The Chicago Sun Times recently fired their photography staff. Is there some wellspring of photographers rushing to take pictures of all of the news events? Oh sure, a few people will upload pictures to Flickr of some big events, but I don't see anyone getting out of bed at night to cover the fires or disasters.
That's unrelated to copyright; it's simply a matter of paid labor.
If the Sun Times wants someone to mop the floor, they need to either find a volunteer, or pay someone to do it. Likewise, if they want photos of a particular thing, they need to find a volunteer or pay someone to do it. In that case the author (the photographer) isn't being motivated by a copyright and the potential to sell many copies of the photo for a length of time after; it's just paid labor, like the janitor with the mop.
Copyright might matter for the viability of the newspaper as a whole (or it might not) but paying for news photographers would work just the same even if copyright did not exist.
It is akin to creating a CGI representation of an athlete or celebrity and using it in a TV commercial.
Even then, I think that the courts can take it too far sometimes. About twenty years ago, Samsung ran a series of ads for their line of VCRs, playing up how reliable they were, and how we would all still be using them in the future. (As I'm sure we all do)
Vanna White sued Samsung, claiming that the use of a prop robot wearing a wig and dress, and turning letters infringed on her publicity right. And she won. But I find the dissent in the case to be more compelling:
The majority contends that "the individual aspects of the advertisement... [v]iewed together leave little doubt about the celebrity the ad is meant to depict." Majority Opinion at p. 1399. It derives this conclusion from the fact that Vanna White is "the only one" who "dresses like this, turns letters, and does this on the Wheel of Fortune game show." Id. In reaching this conclusion, the majority confuses Vanna White, the person, with the role she has assumed as the current hostess on the "Wheel of Fortune" television game show. A recognition of the distinction between a performer and the part he or she plays is essential for a proper analysis of the facts of this case. As is discussed below, those things which Vanna White claims identify her are not unique to her. They are, instead, attributes of the role she plays. The representation of those attributes, therefore, does not constitute a representation of Vanna White. See Nurmi v. Peterson, 10 U.S.P.Q.2d 1775 (C.D.Cal.1989) (distinguishing between performer and role).
Vanna White is a one-role celebrity. She is famous solely for appearing as the hostess on the "Wheel of Fortune" television show. There is nothing unique about Vanna White or the attributes which she claims identify her. Although she appears to be an attractive woman, her face and figure are no more distinctive than that of other equally comely women. She performs her *1405 role as hostess on "Wheel of Fortune" in a simple and straight-forward manner. Her work does not require her to display whatever artistic talent she may possess.
The majority appears to argue that because Samsung created a robot with the physical proportions of an attractive woman, posed it gracefully, dressed it in a blond wig, an evening gown, and jewelry, and placed it on a set that resembles the Wheel of Fortune layout, it thereby appropriated Vanna White's identity. But an attractive appearance, a graceful pose, blond hair, an evening gown, and jewelry are attributes shared by many women, especially in Southern California. These common attributes are particularly evident among game-show hostesses, models, actresses, singers, and other women in the entertainment field. They are not unique attributes of Vanna White's identity. Accordingly, I cannot join in the majority's conclusion that, even if viewed together, these attributes identify Vanna White and, therefore, raise a triable issue as to the appropriation of her identity.
The only characteristic in the commercial advertisement that is not common to many female performers or celebrities is the imitation of the "Wheel of Fortune" set. This set is the only thing which might possibly lead a viewer to think of Vanna White. The Wheel of Fortune set, however, is not an attribute of Vanna White's identity. It is an identifying characteristic of a television game show, a prop with which Vanna White interacts in her role as the current hostess. To say that Vanna White may bring an action when another blond female performer or robot appears on such a set as a hostess will, I am sure, be a surprise to the owners of the show. Cf. Baltimore Orioles, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Players Ass'n, 805 F.2d 663 (7th Cir.1986) (right
Or, more likely, the next logical step we're likely to see within a decade... big-budget Hollywood movies that film the same movie with two different sets of actors... one English-speaking, one Chinese. Same plot, same (translated) dialogue, same sets, same director, same film crews, same CGI... just different slabs of talking meat, filmed scene by scene, one after the other. Maybe even add an ethnically-Indian third cast if it's likely to make the difference between a big movie and an insane blockbuster mega-hit in India. 20-50% higher production cost, double the profits or more. Right now, I can *guarantee* that there's a bilingual Chinese & English-speaking film major who's going to school somewhere in America or China & already has the business plan mapped out.
Well, it wouldn't be a new thing. This is how Hollywood used to film movies way way back in the day. It had been easy, of course, in the silent era; just have different title cards. In the early talkie era, some movies would be filmed with the same actors reading a transliteration off of cue cards -- Laurel and Hardy are well known for this -- while some other movies would be filmed with foreign language casts on the same sets -- the Spanish language version of Dracula is probably the most famous example.
I guess it was deemed to be impractical by the mid to late 30s to work this way; cheaper to just redub the movie and not worry much about the lip sync.
Getting oxygen out of lunar soil and rocks isn't difficult, though you have to set up some equipment. The problem is that there's hardly any hydrogen. In fact, for the most common element in the universe, it's annoyingly scarce in the inner solar system.
And copying in the 18th century was an involved process. It wasn't something easily done.
Pirates have never enjoyed a technological advantage over legitimate publishers. There is no technology that pirates can use which publishers can't (though some may be stubborn or stupid enough that they won't), and publishers also have the advantage of generally being able to work openly, while pirates often (though not always) have to be more surreptitious or at the very least lack some of the advantages of legitimate publishers like early access to the MS and the imprimatur of the author for marketing.
And in fact 18th century printing was much easier than pre 15th century hand-copying, if you wanted more than one new copy.
Before then making a copy probably took longer than actually writing the book in the first place.
That literally makes no sense.
Not to mention that the literacy rate was ridiculous low
Yes; better literacy rates, improved artificial lighting, improved paper and ink making, better printing processes, greater leisure time, etc. are all factors other than copyright that have aided authors.
I think that it is reasonable for copyright terms to last for a set period of time, and for there to be a set number of renewal terms available (if sought), and for copyrights to be transferred as if they were ordinary property of a decedent's estate.
But beware of the infamous widows and orphans argument. The value of a copyright is a total crapshoot. Most are worthless. Of the few with any economic value, most of them will see most of that value realized very shortly after publication in a given medium.
Leaving copyrights to the survivors of an author is like leaving them a big pile of lottery tickets. Most are worthless, a rare few get lucky, and it's just plain financially irresponsible unless you already knew which ones were valuable. If you're worried about the survivors, encourage authors to spend wisely, to get life insurance, to make sound investments, and to support governments that create and maintain good welfare systems as a safety net just in case. Besides, helping only the families of authors is unfair to everyone else in dire straits, so copyright is really not the place for widows and orphans.
I think it's more complicated than that, though. It could take years to see a shift in production and even then measuring it would be incredibly difficult. Even if people start producing more would you really want to cut the term? I don't think there is such a thing as too much creative production.
The creation and publication of more original works is only one of the goals of copyright, but it is neither the only one nor the most important one. Copyright also seeks to enlarge the public domain as rapidly and as fully as possible. Beyond some optimal point, we get into a situation of diminishing returns. And if copyright gets too long and too onerous, it can actually be worse for society than not having it at all.
I don't think there can be too many works created and published either, but some works do come at too high a cost. If I would only create a particular work of art in exchange for a perpetual copyright and mandatory royalty payments from everyone, all the time, we can probably agree that while it would be nice for my art to exist, society will be better off overall not paying so much, even if that means the art doesn't get made.
Right now the closest we're seeing to that are the multi hundred million dollar blockbuster movies. If more sensible copyright law meant that they were no longer profitable to make, well, if rather have the law. Much as I might like the spectacle, we know we can all live with lower movie budgets.
if you eliminate completely any protections or garuntees of that works profitability (ie, copywright) the reward drops significantly. the creator of a work does have an right to profit from it, for a -reasonable- period of time. this concept of a limited copywright serves both the personal need of the artist to get a reason reward for his creative effort if he is successful, and the public's cultural interest in having works not perpetually owned and locked down....
but equally unreasonable is the complete abolishment of copyright. Turn the clock back to a reasonable duration.
I agree (provided that you mean that authors' right to try to profit is granted by the public for public purposes) but with one caveat: copyright exists to serve the public interest (specifically the public interest in having the greatest possible public domain) and should be fine-tuned so as to not merely fulfill that interest one way or another, but to do to the greatest extent possible. If, and only if, abolishing copyright would result in this public purpose being advanced more than in any other way, it is right to abolish it.
We should not take abolition off of the table. When it is unnecessary, there's no need for anti-abolitionists to fret, and when it is the best option, not considering it would be wrong.
It is not unreasonable to expect some term that allows them to benefit exclusively for their work. Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.
Well, authors got no such thing until copyright was invented in the wary 18th century, and even then it took quite some time (with a helping hand from colonialism) for it to become widespread. But new works were still created, from antiquity on.
Copyright is an incentive to create a work, but it is not the only one, and it is not always even the most important one.
Given a copy of the broadcast on a computer with a jog wheel to control the fast forward and rewind, I doubt it would take long, especially given that most ads are scheduled to occur at more or less standard intervals. It can't be harder than what people with DVRs have to put up with now to fast forward past ads.
Probably the way to go would be to: 1) Have a system of strict formalities to have a copyright on a published work (with an expanded definition of publication including public performance or display), such as registration, notice, deposit, and a token fee (and also having lesser, automatic rights on unpublished works, which expire after a span of time that would be adequate to get a work finished and published); 2) Have terms be very short, like just a year from first publication anywhere, with renewal terms available if applied for in a timely fashion; 3) And with varying numbers of renewal terms available depending on the type of work in question. Computer software 'ages' quickly, so perhaps only 4 renewals for a 5 year maximum term. Movies tend to have a bit more life to them, so perhaps as many as 19 renewal terms for a total of 20 years maximum.
This way, works that the author doesn't feel are worth copyrighting enter the public domain immediately, works that the copyright holder doesn't feel are worth continuing to keep copyrighted enter the public domain sooner than they otherwise might, and ultimately the maximum cumulative term length is not too long either.
Ok, let's be fundamental about this. Isn't it strange that we should consider "software" as different from other intellectual property? If X hours of work have been invested into the invention of a clever software routine, then, it would be strange if a patent could not be granted for that work while a patent would be granted for some physical apparatus that also took X hours to develop. (Don't think about the stupid "one-click-buy" software patents, but more along the lines of an ingenious differential-equation solver).
So, I don't think a law that says "patents are granted, but not for software" would be a good one. If we would abolish patents, we should do it in all fields.
I disagree.
First, patents are not granted on the basis of the effort expended to invent a patentable invention. The sweat of the brow theory is just as much bunk for patents as it is for copyrights.
Second, the purpose of patents is to encourage the invention, disclosure, and bringing to market of inventions which otherwise would not be invented, disclosed, and brought to market, and where the restrictions on the public are as minimal as possible in both scope and duration. Patents have an inherent negative effect on invention, disclosure, and bringing to market, and so it is important that the incentive is large enough to spur on more of this behavior than it inescapably deters. Further, patents inherently limit the freedom of the public to practice the invention, and tend to have negative effects on the market due to the monopolistic prices the patent holder can charge, so it it is important that the positive benefits of the patent for the public also outweigh the inescapable negative effects it has on the public.
What's interesting about the software and business method fields is that there are many natural incentives for invention, and bringing to market. And while formal disclosure could still be useful, the system is gamed to make disclosures unhelpful and at any rate obervation of the patents in practice in these fields usually reveals anything that disclosure would. This means that the incentive of a patent amounts to little in these fields, but the negative effects of the patent are not mitigated at all. Thus patents here act to harm inventive activity more than they do to spur it on. Combined with the negative effects on the public, software and business method patents wind up producing more harm than good.
Someday, perhaps, the natural incentives in these two fields will diminish and there will be more of a role for an artificial incentive from patents. By all means we should watch for that so that we can revisit the issue when th time is ripe. But for now, software and business method patents harm more than they help. That's why we need to be rid of them.
You can legally obtain books, music, DVDs at the public library for free.
Well, for now. There are plenty of copyright holders who are opposed to public libraries, stores that sell used copies of works, etc.
And be glad the duration is 70+life years instead of hundreds of years. I mean imagine if you bought land or a house and you have rights to it only for 70+life years. After that, your children/descendants would have to vacate the place and it would be public property, perhaps a park. Does that seem okay to you?
The duration should be whatever, in conjunction with the other aspects of copyright (e.g. the breadth of the rights) produces the greatest overall public benefit. Due to the peculiarities of the markets for copyrighted works (they typically make the vast majority of all the copyright-related money they ever will make very shortly after being published in a given medium), long terms don't provide much of an incentive for authors, and thus ought not to be granted. A grand total of 20-25 years would be 99.44% as good for most authors as a term of a million years would be. Since a copyright is a grant of something public (a right to assert exclusivity against the public) to a private author, there's nothing wrong with the public setting the terms to suit itself. If the author doesn't like it, he's free to get a job at McDonald's.
And also life estates are far from uncommon in the world of real property.
No, the previous poster was right: patents and copyrights don't overlap. That doesn't mean that a single thing might not posses some qualities which are copyrightable and some other qualities which are patentable, however.
For example, in the case of software, a patent can protect the functional aspects of the program (so long as they're novel, non obvious, useful, etc.) while a copyright protects literal copying of the particular program as it has been written. If one wrote a totally different program from scratch which reimplemented the same functionality, it might infringe on the patent, but not the copyright. If one literally copied the nonpatented portions of the software (the parts that aren't novel, nonobvious, useful, etc.), that might infringe on the copyright, but not the patent.
That's less clear. But before, you said you printed the document. The GPLed font file is a program that outputs a public domain typeface. All that's present in the hard copy is the public domain typeface. Since no action occurred for which the GPL would be triggered (using the font to output the typeface doesn't copy the font), why would the GPL apply to the hard copy? On what would it hang its hat?
An object made from a CAD drawing (or 3D printer instructions, which are, by long precedent, legally exactly the same thing) are not "sculptural works". They are parts made from instructions.
If its a tangible, three dimensional object, in which the allegedly copyrightable aspects of it are embodied in the shape of its overall physical form, it's got to be either a sculptural or architectural work. Since most people aren't printing houses or other buildings yet, it's not likely to be the latter. This means that the printed output must be a sculptural work.
Making a copy of the plans may be prohibited, but there's no grounds in copyright law alone to prohibit their use, so long as the output is not copyrightable, due to, for example, the utility doctrine as applied to sculptural works.
Creating a work which is identical to another copyrighted work is only infringing if you copied the latter to get the former. If it's just a coincidence, or due to outside constraints such as efficiency, it's not infringing. Of course the more complex the work is, the harder it'll be in practice to convince a court that it wasn't copying, but careful record keeping can help. Is the IBM bios identical in any part to the compatible BIOSes first written by Columbia, Eagle, and Compaq? I don't know, but if so, their careful methodology to prove independent creation protected them.
In the US, the answer is no. Typefaces are not copyrightable. A computer program that can be used to output a typeface can be copyrightable. So something like a PostScript font file could be protected, but the letter shapes it outputs cannot be, and if you traced the output to make a new font file, you'd be in the clear. The name may be trademarked, however, so be prepared to change it. And specific typefaces may be eligible for design patents, which can be infringed on no matter how copied, so watch out for that. Here's the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems,_Inc._v._Southern_Software,_Inc.
Even if it's original and creative, the utility doctrine still applies to sculptural works: only the non-useful portions are copyrightable, and that's only if they're separable from the useful portions. If the gear had a decorative pattern on the side, the pattern might be protectable, but not the gear.
Unless you changed the setting to the current day (Gatsby as drug dealer?) you can't use real footage of New York unless you only have fairly tight shots outside in front of buildings that are from the 20s and can be 'dressed up' to their appearance from that time. (More neon, fewer translucent plastic panel signs, etc.). Some effects like matte paintings can be used for establishing shots and replacement backgrounds, or even entire shots minus the actors. Here's an example: http://youtu.be/mCXE9cNzcgI
I agree that too much of this would cause the budget to balloon, and wouldn't add anything of quality to the movie, but used judiciously, I think effects can be worthwhile and not break the bank.
No, Florida does have water shortages. You're right that drainage into the aquifer is a problem, but droughts do happen, and wasting water on lawns, golf courses, and sugarcane doesn't help. There have been major wildfires caused by drought in Flordia -- remember those?
According to wikipedia, this is Free Speech, Article 11:
The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
Wow.
You know, I like the French Revolution as much as anyone, and these days, with all the corruption, abuse, and incompetence in our politics, financial institutions, industry, and so on, maybe it would be a good idea to set up and use some guillotines in Washington, in our capitals, on Wall Street, etc., pour encourager les autres.
But what you quoted there is not a general definition of a natural right of free speech. Instead, you quoted from the French Declaration of the Rights of Man from August, 1789. It's deeply ironic that you would post that given that the French had just abolished copyright law early in the previous month and wouldn't get around to establishing a new general copyright law until 1793 IIRC. (There were a couple of laws regarding performing plays as early as 1791, but they mainly seem to have been concerned with breaking down monopolies)
So leaving fun-filled France behind, maybe instead of going to Wikipedia and just using the first thing you saw on the page that looked like you could quote it, let's at the very least look to see if there was a part of the very same damn Wikipedia page that you could have quoted instead, had you bothered to read even a tiny bit further. How about this:
In Areopagitica, published without a license,[John] Milton made an impassioned plea for freedom of expression and toleration of falsehood, stating:
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties"
Based on John Milton's arguments, freedom of speech is understood as a multi-faceted right that includes not only the right to express, or disseminate, information and ideas, but three further distinct aspects:
the right to seek information and ideas; the right to receive information and ideas; the right to impart information and ideas
Here in the US, we took a fairly strong stance on this early on, at least on paper, with the First Amendment guaranteeing this (pre-existing, natural right):
Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press
And while some prominent figures support the idea of an absolute guarantee of free speech (Hugo Black, William O Douglas), the problem is that most people and most governments formed by those people, are pussies about it. So instead of at least taking an absolutist starting position and then maybe (but hopefully not) nibbling away at it, often one sees things like the sort of language you approvingly quoted, in which people are guaranteed free speech as long as it isn't the slightest bit inconvenient for those in power.
Anyway, though, the presence of utterly hypocritical and utterly repulsive pro-censorship language in guarantees of free speech still doesn't support your position. After all, free speech is an inherent right. It isn't granted by the state. And if the state infringes on it in a way that it claims is legal, that doesn't make it any less of an infringement. Whether a state oppresses its people a little or a lot, it's always the same thing.
That is, free speech does not give you right to infringe on the rights of others, specifically, authors and publishers' right to profit from their literary works.
No. There is no natural right to a copyright. A copyright is inherently, inescapably, censorship. It's a power of censorship that the state grants to a copyright holder, rather than exercising for itself, and it's a power used for avaricious purposes, rather than the more common purpose of securing and maintaining political power; but at
Slashdot Mirror
The Chicago Sun Times recently fired their photography staff. Is there some wellspring of photographers rushing to take pictures of all of the news events? Oh sure, a few people will upload pictures to Flickr of some big events, but I don't see anyone getting out of bed at night to cover the fires or disasters.
That's unrelated to copyright; it's simply a matter of paid labor.
If the Sun Times wants someone to mop the floor, they need to either find a volunteer, or pay someone to do it. Likewise, if they want photos of a particular thing, they need to find a volunteer or pay someone to do it. In that case the author (the photographer) isn't being motivated by a copyright and the potential to sell many copies of the photo for a length of time after; it's just paid labor, like the janitor with the mop.
Copyright might matter for the viability of the newspaper as a whole (or it might not) but paying for news photographers would work just the same even if copyright did not exist.
It is akin to creating a CGI representation of an athlete or celebrity and using it in a TV commercial.
Even then, I think that the courts can take it too far sometimes. About twenty years ago, Samsung ran a series of ads for their line of VCRs, playing up how reliable they were, and how we would all still be using them in the future. (As I'm sure we all do)
One of the ads can be seen here: http://joshblackman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Vanna-White.jpg
Vanna White sued Samsung, claiming that the use of a prop robot wearing a wig and dress, and turning letters infringed on her publicity right. And she won. But I find the dissent in the case to be more compelling:
The majority contends that "the individual aspects of the advertisement ... [v]iewed together leave little doubt about the celebrity the ad is meant to depict." Majority Opinion at p. 1399. It derives this conclusion from the fact that Vanna White is "the only one" who "dresses like this, turns letters, and does this on the Wheel of Fortune game show." Id. In reaching this conclusion, the majority confuses Vanna White, the person, with the role she has assumed as the current hostess on the "Wheel of Fortune" television game show. A recognition of the distinction between a performer and the part he or she plays is essential for a proper analysis of the facts of this case. As is discussed below, those things which Vanna White claims identify her are not unique to her. They are, instead, attributes of the role she plays. The representation of those attributes, therefore, does not constitute a representation of Vanna White. See Nurmi v. Peterson, 10 U.S.P.Q.2d 1775 (C.D.Cal.1989) (distinguishing between performer and role).
Vanna White is a one-role celebrity. She is famous solely for appearing as the hostess on the "Wheel of Fortune" television show. There is nothing unique about Vanna White or the attributes which she claims identify her. Although she appears to be an attractive woman, her face and figure are no more distinctive than that of other equally comely women. She performs her *1405 role as hostess on "Wheel of Fortune" in a simple and straight-forward manner. Her work does not require her to display whatever artistic talent she may possess.
The majority appears to argue that because Samsung created a robot with the physical proportions of an attractive woman, posed it gracefully, dressed it in a blond wig, an evening gown, and jewelry, and placed it on a set that resembles the Wheel of Fortune layout, it thereby appropriated Vanna White's identity. But an attractive appearance, a graceful pose, blond hair, an evening gown, and jewelry are attributes shared by many women, especially in Southern California. These common attributes are particularly evident among game-show hostesses, models, actresses, singers, and other women in the entertainment field. They are not unique attributes of Vanna White's identity. Accordingly, I cannot join in the majority's conclusion that, even if viewed together, these attributes identify Vanna White and, therefore, raise a triable issue as to the appropriation of her identity.
The only characteristic in the commercial advertisement that is not common to many female performers or celebrities is the imitation of the "Wheel of Fortune" set. This set is the only thing which might possibly lead a viewer to think of Vanna White. The Wheel of Fortune set, however, is not an attribute of Vanna White's identity. It is an identifying characteristic of a television game show, a prop with which Vanna White interacts in her role as the current hostess. To say that Vanna White may bring an action when another blond female performer or robot appears on such a set as a hostess will, I am sure, be a surprise to the owners of the show. Cf. Baltimore Orioles, Inc. v. Major League Baseball Players Ass'n, 805 F.2d 663 (7th Cir.1986) (right
We all swallow 2 or 3 spiders a year, in our sleep.
That's not true. The real number is much higher.
http://img.chan4chan.com/img/2011-05-09/37902.jpg
Or, more likely, the next logical step we're likely to see within a decade... big-budget Hollywood movies that film the same movie with two different sets of actors... one English-speaking, one Chinese. Same plot, same (translated) dialogue, same sets, same director, same film crews, same CGI... just different slabs of talking meat, filmed scene by scene, one after the other. Maybe even add an ethnically-Indian third cast if it's likely to make the difference between a big movie and an insane blockbuster mega-hit in India. 20-50% higher production cost, double the profits or more. Right now, I can *guarantee* that there's a bilingual Chinese & English-speaking film major who's going to school somewhere in America or China & already has the business plan mapped out.
Well, it wouldn't be a new thing. This is how Hollywood used to film movies way way back in the day. It had been easy, of course, in the silent era; just have different title cards. In the early talkie era, some movies would be filmed with the same actors reading a transliteration off of cue cards -- Laurel and Hardy are well known for this -- while some other movies would be filmed with foreign language casts on the same sets -- the Spanish language version of Dracula is probably the most famous example.
I guess it was deemed to be impractical by the mid to late 30s to work this way; cheaper to just redub the movie and not worry much about the lip sync.
Getting oxygen out of lunar soil and rocks isn't difficult, though you have to set up some equipment. The problem is that there's hardly any hydrogen. In fact, for the most common element in the universe, it's annoyingly scarce in the inner solar system.
And copying in the 18th century was an involved process. It wasn't something easily done.
Pirates have never enjoyed a technological advantage over legitimate publishers. There is no technology that pirates can use which publishers can't (though some may be stubborn or stupid enough that they won't), and publishers also have the advantage of generally being able to work openly, while pirates often (though not always) have to be more surreptitious or at the very least lack some of the advantages of legitimate publishers like early access to the MS and the imprimatur of the author for marketing.
And in fact 18th century printing was much easier than pre 15th century hand-copying, if you wanted more than one new copy.
Before then making a copy probably took longer than actually writing the book in the first place.
That literally makes no sense.
Not to mention that the literacy rate was ridiculous low
Yes; better literacy rates, improved artificial lighting, improved paper and ink making, better printing processes, greater leisure time, etc. are all factors other than copyright that have aided authors.
I think that it is reasonable for copyright terms to last for a set period of time, and for there to be a set number of renewal terms available (if sought), and for copyrights to be transferred as if they were ordinary property of a decedent's estate.
But beware of the infamous widows and orphans argument. The value of a copyright is a total crapshoot. Most are worthless. Of the few with any economic value, most of them will see most of that value realized very shortly after publication in a given medium.
Leaving copyrights to the survivors of an author is like leaving them a big pile of lottery tickets. Most are worthless, a rare few get lucky, and it's just plain financially irresponsible unless you already knew which ones were valuable. If you're worried about the survivors, encourage authors to spend wisely, to get life insurance, to make sound investments, and to support governments that create and maintain good welfare systems as a safety net just in case. Besides, helping only the families of authors is unfair to everyone else in dire straits, so copyright is really not the place for widows and orphans.
I think it's more complicated than that, though. It could take years to see a shift in production and even then measuring it would be incredibly difficult. Even if people start producing more would you really want to cut the term? I don't think there is such a thing as too much creative production.
The creation and publication of more original works is only one of the goals of copyright, but it is neither the only one nor the most important one. Copyright also seeks to enlarge the public domain as rapidly and as fully as possible. Beyond some optimal point, we get into a situation of diminishing returns. And if copyright gets too long and too onerous, it can actually be worse for society than not having it at all.
I don't think there can be too many works created and published either, but some works do come at too high a cost. If I would only create a particular work of art in exchange for a perpetual copyright and mandatory royalty payments from everyone, all the time, we can probably agree that while it would be nice for my art to exist, society will be better off overall not paying so much, even if that means the art doesn't get made.
Right now the closest we're seeing to that are the multi hundred million dollar blockbuster movies. If more sensible copyright law meant that they were no longer profitable to make, well, if rather have the law. Much as I might like the spectacle, we know we can all live with lower movie budgets.
if you eliminate completely any protections or garuntees of that works profitability (ie, copywright) the reward drops significantly. the creator of a work does have an right to profit from it, for a -reasonable- period of time. this concept of a limited copywright serves both the personal need of the artist to get a reason reward for his creative effort if he is successful, and the public's cultural interest in having works not perpetually owned and locked down. ...
but equally unreasonable is the complete abolishment of copyright.
Turn the clock back to a reasonable duration.
I agree (provided that you mean that authors' right to try to profit is granted by the public for public purposes) but with one caveat: copyright exists to serve the public interest (specifically the public interest in having the greatest possible public domain) and should be fine-tuned so as to not merely fulfill that interest one way or another, but to do to the greatest extent possible. If, and only if, abolishing copyright would result in this public purpose being advanced more than in any other way, it is right to abolish it.
We should not take abolition off of the table. When it is unnecessary, there's no need for anti-abolitionists to fret, and when it is the best option, not considering it would be wrong.
It is not unreasonable to expect some term that allows them to benefit exclusively for their work. Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.
Well, authors got no such thing until copyright was invented in the wary 18th century, and even then it took quite some time (with a helping hand from colonialism) for it to become widespread. But new works were still created, from antiquity on.
Copyright is an incentive to create a work, but it is not the only one, and it is not always even the most important one.
Yeah, but it's been no panacea, either. Vermont is pursuing a single-payer system, and that sounds a lot more appealing to me.
Given a copy of the broadcast on a computer with a jog wheel to control the fast forward and rewind, I doubt it would take long, especially given that most ads are scheduled to occur at more or less standard intervals. It can't be harder than what people with DVRs have to put up with now to fast forward past ads.
Probably the way to go would be to: 1) Have a system of strict formalities to have a copyright on a published work (with an expanded definition of publication including public performance or display), such as registration, notice, deposit, and a token fee (and also having lesser, automatic rights on unpublished works, which expire after a span of time that would be adequate to get a work finished and published); 2) Have terms be very short, like just a year from first publication anywhere, with renewal terms available if applied for in a timely fashion; 3) And with varying numbers of renewal terms available depending on the type of work in question. Computer software 'ages' quickly, so perhaps only 4 renewals for a 5 year maximum term. Movies tend to have a bit more life to them, so perhaps as many as 19 renewal terms for a total of 20 years maximum.
This way, works that the author doesn't feel are worth copyrighting enter the public domain immediately, works that the copyright holder doesn't feel are worth continuing to keep copyrighted enter the public domain sooner than they otherwise might, and ultimately the maximum cumulative term length is not too long either.
Ok, let's be fundamental about this. Isn't it strange that we should consider "software" as different from other intellectual property? If X hours of work have been invested into the invention of a clever software routine, then, it would be strange if a patent could not be granted for that work while a patent would be granted for some physical apparatus that also took X hours to develop. (Don't think about the stupid "one-click-buy" software patents, but more along the lines of an ingenious differential-equation solver).
So, I don't think a law that says "patents are granted, but not for software" would be a good one. If we would abolish patents, we should do it in all fields.
I disagree.
First, patents are not granted on the basis of the effort expended to invent a patentable invention. The sweat of the brow theory is just as much bunk for patents as it is for copyrights.
Second, the purpose of patents is to encourage the invention, disclosure, and bringing to market of inventions which otherwise would not be invented, disclosed, and brought to market, and where the restrictions on the public are as minimal as possible in both scope and duration. Patents have an inherent negative effect on invention, disclosure, and bringing to market, and so it is important that the incentive is large enough to spur on more of this behavior than it inescapably deters. Further, patents inherently limit the freedom of the public to practice the invention, and tend to have negative effects on the market due to the monopolistic prices the patent holder can charge, so it it is important that the positive benefits of the patent for the public also outweigh the inescapable negative effects it has on the public.
What's interesting about the software and business method fields is that there are many natural incentives for invention, and bringing to market. And while formal disclosure could still be useful, the system is gamed to make disclosures unhelpful and at any rate obervation of the patents in practice in these fields usually reveals anything that disclosure would. This means that the incentive of a patent amounts to little in these fields, but the negative effects of the patent are not mitigated at all. Thus patents here act to harm inventive activity more than they do to spur it on. Combined with the negative effects on the public, software and business method patents wind up producing more harm than good.
Someday, perhaps, the natural incentives in these two fields will diminish and there will be more of a role for an artificial incentive from patents. By all means we should watch for that so that we can revisit the issue when th time is ripe. But for now, software and business method patents harm more than they help. That's why we need to be rid of them.
You can legally obtain books, music, DVDs at the public library for free.
Well, for now. There are plenty of copyright holders who are opposed to public libraries, stores that sell used copies of works, etc.
And be glad the duration is 70+life years instead of hundreds of years. I mean imagine if you bought land or a house and you have rights to it only for 70+life years. After that, your children/descendants would have to vacate the place and it would be public property, perhaps a park. Does that seem okay to you?
The duration should be whatever, in conjunction with the other aspects of copyright (e.g. the breadth of the rights) produces the greatest overall public benefit. Due to the peculiarities of the markets for copyrighted works (they typically make the vast majority of all the copyright-related money they ever will make very shortly after being published in a given medium), long terms don't provide much of an incentive for authors, and thus ought not to be granted. A grand total of 20-25 years would be 99.44% as good for most authors as a term of a million years would be. Since a copyright is a grant of something public (a right to assert exclusivity against the public) to a private author, there's nothing wrong with the public setting the terms to suit itself. If the author doesn't like it, he's free to get a job at McDonald's.
And also life estates are far from uncommon in the world of real property.
"in that what is patentable is not copyrightable"
Wrong. Software patents, ring a bell?
No, the previous poster was right: patents and copyrights don't overlap. That doesn't mean that a single thing might not posses some qualities which are copyrightable and some other qualities which are patentable, however.
For example, in the case of software, a patent can protect the functional aspects of the program (so long as they're novel, non obvious, useful, etc.) while a copyright protects literal copying of the particular program as it has been written. If one wrote a totally different program from scratch which reimplemented the same functionality, it might infringe on the patent, but not the copyright. If one literally copied the nonpatented portions of the software (the parts that aren't novel, nonobvious, useful, etc.), that might infringe on the copyright, but not the patent.
That's less clear. But before, you said you printed the document. The GPLed font file is a program that outputs a public domain typeface. All that's present in the hard copy is the public domain typeface. Since no action occurred for which the GPL would be triggered (using the font to output the typeface doesn't copy the font), why would the GPL apply to the hard copy? On what would it hang its hat?
An object made from a CAD drawing (or 3D printer instructions, which are, by long precedent, legally exactly the same thing) are not "sculptural works". They are parts made from instructions.
If its a tangible, three dimensional object, in which the allegedly copyrightable aspects of it are embodied in the shape of its overall physical form, it's got to be either a sculptural or architectural work. Since most people aren't printing houses or other buildings yet, it's not likely to be the latter. This means that the printed output must be a sculptural work.
