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2018 Is the Last Year of America's Public Domain Drought (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Happy Public Domain Day, every-some of you! In New Zealand and Canada, published works by artists who died in 1967 -- Rene Magritte, Dorothy Parker, John Coltrane, and many others -- have entered the public domain; Kiwis and Canadians can now freely distribute, perform, and remix a wealth of painting, writing, and music. In Europe, work published by artists who died in 1947 are now public domain. In the United States, well, we get nothing for the 20th year in a row, with one more to go. Our public domain drought is nearly old enough to drink. American copyrights now stretch for 95 years. Since 1998, we've been frozen with a public domain that only applies to works from before 1923 (and government works). Jennifer Jenkins is a clinical professor of law at Duke Law School, which hosts the Center for the Study of the Public Domain. In an email she explained what changed and why nothing has entered American public domain for two decades. "Until 1978, the maximum copyright term was 56 years from the date of publication -- an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years," she wrote. "In 1998, Congress added 20 years to the copyright term, extending it to the author's lifetime plus 70 years, or 95 years after publication for corporate 'works made for hire.'"
And suddenly, legislation will appear that will extend the Public Domain timeout period by another 20 or 50 years.
Watch and see if this doesn't happen before the end of the year.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Solution is here... stop acting like are tards.
#freedumbs
#UScorptocracy
We, the American public, have been had. Copyright should be 20 years maximum, renewable once for a period of 10 years against a hefty fee. NO LONGER, PERIOD. Music, books, films, television programs, etc... no exceptions. If it is or ever was broadcast publicly (radio, OTA TV, cable, satellite, internet streaming) there should be liberal fair use for anyone who could have theoretically received the public broadcast (including having it in your flat rate monthly subscription). I.E., record and time shift whenever, however you want so long as you don't rebroadcast to content.
Signed,
Old and Grumpy
Who is the "author" of a Hollywood film?
Copyright should be a flat 60 years for a creative work, with trademark protection for characters in continuous use such as Mickey Mouse. That means we'd be in the midst of a PD rollout of Buddy Holly and Elvis right now, with Big Band jazz already behind us. Everyone'd have to wait a few more years to get the Beatles w/o paying. That seems about right.
Totally random OT post, but the Public Domain Drought could easily move to any of 172 other countries in the world and start drinking legally now.
The contemporaries of the US with a drinking age of 21 are: Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, Kiribati, Micronesia, Mongolia, Nauru, Oman, Palau, Samoa and Sri Lanka.
And the only countries that technically forbid drinking alcohol are: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen
Taken from https://drinkingage.procon.org...
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
What direction are you travelling through time?
Don't worry, this congress and president will ensure nothing new falls to the public domain this or any other year.
Both, some times. But you are right. Of course, I meant "descendants" :)
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
Did you pay a royalty for the idea of using a roof and walls, or did you steal those ?
well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period.
No, you are supposed to be rewarded for a brief period. The US Constitution plainly states that; it's not just the article's author's opinion. The Constitution even points out that the *purpose* of depriving people of their natural rights to copy things they see for a limited period of time is to enhance the public domain.
However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead. So you can stop your bitching and whining. You got what you wanted.
The Constitution explicitly has that copyrights exist for a limited time. Despite the term "intellectual property" it isn't property in the classical sense of the term. If I try to use your house, you can't benefit from it. But my having a copy of a book doesn't reduce the amount of gain someone else gets from the book. The point of intellectual property laws is to give an incentive for people to make new things, knowing they will have some time to benefit. But almost no one says "I was going to patent this or was going to write this book, but because my grandkids might not have 100% rights to it, I won't."
How does a painting entering public domain steal that painting from your ancestors? Last I checked they still had it just like the house. Copyright steals the free speech of the public for the profit of the individual. For the limited period it was originally created for this was a perfectly reasonable trade but it has ballooned to ridiculousness.
I agree.
Bingo.
Fail to pay your property taxes one year and learn who REALLY owns this house you've built.
the flip side of the wonderful free availability is the artists either starving
Or, you know, maybe they can produce something new once every few decades to support themselves.
I think you're on to something here! My main question is: why did the Jewish-zionist-wahhabist-entertainment lobby hell bent on making sure Jews look like the master race allow people of this master race become disgraced and thus incite hatred against them from human diapers such as yourself?
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors [sic], it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
And you will pay for the upkeep of the house, and pay taxes on the house (and the property below it). But more importantly, nobody is paying you or your descendants for your right to keep that house. Nor is anyone prevented from making their own house that looks like yours.
If, on the other hand, I write a tune or a book, or develop a drug, or create a painting — well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period.
Just a note: drugs are patented, not copyrighted, and patents run out after (a maximum) of 21 years.
All the things you mention are built upon knowledge and skills of previous creators ("we stand on the shoulders of giants"). The purpose of copyright was to create a protected period during which creators could make money--so they would be encouraged to create more. It's a contract between society and creators.
Maybe Jews are just smarter than you, and smart enough to use those smarts to enrich themselves.
More power to smart people smart enough to use those smarts!!
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Good, this will help spread Canada and New Zealand's culture freely around the world.
Ummmm. No you can't. Fail to pay taxes here in the US and it will be taken from you. There is also seizure for public use.
A bumper crop of metaphors.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Point is, they should not have to.
Why not ? What's so special about artists that they can make one thing, and then collect money for the rest of their life (and their children's) while other people have to repeat their work day after day ?
It's not merely the wish of the author of the article. In the US, there is, in fact, a difference between physical property and intellectual property, as provided by the Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8. It's a limited time monopoly. If you don't like it, make your contributions in another arena. Or seek to amend the Constitution. Or join the corporations that continue to buy the extensions piecemeal as other commenters have predicted will happen.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Two things are missing from the original story (which did not allow comments). One is that the original original copyright law (designed by the Founders) provided copyright protection for 14 years, with a possible extension of 14 more. Their intent was to place copyrighted material in the public domain fairly quickly, after allowing the creator to profit. The Founders would be disgusted by the bloated copyrght law of today. The second issue is how todayâ(TM)s copyright law became so bloated - which is Mickey Mouse. It is not a coincidence that today any IP created after the mid-1920s is protected by copyright, and that Mickey Mouse was created in the mid-1920s. The Disney corporation (copyright fiends) has twice bought Congressmen (including Sonny Bono) and arranged to have copyright extended just before Mickey was to go into publc domain. Today US copyright law exists not for the benefit of the public, but to protect the profits of Disney. Iâ(TM)m surprised the author ignored this...
