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Music Industry Argues Works Entering Public Domain Are Not In Public Interest
An anonymous reader writes: With news that Canada intends to extend
the term of copyright for sound recordings and performers, the
recording industry is now pushing the change by arguing that works
entering the public domain is not in the public interest. It is hard to see how anyone can credibly claim that
works are "lost" to the public domain and that the public interest
in not served by increased public access, but if anyone would make
the claim, it would be the recording industry.
I don't know the details of what Canada is doing, but often when it comes to IP enforcement changes around the world, the United States IP lobbies are somewhere in the shadows. Doesn't take much arm-twisting, just a 'gentle' reminder that future trade negotiations will look unfavorably on those who don't uphold IP similarly to the US.
End of Story.
If there's any ounce of money that can be earned from something, it will never enter public domain.
...outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
--Mr. Spock
i.e. The CRIA, or whatever they are now calling themselves, can get stuffed.
Now can someone please publish the counter-argument, that Copyright is not in the Public Interest.
Shall we compare them side by side?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
If there's money to be made people would argue that water was dry, the sky was the ground, and Jews were the devil in disguise. Oh wait they still argue that last one.
Look how bad things went with Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven works. Shouldda let Disney own their notes.
Table-ized A.I.
Not quite sure what you mean there. Do you mean removing the Wikipedia links from the maps, or something else?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
...create anything. Just 'cos the 'net makes it easy to copy and distribute creative works does not make it OK. People who just don't want to pay for stuff should admit it instead of pretending they have some kind of real philosophy or that is is for the creators' good (I mean, it might be, but it should be up to them to decide, not some guy in a basement who really just wants free stuff). The problem is the middle level. I want creators to get well paid and consumers to get well priced access. That does not need a record company, say, in the traditional sense.
Copyright needs to (I reckon) end with the death of the creator; simple. And the creator has to be a human not a corporation. Probably legally difficult, but makes sense to me. I guess we need ways for copyright to be signed over to a corporation; or do we? Leased instead, until the 'death' of either party or until some agreed time prior. That way a corp can 'own' the copyright but only till the creator dies or the contract is up, whichever comes first.
This argument I keep hearing that free distribution of, for example, music benefits the musician because they 'make more money in live shows anyway' is moronic in the extreme. Like every musician has the same business model? Sure, for some it might work that way: http://gizmodo.com/5903937/six-reasons-why-recorded-music-should-be-free but not everybody can keep touring. They get older -- do they suddenly lose the right to make any money off their life's work because they can't tour behind it? Musician thinks: "Gee, I've got kids, a wife who works, I can't spend 10 months a year on the road like when I was 25 -- and double whammy, I don't get royalties either 'cos apparently I 'benefit' from all the exposure I get from my music being free." One size never fits all and ideology is often a cover for greed.
Ideally, creators get to say what happens. That's bound to encourage people to create. They can release their songs into the wild if they want, or not. But it's not up to 'us' to decide.
S/he who has the money and can't get enough of it and then after dying to pass his/her legacy on to their offspring to continue to live on there - all a great mind game,
Reality is different..
Mostly it seems to be "he's" doing this kind of game.
This is a "new google maps is shit" troll, one of a series. This time they even constructed a link to the story.
Because some rent seeker can no longer make money from a work produced by someone else it is "lost" to a world that sees things in only monetary value.
Not on Debussy.
Your dedication is impressive. Could you please register as GoogleMapsTroll or something? Slashdot needs posters like you!
By retaining copyrights, the recording industry can limit availability to older works. By limiting availability, they can drive consumer interest perpetually towards newer works. This ensures that there is consistent demand for new music from new artists, which further ensures that new music is continually created, which is good for everyone.
The fact that most of this new music is just rehashed variants of the old music which is no longer on the shelves is irrelevant. The fact that the money going to new artists, in this scenario, represents money that is NOT going to old artists that are still alive, is also irrelevant. The fact that the limits on availability often results in the permanent loss of important cultural artifacts is also irrelevant. The fact that people want the old music is also not relevant. And, lastly, the fact that all of this drives people to illegal file sharing networks is the least relevant bit of all.
If it were not for copyright, Disney would not have to rehash the same shit over and over, but would be forced into some creativity. Star Wars, anyone?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
It's absurd of them to claim that the public claiming its rightful property after the agreed upon term is up is not in the "public" interest. It's quite transparent which interests they're worried about and those aren't ours.
These are just giant music conglomorates who want to prevent the public from realizing a more robust public domain, as they would then have to compete with the best works of past generations, rather than just the pablum of today.
That's the problem when companies subvert the original Copyright process established and start making arguments that the company's right overtake the citizens of the country. Of course, when companies like Disney legally bribe Congress and the President, this is what we get.
If software had the regulation that music and film enjoys we would never have achieved the Internet.
From 50 to 70 years after the author's death. That's the extension. How does that relate to anything you just said?
By 'public interest', they're referring to their own bank accounts.
