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Modernizing the Copyright Office
An anonymous reader writes: Joshua Simmons has written a new article discussing the growing consensus that it is time to modernize the Copyright Office. It reviews the developments that led to the last major revision of the Copyright Act; discusses Congress's focus since 1976 on narrower copyright bills, rather than a wholesale revision of U.S. copyright law, and the developments that have led to the review hearings; and considers the growing focus on Copyright Office modernization.
Just roll it back to its original 17 years. I want my Steamboat Willie!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'd like to see a modification. To limit music and video, and I mean just music and video media, not lyrics, etc., to have the copyright shortened to 30 years. But the storyline, ideas, etc., would still be subject to the current status quo.
Why? I just want it easier for TV shows to get released and shown on the air. Plus, after 30 years, does music still really need that much protection?
They should take into account that copyright is assigned automatically under the Berne Convention and any registration functions the Copyright Office performs are redundant. Even in cases of legal dispute, the first person to have registered the copyright on a particular work might not have been the first person to actually create it, so it's of limited value there too.
Librarian of Congress James Billington to retire in January. He has often been a voice of reason. But with his announcement there is a movement to move the Copyright Office out of the LOC and make it independent.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/67092-plan-for-independent-copyright-office-meets-resistance.html
CODE Act (Copyright Office for the Digital Economy) is a power grab by publishers' groups. Don't be fooled.
Underfunded, antiquated infrastructure, politicized bureaucracy. Yea, that's something everyone can agree needs to be fixed. Wait, what part of the executive branch are we talking about?
for every time the mouse threatens to go out of copyright, copyright gets extended.
Honestly, it's about enriching society by funding the creator, not his heirs, so any death+N years is silly.
Don't worry, the TPP will get rid of that antiquated mostly-US notion that the first person to create something should own it and harmonise away that fuction of the Copyright Office. https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
This is just some PR flack's attempt to pretend there is grassroots support for the letting the TPP gut what few copyright protections the U.S. still has left that favor the independent inventor over corporate behemoths.
The copyright office in the U.S. recently raised its prices for copyright registration enormously. If you submit 2 short articles, that is a now called a "compilation", and the price is raised from $35 to $55, even though the total may be only 2 or 3 pages.
Also, the U.S. Copyright Office takes months to respond, makes frequent mistakes, and has a web site that is in some ways poorly written.
Can you recommend a copyright office in another country?
All they will do is narrow the definition of fair use and change lifetime of author/artist to lifetime of company.
We can't modernize the copyright office, because the modern office is copyrighted.
Why would you bother to register? It's not like it gets you anything besides the right to sue in federal court, and if you're doing that, I can't see how it would matter whether it was $35 or $55 or $550.
Folks: the Copyright Office has no enforcement powers. All it is is a repository for registrations of claims of copyrights. Modernizing the copyright office is like modernizing the drivers license division of a state: it doesn't affect who is allowed to drive (assuming that it performs competently either way.) It is not the DL division that enforces the driving laws, it is the police and the courts. Same thing for the Copyright Office; a registration improves a plaintiff's claim, but that claim still has to be made in federal court.
The author of that article (Mr. Simmons) summarizes together a lot of past and suggested reforms. Why he does that I don't know, for restructuring and/or refinancing the Copyright Office won't change the law nor change anyone's rights.
Finally, those of you who promote shortening the copyright period of works in existence: get over it, it ain't a-gonna change. The takings clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution would require that everyone who had a shortened copyright would have to be compensated justly, and that would clog up the courts beyond imagination. Congress may be foolish sometimes, but it ain't that stupid! Now if you want to talk about shortening the term of copyrights that originate in the future, that's different...
Among other things, the possibility of attorney's fees and statutory damages, as well as import controls at the border.
US Customs, yes. Though hardly anyone actually bothers. Certainly not someone who worries about a $20 change in the official registration fees.
Attorneys' fees and statutory damages? Sounds like you're in federal court. Meaning you had to have registered the copyright in the first place, so those aren't good reasons to register. You do understand that I could have created something 1 day after Berne implementation, wait still another, say, 50 more years, and _then_ register it so I can sue you and possibly recover fees and statutory damages, right?
Hmm, you might think so. Australia does have this sort of a law in place, it is not specific to copyright. In any sort of a civil suit the looser pays all legal fees (so you don't also sue for legal costs, you get that anyway.) This seems to prevent a lot of bullshit cases ever coming out at all. Australia is still waiting to see if anyone will try any of this rubbish where you try and sue masses of people for downloading movies on torrents. It looks like this Dallas Buyers Club mob may go through with it. The real danger for any company trying this is that they could stand to loose a shitload of money trying it - surprisingly good lawyers will work on a no win no fee service where a defendant has a good chance as they do know they can get whatever fee they want should they win and the plaintiff will have to pay up.
You don't get so many terribly frivolous lawsuits when you know you will pay whatever vaguely justifiable legal fee the defending lawyer comes up with when you loose. It makes it harder to grind someone into the dirt with your expensive lawyers when you have to pay for the other parties lawyer who is free for the defendant until such time as the battle is over. Of course a little defendant loosing can easily be bankrupt by this process - makes it somewhat pointlessly expensive to do though as you don't recoup your legal fees from a defendant you bankrupt with high legal fees.
1) Orphaned works are unprotected until someone claims and proves ownership
2) Copyright lasts 5 years from first publication.
3) Extended copyright must be for a work substantially changed from the original to be a new work derived from the original and noted as derived.
4) Software copyright lasts as long as support lasts for the software
5) Source code must be supplied for copyright to apply to the binary
6) Encrypted or DRM'd works must be available unencrypted and unlocked for release after copyright ends, or copyright no longer applies
7) That which is copyrighted is not covered by any other intellectual property laws
(patent change: software that is patented must be supplied in "blueprint" form, source code of a working product)
1) Limited term means something finite. Certainly 99 years is the absolute maximum that would qualify as limited, but the copyright 'bargain' demands something shorter, which is more in concert with providing incentive to the author, not profits to the conglomerate. This should bring a great many works into the public domain.
2) A copy means the ability for one person at a time to use it. (Aside from a case like someone reading aloud to others.) Consumers doing more than this are not playing fair. Rights holders preventing that, likewise are not playing fair. This should make moving from one media to another by consumers fair. Disabling technical copy protection mechanisms, where necessary, to accomplish this should be fair.
3) No double dipping. A rights owner can sell a copy, but not also encumber it with a license. Alternatively, he can license it, but not use Copyright to protect the work. Pick your poison, but not both.
4) Penalties need to be commenserate with the actual crime. 10x the economic gain seems reasonable. Penalty needs to work both ways for false claims of copyright ownership as in DCMA takedowns. Putting ones life at risk with penalty, as in swatting, seems extreme.
5) Orphoned works need a simple clearing house for becoming public.
At the current, electorate permitted, price of Congress, I won't hold my breath.
You have to register within three months of publication or before infringement begins to get attorneys fees and statutory damages. In your example, they would not be available to you.
Copyright law became null and void when Disney suspended public domain.
They have reneged on their side of the social contract... there is no reason for us to uphold ours.
For once, sexconker says something intelligent.
Copyright needs to expire much earlier. Whoever creates content should have her or his creative investment protected, but that's it. Not their heirs and the heirs of their heirs or some company that exists only as a PO box in the Bermudas who holds copyrights for gazillion things and employs an army of sleazy lawyers. And while we are at it, have patents expire much earlier as well. It works for healthcare, after a few years of cashing in generics are allowed and drive down the price.