What in the hell is that?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
If you own a business, you can also pass it to your children, and great, great, great, grandchildren. Here are some veerrrryy old businesses:
Baker's Chocolate (1765)
Cigna Insurance (1792)
JP Morgan Chase (1799)
DuPont (1802)
Colgate (1806)
Citigroup (1812)
Remington (1816)
HarperCollins (1817)
https://www.businessnewsdaily....
How can these businesses be allowed to make money for over 200 years and yet copyright owners are forced to "donate" their work to the public after 100 years? Inventors have to give their work away after just 20 years... cha-ching for manufacturers who pay nothing for the expired patent for hundreds of years. Programmers don't get a royalty... their hiring companies profit from the product for decades and the programmers get some peanut salary and get kicked out when they turn 40 or 50. Scientists and mathematicians have it the worst... they get paid with just a job (and they get some paltry sum in a Nobel Prize).
This is systematic abuse of the intellectual class by the ruling class (government and big business). Anything short of perpetual right to the creators of these works is abuse and exploitation.
When is the government going to make these old businesses "public domain?"
If I write a song, and release it to the public domain right now, I can still use it in perpetuity.
Copyright is not property. It's artificial property-like rights to encourage creators. This rationale is explicitly stated in the US constitution, and for the first British copyright act in 1710.
If you haven't made a substantial return from a work after 5 years, you never will.
Except not every house too similar looking / designed to yours is also yours.
And you pay various taxes to keep the house in most places that don't feel like they have infinite space for huge properties.
See, in either case there SHOULD likely be some payment made to society for protecting your house and your copyright, society shouldn't necessarily be expected to care about what is yours for free.
And in the case of copyright, it would be sane if after 20 years or less, the payment would be that everyone can use it for free.
The current near perpetuity is stupid, the people who did most of the protection get no benefits.
No, it's not theft. There is no artistic work that is truly original. To make copyrights last forever is to eventually make all artistic works illegal. Everything samples from other things; all of rock music exists because it took pieces of other categories of music and changed the way they were played. You seem to have an insanely stupid view of the world based on some notion that extremely strict capitalism is a good idea and that view is so willfully ignorant of reality that it's a miracle you haven't starved to death. Methinks you're a stinking hypocrite.
I expect the last copy-right holder of those works to actually make those works available. So if it was a movie or recording the recording must be published in a currently supported format. If it is a book a digital scan or other copy of the work. We, the people of Canada, granted the copy-right holder a limited monopoly on profiting on that work and now we want it available to all Canadians.
We should be able to sue any copy right holder of any significant cultural work that becomes lost. As a geek, I do think things like the lost early Dr. Who episodes are a loss to our society and the BBC, because they didn't make the works available sooner, should be held financially responsible. I guess we just need to figure out who is allowed to sue on behalf of us.
The only reason that house you built is considered your "property" is because you (and the government) use *force* to keep me from moving in and using it for myself. That makes it theft. You are a thief.
We'll be sure to get that handled before the year's up.
Yours forever,
Disney
The constitution was obviously written by intellectuals. It's a relic of a era long gone, but properly amended, it can be used to protect and shore up our corporate society. Using intellectual property law to encourage new ideas is part of that old way of thinking. The tendency for most Americans is to work for massive corporations that already own these properties anyway, nothing they produce belongs to them.
The days of big ideas coming from little people is long gone, and an amendment granting perpetual copyrights can help keep it that way.
- C. Stooge, MBA
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
Not if someone else builds a similar house elsewhere. Then your house will vanish in a puff of logic.
This is why there ought to be a law to stop thieves from duplicating houses.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
So that means that you don't really own your house, you rent it from the state?
If you build a house, you can will it to you descendents. Each time it passes from one generation to the next, it will be taxed. If one of those generations can't pay the taxes on it, it will be forfeited to the government and sold at auction.
If you write a song, write a book, develop a drug, or paint a painting, you will own the original work, unless you sell it. You will also be perpetually credited with the work, unless you sell that also (for example: a work for hire). You will also be allowed to control the distribution of copies of the work for a limited time, unless you sell that copyright.
These things you own—a house, an artistic work, credit for that work, the copyright for that work—they can all be willed to your descendents. But only one of them has an explicit, legally-defined expiration date, and that's the copyright. Yes, that reduces its value. Get the fuck over it.
I don't support collectivization either but you're comparing apples and oranges.
A home has natural scarcity and is easily quantized. Expression is not. Ideas are not. This is why copyright infringement is not the same as theft. Copyright provides temporary scarcity at society's expense so that you can profit from your work. However, at some point, ideas become part of the society's culture/general knowledgebase, and allowing the creator to remain the bridge troll indefinitely deters progress. This is especially true in science and technology where the IP stack becomes very expensive very quickly.
Want another house? Build one. Want more scarcity? Come up with a new idea. It was not meant to protect one trick ponies forever. 14+14 was quite generous (~half a lifetime). Later revisions were even more so. Today it's egregious.
For those who don't get the Disney reference, the implication is that the 1998 Copyright Extension Act (sponsored by Hollywood-owned Congressman Sono Bono), was really the brainchild of Disney, as part of an ongoing effort to keep their earliest cartoon and cartoon characters (most notably Mickey Mouse) from ever entering the public domain. Disney was also suspected by many to be behind the Copyright Act of 1976, which had extended the term previously. Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse, was created in 1928 and, with each of these new laws, always stays just outside of ever entering into public domain.
Here is an interesting article on the subject.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
He built the Time Tombs, obviously.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The tax plan was not Trump's, it was the Republican Congress's.