The notion that anything else could have value doesn't even occur to them.
And their message isn't for us, it's for politicians who already agree with them.
when it's not in those dubstep, nu country or trap genres, it isn't public interest.
I dunno...I think the quality here is rather consistent - especially in the sense of "lack thereof."
Considering how ridiculous the notion is that copyright should last approximately forever, you came up with a pretty good argument. Not a PERSUASIVE argument, of course, but pretty good. Reminds of OJ Simpson's lawyers - there was a ton of evidence against him, so anyone who felt like taking the time to learn about the evidence knew he was guilty; yet his lawyers made arguments good enough to sway some jurors.
Is there any work that is over 50 years old that still brings in big money? The proper solution is to charge an annual fee per work for continued protection of, say $1000/year after 50 years. I'll bet they won't want to pay that.
Well we know that the music industry is not a bunch of lying stealing thugs, just look at how they treat musicians. So we have no choice but to believe whatever self serving garbage they serve up as legitimate information.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
Do you mean your own bank accounts? Because songs going public means people can freely use those songs, in whatever they want, which is GOOD and perfectly in line with the common sense definition of "public interest"... These clowns are just interested in potential profits they can make from old songs that no longer sells anyway, just because someone might, possibly, want to use them in a movie or something, so they can charge a couple million for the rights of using them.
If we don't put stuff into public domain, then we get a huge body of music that nobody can re-use without paying fees + lawsuits.
Every troll will crawl out of the woodwork demanding money for every new piece of music because their great grandfather once made a song with a feel sort of similar to the new song. Similar to the Marvin Gaye/Blurred Lines trolls.
The aim of copyright, to let people profit from their creative works, then goes into reverse. It becomes a way to let an existing copyright holder increase the value of their owned works by trolling for longer.
So it won't be just Marvin Gayes children that troll new works, it will be his great great great great great great great grandkids.
Of course nobody will make new music after a while, it becomes too risky, far safer to simply re-do an old song that has already been through the lawsuit battles.
How about the core of the problem. Copyright is an artificial construct, people want to make stuff, sell it and keep it, the ultimate have your cake and eat falsity. We owe you nothing, not one thing for making it, you make it's your choice. What you do with it is your choice. Keep it secret, destroy it, release it, make a hard copy and stick it up your arse, all your choice. Nothing what so ever to do with the rest of us, not our choice and most definitely not our responsibility, you made it your choice, so don't want to released, keep it secret, nothing what so ever to do with the rest of us. So why the bullshit of forcing us to protect it like we own it, we don't it yours, do with it what you will.
The reality of copyright kind of stops there, sure the token thing of ensuring a person who didn't create it can not claim they did but it pretty much stops there. Now you release it, your problem, nothing to do with the rest of us. People copy it with their equipment and their materials, again nothing to do with the rest of us, as such, so what. For the famous car analogy, you make a self replicating car and complain when people us it to make copies and for some reason expect the rest of us to stop them, even when they supply all the equipment and hardware to make those copies.
Now taking that into account, do you understand why copyright was meant to be limited. OK we will humour you and give you limited protection, like a decade. Then the creative artists cease to be the concerned parties and publishers take over and not one scrap of creativity in them and demand that we enable them to basically print money and pretend it's real because they have enough money to corrupt government. So copyright a token limited right, whoops, privilege not a right at all, as you are attempt to claim ownership of something someone else produced, something some one else paid for and some things some one else has a right to, the copy.
So copyprivilege is the legal illusion of allowing some to steal other peoples copies that they have created and not only steal those copies but make them pay for creating them after they already paid to create them. That copy is actual property, it used actual materials and equipment and those people who made it paid to make it have a right to it. So seriously what gives anyone the right mind you the 'RIGHT' to steal it. Yes copyright is theft, the right to steal copies legally made by others (they were made with legally owned material, labour and equipment) and pretend they were not legally made because, hmm, 'GREED'. That is the only reason in the majority of instances, as that content in the majority of instance has no public value and in fact quite a large portion of it is damaging too society and in reality as such is of negative value to society.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
First, file sharing networks is THE goddam most relevant bit of all. THAT's what all this is about. The digitization of IP blew up the revenue stream, and it will continue to do so.
What happened is, all IP looks the same in binary form. That means the tools that manipulate one, manipulates all.
You have those tools. I have those tools. The government has those tools. The IP industries have those tools. Every country on the planet has those tools.
Essentially overnight, IP is in the public domain, not by law, but by lack of friction. Digital IP is slicker'n mockingbird shit on a sycamore limb. To rephrase for Texans: It's slicker'n deer guts on a door knob.
File sharing networks have no problem dragging copies from here to there, to everywhere.
That's all we need to know. This is not your father's IP world.
The entertainment business has been making way too much for way too long. Those days are over and there's no going back.
What we're hearing from IP interests is their last breaths.
People are going to have to produce entertainment for time and material and a realistic margin of profit.
It will be good.
People will be producing IP because, by golly, by gum, it's fun.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
On one hand, Copyright is important for artists to be able to get paid for their work...
But on the other hand the copyright period in most countries are beyond crazy.
Ideally, I'd love to see 7 years without registration, extended to 14 if registered, and can be extended once to 21 years.
I can 100% guarantee you, there isn't any literature, music, or movie executive that will green-light a project if they don't feel that it will make money within the first year. And I can understand giving a few years, to allow artists to make derivative works, or prevent it being short enough so people just want to run out the clock.
But things like life + 50 years is just bananas. Copyright should be for a *limited* period of time. If a person can be born and live out their life without a work entering into the public domain, it's not a limited period of time.
Walt died: December 15, 1966, so they need to get the extension in soon, or all the stuff they haven't re-made will drop out.
If you still have any respect for this forum within Slashdot, would you kindly cut out your political crap, please?
As this is a thread discussing the action of GREEDY ASSHOLES of the Music Industry, can you please stick to the context?
Subservience to the vested elite is not limited to the Conservatives - the critters on the other side of the isle, the Liberals, have also proven to be doing the same thing
It is thus an utter disgust for you kind to pollute this conversation by astroturfing the 'conservative vs liberal' debate
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
i suppose these moneyed jokers think the works of Mozart and Beethoven should still be under copyright, with royalties going forever to some corporation.
Immortals are corrupting much of our law and have in the past.
In the past dynastic power bases ruled clashed with each other and crushed common people.
Kings, Queens, Caliphates, Dynasty, Emperors, Pope, Pulpit all are the sharp end of immortal government
systems that devolved in many social ways and were eventually upended.
Today we have some ill begotten immortal legal frameworks that have many
of the rights that citizens have. Their immortality allows them to gain power and move from
a part of society to controlling society.
This copyright issue is one symptom of an immortal (Mr. Mouse by way of example)
that wields power and attempts to dominate part or all of society. When these
immortals gather together as a group and throw their weight around, interesting
and perhaps troubling things happen.
Consider that immortals do not pay inheritance or death taxes. If one group of
legal entities never pays a tax no group should pay that tax. There are more
issues one of which is citizenship....
"end-two-cents"
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Your same pathetic argument can be made by every working person on the planet. Except no one else gets to work a few days and then collect the revenue from that brief labour (sorry, "life's work") forever either.
Star Wars?! Oh, man, there are so many better examples of Disney rehashing old works. How about Maleficent (aka Sleeping Beauty from the villain's perspective)? Or running the Disney Princess angle into the ground with Brave (at least other Princess films had a legend or fairy tale background, Brave was just a complete fabrication)? Better yet, let's just talk about Disney Princess films, and how Disney takes an old legend or fairy tale, and turns it into a highly profitable film and merchandising effort? If that's not rehashing the same shit over and over, I don't know what is. The recent Star Wars acquisition doesn't have anything on the black hole of creativity that is Disney.
Upon approaching the Neutral Zone with the RIAA, we have encountered an immensely powerful Stupid Field.
But it's okay! We're drinking like fish and flinging poo at each other while Mr. Snot attempts to bore a hole in the outer hull and let space in...
Man. And I thought Apple fanboys lived in a powerful RDF!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Frank Capra's classic "It's a Wonderful Life" was largely forgotten in its time. In 1974, possibly due to an error, its copyright lapsed. TV networks, eager for low cost holiday fare, basically had this film running on a loop during certain times of the year. Then, Paramount managed to pull the movie back into copyright. And low and behold, the showings of this great movie slowed to a trickle once again. Public interest indeed. These media industry slime-balls are evil. Literally evil.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
What we have here is the tired old Ad-prop ergo propter hoc fallacy, which translates to: If this, then that.
They are making a lame attempt to redefine their problems with their failing business model into something akin to:
"If our income drops below X: the terrorists win!"
The American public is simply not that stupid, though you can count the ones that are that dumb by how much they accept and argue that the people making this argument are right. Two classes among those arguing this:
1- Those who have a financial incentive for the public to be charged again and again and again for the same content over and over without actually being given anything "New".
2- Those who do not think for themselves but rather just listen to sound bites and repeat said soundbites again and again without bringing anything new to the conversation other than repeating what they heard on Fox news, as one example.
Interestingly those in class 1 will argue that the number of those in class 2 are much more numerous than they actually are, and of course those in class 2 will just rinse and repeat the words of their masters.. Monkey hear, monkey speak.
I ask, how much better off would Americans be if we actually put our government's feet to the fire on the issues that actually matter, such as putting the skilled Americans to work in STEM fields with the fever that they were put to work in the 1960s during the Apollo program? How much more motivated would the young be to study hard in school and work for a better world?
Ok guys, speaking directly to those that would flame me for what I am saying, realize that by arguing against me, you are typing yourself as either 1 or 2 and everyone here knows exactly what you are doing, who you are and how full of shit you are and the only people fooled by your words are you. Have fun making fools of yourselves! The rest of us have real jobs, real things to discuss and real problems to solve.
