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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...
What direction are you travelling through time?
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 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.
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.
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 ?
Came here to say this, though disagree with the hefty fee for renewal. The fee should not be high, the renewal should exist so that authors must express active interest in extending the copyright term for it to be extended, allowing authors not sufficiently concerned with doing so to drop their work into the public domain after 10 years by default. 20 years maximum, full stop. It's already 20 years for patents, I don't see any reason for copyrights to be different.
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)
A clinical professor is a professor that is hired for professional expertise and practical experience. Usually clinical professors supervise a school's clinic, which provide low-cost or free (legal, medical, dental) advice to needy clients. Upper level students provide the labor, and in return, get some practical experience.
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.
It should, perhaps, be noted that Copyright extensions seems to be a bipartisan thing in the US Congress. The last one was done by a Republican-controlled Congress (with a Dem President), the one before that was done by a Democratic-controlled Congress (with a Rep President)....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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=-
Why are we so keen to provide people like your grandmother with unearned income forever ? We may as well crown them.
Nullius in verba
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.