I think that there would be far more public awareness of a new copyright extension, and a lot of determined resistance. People weren't using the Internet to organize in 1998, at least not to the degree that we've seen with e.g. the Net Neutrality campaigns. The 1998 extension was unpopular, but I don't recall it ever being front-page news. I suspect that public pressure, probably as coordinated by our benevolent billion-dollar tech overl^Wcompanies, would be sufficient to convince Democrats to see the issue as an opportunity to slam Republicans rather than an opportunity to appease their big-media donors.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
Leaving aside your erroneous word choice, you cannot actually guarantee that. Not only is your house most likely going to be owned by a deed in fee simple (aka you owe taxes), it might be destroyed. In which case you own nothing.
But what you neglect to consider is that the right to own your house is nothing more than that anyway. It does not constrain me. I can buy all the property around your house and build giant skyscrapers.
If, on the other hand, I write a tune or a book, or develop a drug, or create a painting â" well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period. Or so the article's author would like things to be.
So the way things have been negotiated and accepted to be, by far more than just one article's author. It allows a constraint and binding upon me, and for what? Seems costly to me, hug?
But actually, the point of intellectual property is a greater reward. A benefit and a gain. Sadly, you will just have to accept this and realize your trolling will be pointless.
That's because you aren't also claiming the right to keep me from saying 'nice house' and building one just like it for myself.
If you want to write your great novel and lock it in a vault, passing it to your descendants, you're free to do so. Nobody will legally cut the vault open and abscond with your only copy.
If you choose, you may accept copyright which means that for a limited time (which exceeds your lifetime), society will grant you the exclusive right to make copies. Your descendant doesn't lose the right to make copies after the copyright expires, it's just that the government will no longer prevent others from doing so as well.
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
If, on the other hand, I write a tune or a book, or develop a drug, or create a painting — well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period. Or so the article's author would like things to be.
I like how you are trying to compare not selling a house with actually selling music/books/drugs/art (and failing laughably IMO).
The music/books/drugs/art that you create already remains in your family in perpetuity unless sold. Selling a copyable product is not like selling a house. The house you can only sell once, but your copyable product can keep being sold. Since limiting your copyable product to particular number of sales makes no sense, you instead get a period of time to sell as many copies as you want/can.
Why should your children profit off something they didn't make?
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.
tl;dr Ideas are not property, and the idea that you own something you don't have immediate physical control over is also a social agreement. Copyright exists as a social convenience, and humanity got along fine without it for thousands of years. The Internet being effectively copyright-free has revived older means of supporting artists, namely patronage and serially released works.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I I pay you to build a house for me you shouldn't get that house back after a certain number of years, especially after I spent years and years improving its value.
Personally, I blame a large rat.
Have gnu, will travel.
American copyrights now stretch for 95 years.
Wait, I thought it was life of author + 70 years, or 120 years after creation/95 years after publication for work-for-hire works, which means, that the copyright duration could actually be much longer than 95 years.
For example, strictly hypothetical, if some teen at 15 makes a spectacular song, and then lived to be 100, that would mean that the non-work-for-hire work would be under copyright for 85 + 70, or 155 years.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Because my children (not even grandkids) will not derive any income from my writing, I'll have to shelve my idea of this book and go do "real work". That's the line of thinking I was alluding to. The creator — or his wife — would certainly think/say such a thing.
Utter nonsense. Copyrights are extremely long, there's no way that children won't benefit from the same copyrights. This is just silly. Moreover, do you have any evidence that any author has ever said so?
But I do not wish to argue, which way is more effective. Even if my way was less conducive to development of art, it is still the only right way. Creators ought to be able to control their creations — they must be able to sell, rent, give away, or even destroy them however they see fit. It is not yours, it is not mine, it is theirs.
So at the end of the day, what you are trying to do is make a moral claim about the nature of intellectual property. I explicitly addressed that claim earlier. The moral reason we have a notion of basic property rights is that physical property is by nature restrictive, as I tried explaining earlier. If we somehow existed in a universe where objects could be used by any number of people without diminishing their value or usability, property rights wouldn't be a sensible thing. But that's precisely the situation with things like copyrighted works- one person reading it doesn't make someone else have less value. This isn't that complicated. And it is simple even before one gets to the incredible amount of wasted resources if copyrights were indefinite (imagine for a moment what our world would look like if Shakespeare was still copyrighted or if every 19th and early 20th century patent was still active). Your approach is both morally incoherent and simply a pragmatically bad idea.
Exponential Copyright Renewal Fees needed for every 10 years after the initial 20 yrs.
My thoughts:
Authors get 20 yrs for free. They cannot give up their copyright.
On year 21, the work becomes public domain and available for reuse, fair-use by anyone unless the original author pays 50% of the profits made on the work up to that time as a fee to renew it.
Assuming they pay 10 yr the fee, on year 31, the next fee is 100x the prior fee.
Assuming they pay the 10 yr fee, on year 41, the next fee is 100x the prior fee.
I'm willing for 1 character/yr to be given a 100 year no-fee copyright for things considered to be core to American culture, as set by law in following the normal law-making methods. Micky Mouse comes to mind. Luke Skywalker also comes to mind. But other characters in those cultural icons would not be protected.
Trade marks for characters should be illegal too.
What we have today has gone too far. All those B+ movies, TV, and books certainly don't deserve more than 20 yrs of protection.
Limited time exclusive use, not forever, like Disney is doing and all the other big name video makers are following.
Also it should be noted that Disney so protective of its own creations for generations, aways has been a prolific user of ideas and stories that are in public domain.
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about, A.C.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Except we are not talking about creators and their creations. Creators, at least if you count organizations, have control over their creations.
Copyright is not about the creation, but subsequent imitations, usually identical given most copyrighted works are designed to be produceable at large quantities.
Copyright is about the inventor controlling who gets to be a creator, in order to ensure profits are funneled back to the inventor.
The article is about copyright, but let's take patents.
