Lawrence Lessig Criticizes Proposed 140-Year Copyright Protections (techcrunch.com)

EqualCitizens.US reports on growing opposition to the CLASSICS Act proposed by the U.S. Congress, which grants blanket copyright protection to all audio works created before 1972, leaving some of them copyrighted until 2067. Importantly, the Act doesn't require artists or the rights holder to register for the copyright. Rather, any and all pre-1972 sound recordings would be copyrighted, greatly limiting the public's access to these works. Various organizations and scholars have responded. Equal Citizens along with a coalition of internet freedom and democracy reform organizations, is sending this letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge its members to reject this Act in its entirety, or at a minimum, at least require registration of pre-1972 works. Otherwise, if the Act passes as is, famous artists and wealthy corporations will benefit greatly while the public will get absolutely nothing in return, as Professor Lawrence Lessig notes in Wired....

This act will limit access to past works and stifle creativity for new works. It would effectively remove many existing works, including some popular documentaries, podcasts, etc., from the public arena. The Coalition recommends adding a registration requirement to secure the extended copyright term, such that works that nobody claimed could be allowed to enter the public domain. As this TechCrunch report on the coalition letter explains:

By having artists and rights owners register, it solves the problem for everyone. Anyone who wants to have their pre-1972 works brought into the new scheme can easily achieve that, but orphan works will enter the public domain as they ought to.
"Either way," Lessig writes, "it is finally clear that the Supreme Court's prediction that the copyright owners would be satisfied with the copyright protection provided by the Sonny Bono Act turns out not to be true."

Comments

Re:You've got a lot of influence

[thesupraman]

ROTFL.

Did you fail to notice who the Dems ran last time? Really? Was that all just a bad dream to you? You didnt notice their huge corporate support?

Oh Dear.

Re:Wait, wut?

[reboot246]

It works if the owner of the copyrighted material lives 140 years. For everybody else it doesn't "work" at all.

Re:Wait, wut?

[currently_awake]

1-The lifetime of the author should not be in the law. It should be a fixed (non extendible) term. 2-Government spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year protecting copyright, I think the copyright holders should pay that. Levy propery taxes on Intellectual Property, just like we charge taxes on houses to pay for schools and other improvements that increase the value of houses.

Re:Wait, wut?

[MrL0G1C]

Fuck copyright, restrict it to 14 years from authorship, no extensions. It needs to be reset, people have been brain-washed in to thinking all copying is bad (except when they're doing it of course).

(C)opyright MrL0G1C 2018 until at least 2158 ~

Re:My modest proposal to fix this

[bill_mcgonigle]

No, the deal made between Disney and the People are the terms as established in 1928 or whatever.

The Government and Disney can't keep renegotiating the deal while the People are a party to it.

If they don't want the monopoly grant terms they don't have to participate.

Time to drag out the Heinlein again...

[Anonymous Coward]

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit."
                - The Judge, "Life-Line"
                      Robert A. Heinlein, 1939 Astounding Magazine

There extensions shouldn't be retroactive

[Solandri]

There is no justification for making these extensions retroactive. The purpose of copyright is to promote the creation of new works. You cannot encourage the creation of something which has already been created. So there is absolutely zero benefit to extending the copyright term of existing works. Since the only rationale given in the Constitution for copyright is the promotion of the creation of new works, extending the copyright term for existing works is unconstitutional.

If Congress wants to make copyright last 140 years, fine. But the lengthened term should only apply to works created after the term is changed. Those are the only works whose creation could have been encouraged by a lengthened copyright term, and thus fall under the justification outlined in the Constitution.

Re:Wait, wut?

[MrL0G1C]

Why, why should relatives benefit from work they didn't do. Inheritance is another thing I don't like and I'm saying this as someone who stands to inherit a lot in property.

So lets call it 20 years from publication and if it's not published then tough. And what the hell is corporate authorship, and what's this 45 years crap, no, lets call that 20 years too. 14 years was good enough when copyright started, 20 years is plenty, 45 years is getting obscenely long already.

Copyright laws were created to encourage people to create when copying would lead to them getting next to nothing for their works. Long copyright laws do not encourage people to create, they encourage massive long lasting IPs, not constant new material.