough period of time that a film studio wanting to make a movie would be sorely tempted to wait out the copyright rather than paying the author for the use of his or her work.

That's not been shown to be problematic for pharmaceuticals, where companies routinely wait out the patent before producing a generic drug.

That's a completely different situation, because both the patent holder and the generic drug maker are on roughly equal footing in terms of their ability to exploiting the property. A drug company can make a drug and can market it readily; that's what they do. An individual who writes a book cannot realistically make a movie version of that book, because A. they don't have that kind of money, and B. they are not likely to have the required skill set.

For example, you might set a twenty year limit for works for hire, but make the duration be 75 years for copyright owned by individuals.

Then companies would just structure their deals to, say, assign copyright in a film to the film's director but then exclusively license the copyright back to the studio.

By definition, any permanent license is a work for hire. So no, they couldn't do precisely that. However, the law would need to specify a maximum contract duration beyond which those limits kick in so that companies wouldn't license it for [lifetime of copyright minus one day].

If copyrights are "intellectual property", then tax them like property [wikipedia.org]. Have each copyright owner self-assess the value of his works, and levy a tax on that value. To prevent publishers from avoiding tax by lowballing the value, let people crowdfund the donation of each work to the public domain by paying this value to the copyright owner.

It would be far easier to simply tax the past income from the work as part of the copyright fees. Actual income tends to be a good indicator of the value of a work.

My Sweet Lord and other accidental infringements

[tepples]

So other poor artists can use them for their own creative works, for example.

The artists can easily make original content, which would create more interesting art anyway, than some reheated old stuff.

Until other, more established artists take the poor artists to court, claiming that the purported original content is not in fact original but instead substantially similar to the more established artists' work. Accidental copying is still infringement. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music.

Re:It is sad...

[Karmashock]

Not really. Mickey Mouse would be public domain. Think about that.

Besides, I've talked to a lot of these MPAA guys personally. They're completely fanatical.

Their attitude is "our contract says we can do this, so those are our rights and anyone that violates them is a criminal." - period.

You know those crazy ads where they compare piracy to automotive theft or bank robbery? The people driving this along felt those ads were too mellow. They wanted to go farther with it.

You have no idea. They are as closed minded and intolerant as a 15th century cardinal. You cross the line and they're going to say "burn them".

While I agree nearly all the effort goes into zero day... that is because everything becomes more nebulous after that point and they make the most money off of zero day releases. So that is why they do that. But if you think they don't care about their legacy licenses you are kidding yourself. In their view, that stuff is worth billions. Telling them a certain amount of it is going to go public domain is like telling someone that a certain amount of their bank account is going to vanish. They're totally unwilling to move on the issue. They are not going to compromise on anything.

The only way forward is to let the old fire brands die... literally from old age in most cases and be replaced by more realistic members.

Reverse engineering

[tepples]

Without patents, the information wouldn't be lost, it would be tied up as trade secrets, forcing every competitor to reinvent the proverbial wheel

Patents are routinely issued on inventions that are obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering. For example, contributors to FFmpeg have disassembled and documented plenty of video codecs.

rather than simply paying a small royalty to the first inventor and going on to invent the next improvement

And in a lot of cases, the royalty isn't "small" at all because the inventor wants to exclude a category of products from the market entirely. Think of when the late Steve Jobs promised that Apple was prepared to go "thermonuclear" on Android.

Without copyright, art would only be created under patronage systems where the wealthy commission works that they want

We have working patronage systems now.

In addition to restricting the number of works, this would also restrict the number of viewpoints, as only those wealthy patrons' desired works would be created.

It doesn't take "wealthy patrons" to produce a work expressing a viewpoint. Anyone who owns a personal computer and a year of Internet access can self-produce and self-publish a work in plenty of forms, such as the written word, a podcast, an animated video, or even a video game. Net neutrality is in theory orthogonal to copyright, though this is complicated by the co-ownership of XFINITY and NBCUniversal by Comcast.

Re:Would someone please explain ...

[slinches]

The "hysteria" is about a perpetual monopoly on our cultural history. If every piece of art created in our lifetimes is locked down, then we don't have the freedom to create anything new. Everything we do is built upon the ideas of the prior generations that we are exposed to through our culture.