Under your system, patents would never expire or come into the public domain. You'd still be paying Mr Fire (or his estate) for every fire made into perpetuity. And Mr Window. And Mr Garden Spade. Literally the cost of EVERYTHING you touch would increase overnight to pay patent royalties to someone who invented something 100 years ago, is dead and/or hasn't done a day's work since. This is apparently the bit you hate.
The same still applies for copyrights... on music, movies, characters, comics, sketches, poems, books, etc. You'd still be paying Mr Shakespeare 500 years later for the use of his material. Thus the price of everything you touch goes up. You literally can't do anything without some lawyer poking their head out of the woodwork and demanding their 1%. Said lawyer works for large faceless corporation that bought up family assets a hundred years ago and does nothing but ask people for money for using them into perpetuity.
What you're in fact suggesting is that people get a monopoly on everything they ever did, long after they are dead and gone. Schools would still be paying Chaucer's estate for the use of his works, there wouldn't be a play you could perform without paying money, there wouldn't be a book you could read, a painting you could see (have you SEEN the fuss over even postcards of things like the Mona Lisa, etc.?), a landmark you could look at (Eiffel Tower night displays are "copyright").
And the money would all be going to the lawyers-of-sons-of-sons-of-sons-of someone who once wrote a joke, for doing NOTHING. This is the kind of freeloading you appear to be against, no? People demanding money for something they never had any part in whatsoever? Isn't that worse than someone who wants to read a book written by a guy who died so long ago nobody even remembers who owns the rights?
Public domain is an inherent part of everyone's history. From music to books, movies to encyclopaedia - everything you do has been done, said and written about a thousand times before. And we don't want to get to a point where we have to pay EVERY person along the way, into perpetuity, for their tiniest of contributions.
What are the most expensive movies to buy? Disney. Why? Because they were made in the 1930's, and now just about anyone who has ever had a part in their making is long-dead. But the lawyers still want their cut of something that even their grandfather wouldn't have seen first time round, necessarily.
What you suggest basically results in creating a new type of mega-corporation that you have to pay for everything you do, and who do nothing to earn that. Literally, the pattern of your floorboards, the colour of your carpet, the shape of your biscuit tin. All these things are "uncopyrightable" / "unpatentable" / "untrademarkable" because they're obvious or already in the public domain. Going forward, removing that public domain part makes everything licensable, and therefore requiring a fee.
Locked down and dying.
If I write a book I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
The book is property and you can keep it and pass it on. The rights to exclusive production is what you are asking for.
However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead.
Part of the problem here is that copyrights are transferable and can be owned by corporations. The original copyright holder quickly loses his rights, if he even held them in the first place, and people with no affiliation whatsoever to the works or the artist gets to reap the benefits.
Make copyrights non-transferable from the actual creator(s), and only licensable for no longer than 5 years at a time.
If a corporation wants to continue using a creation, they need to continue to compensate the creator, until the work falls into public domain.
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
If you own a business, you can also pass it to your children, and great, great, great, grandchildren. Here are some veerrrryy old businesses:
Baker's Chocolate (1765)
Cigna Insurance (1792)
JP Morgan Chase (1799)
DuPont (1802)
Colgate (1806)
Citigroup (1812)
Remington (1816)
HarperCollins (1817)
https://www.businessnewsdaily....
How can these businesses be allowed to make money for over 200 years and yet copyright owners are forced to "donate" their work to the public after 100 years? Inventors have to give their work away after just 20 years... cha-ching for manufacturers who pay nothing for the expired patent for hundreds of years. Programmers don't get a royalty... their hiring companies profit from the product for decades and the programmers get some peanut salary and get kicked out when they turn 40 or 50. Scientists and mathematicians have it the worst... they get paid with just a job (and they get some paltry sum in a Nobel Prize).
This is systematic abuse of the intellectual class by the ruling class (government and big business). Anything short of perpetual right to the creators of these works is abuse and exploitation.
When is the government going to make these old businesses "public domain?"
Don't be daft, all those businesses have had to keep producing new stuff to stay in business. Do you really think that Bakers Chocolate made one very good piece of chocolate and is still being paid for it? Artists can do exactly the same thing, keep producing new stuff to continue to generate money. And just like anyone is free to make chocolate that looks and tastes just like Bakers Chocolate, any one should be free to copy an artists work.
Don't want your chocolate or work of art copied, keep it secret and pass it on to your descendants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Technically you most likely do not own the land your house sits on.
> Creators ought to be able to control their creations
No creator creates things entirely by themselves. Writers draw on the public domain for the language they use, and many of the plot themes for fiction. They have past inventors to thank for their tools, whether it be pencil and paper or laptops and text editors. It is only fair that if they draw from the goods society hands them to work with, they eventually give back to society so the next generation can build on their work.
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors.
That would be true were it not for the fact that the Government will seize it if you don't pay property tax. That essentially means that you're just renting it.
And suddenly, legislation will appear that will extend the Public Domain timeout period by another 20 or 50 years.
Watch and see if this doesn't happen before the end of the year.
There's a way to both extend copyright on some works and still let most things enter the public domain. If these copyrights are so valuable, why on earth is the US government extending them for free? That's insane. Here's a system that would let the very few people willing to extend their copyrights do so and yet make money for the government and let most stuff enter the public domain.
1) Current copyright law (so-called Bono Act) is retained.
2) Copyrights are not automatically extended beyond the Bono act terms. Owners must apply for an extension before the expiration. If they miss the application for any reason at all - too bad, so sad. The work goes into the public domain. This will eliminate the 2nd biggest problem with the Bono Act (the biggest problem is doing renewals for free) - not making people be responsible for their copyrights when a very small number of major failures (ie. It's A Wonderful Life) led to much crying and wailing by Hollywood.
3) Those who apply for an extension get one for 10 years. We could make it 5 if you like. The cost - $1 million per work. If you don't apply and pay the money, it goes into the public domain.
4) Every subsequent renewal costs 10 times what the previous one did. The 2nd renewal will cost $10 million. The 3rd will cost $100 million. The 4th will cost $1 billion. And so on. At some point even Disney will have to say "Enough is enough" on extending copyrights on things from the 1920s.