I just read about this, and found another reason to vote the current government out. I would give recording artists 1 generation (20 years). And that's it. You get the full benefit of your creation for 1 full generation. Your generation pays you for your work. Other generations are not burdened. 50 years to 70? No. 50 years to 20? Yes. This is wrong, and I will vote.
Damn, and I took the bait. Oh well, you live and learn I guess.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Uh, the party currently in power is, literally, called the "Conservative Party". If it was the NDP we'd say it's the NDP.
And yes, their attitude has been overwhelmingly in favor of bending over and begging US legislators of doing it harder and more forcefully so they can feel the values deep inside their legislative body.
Yep - copyright can only be owned by a human - not a corporation or a government. A human can licence reproduction of his/her works to another human for a period of time NOT TO EXCEED the lifespan of the creator. Might need to to have a catch-all there to cope with early death - see Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, etc. Perhaps the copyright will expire at the time of expected human lifespan at the time of the work's creation. But then the creator might live longer than that. Well, the licence to reproduce is for the lifespan of the creator, so birthdate+expected lifespan years, or the death of the creator, whichever happens later. But then that tends to discriminate in favour of creators from countries/races with longer expected lifespans - bad luck for Australian aboriginal artists.
It's complicated, isn't it? I suspect that's what drives the somewhat more simple "x years" or "creator's death plus x years" formulas. Fairer (or least unfair) for everyone, except that the value of 'X' can easily be extended with enough lobbying $$$.
I think the only way to pull back the influence of the "industry" and their lobbying $$$ is strenuous and sustained pressure on politicians. "If you vote for another copyright extension, I will not vote for you".
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Aren't there organizations around the world willing to purchase ancient copies for the express purpose of making them once again available? I know canada has some.
Creators, sure.
Disassociated publisher cartels which don't actually pass any of that money back to the creators, cheat on their taxes by subcontracting to their own studios and charging themselves however much they want, and continue receiving those protections long after the death of the creator? Not so much.
And therein lies the problem. Everyone agrees a songwriter deserves his copyrights and royalties. Problem is, those who have nothing to do with writing said songs have abused, exploited and overwritten (through bribes, etc) the system so that they get the lions share of the money and keep receiving those royalties decades after the artist has moved-on, retired, or outright bloody died.
People should be allowed to make money, but when the Sheriff of Nottingham is arguing that people are entitled to the sweat of their own brow, it's kinda because he intends to have more to drink after he scalps the lot of them.
There's a simple reason for that. Disney (branded) films are blockbusters - they have a huge production budget, hundreds of millions. The studio can't risk that much money on something new and untested, it might flop and cost them a fortune. If you're spending such a heap of cash you have to go with ideas that have a proven history of financial success - the stock cliches, or a remake or sequal. Low-budget films can afford to be more experimental.
The 'creator's life' bit breaks down when you've got a work with many creators - a film might have a few hundred people directly contributing to the finished product. That's why the US goes for a fixed 95-year term for works-for-hire.
Copyright needs to (I reckon) end with the death of the creator;
Absolutely not. Too much incentive for somebody to get some "bad heroin" from a "street dealer", or whatever... pick whatever method they can come up with. Just make the term of copyright shorter, and not dependent on the death of the artist. 20 years maybe, or whatever it was under the first copyright act way back when the US was founded.
That is why everyone should be in favor of TTIP/TPP!
No more doubts about how the world should look like, but all uniform regulations dictated by large coorporations and lobby groups.
And we'll sue the bastards who signed the TTIP and think they have the legal right to make a law that is in our coorporate interests!
With the new copyright amendment being formed in the EU I hope they will drop the maximal term for copyright down by at least 70-80% and remove the part that states 'after death'. Let's see what effect that has.
I didn't know people could be copyrighted.
At the bottom of the
Just imagine Bach would never have entered the Public Domain and instead got locked away.
I mean, he more or less single-handedly killed baroque music since everybody said "ok, his finger exercises already make our main compositions look bad. Let's do something else instead." If Bach could have been killed off by the record labels, we could still have powdered wigs playing live music in our supermarkets and run gigues with our shopping carts.
It's not up to them to tell what's in my interest.
When there is no commercial interest, works get lost to the sand of times, far ,far quicker than when in public domain. Very recent example : a lot of commercial software or games are getting "legally" lost because nobody can copy them freely and maybe change them hack them to run in a VM. Film get lost , more recent film, because nobody care to copy them and distribute them commercially, and you cannot legally distribute them. Same with music or books.
If copyright is held by cvompany : when they lose interrest but still protect copyright mercilessly, then works get lost and forgotten. When work is in the public domain, at least those possessing a copy can TRY to take care of maintaining them. In commercial hand the public hand are tied.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Yes, I know the article says Canada. But let us Read The Fucking Constitution of the United States:
The Congress shall have Power...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries...
