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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.
...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.
OK, I'll play. Here's an example I happened to be thinking of recently. Consider the case of a film from the silent era, 1894–1929. On a common-sense basis, it clearly should be in the public domain. After all, the people who made it are all dead - as likely are their heirs. So, who really deserves any money from something created that long ago?
However, if it's in the public domain, there is no monetary incentive to locate, digitize, and restore such a film. It either sits in a vault somewhere, decomposing (maybe even on nitrate film - egad!), or maybe it was transferred onto videotape before its copyright expired. So, it's either not available at all, or maybe isn't available in the best possible quality. But if somebody still owned a valid copyright for it, they might have a financial incentive to make it available in HD.
Don't get me wrong, though - I don't think any film from the silent era should still be protected by copyright. But at least some case can be made for that. So there's your counter-argument.
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.
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
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.
Actually, a restored copy (or even a digitized copy) would be a derived work. Derived works can be copyrighted independently of the foundation work, as long as some degree of artistic creativity was involved. If I digitally-restored an old film that was in the public domain, digitally-watermarked it, and you distributed unauthorized copies of it, I could most certainly sue you for infringement. I couldn't stop you from independently obtaining a copy of the original work and doing YOUR OWN restoration on it (and getting your own copyright), but I CAN stop you from using MY restored copy as your source.
Here are some other examples:
The original German text of Grimm's fairy tales: public domain
A translation of them (with a few artistic liberties) published long ago: public domain.
A new translation of them: the lines you changed are a derivative work & copyrighted. The lines that were unchanged from the original translation are public domain. The limits of how far someone could go republishing your translation with your own changes slightly paraphrased: anyone's guess, but likely to be messy.
You print an anthology of public domain works. I OCR them, and typeset & sell my own anthology. You MIGHT have a valid (if weak) copyright claim if my book had a 1:1 correspondence with yours (every story in one was in the other, in the same order, but without any interpretations/footnotes/etc added by you), but the more my book diverges from yours in form and content, the weaker your claim would be.
You print an anthology of public domain works. I scan each page, and use the images to publish my own anthology. You can absolutely sue me, because I violated the copyright on your "performance" of the original public-domain works.
I record myself playing a Beethoven fugue. You copy and sell verbatim copies: I can sue. The content itself is public domain, but my specific recorded performance of it is not. The process of recording, mixing, and editing added copyrightable value. On the other hand, if I performed it in a public place & you made YOUR OWN recording, I'd probably have no valid claim against you. And I absolutely couldn't stop you from performing the public-domain work YOURSELF, recording it, and releasing it on your own.