Ah yes, I plumbed your house, so I should be able to just sit back and retire. Oh, right... Every other field has to continue to work until they have saved enough money to retire, or they die (Or just invested smartly to have the returns give them enough to live on, which is effectively the first element). If I build a very successful company and instead of doing something directly for money, I manage my employees doing it for money, I still need to do something.
So the idea that creatives are unique enough that they should be able to take a singular work and collect rent on it in perpetuity is ridiculous, even more so if it is used to shut down the ability of others to re-imagine and improve the work (See Disney's attitude on other people adapting the fairy tales and other public domain works that they got to first). It is a farce that they can get court judgements for multiple orders of magnitude above the cost of purchasing a license, without the multipliers for punitive damages and willful infringement against individuals.
And even more farcical is the use of the government to enforce these privileges, and taking the responsibility of actually policing the transgressions, both civil and criminal, entirely away from the owners of these properties (For comparison, it is likely that actual squatting or stealing, both of which actually deprive oneself of something that is concrete and real, unlike the potential for revenue, have lower penalties and are enforced less stringently.). Not only that, but it has been proven that these individuals are abusive of these privileges, such as Pink Floyd attempting to claim ownership of NASA audio, which is most definitively public property, or academic journals which lock the results of publicly funded science behind pay-walls at extortionate rates. It is because of the lack of need to register your rights, to provide copies to the Library of Congress, to determine exactly what is owned by who, and in what form, and the inability to preserve the original form and archive it that results, that has contributed so much to the chaos.
"then I will only be rewarded for a brief period. Or so the article's author would like things to be."
So, you think we should still be paying Grok's descendants for the invention of the wheel?
Sorry, but these things have a limited span because otherwise derivative works become very expensive to produce, and progress grinds to a halt.
The reasons for limited copyright are actually very beneficial to society as a whole, not just to a few.
Because my children (not even grandkids) will not derive any income from my writing, I'll have to shelve my idea of this book and go do "real work". That's the line of thinking I was alluding to. The creator — or his wife — would certainly think/say such a thing.
And this right here is why no art, no music, no movies and no books were created before the 95 year copyright rule.
Right?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
If you write a creative work, you can keep it forever, just like the house you built. You can pass it forward, and nothing will stop you from doing that. You have the right to sell your house, and then you lose ownership of it. You can also sell your work and lose ownership of it.
However, with a creative work you get an extra right, and that right is to control the copying of it. As long as you own the copyright, you are the only one who can make copies, or give the right to make them, and this allows you to make money by making them.
If you own a house, someone else can build an identical house, and it will be theirs. If you own a creative work, nobody else is allowed to create the same work. (It's also possible to patent the design of objects, and that's another intellectual right that's somewhat similar to copyright, but again, it's an expansion of ownership rights.)
As you can hopefully understand now, this right gives the owner of a work a lot of power that isn't inherent in owning an object. You can only sell an object you make once, transferring the ownership, but you can sell a creative work as long as you keep the copyright, and nobody else is allowed to do that.
Which is why this is supposed to be a limited right. Copyright is meant to encourage creators to create, by allowing them to make money off a work. When copyright is limited, it encourages the creator to continue creating, instead of living off old hits from tens of years ago. There is no natural right to continually make money off a work, and certainly no right for descendants to make money off it. That totally goes against the intention. If someone makes money off the work of their ancestors, that in no way encourages further creation.
And where would society be if that was the attitude for all of history? Hey, you too can read the great works of Shakespeare, for only $14.95 per play. Feel free to look at that Da Vinci masterpiece, but don't dare take a photo.
You are a fucking idiot.
Why are we so keen to provide people like your grandmother with unearned income forever ? We may as well crown them.
Nullius in verba
Besides government works and works whose copyrights are challenged in court ("Happy Birthday to You" etc.), works not "for hire" published after 1923 and whose only author died 70 years ago have entered into the public domain when the 70th anniversary arrives, if they weren't already in the public domain.
In almost all cases, they would have already entered due to non-renewal or other reasons.
It's not much, I know. I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head.
This is important though in that it removes any UNCERTAINTY about a work's copyright status. For example, if a book was published in 1924-1947 and the author died in 1947 and there isn't some reason the (c) last longer than "70 years after the death of the author," we know it's now in the public domain. A week ago, unless we did a diligent search for renewals, we did not know.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm not the parent, but am Canadian and a geek.
The point is you're granted a legal monopoly on your works for 20 years to make money and license it as you see fit.
20 years is plenty of time to profit on a work. If you feel you deserve more time, I'm willing to negotiate, but the parent's point stands: art is culture, and keeping it from the public indefinitely is a hazard to society and culture.
These (and almost all) businesses usually have to continue to innovate to stay alive, by and large they put in their work each day.
Nullius in verba
Billions made from employees who are fired simply because they grow too old and haven't created anything else that was big enough. When 1 billion dollar idea should be all one should need to live off their whole life and benefit their employer.
captcha: overuse
Probably every copyright in perpetuity is going to be held forever by a few entities. Will it matter if you created a work? No...
from job creators
The day after you finished producing that masterpiece, you ceased to be a job creator and became a rent seeker. You no longer do anything useful and should not expect society to hand you stuff in perpetuity.
But if tomorrow, anyone can copy your work, what motivated you to produce it in the first place? A reasonable monopoly on profits from it would be OK. But only for the time required for you to produce your next work.
Have gnu, will travel.
Itâ(TM) Just be *ahem* acquired by some US entity and the copyright will extend forever.
The major problem (IMO) isn't the incentive issue, but that works get lost to the public. A good example for this is old computer games. The companies, which held the copyright, have often closed, and the copyrights have reverted to the individual creators, which means that there's not just one person controlling them, and these people are not only hard to track down, but often have little interest in making the games available. In other cases it's not clear who owns the copyright, after mergers and acquisitions.
The end result is that games get lost to the public. Even when companies try to buy the rights in order to make the games available again, they often fail. Some games are made available as abandonware, but that's not legal, because they're still protected by copyright. So in effect the only way to make these games available is to go against the law.
You are a troll, right?
