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.

i vote with my wallet

[FudRucker]

i refuse to buy books, movies and music anymore

Re:i vote with my wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

down with the capitalist pigs!

Re:i vote with my wallet

[spire3661]

If copyright were sane, i would not infringe. If I could buy a DVD and be sure it would play on any device i want, i wouldnt infringe. If copyright holders didnt do silly shit like force licenses to remove the analog hole,(my TV has no analog sound out, only SPDIF, that can be turned off. Netflix would turn off the optical port completely if the show had 5.1 sound). i wouldnt infringe. The plain fact is copyright holders hold back technology. Until such a time as copyright returns to 14+14, im going to infringe, if nothing more than to remove some of their influence.

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: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.

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

[Ol Olsoc]

Works from 1994 should be in public domain.

Why? So that you could acquire them for free? What's the motivation?

You could make a pretty good case for Shakespeare's descendant's being entitled to profits from his works, using the rationale used for copyright extension.

There really are only so many possible stories and plotlines. What do we do when we have exhausted them all, now that we have entered the age of perpetual copyright? Because we have exhausted them all.

Reminds me of when a local college sued a medical group, claiming they owned the term "University" They lost, but that's the kind of thing that will eventually start winning. I'm expecting a movement to remove works from PD, and place them back under copyright protections.

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

[Ol Olsoc]

Big corps will effectively wield a monopoly on all of the ideas in movies, since anything you'd produce could be argued as too similar to something in their massive portfolios.

Which of course, will make the whole process come to a grinding halt.

The exact opposite of the original intentions.

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

[ChromeAeonium]

You shouldn't make assumptions. I work in plant breeding, an area where patents are very controversial, with an active anti-agriculture movement who often claims that there should be no patents on the plants people like me work hard to develop, and that people like me should work for free or not at all. I've got some nifty new things right now I hope get patented in due time. I've dealt with real anti-IP sentiment, I've defended patents and copyright in general at length, and I fully agree that those who say there should be no IP of any kind are just looking to get stuff, and are deluding themselves when they say everyone can simply stop paying for movies, games, programs, ect. and the creaters will still, somehow, get a return on their creative investment.

But that's not that this is about. The copyright system as it stands now is broken, and badly. I fully realize that creators should get control of their works for a time, but this 70 years after you die stuff...how is copyright on the works of someone who has been dead for half a century fostering the arts? I get that if someone dies their next of kin should be supported and all, I'm certainty not saying IP should be automatically terminated at death, but lets face it, that's not what's going on here is it?

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:And that's still too long

[stjobe]

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.

You wrote the first one in 2001 and sat on it for 13 years, then complain that 20 years would be too short?

Twenty years from first publication might be reasonable

20 years from publication is about twice as long as is reasonable. Most novels make the vast majority of their sales in their first year, after that it just peters out to nothing over a number of years. It's a rare novel indeed that still makes sales after ten years, let alone twenty.

On the one hand, you have individuals creating works, and on the other hand, you have big corporations creating works.

That one is easy - disallow corporations from owning copyrights. There's no sane reason why copyrights should be allowed to be transferred from the creator anyway - and a corporation is not an entity that can create things anyway.

Either way, a flat twenty years is absurd.

No, what's absurd is the current situation of life+95, with renewals allowed every time that term is in danger of coming to an end.

Copyright is supposed to be a restriction of our right to copy the works of others so that the other can profit from it for a short while - thereby giving the other an incentive to create. But giving up our right to copy forever was never the intention of the deal.

It's high time to renege on a deal that's been perverted by one side into something that no longer even resembles the original intent.

Re:And that's still too long

[sh00z]

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?

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

Parasites like Walt Disney, who didn't have to pay a penny for the rights to Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and many others that they continue to withhold from the Public Domain. The Disney Corporation has now held the copyright on their version of "Alice in Wonderland" for more than TWICE as long as Lewis Carroll did for the original work.

Re:And that's still too long

[codeButcher]

... if we don't have a system that rewards creators, art gets worse. Good artists choose to do something else with their time.

Now I see what has happened to American music....

Re:revolutionary idea?

[daremonai]

Wait, longer movies? Have you sat through any major film lately? Poor Bilbo Baggins already suffered through 8 or 9 hours of Peter Jackson, and you want to send him back for more?

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.

And the creators still get screwed

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Which given the excuses for this stuff is really telling.(Since the whole "You're stealing from the creators" is one of the arguments you hear about this shit.) So these days you have shit like Hollywood accounting and things like the author of Forrest Gump literally not getting paid royalties for the movie.(Because it supposedly didn't make a profit.) Of course there's the whole thing screwing of musicians by record labels. Basically if you record an album don't expect to get any profits at all. If you make any money it will be off touring. Here's one, just to show how much of a bunch of scum bags they really are. https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

It is sad...

[Karmashock]

As much as piracy is difficult to justify. It is rulings like this that make it hard to ultimately argue against.

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.

Copyright should be more like food laws

[ciaran2014]

To explain the idea of softening copyright laws, I always think of food laws.