For LIMITED TIMES, dammit. Life plus however many years since Steamboat Willie was released is not a limited time.
And TO PROMOTE THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE AND USEFUL ARTS. Not to make a bunch of fat cats fatter.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
So the "content" industry is crapping its pants, so afraid they can't make any money off their old content?
Here's an idea that y'all don't seem to have thought of.
Make some new content that will actually sell.
Today's music mostly sucks. Yeah, I know, Sturgeon's Law and we're mostly comparing the best of the past to everything made today. But can anyone look me in the eye and say that even one band active today will be relevant in 40 years? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm eighty four?
Stop resting on your laurels. Tell those Autotuned bottle blondes and soundalike boy bands and rap crap clap trap to grow some talent or STFU. Make some new content that's worth buying, and guess what? You get a brand spanking new copyright and you'll still be making money off of it long after I'm dead.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Done.
Before software was protected by copyright, which happened sometime in the 80's or so, in Germany software was protected by "unfair competition law". Quite simply, if A hires developers for a million to write software and sells it, and B just copies the software, that is unfair competition. However, "unfair competition" only applies if A is actually selling the software; if A doesn't sell it, then B isn't competing with A at all, whether fair or unfair. Obviously now software is under copyright, so things have changed.
With very old works the same could be done: Let them run out of copyright. However, it would be "unfair competition" and thus illegal to compete with the copyright holder. So as long as Disney is selling Steamboat Willy, it would be protected. If they stop selling it, you can copy it and even sell it freely.
Star Wars?! Oh, man, there are so many better examples of Disney rehashing old works. How about Maleficent (aka Sleeping Beauty from the villain's perspective)? Or running the Disney Princess angle into the ground with Brave (at least other Princess films had a legend or fairy tale background, Brave was just a complete fabrication)? Better yet, let's just talk about Disney Princess films, and how Disney takes an old legend or fairy tale, and turns it into a highly profitable film and merchandising effort? If that's not rehashing the same shit over and over, I don't know what is. The recent Star Wars acquisition doesn't have anything on the black hole of creativity that is Disney.
How about Avatar which is Pocahontas in space, which is a rip off of Dances with wolves which is no doubt a rip off of something else and so forth.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
"Works" is a plural word.
You are trying to describe a concept involving "works".
It can be better phrased:
"...the recording industry is now pushing the change by arguing that the process of works entering the public domain, is not in the public interest."
Note that I also put in a comma for clarity.
Also:
"You are not logged in. You can log in now using the convenient form below, or create an account, or post as Anonymous Coward."
When The Fuck did this happen?
But I do like the fact that the allowable HTML tags are now listed at the bottom.
Actually, there are a lot of interesting things down there.
I have heard proposals for a "corporate death penalty" - in cases where a corporation deliberately did or did not do something that ended in deaths or illnesses
( think thalidomide or pesticides ). Now I am wondering if there should be a "corporate insanity" decision proposed where the corporation is not just denying economics and the legal system, but has shown itself to be insane in terms of causing havoc in the activities of the population and other corporate bodies.
The penalty would have to be :
1) No legal action is allowed.No lobbying.
2) All advertising, press statements, complaints from the corporation must come from a specialized website labelled "Arkham", or "The Onion".
3) No renewing charters or contracts.
4) A court would appoint a legal guardian, just like for an insane individual.
and 5) The CEO, Board of Directors, and primary stockholders would also be committed to a real mental institution under the conventional rules for individuals.
There are two problems with tying copyright to the life of the creator.
Firstly, it makes the value of licensing copyright vary depending on the age of the creator. If an artist makes something mediocre at age 20, they can sell rights to use it for a respectable sum because those rights might last for decades. If another artist makes something brilliant at age 95, they can't sell the rights for anywhere near as much.
The second problem is that it adds an incentive to arrange "accidents" if a stubborn artist is sitting on the rights to something a big company wants to use.
Of course they can. It's mainly the middlemen who lose out. Copyright mainly rewards people who can copy lots, not creators. In other words distributors and marketers.
Were big, we own this shit, we don't want to create new stuff, we want to be paid in perpetuity!
- mob of Corporate Leeches
# touch universe # chmod +rwx universe #
Music industry: Nothing, absolutely nothing of our works would be in the public interest if it entered the public domain, which is why we campaign for perpetual copyright laws.
FTFY.
My only problem with the "until death" thing is that legally, everything else I do whilst married is partly due to my wife, and so would be part-owned by her in the event of a divorce. Thus, if I write a new 'happy birthday' song, it's in-part down to her. She should get some benefit if I die the day after I write it. I'd agree that a bazillion years of benefit is too much - I'd imagine 10-20 years should be plenty.
Magic word in the name: Industry.
They delude themselves into thinking like it's any other industry. And that's the problem. If it's all about their "industry", then Copyright itself is not in the public interest- the artificial monopoly envisioned by the Founding Fathers isn't this. Far, far from it.