If not, let's humor you. Copyright is not a natural law. That is, there is nothing inherently in our universe that created copyright laws. They were created by society to help poor creators have a chance to profit off their own work before someone else copied it and started to make money for themselves. You could say that everything was in the public domain since nothing had protection.
In the early days creators had to find someone wealthy that paid for their work. But those works were often kept hidden. The incentives for creating wasn't always big. So, society came together and said that it is good that people create stuff. This way we all get to see the public domain increase and we can build upon each others works. But to give an incentive for creating stuff, let us grant the creator a chance to profit off it before someone else just copies it.
So there you have copyright. And in this form I support it.
As an example: a lot of the early Disney works built upon old fairy tales, that were in the public domain. Yet, the Disney version of the same has been kept out of it, even though it should have been public domain using older versions of copyright.
So while taxes are something created by society, public domain is the opposite, it is the basic state of anything created, not under protection. So if you really are someone that don't like government interference, you should be vehemently against copyright and for everything entering the public domain.
But that you are for copyright but against taxes just shows that you either are incompetent or a troll. Which is worst I am unsure about.
Do you really think that Bakers Chocolate made one very good piece of chocolate and is still being paid for it?
In essence, yes. They created the recipe for the chocolate. But they were smart and did not release the recipe to the public like the foolish inventors, software devs, authors, musicians etc. No, they kept the recipe a secret and produced millions of chocolate bars (a simple process once you know the recipe) for hundreds of years. Trade secret protection is the best protection of IP and this example proves it.
This is mi, he claims the right to piss in your cereal, then complain that you ought to pay him for it.
Remember, Slashdot trolls are a selfish and asinine lot, obnoxious and prone to mental disorders.
So those houses I build I should get a royalty cheque every year it's lived in or is sold on?
Please explain this fabulous plan to native Hawaiians. I believe they've been getting taxed out of their homes for quite some time.
Existing works should've continued to be subject to their original copyright term. The new copyright duration should've only applied to new works - things created after the copyright extension act was passed. Kinda the inverse of grandfathering and ex post facto laws. This prevents an immediate beneficiary of the change to the law from unduly influencing the process of changing the law. Everyone takes a step back and considers the entire ramifications of the change to the law, instead of considering only the tiny immediate effect of the change.
The rationale for this is that the whole point of copyright is to encourage the creation of artistic works. Since the pre-existing work has already been made, copyright has already has served its function and encouraged its creation. So there is nothing to be gained by extending the duration of pre-existing copyrighted works. You can't encourage a pre-existing work to be created over again.
What most people don't know is, Sonny Bono actually had some sort of music career before he became a corrupt politician. Did you know that? I knew that. Most people don't know that. Because everyone just knows him as the guy who came up with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. But he was actually a singer. He died skiing when he hit a tree; once the tree has seventy more rings I'll check out his albums.
Yes, that's actually the truth of it. It is generally better to view this as a cost associated with being part of a community and benefitting from public services. Sometimes citizens must make sacrifices for the greater good and cede their land to the community. You are supposed to be fairly compensated but I don't know that there is a legal requirement. Besides, fair is sort of arbitrary.
There is a group that claims to be outside this covenant. They call themselves sovereign citizens. Bunch of whack jobs.
I think that's the right argument. If you or your children aren't able to make a decent return on some intellectual property in 70+ years, you need to just give up.
Tolkien comes to mind as an example. It wasn't very profitable until recently but I am certain the estate isn't hurting for money at this point.
If you want your wife/kids/whoever to continue to reap benefits, just have them "co-author" the work.
and software copyrights 5-10 years base with renews. To fix abandonware issues. and right to repair issues to fix issues with suing web sites that hold roms / manuals / restore disks form people trying to fix there owned hardware.
there are people with rare games that don't dump them and pull that copyright BS when asked even when the The companies that made them have closed or have sold off IP and when thought a lot of mergers that is very hard to fine what companies owns it now. Also there some IP trolls that hold the rights and change big bucks for rom files and manuals.
well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period.
No, you are supposed to be rewarded for a brief period. The US Constitution plainly states that; it's not just the article's author's opinion. The Constitution even points out that the *purpose* of depriving people of their natural rights to copy things they see for a limited period of time is to enhance the public domain.
However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead. So you can stop your bitching and whining. You got what you wanted.
The *public* is suppose to be rewarded; the Constitution does not guarantee the owner of the copyright would ever be rewarded for their creations.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
However, with the current unconstitutional laws in effect, you are rewarded for an absurdly long period, until long after you and probably your children are dead.
Part of the problem here is that copyrights are transferable and can be owned by corporations. The original copyright holder quickly loses his rights, if he even held them in the first place, and people with no affiliation whatsoever to the works or the artist gets to reap the benefits.
Make copyrights non-transferable from the actual creator(s), and only licensable for no longer than 5 years at a time. If a corporation wants to continue using a creation, they need to continue to compensate the creator, until the work falls into public domain.
That wouldn't solve anything. Patents are already non-transferable; instead it's all bought and signed via payments and contracts. Inventors sign away everything to corporations and patent trolls.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Do you really think that Bakers Chocolate made one very good piece of chocolate and is still being paid for it?
In essence, yes. They created the recipe for the chocolate. But they were smart and did not release the recipe to the public like the foolish inventors, software devs, authors, musicians etc. No, they kept the recipe a secret and produced millions of chocolate bars (a simple process once you know the recipe) for hundreds of years. Trade secret protection is the best protection of IP and this example proves it.
Yes, they rely on Trade Secrets laws to keep the recipe safe. However, you can be sure they have many other products. One recipe wouldn't be enough to keep paying all their employees over all that time.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Ideas can not be copyrighted.
From http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2014/02/15/protecting-ideas-can-ideas-be-protected-or-patented/id=48009/
"Copyrights protect expression and patents protects inventions, and neither protect ideas."
"A copyright exists immediately upon the original creation and fixation thereof, which is the legal way to say it exists upon creation (i.e. writing it down). You do not need to do anything special to claim a copyright, and you can immediately place the c in a circle and call the work copyrighted. Nevertheless, in order to sue for infringement you will need to have a federally registered copyright. The filing fee is only $45, so applying for a copyright should be done as a matter of course whenever possible."
That idea doesn't handle works with multiple creators. Anything from a 'music and lyrics' collaboration to a film produced by a staff of hundreds.
When the UK last extended our copyright duration for music - from fifty years, up to seventy - the change was not made entirely retroactive. Like the US it imposed a 'freeze' on new works entering the public domain, but unlike the US it did not re-copyright works which had already expired. This situation only refers to what the law calls 'sound recordings,' so it's quite possible for a specific recording of a song to now be public domain but the music and lyrics both still under copyright.
Thus, the Open Music Archive has been compiling all the pre-1963 music they can get their hands on and hosting it in the UK.
http://www.openmusicarchive.or...
There's also a UK-hosted music archive to be found on IPFS, under key QmPEiNptxQ6LepGWSnfseLsYxDDBhXc6hiGqYP6a7sSpuH.
Because my children (not even grandkids) will not derive any income from my writing, I'll have to shelve my idea of this book and go do "real work".
Or you could apply the same principle as every other profession and realise that income doesn't get continuously derived from things you create. If you want your children to inherit something, save it for them or invest it for them.
To compare it to every other property, note that your children won't "derive" income from it. What they do have is something physical with a value based on its current state, nothing more. I built a house recently. If in 95 years I gift it to my children without anything further done to it what they will inherit is a property worth $100000 and a condemned falling apart piece of shit that will likely cost them a small fortune to raze and remove.
Fuck the idea that anything you create is worth perpetual income.
If I build a house, I can will it to my ancestors, it will remain ours in perpetuity unless sold at some point.
If, on the other hand, I write a tune or a book, or develop a drug, or create a painting — well, then I will only be rewarded for a brief period.
If you want to talk about things that are completely different then sure, but what you can't do is make sure no one else builds a house like it. Random Joe might not be able to move in but he can build his own.
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Wait, so how are your kids going to derive income from your 'real work'? They're not so why bother? Oh, so you can make money and pass it on, like you can with writing a book/music/etc. How many people do you think are going to want to read your book in a hundred years and why do you think people who had nothing to do with it deserve to derive income from it when their only connection to it is you got lucky a couple of times?
You seem to have some weird ideas.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Point is, they should not have to.
Why not ? What's so special about artists that they can make one thing, and then collect money for the rest of their life (and their children's) while other people have to repeat their work day after day ?
This assumes that everyone is going to want his solitary masterpiece in enough numbers and for enough time that his grandkids grandkids are still rolling in it, otherwise, why bother?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Do you really think that Bakers Chocolate made one very good piece of chocolate and is still being paid for it?
In essence, yes. They created the recipe for the chocolate. But they were smart and did not release the recipe to the public like the foolish inventors, software devs, authors, musicians etc. No, they kept the recipe a secret and produced millions of chocolate bars (a simple process once you know the recipe) for hundreds of years. Trade secret protection is the best protection of IP and this example proves it.
If its a trade secret you can bet your ass it isn't under copyright which forces you disclose what that secret is.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
If you own a business, you can also pass it to your children, and great, great, great, grandchildren. Here are some veerrrryy old businesses: Baker's Chocolate (1765)
"Baker's Chocolate is a brand name for the line of baking chocolates[1] owned by the Kraft Heinz Company (formerly Kraft Foods)"
Tell me more about how this has been passed generation to generation and isn't just a name that has persisted.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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I've often thought that a decent compromise might be that copyrights can be fairly long for any commercial use (possibly forever?) but fairly short for non-profit use.
So if you want to sell copies of an old movie, that would be covered by copyright. But if you want to give a copy to a friend, that would not.
K e y
M o u s E
You've apparently just pointed out that houses are tangible things whereas the right to copy and profit from a work is abstract.
Everybody else already fucking knew that mate. Your point is asinine and your example only works if you're incapable of nuanced thought.
But then, I always know it's going to be complete bollocks when I see your name up there.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Oh Jesus. The sig explains it. Safe to ignore this chump.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
This is why every product that comes out should have a Public Domain Clause. If you want it to enter the public domain earlier that "law" would normally do it on it's own, then you can force it. Law is not with standing, courts are not with standing, contracts and corporations are not with standing.
This message formerly enters the Public Domain immediately.
star trek TOS is now publiic domain in canada
I largely agree but would suggest that copyrights be transferable exactly once (idea stolen from another /. poster a long time ago). If I create something but cannot fully realize it for financial reasons, I could at least sell the copyright to a large organization that could fully realize it while I still profit from the invention. It couldn't be sold time after time but I am sure trolls would pop up and ruin that idea. Still, it would be good for a little while and I like it significantly more than what we have now.
The big problem is that the constitution doesn't state the exact time limit of copyrights.
Article I Section 8 | Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [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.”
It would have been helpful if the copyright term limits were specifically spelled out in the constitution. Since it only states "for limited times" as long as the law has a definitive time period for copyrights it doesn't violate the constitution. The US Supreme Court upheld this view in Eldred vs. Ashcroft. Now if copyrights are extended again it may be arguable that the effect copyright has become effectively indefinite but that would take another court challenge.
Why?
That's easy. The owner of the home REALLY owns the house.
Now if you fail to never pay those taxes your house may be seized to pay off the debt of those back taxes but up to this point the owner still owns the house. This can also happen if you fail to pay other debts. Your assets can be seized to pay off those debts.
2018 Is the Last Year of America's Public Domain Drought until Disney extends it another 20 years.
I was not attempting to imply that the public got a fair deal, only refuting a claim that "the public got nothing". Consideration, an analogous concept in contract law, doesn't require that the exchange of value be proportionate.
If the people valued the public domain, the people would choose to purchase products and services from organizations that promote the public domain. But because they instead have chosen to view works of authorship published by copyright maximalists, the people on the whole have voted with their dollars for copyright maximalism.