You can make your meals however you like, but once you start distributing them to the public you have a bunch of obligations (no poison, list ingredients and nutrients on package, note the best before date...).

I see culture similarly. If you write a great song and you don't want people to share it, then the simple solution is to keep it to yourself. Then it's your song. But if you distribute it to the public, it becomes part of society and the people who enjoy the song also have rights to it.

Taking the analogy any further would lead to silliness but I think it's useful just to dispel the misconception that our society is based on property laws giving absolute rights to the holder.

Pickled brains

[pigsycyberbully]

The feature films who would want to watch them anyway? books I can understand that but feature films ZzZzZzZ. can they still earn money from these old films? who watches these! Fantasy cartoons where it is all silliness and happiness that I could understand it relieves stress. I don't understand feature films it's grown-up men playing children's games why is it entertaining why? It's nonsense it's what every child grows out of goody's baddies, doctors and nurses, Cowboys and Indians, and so on. Films a waste of two hours sitting on your arse watching nonsense. I really find this difficult to understand I think it is mainly a Indian and U.S. thing? Or maybe not I just literally don't understand it it is silliness.

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

[DiamondGeezer]

Of course, but remember at the bottom of Slashdot is a bunch of whiney parasites who think they are entitled other people's property without paying for it.

I think the copyright laws in the US need reform, but frankly if I were to write a book, I'd like my descendants to benefit for some while.

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:No

[westlake]

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...

The Lion King is a Broadway musical comedy in animated form, rich in music, drama and spectacle.

The live stage adaptation would call on to become a legend in its on right. The geek doesn't have the least understanding of all the elements that must come together to make a theatrical project a success.

There have been countless productions in all media that draw on the same sources as Disney. It surprises me when the geek has heard of any one of them. It surprises me more when he knows the primary sources and can see their limitations.

The Brothers Grimm, for example, collected folk tales that had already been hammered into publishable form by a generation of scholars and enthusiasts, and some would be later retrofitted to serve a nationalistic Germanic folk-myth. Philip Pullman translated fifty of his favorites into modern English, averaging a little less than ten pages each. That's fine for the fireside, but it doesn't work for the theater. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version

The idea was that copyright and patents encouraged people to share information so that it wouldn't be lost.

The idea was to encourage the production of something new --- something that would in the end eclipse the old, a real advance and not a trivial derivative. The geek in 2015 is still willing to put enormous effort into an literal, slavish, fan remake of the fifty-year old Star Trek: TOS.

If you are in the market for something new and less pretentious in space opera, you have to look to Marvel and Disney ---- who could and did take an obscure funny animal character and make him into something far more interesting and entertaining than a Wookie, an Ewok or a Jar-Jar Binks

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?

Not quite correct

[vikingpower]

The works of the famous painter Mondriaan will fall into the public domain as per February 1, this year.

Re:Not quite correct

[tepples]

United States copyright in works published prior to 1978 is reckoned not from the death of the author but from first publication. Mondrian's paintings prior to Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, and Grey (1923) were already in the public domain under the 75-year rule that was in effect prior to 1998. Copyright in that painting won't expire under the new 95-year rule until 2019.

Re:revolutionary idea?

[swillden]

No corporation should own a copyright which outlives the creator(s) of the work plus a decade.

How does this work when there are hundreds of people working on a project, like a film? Does the copyright expire ten years after the first death, or the last? If the former, then pretty much any movie more than ten years old will be in the public domain. If the latter, I guess we're going to start seeing a few dozen babies somehow contributing to every new project, all of them selected from families who seem to live unusually long.

Also, what constitutes "death"? What happens if a member of the crew is cryogenically preserved and later brought back to life? Does copyright get reinstated? And what happens if people stop dying? It doesn't seem at all unlikely that within the next few decades we acquire the ability to keep a human body alive indefinitely (though I'm not sure if the brain is up to remaining useful for much longer)?

I think tying copyright to human lifespans is a bad idea. I prefer ever-increasing copyright maintenance fees. If Disney is willing to pay a billion dollars a year to keep Mickey, fine. But for most works, the copyright owners will eventually decide that it's better to release it into the public domain.

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

[Ol Olsoc]

Of course, but remember at the bottom of Slashdot is a bunch of whiney parasites who think they are entitled other people's property without paying for it.

I think the copyright laws in the US need reform, but frankly if I were to write a book, I'd like my descendants to benefit for some while.

All well and good until they get sued for infringement.

The perpetual copyright movement has some interesting ties with patent trolling. The playaz are setting the table, and the lawsuits are next.

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:Not Sad

[tepples]

By "not showing this movie anywhere", maybe you meant "not showing this movie anywhere for free"?

Or "not showing in countries not served by Google Play Videos and Amazon Instant Video". Or perhaps "not allowing parodies of the work without an expensive fair use trial".

and no one gives a damn.

[westlake]

i refuse to buy books, movies and music anymore

Then books, movies, and music will continue to be produced and shaped for those who do buy them.

Disney has been taking chances with projects with serious geek cred like Guardians of the Galaxy and Big Hero 6 and been rewarded handsomely in return. You will excuse me if I share some doubts about the geek's commitment to the boycott.

