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There Is No "Next Great Copyright Act", Remain Calm
Lirodon writes: A YouTube video has gone viral, particularly around the art community (and the subsection of the art community populated by the same type of people who tend to spread these around to begin with), making bold claims that a revision to U.S. copyright law is being considered, with a particular focus on orphan works. Among other things, this video claims that it would require all works to be registered with a for-profit registry to be protected, that unregistered works would be "orphaned" and be usable by "good faith infringers" and allow others to make derivative works that they would own entirely. Thankfully, this is all just hyperbole proliferated by a misinterpretation of a report on orphan works by the U.S. Copyright Office, as Graphic Policy explains.
Random Youtube video found to be distorting facts and be less than insightful. I never saw THAT coming.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
What we need to do is gut existing copyright because the typical person does not benefit. Not only copyrights, but trademark and patents. Gone. For ever.
People will still enjoy making money and art and things because nobody has intent on stopping any of that. People love making things too much, and they love doing it even if they aren't the exclusive owner. People get paid by the fact that only they can create a particular piece of art or item, up against true competition. But if others are skilled enough to make it too, so be it, maybe thats why no one person or entity should have ownership through arbitrary laws.
I see copyright, trademarks, and patents as mostly allowing law to be used to stifle conpetition and creation of artificial monopolies.
http://www.obamasweapon.com/
From the summary it sounds like good reform
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
you can boogie, you can slide..... Ringo summarizes this post best.
"Thankfully, this is all just hyperbole proliferated by a misinterpretation of a report on orphan works by the U.S. Copyright Office"
Why 'thankfully'?
If anything, the digital dissemination of copyrighted works, on the whole, increases the speed with which they depreciate, since more people who desire to purchase a legal copy of a copyrighted work can do so much more quickly than was previously possible, and since legal copies of copyrighted works don't degrade in quality over time (if you have a good cloud to store them in). I think that copyright term should be reduced to account for this.
Orphan works wouldn't even be that much of a problem if Congress didn't keep extending the copyright term. Most of those orphan works would be in public domain by now, and commercial entities could appropriate them to their heart's content.
The last 20 years of copyright law has been a vast collection of Evil Genius Plots To Take Over The World, with no small number successfully being implemented.
People can be forgiven for believing the worst without checking the facts.
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what most people on here profess to want.
abandonware issues and old IP being split up to muilt owners putting it in a messy limo.
>> require all works to be registered with a for-profit registry (Google?) to be protected, that unregistered works would be "orphaned" and be usable by "good faith infringers" (Google again?)
Isn't that pretty much what Google did with books a few years ago?
It's called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Extends the copyright term to 120 years, eliminates fair use as a copyright infringement defense, and institutes extrajudicial legal proceedings that allow copyright holders to seize your property if it is being used to "infringe."
No, if you haven't registered the work, you're only able to get actual damages (which is something like your 'customary rates' but it depends on what you can prove) rather than statutory damages and attorney's fees. Actual damages are close to what you said, but statutory damages are not "punitive" damages at all.
But don't take my word for it, read the actual law on the subject.
Oh, and it so happens that you can register just before filing suit, but a registration that isn't timely doesn't have the same presumption of validity that it would if you were registering long before there was a lawsuit close on the horizon.
This is how copyright should be changed: give every 'work' ten years of free protection - plenty to understand whether it is making money or not. And beyond that, allow for infinitely repeatable five-year terms, paid for at a progressive rate. That way everyone can be happy: basic protection is in place for free, and anything that is valuable can be protected up to its economic value but not beyond.
Copyright owners can be happy: they finally have their infinite copyright - or at least as it makes sense economically.
The public can be happy, as older works will eventually fall into public domain.
The government can be happy, as copyrighted works become a steady source of income.
See, everybody is happy!
By showing a giant spectrum of possible actions people are more likely to accept a small copyright change.
I don't know if this was the original authors motive, but the damage is done.
Dammit, why didn't I think of that. Sally, take a memo for our mouthpieces in Washington.
- MPAA executive
I was already fired up about copyright and will remain so!
You all need to do some research in the work of Aaron Schwartz (Murdered by the Justice Department). He and other created an idea called "Creative Commons" (cc).
Why Thankfully?
This is the video I watched on the subject. It seemed more than plausible. I didn't get all the way through - only about an hour.
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot....