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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."
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."
Hollywood, besides being a sign on a hill, is an intermediate sized component in the media industry. It generates about as much revenue as gaming. Compared to Comcast , Time-Warner/Spectrum or worldwide Fox-Murdoch it's not the big league. Media companies own studios, not the other way around.
The media companies work like every other entrenched special interest segment of the not-very-capitalist economy. They use power and money to buy favorable legislation and subvert regulation to make as much money as possible, which is a indescribably huge amount. The media industry, telcos/ISPs, banking, energy, health, pharmaceutical, transportation, military-industrial, agribusiness all play by the same set of rules.
Media buys 1000 year copyright. Pharmaceutical companies get patents, and when they expire it is legal to pay off generic manufactures to keep prices high. And they sell as many opioids as they want, no matter who dies. The milliary industrial complex gets weapons system that cost 10 or 20 times more then originally claimed, and it is completely unknown if they really work. Wall Street destroys the world economy through incompetence and greed, gets bailed out, and is now larger and more corrupt then ever. They just got a tax break that will bankrupt the government, passed by Republicans, not Democrats. Telcos/ISPs have a cartel of four carriers and next week there will be no internet regulation.
Meanwhile you're screaming THE SKY IS FALLING DISNEY IS USING PRINCESSES TO UNDERMINE AMERICAN VALUES AND MAKE MEN WEAR DRESSES AND SHAVE THEIR LEGS AND SOCIALIZED MEDICINE AND MIND CONTROL VACCINATIONS UNDER CONTRAILS AND DEEP STATE!!! CONSPIRACY LIBURL LIBRUL LIBRUL AAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Leave your parents basement now, they know who you are and where you live and are sending the mind control beams to confuse you before you are disappeared for human experimentation with anal probes. You must flee to the wilderness before it's too late.
Why is Snark Required?