Of course, derivative works don't have to be so expensive. Just change the character names of your Twilight fanfic and publish them as an "original" work. Cha-ching!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The perusal of copyrighted works could monitored by a tax-funded, neutral organization and
copyright holders paid fees through a money-stream from Federal taxes.
There would need to be a non-intrusive means of monitoring use of each work, to determine
how much to pay for it, of course.
An algorithm would be needed to assess the value of each work to the public to determine how
much each copyright holder would be paid for each use.
An effective design of such a system might be difficult, but it would be worth it to have
freely accessible IP for everyone.
Copyright holders would be freed of the overhead and hassle of managing sales.
An over-all win-win, I think.
I largely agree but would suggest that copyrights be transferable exactly once (idea stolen from another /. poster a long time ago). If I create something but cannot fully realize it for financial reasons, I could at least sell the copyright to a large organization that could fully realize it while I still profit from the invention
You would still profit if you licensed it to them instead of sold it. With the difference that if it really takes off, you have very good bargaining chips for a better deal when the license is up for renewal. If you sell it, you get zilch more.
We'll just route the money back to Disney in the form of tax breaks and incentives. It's why tobacco taxes haven't eliminated smoking. We subsidize tobacco growers. Same deal will happen here.
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That idea doesn't handle works with multiple creators.
It already works - there are bands that won't sell out to record companies, but retain the copyrights. A cooperative is a valid business model.
The big problem is that the constitution doesn't state the exact time limit of copyrights.
Article I Section 8 | Clause 8 - Patent and Copyright Clause of the Constitution. [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."
It would have been helpful if the copyright term limits were specifically spelled out in the constitution. Since it only states "for limited times" as long as the law has a definitive time period for copyrights it doesn't violate the constitution. The US Supreme Court upheld this view in Eldred vs. Ashcroft. Now if copyrights are extended again it may be arguable that the effect copyright has become effectively indefinite but that would take another court challenge.
It's only a big problem because the US legal profession routinely ignores legal ethics issues whenever they think they can get away with it.
The issue with copyright isn't the duration: the issue is that the copyright is subject to contract for the entire duration. This has lots of negative implications, including the creation of artificial monopoly for long periods of time - with everything that implies.
Contract related matters are fundamental to the profits of the US legal profession: as such the legal profession is in a position of ethical conflict of interest with respect to having long periods of time in which copyrights are subject to contract. This inherently creates a long window in which lawyers can expect (extremely lucrative) copyright related contract business to come their way, creating an artificial demand for the services of legal professionals and enhancing the average lifetime income of all legal professionals.
The right to ethical practice of law is an universal and inalienable right in any society based on the rule of law. As such, this is a right "retained by" and "reserved to" the people and protected under the 9th and 10th Amendments. Even the appearance of ethical conflict of interest must be avoided when reasonable alternatives exist.
Hence, to be complaint with the Bill of Rights, US copyright law would have to greatly limit the amount of time in which copyright was subject to contract. Five or ten years would be reasonable, I could even go a little longer.
After that time, the material should no longer be subject to contract, in order to avoid the issue of ethical conflict of interest. That doesn't mean it has to go fully into the public domain: you could still require that any copying for gain would require compensating the creators of a work for the duration of their lives. You might, for example, require that the creators get 10%-20% of the gross for any product in which their work appears (perhaps divided evenly). This is far more than most musicians or authors or song-writers actually get, so the creative types would on the whole be pretty happy with it.
Note that this completely removes the incentive for corporations (and associations of legal professionals) to give bribes - err, I mean "campaign contributions" - to politicians to extend copyright. Also, the long duration could still be used to protect "moral rights", which is worth doing - and that's the only legitimate justification for having a long duration. The material could go into the public domain with respect to not-for-gain copying after 20-30 years, while still protecting moral rights.
Hence, you could have long durations, without negative effects for society - and this fully satisfies the exclusive use for a limited time provision.
Note that no change to the Constitution is required here: we simply need to get the lawyers to start respecting the existing text of the Bill of Rights - which is supposed to be the highest law in the land, a law that they've already sworn oaths to uphold (and are required to do so by the "good behaviour" provision).
Since US copyright law clearly isn'
This is why calls for "reasonable, moderate reform" of copyright monopoly - usually published by the semi-official propaganda organs - no longer carry any weight.
The culture monopolists too long have shamelessly abused their privilege. It is now obvious to most people of normal intelligence that copyright monopoly is immoral and harmful to society. It must be abolished.
The Constitution explicitly has that copyrights exist for a limited time.
According to the USSC, the time is only limited in the sense that breaking any encryption through brute force is limited.
Point is, they should not have to.
Why not ? What's so special about artists that they can make one thing, and then collect money for the rest of their life (and their children's) while other people have to repeat their work day after day ?
the true market of democracy is a financial one, if you liked it and paid for it, why would you be angry at the creator for reaping the benefits of your appreciation?
But if tomorrow, anyone can copy your work, what motivated you to produce it in the first place?
There are other motivations besides money. Take your comment for example. It's a copyrighted piece of work. It took you time to create. But you're not going to make a penny off of it. So why did you write it?
What it needs to be is a percentage of the person or corporation's income which is making at least 200 thousand dollars. Anyone whose gross income is less than that can retain copyright on their works indefinitely (since not enough people care about them to pay for them.) While anyone making more than that amount would have to pay x percent of their income towards renewal fees/taxes. This number/percentage could be adjusted based on the average quantity of works an individual author/corporation produces over a certain period of time. There would be secondary changes needed to avoid making this another loophole situation, like a way to deter corporations from simply creating a subsidiary or an 'independent' but financially indebted corporation per work in order to ensure every work stayed copyrighted, but this system would better allow individual authors to retain copyrights outside of 'raging successes' while ensuring that authors who became raging successes either had to pay money back to society in exchange for not releasing their works back into the public commons, or release them when a selection of their other works are considered far more profitable to retain.
It is sort of the copyright equivalent of that one European country's traffic ticket laws, where your ticket cost is based on a percentage of your income for the year, so while it doesn't necessarily hurt the poor and rich equally, it will quickly add up if the wealthy are doing it all the time.