Making a copy of the plans may be prohibited, but there's no grounds in copyright law alone to prohibit their use, so long as the output is not copyrightable, due to, for example, the utility doctrine as applied to sculptural works.
Creating a work which is identical to another copyrighted work is only infringing if you copied the latter to get the former. If it's just a coincidence, or due to outside constraints such as efficiency, it's not infringing. Of course the more complex the work is, the harder it'll be in practice to convince a court that it wasn't copying, but careful record keeping can help. Is the IBM bios identical in any part to the compatible BIOSes first written by Columbia, Eagle, and Compaq? I don't know, but if so, their careful methodology to prove independent creation protected them.
In the US, the answer is no. Typefaces are not copyrightable. A computer program that can be used to output a typeface can be copyrightable. So something like a PostScript font file could be protected, but the letter shapes it outputs cannot be, and if you traced the output to make a new font file, you'd be in the clear. The name may be trademarked, however, so be prepared to change it. And specific typefaces may be eligible for design patents, which can be infringed on no matter how copied, so watch out for that. Here's the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems,_Inc._v._Southern_Software,_Inc.
Even if it's original and creative, the utility doctrine still applies to sculptural works: only the non-useful portions are copyrightable, and that's only if they're separable from the useful portions. If the gear had a decorative pattern on the side, the pattern might be protectable, but not the gear.
Well, some effects are okay.
Unless you changed the setting to the current day (Gatsby as drug dealer?) you can't use real footage of New York unless you only have fairly tight shots outside in front of buildings that are from the 20s and can be 'dressed up' to their appearance from that time. (More neon, fewer translucent plastic panel signs, etc.). Some effects like matte paintings can be used for establishing shots and replacement backgrounds, or even entire shots minus the actors. Here's an example: http://youtu.be/mCXE9cNzcgI
I agree that too much of this would cause the budget to balloon, and wouldn't add anything of quality to the movie, but used judiciously, I think effects can be worthwhile and not break the bank.
be the first to see the new Bieber vampire movie
Why bother? He doesn't need to play a vampire in order to suck.
No, Florida does have water shortages. You're right that drainage into the aquifer is a problem, but droughts do happen, and wasting water on lawns, golf courses, and sugarcane doesn't help. There have been major wildfires caused by drought in Flordia -- remember those?
According to wikipedia, this is Free Speech, Article 11:
The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
Wow.
You know, I like the French Revolution as much as anyone, and these days, with all the corruption, abuse, and incompetence in our politics, financial institutions, industry, and so on, maybe it would be a good idea to set up and use some guillotines in Washington, in our capitals, on Wall Street, etc., pour encourager les autres.
But what you quoted there is not a general definition of a natural right of free speech. Instead, you quoted from the French Declaration of the Rights of Man from August, 1789. It's deeply ironic that you would post that given that the French had just abolished copyright law early in the previous month and wouldn't get around to establishing a new general copyright law until 1793 IIRC. (There were a couple of laws regarding performing plays as early as 1791, but they mainly seem to have been concerned with breaking down monopolies)
So leaving fun-filled France behind, maybe instead of going to Wikipedia and just using the first thing you saw on the page that looked like you could quote it, let's at the very least look to see if there was a part of the very same damn Wikipedia page that you could have quoted instead, had you bothered to read even a tiny bit further. How about this:
In Areopagitica, published without a license,[John] Milton made an impassioned plea for freedom of expression and toleration of falsehood, stating:
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties"
Based on John Milton's arguments, freedom of speech is understood as a multi-faceted right that includes not only the right to express, or disseminate, information and ideas, but three further distinct aspects:
the right to seek information and ideas;
the right to receive information and ideas;
the right to impart information and ideas
Here in the US, we took a fairly strong stance on this early on, at least on paper, with the First Amendment guaranteeing this (pre-existing, natural right):
Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press
And while some prominent figures support the idea of an absolute guarantee of free speech (Hugo Black, William O Douglas), the problem is that most people and most governments formed by those people, are pussies about it. So instead of at least taking an absolutist starting position and then maybe (but hopefully not) nibbling away at it, often one sees things like the sort of language you approvingly quoted, in which people are guaranteed free speech as long as it isn't the slightest bit inconvenient for those in power.
Anyway, though, the presence of utterly hypocritical and utterly repulsive pro-censorship language in guarantees of free speech still doesn't support your position. After all, free speech is an inherent right. It isn't granted by the state. And if the state infringes on it in a way that it claims is legal, that doesn't make it any less of an infringement. Whether a state oppresses its people a little or a lot, it's always the same thing.
That is, free speech does not give you right to infringe on the rights of others, specifically, authors and publishers' right to profit from their literary works.
No. There is no natural right to a copyright. A copyright is inherently, inescapably, censorship. It's a power of censorship that the state grants to a copyright holder, rather than exercising for itself, and it's a power used for avaricious purposes, rather than the more common purpose of securing and maintaining political power; but at