As for lapsed...and then back in again. Something tells me that they cheated somewhere. Lapsed is just that- and like with Patents, you LEGALLY can't get it back once it's "lapsed". If it went into the Public Domain...it should've STAYED there.
Unless you talk to an audience of cows, you want to say "lo and behold".
Music Industry a bunch of retards with no clue, only greed
there is considerable public interest in it staying.
You like it, do you? Can't say I used it enough to notice much difference.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
"It's a Wonderful Life" was, is, and always will be, a crap movie. The people at the time it was made recognized this, which is why it was forgotten. The behavior of the cast, especially George, is the sort of thing that would get him thrown in jail today - verbally abusive to his wife and kids, physically manhandling his wife, giving an important deposit to Uncle Billy when he knew Uncle Billy was, in George's words, "a drunken old fool" and then blaming Billy for his own error in judgment, refusing to take responsibility for his mistakes by trying to drown himself and leaving the mess behind for everyone else to deal with. We have all this foreshadowed in his refusal to give Mary back her clothes while she's hiding behind the bush. Beneath that "oh shucks" exterior lurked a bully.
The only reason it was showed every year is because it was cheap to do so.
I'd rather watch Bill Murray's "Scrooged."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Given that we've established that the entertainment industry is a collection of sociopathic asshats, are you quite sure you want to give them a genuine monetary incentive to, say, kill copyright holders in order to plunder their now-orphan works?
Then there's the whole question of figuring out if/when a creator died.
A reasonable fixed term from publication/creation makes the most sense. Emphasis on "reasonable".
Log in or piss off.
I remember readings that jazz bands are under dire pressure from dead people's recordings (a lot of them pre-WW2) which causes them to disband or fail to get some hold in the first place. That is exacerbated by technology, as it is rather trivial to store some 100GB and make a playlist ; and that's full quality music not a 128K MP3 from the year 2000. (and the internet can give the content of an old record that stayed in very good condition)
It is very easy to make an "audiophile digital player network audio transport" too : add a cheap sound card to the kind of PC businesses were throwing out five years ago (and use the cheapest cable you can find). Gives you the same quality as a $5000 CD player.
I do think some artists are very much threatened by this. Though acoustic bands playing in bars and whatever places isn't something the evil record companies would care much about, and/or the record from the evil major companies are enabling this problem anyway (whether acquiring them was legit or they were torrented)
Copyright is supposed to be a limited time priviledge.
These guys don't want to live with their end of the bargain.
The purpose of copyright is to incentivize creative folks to create stuff.
Extending the term seems to me to work against this goal.
Anything past 20 years from the creative act is too far out to significantly make folks make more neat stuff.
In short, the public gets the short end of the deal.
Copyrights have enabled a major business segment which facilitates the publishing, creation, and distribution of works.
Historically, these were necessary for the public to access works.
As a result, these businesses managed to piggy back on the original creater's copyright.
This may have been a good bargain, but over time it seems more like the tail wagging the dog.
With the Internet, the publishing and distribution contribution of business is not important.
Helping with the creation is only important with major works requiring a big budget (like a major movie).
With business, the question of really extended terms may make more sense, but I don't think so.
When was the last time you saw a movie company doing financial planning out 20 years?
Extending the terms past that required to finance the original work to be created, allows the business to rest on their laurals.
This again, gives the public the short end of the deal.
It is natural that a person or business, used to a revenue stream from a work will feel entitled to it.
It is natural that a person or business will cry loudly that they should continue to receive what they feel entitled to.
But feeling entitled and being entitled are not the same thing.
The public may wish to extent the term to feel good, but there is no moral imperative to do so.
At this point, I don't see how extending it any more will make the public feel good.
The proper response to these crys is 'Nice try guys, but I don't thing so'.
Anything else is yet another Mickey Mouse law.
It is unfortunate the US seems hellbent on propogating this wrongheaded notion to the world.
I'd like to think other nations are smart enough to not follow this lead.
Indeed. Even in cases where published classical music - and its orchestration - is in the public domain for many decades, modern performances of it are often not. They involve copyrights with royalties to the performer and various technicians involved. It is necessary to either (i) get releases from the performers and possibly those technicians that the performance will be released to the public domain, or (ii) the performer releases them to the public domain, and has such a condition in the employment contracts of any technicians.
There are efforts to issue classical music in the public domain, especially by musopen.org and kimiko-piano.org, which are mirrored on archive.org. There are loads of public domain classical pieces at musopen.org. We have contributed to two of Musopen's kickstarter campaings (the Musopen DVD, and Musopen's complete works of Chopin), as well as two of Kimiko Ishizaka's (Open Goldberg Variations and The Well-tempered Clavier).
Wait, so Disney is criticized when they take stories from the public domain and retell them but also criticized if they come up with new stories? I know that Disney's not the most popular company when it comes to copyright discussions, but you can't have it both ways. If you didn't like Brave, that's fine, but criticizing them for coming up with an original story is really reaching.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I'd rather watch Bill Murray's "Scrooged."
About an alcoholic who fires people for little to no reason other than power. Who gives out towels or VCRs depending on if he is kissing your ass right now. Bill Murry WAS a bully in that movie.
Most Christmas stories are redemption quests. So they lead off with the person being kind of a dick. Then at the end they learn they should not be a dick after all.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Scrooged
A better example is The Grinch. That dude should be in Jail after that stunt. B&E for the whole town...
...create anything. Just 'cos the 'net makes it easy to copy and distribute creative works does not make it OK. People who just don't want to pay for stuff should admit it instead of pretending they have some kind of real philosophy or that is is for the creators' good (I mean, it might be, but it should be up to them to decide, not some guy in a basement who really just wants free stuff).
I agree with you so far. When I was in college, I didn't want to pay for anything because I couldn't afford anything. Now I've had real income for a while, so I'm happy to pay for the IP I use. Generally, IP should be honored via copyright and patents.
The problem is the middle level. I want creators to get well paid and consumers to get well priced access. That does not need a record company, say, in the traditional sense.
Copyright needs to (I reckon) end with the death of the creator; simple. And the creator has to be a human not a corporation. Probably legally difficult, but makes sense to me. I guess we need ways for copyright to be signed over to a corporation; or do we? Leased instead, until the 'death' of either party or until some agreed time prior. That way a corp can 'own' the copyright but only till the creator dies or the contract is up, whichever comes first.
Wait, why does it need to be so long? What you suggest is shorter than the current Infinity-1 the middle men are aiming for, but what was wrong with the original 14+14years on copyright? It's not like 99.999% of IP can be monetized past 5 years anyway.
I think that copyright can be owned by corporations in a problem. It should always be owned by the creator, and they can license it to corporations if they would like. Creators should never lose their copyright.
This argument I keep hearing that free distribution of, for example, music benefits the musician because they 'make more money in live shows anyway' is moronic in the extreme. Like every musician has the same business model? Sure, for some it might work that way: http://gizmodo.com/5903937/six... but not everybody can keep touring. They get older -- do they suddenly lose the right to make any money off their life's work because they can't tour behind it? Musician thinks: "Gee, I've got kids, a wife who works, I can't spend 10 months a year on the road like when I was 25 -- and double whammy, I don't get royalties either 'cos apparently I 'benefit' from all the exposure I get from my music being free." One size never fits all and ideology is often a cover for greed.
Okay, I wanted to preface my post by saying I pay (a lot) for IP, and I'm an honest guy. And honestly, what you say here is pure crap. I'm a developer, and I don't get to coast on the fruit of my "life's work" forever. You want to make more money, produce more IP. Like everyone. Music and video are not special.
By the way, it's because of the blood-sucking middle men that musicians can't make a decent buck from their recordings.
Ideally, creators get to say what happens. That's bound to encourage people to create. They can release their songs into the wild if they want, or not. But it's not up to 'us' to decide.
Creators get to participate in the conversation. The People get to say what happens. We had a reasonable deal at first: max 28 years of copyright. Then the lawmakers started listening to the IP holders instead of The People and we have the crap system that doesn't let anything ever go into Public Domain.
I don't teach myself guitar for many songs written by other artists. I'm far more interested in creating my own content, thankyouverymuch.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!
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Copyright policy issues are about which bargains benefit the public, not about what rights publishers or readers are entitled to.
The copyright system developed along with the printing press. In the age of the printing press, it was unfeasible for an ordinary reader to copy a book. Copying a book required a printing press, and ordinary readers did not have one. What's more, copying in this way was absurdly expensive unless many copies were made—which means, in effect, that only a publisher could copy a book economically.
So when the public traded to publishers the freedom to copy books, they were selling something which they could not use. Trading something you cannot use for something useful and helpful is always good deal. Therefore, copyright was uncontroversial in the age of the printing press, precisely because it did not restrict anything the reading public might commonly do.
But the age of the printing press is gradually ending. The xerox machine and the audio and video tape began the change; digital information technology brings it to fruition. These advances make it possible for ordinary people, not just publishers with specialized equipment, to copy. And they do!
Once copying is a useful and practical activity for ordinary people, they are no longer so willing to give up the freedom to do it. They want to keep this freedom and exercise it instead of trading it away. The copyright bargain that we have is no longer a good deal for the public, and it is time to revise it—time for the law to recognize the public benefit that comes from making and sharing copies.
NO. NOBODY will kill you to get your copyright, because they don't get it. NOBODY does. It goes public domain. Meaning YOU risk your psychotic freedom so that you benefit EVERYONE ELSE just as much as you.
Hence NOBODY, I repeat NO BODY will go killing authors so that they can get the copryright ended.
The reason not to tie it to death is far more prosaic: it should last such a short time that it doesn't damn well matter. 5 years probably a good figure. If someone is willing to wait 5 years to get it cheap then they weren't really a lost customer.
Well, you should have to perform your work to get paid for it.