Re:and no one gives a damn.

[Maxo-Texas]

My consumption is mostly limited to "all you can watch" buffet type services and waiting until the movies are on sale for $5.

There is a lot of free content being created as well. (Like the harry potter and the methods of rationality, all the youtube videos).

I am now retired and I literally cannot keep up with all the content being created. So with rare exceptions, I just stay back on the less expensive end of the curve.

I would estimate that last year I saw a dozen movies for $4.25 on matinee and maybe 3? at full fare (including the hobbit as part of a special marathon showing of all three hobbit movies back to back).

And I'm slowly reading the original three musketeers in french.

I think a lot of young people are going to buy things until they come to the same realization I did. I was spending about $60 a week on DVD's back in 2001 and I realized I *wasn't* rewatching them. Since then I've bought 1 DVD and 2 Bluray's. And .. I didn't rewatch them either (one was inception). It's just rare to find something like Moulin Rouge or Silverado that I can watch over and over.

Another thing that has faded away is actually doing things at the same time as my friends. Until I was 30, we used to do things together and share them. Now it's all asynchronous. No shared social group scene.

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:protecting intellectual property is... theft?!

[aardvarkjoe]

I think the copyright laws in the US need reform, but frankly if I were to write a book, I'd like my descendants to benefit for some while.

So sell your book within a reasonable copyright term and give your descendants the money. Problem solved.

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?

Revolutionary Idea

[Tenebrousedge]

Poe's Law.

These are all actually equally crazy ideas, but there's a lot of nutcases going around clamoring for the first one. "Copyright should be limited to the original creator's natural life." Simple question: why?

Second question: why do we have to wait for the government to fix this? I suppose there's a pretty good reason to have a maximum copyright duration so Disney doesn't immediately realize their dreams of indefinite copyright, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with licensing a work so that it reverts to the public domain in a more reasonable time frame. Creative Commons and other permissive licenses have been making slow progress towards an open culture, shouldn't this be the next step?

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:Screenplay to animation is web scale

[dgatwood]

I couldn't help but read that in the synthesized tone of "MongoDB is web scale" made with XtraNormal. Anyone who has a computer and can write a screenplay can produce an animated short film that no one will watch. And tools to mark up a screenplay for conversion to an animated film will only get better, so you can make even better animated shorts that no one will watch.

FTFY. :-)

Just in case anybody reads your comment and assumes that you're being serious (I'm pretty sure you aren't), here's an idea of the magnitude of effort involved....

I once created a feature-length movie from script to finished product. Writing the script was maybe 5% of the effort. When I finished with that, I began location scouting and casting. Fortunately, I had ready access to a number of shooting locations that met most of my needs, so that part was relatively tame.

After shooting began, I had to find times when all of the cast members for each scene were available, and the location was also available. The more people involved in a scene, the crazier that got. Add in a few horses, or a scene at a hospital ER (shot at something like 2 in the morning), or police officers doing a drive-by and arresting one of the cast members (for a scene, not for real), and even a relatively straightforward production with minimal effects gets complicated pretty quickly.

But it gets better when you find yourself having to adapt to changing schedules, as cast members' bosses change their work schedule from week to week. Been there, done that.

When shooting is done, then you get to spend time editing, adding special effects, composing a film score, and recording the music. If you don't have the skills to do all of these things yourself, you'll probably have to pay other people to do them. On an author's income, that's not easy.

The bottom line is that if you already have extensive TV production experience, and if you and at least two other people can devote a minimum of two months full-time to the project (through the end of principal photography), and if you have a dozen friends who can act and don't have full-time jobs that limit your shooting schedule and don't want a huge chunk of money in exchange for acting, then it is marginally feasible to make a movie version of a book that doesn't involve any special effects.

So although I can think of (a few) authors who could pull off turning their books into feature films, not many of them are crazy enough to make the attempt. :-)

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].

Or the director could just avoid doubt by exclusively licensing the motion picture to the studio for 20 years. This would be long enough for the theatrical release, the current home video format, and the next home video format, after which point the copyright reverts to the director.

The problem with that idea is that there's no feasible way for something involving hundreds of people to not be a work for hire unless you can quantitatively determine what percentage of the copyright every single crew member, cast member, and extra should get. Such a scheme would also effectively mean that the work in question could never be commercially exploited after the period ends anyway, because you'd never get all of those hundreds of people to agree to a new license.

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:revolutionary idea?

[BoberFett]

You're kidding, right?

Re:revolutionary idea?

[deek]

Want to encourage the creation of creative works?

It's well known that creativity flourishes with experienced adversity. The irony of the copyright system is that it's actually discouraging this creative seed. Artists are way too comfortable, living off royalties, to knuckle down and start producing stuff.

I say we cut copyright to a bare minimum. A year at max. That'll get those lazy artists off their collective arses, and provide plenty of encouragement to create something at least once per year.

Remember kids, nothing speeds productivity like poverty.

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:revolutionary idea?

[pevans]

Noting the sarcasm tag, so you believe that the USA is actually the best country on earth? You honestly believe that.

Wow.