Ultimately, infinite term IP ownership is unsustainable. Our technological and cultural development will stall. Imagine if someone (ie a corporation or estate) still held the patent on the transistor or the lever. Those companies would control the markets for basically every electrical or mechanical device. Do you think we'd even be able to have this discussion? And why wouldn't the same effect occur with copyright once there's nothing left in the public domain to draw from?

Re:revolutionary idea?

[Noah Haders]

yes 100%. one thing that america has proven over through 200 years of history is that the profit motive does not create the best country on earth /s

Re:i vote with my wallet

[spire3661]

Copyright is a social bargain. WE THE PEOPLE grant limited exclusive licenses, with the expectation of payment via Public Domain when the work's copyright expires (limited time). The copyright side of the equation has spent the last hundred years shoring up their position to the point where limited has come to mean anything less than infinity. Its time to dial them back. EVERY citizen has skin in this game. You cant have maximal copyright in an Information Age, it is simply impossible.

Re:revolutionary idea?

[BoberFett]

Why should copyright have anything to do with the creator's lifespan? The goal of copyright is to encourage people to create, not to set people up with lifelong income streams.

Re:This is a good example right here

[Anonymous Coward]

I have mod points, and I am very pro copyright. I have a JD from a top IP law school. I would mod up some of the anti-copyright folks here, but I would rather participate in the discussion even if only as an AC. Copyright has gotten way out of whack in terms of length and severity of penalty. The pro copyright lobbyists have taken advantage of the public's disorganization and inattention over the years to dramatically tilt the laws in their favor. Copyright is no longer a bargain any free person would make, as far as I can tell. If I, a free person, were negotiating with other free persons on one side of the table, with artists, musicians, and publishers on the other side of the table, why would I give up my right to copy anything they produce in my lifetime or my kids lifetime? If that is the bargain they wanted, I would simply say, "no deal". I think most people would. The original deal was 14 years. That seems reasonable. I will give up my right to copy your creations for 14 years, to entice you (the artists and musicians) to create things, but after that, the works fall into the public domain. Forget movies from the 50s. Led Zeppelin's studio albums should be in the public domain. The Matrix should be in the public domain. I already gave up my rights to copy those things, and paid for them at a time it mattered most. I can't believe I have to remind people that I am a free person. I can copy whatever I want. Copying others is a birthright. It is what humans do. Where would any of you be without copying others? Not writing English. Because you copied that behavior. The only reason for a free person to give up the right to copy is to get something in return. As far as I am concerned, I am getting NOTHING in return under current copyright law. You can shove your Attack of the 50 Foot Woman up your ass! And excuse me if my fellow voters don't get what's going on, and can't manage to pick leaders who won't lie to them and then vote for the monied interests, including all of the copyright holders. This is a bad joke that has been taken way too far. I completely understand why people infringe copyright, even if I make efforts not to do it myself. I think of it as civil disobedience against something that is no longer a true democracy. To call it theft is just a sad reflection of cultural brainwashing and paid shilling for copyright holders. Shame on anyone who mindlessly parrots the party line. As I said, I am very pro-copyright. I firmly believe in the principle. But the current practice flagrantly violates the core principle of copyright in a free society. I am sorry that you are on the losing side of the argument. And yes, people should not use mod points to disagree with a reasoned argument.

Re:i vote with my wallet

[Sabriel]

... No, I think you don't agree with him - or if you do, you're conflicted on the issue, and you're laboring under at least one false apprehension.

Here's the thing: if one truly believes in a system of justice and the rule of law, then one must refuse to recognize the validity of any contract that is not of equitable nature (be it equally fair or equally unfair).

So if you truly agree that copyright is no longer equitable, then (given the above) you must agree that _neither_ party is required to abide by its terms as-is. You don't get to call it theft, because in the absence of copyright the information that comprises a work _is neither tangible nor property_: stealing a "Harry Potter" DVD does not steal the concept of "Harry Potter" itself.

This is why I generally consider any attempt to "copy-protect" a work, via a method that does not allow for the "limited times" clause of copyright law, to be either an act of fraud or a disavowal of the creator's rights to protection of that work under copyright law - because to deliberately attempt to make your work un-copyable while claiming the protections of copyright law would be tortious misconduct.

Which doesn't mean I go around copying DRM'd movies on principle - there's more than enough free/cheap legal media for me to spend the rest of my life watching if I wanted to be a couch hermit - it just means that I recognize contracts (are supposed to) go both ways.