I don't know why someone automatically thinks they should have the right to get paid every time someone listens to a recording of a single work done years ago.
Also, just because you have a wife and kids doesn't mean anything. If you can't afford a family, don't have one.
It already does. 70 years after death is still shorter if you are older than if you're young.
*Subject to copyright restrictions, of course.
Have gnu, will travel.
Your perspective is warped. If characters performing behaviour that would get you thrown in jail were the criterion for making a movie bad, then we can toss Pulp Fiction; Kill Bill; Ocean's Eleven; Batman; The Usual Suspects; The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly; practically every western, actually; every crime movie; every vigilante movie; every horror movie; and a whole slew of others right on the trash heap.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
and an apiary that sits on the ground could be "low and beehold"
I do miss the "swim across the Atlantic" bit they used to have.
But I miss far more, the old Google Calculator. You used to be able to stuff like "circumference of earth in football fields", but now-a-days it's not much better than a four function calculator.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Artists entered into contracts with record companies, because they couldn't afford the cost of marketing and distribution their own works. You don't need a record company anymore to perform those tasks and take a huge fucking cut of your profits.
YouTube and other internet sites are extremely effective at marketing, and in the digital age, distribution can be had at the click of a button.
If I like your music, I'll gladly pay you for a live performance of it.
Otherwise, fuck off.
Basically everyone here thinks all musicians are as rich as Justin Beiber and that musician isn't a real job.
There are about 250,000 people that list musician on their tax returns and 245,000 of them are making about 30K USD a year or so, and work at it all day and often all night as well.
Whatever you make at your job probably wears out, PC's become obsolete, shoes get holes in their soles, produce is consumed, but a recording is forever.
You don't listen to zeroes and ones, you listen to a performance by your favorite band playing your favorite song. You can do that a million times, and the performer can go fuck themselves and flip burgers if they don't like it, amirite?
I suspect the movie's real "sin" was to make bank a banker like "old man Potter" the greedy villain. Today, the greedy banker/financier is the hero, acting valiantly in the "public interest".
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Ideally, creators get to say what happens. That's bound to encourage people to create. They can release their songs into the wild if they want, or not. But it's not up to 'us' to decide.
We don't really care if people create unless they are driven, because we want them to do their best. And yes, they can release their songs into the wild if they want, or not. If they don't share them with anyone, then nobody can copy them. And their ideas can die in obscurity with them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There is a graph of books pulled up on Google Books (or the Internet Archive or any other book search)
There is high interest in the newest stuff at the far right, but interest drops off until it goes into the public domain, then it is rediscovered and the popularity of books from that year surges.
I tried to draw a spaces-and-starts graph, but I get "Filter error: Please use less whitespace."
Your argument is valid, but only to a point. Remember that copyright is something the public grants to the creator; it is not something that inherently exists. One could say that copyright is unnatural or artificial. It is the public saying to the creator "To give you an financial incentive to create works, we will suspend our normal behavior of sharing culture and give you exclusive control over distribution for a limited time. After that time, we will no longer go out of our way to help you." I think 20 years is plenty of time for the artist to recoup his investment. Actually, right now I would settle for reducing it to 50 years. But this business of life of the creator PLUS 50 years is absurd. It is an abuse of the system. And that abuse is why people in the public get so shrill in their anger about the copyright industries (why do they need to be industries?) efforts to continually rob the public.
I understand how artists are personally and emotionally attached to their creations. Without it, they might not have the perseverance to finish the works. But the moment they released that creation to the world, and took money for it no less, they gave up any moral claim of eternal owership.
"Language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words."
The alternate definition is:
"The manner in which politicians, corporations, industry trade groups and others speak."
You'd think by now they'd realize that we don't believe one thing that they say but no, they keep spewing forth with this sort of drivel.
On a related note, we need a new solution for file transfer. Bittorrent is dead so long as trackers and peer IPs are public.
The Canadian Reform Alliance Party? They were very aware of the multi-party system and were a merger to reduce division between the severe-right and the moderate right.
We have CRAP to thank for the modern Canadian Conservatives.
Bill Murray's character wasn't doing anything that would be considered illegal today (until he started with the "staple antlers on the mice").
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
What we don't need is an extension into perpetuity like what Disney is pushing for Mickey Mouse. Artists need to make more money off of their efforts while alive, so that they can live a reasonable not marginal life. Not a fan of let's keep the money making machine going for some corporation.
George is a two dimensional character, like all others he is merely functional to the story, so you might sure think this film is crap, but justify it with different reasons, because the legality or moral acceptability of the main character's behavior is completely unrelated to the quality of the movie.
If the movie sets bad examples, that becomes a problem for the viewer, for society maybe, but not for the movie itself.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Islamic state merely behead people. The recording industry steal our souls - suck them right out - then sell pieces of them back to us at a profit..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
No, he is on a low commotion.
Why yes. You're absolutely right. This was specifically referring to the Canadian Conservative Party. Shame on TC for such an obvious screwup.