What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2016?
web.law.duke.edu
web.law.duke.edu
Of course the main driver of this is Disney, which is trying to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright. (Never mind the fact that trademark is a better fit for how they use it...)
Also I'd like to highlight the 1987 part of the argument.
The early computer era saw a lot of games written for platforms like Apple ][ by companies that went out of business and the copyright ownership went to places unknown (though they theoretically exist). You can't make and pass around legal copies of them from the floppies that they originally came from. Some of the games (Ultima, PacMan, etc) would likely see copyright renewed. But a lot of them would not. And that would be great for people like me that want to revisit our childhoods.
In fact historically there were stories that only became popular BECAUSE they fell out of copyright. The most famous example is https://www.globalipmatters.com/2015/12/17/when-a-quirk-of-c... but it isn't alone. Just think what new cultural gems we might create if artists of today could safely refer back to works from a generation or two ago.
> Of course the main driver of this is Disney, which is trying to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright.
I read an analysis that didn't think much of this view. It said we should look at ever-extending copyright protections as a form of economic protectionism against the past, forcing the public to buy potentially-inferior modern IP rather than fall back on older IP.
You suggest this yourself, with
> historically there were stories that only became popular BECAUSE they fell out of copyright
and I think it's worth thinking about. In particular, I'm pretty sure "the fact that nobody benefits much" isn't actually a fact.
The 'creative commons' is a recognition that cultural works are not created ex nihilo but by building on the works of previous generations; as creators benefit, so must they contribute.
A tremendous swath of people have been born or published works since 1928 and have since died, whose works remain under the perpetual Disney copyright.
So no, we have had generations die now that never contributed back to the commons because Disney said so.
In particular, we can observe that a huge chunk of literature effectively can't be consumed today because no one alive speaks the language it was written in (also, because no copies survive!). That's a much more effective ban on using the work than copyright is, and it's permanent. But it hasn't led to storytelling just gradually dying out because we forgot all the stories.
That doesn't change the fact that I still have evidence that Disney is explicitly involved both directly and indirectly in lobbying for copyright extension. And they start lobbying for it like clockwork as soon as Steamboat Willie starts threatening to slide into public domain.
Therefore no matter what the economic arguments, I believe that the people actually changing the rules are changing it to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright.
That said, I think little of the position taken in that analysis. It claims that the public is forced to buy potentially-inferior modern IP. To the contrary, I believe that the public is free to not buy IP at all, but instead to find other ways to entertain themselves. In fact I believe that if modern authors and artists could freely draw on iconic past IP, they could create compelling new works drawing on the old ones which would increase consumption of IP. Thereby making the public happier AND content creators richer.
Therefore I believe that the net effect of copyright extension is to increase the rent that current content owners can get from past content at the cost of both the public and current content creators. (And yes, this holds true even though there are content creators employed by content owners.)
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As to "nobody benefits much", I remember one of the briefs that I saw for Eldred v. Ashcroft that demonstrated that over 99% of the possible present value of a work is captured by the author under the terms of the 1976 law. That is, if we take the possibility of public domain away and assign perpetual copyright to authors, we will not add more than about 1% to the compensation authors can expect.
Turning that figure around, today's content creators would be better off with the 1976 laws if they in aggregate could increase consumed commercial content by more than 1% from having full access to past content to work from. (Exactly like Walt Disney did with works like Sleeping Beauty.) I believe that this is quite possible. A number of economic experiments have found that increasing availability of free content increases consumption and ultimately increases revenue to artists. See, for example, http://www.baen.com/library/prime_palaver1.asp for one of them.
This. Current copyright regime mainly exists to protect current "creative" works (and I use term very loosely) from cheaper "imports" from our past.
This is a really good point. I don't know why I've never thought about that before.
Warner Brothers, Disney, etc. benefit from this, as do their employees, in quite concrete terms.
Previously, the default state was public domain. Now, the default state is copyright. This means that for a huge majority of works, their remaining under copyright benefits neither the uninterested rightsholder, nor the public who are now prohibited from reusing the work.
It'd probably be cheaper for them and honestly, if they are profiting from walt disney works, then it's fair they want to protect their income. It's not fair they are changing the collective rights on humanity's works for the past century damn it...
By default any work is protected by copyright for 30 years.
After this point the copyright can be renewed for 10 year periods, with the cost increasing each time. Maybe the first extension costs $100, the second $10,000 the third $10,000,000 and so on. Put a cap at 7 extensions for a total of 100 years. Inflation makes all of this tricky, but if its all based off of a base price which is pegged to inflation and then the extensions are multiples of that it would work fine.
I'd argue that a longer monopoly on a work is more burdensome on society so it makes sense that it would cost more. Maybe they can reinvest the fees into the patent office or something.
Basically your post is a more subtle version of the broken window fallacy.
As for the wealth they create: http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/06/24/disney-gets-1...
That's actual college-and-braces money that shareholders are making on the copyright, that otherwise wouldn't exist. And don't say that money is being stolen from us, because first of all, we're all potentially "them", and second, we all get to watch Winnie's Big Adventure on Netflix.
I can imagine, at least in the board game arena, that there would be several Winnie the Pooh themed games. I can think of at least one Alice in Wonderland themed game off the top of my head, called Parade.
Now will third parties choke the market with merchandise like Disney likes to do? Probably not, but Winnie the Pooh will have longevity beyond Disney's ironclad grip of its copyright.
I'm not sure about this. I think trademark would prevent you from publishing a work and calling it "Mickey Mouse" or something similar, but it wouldn't stop you from producing work which incorporated Mickey Mouse somehow, and calling it something else e.g. "I Hate Corporate Mice" or something.
I disagree. Although you are correct for rules that extend the duration of the exclusive right of the copyright holder, a rule that reduces that duration would allow greater access to these works sooner.
Care to elaborate, and give some examples? Tks
From the linked article: "Readers – from the conspiracy theorist to the grammar enthusiast, the student of racial injustice to the sociologist – would have something to celebrate."
If applying the pre-1978 laws to pre-1978 works would cause this celebration, then surely applying them to post-1978 works would also cause such celebration.
For further elaboration - if the contemporary rules were applied, then a work from 1977 would become public domain in 2033 and a work from 1978 would become public domain in 2048 (or 2073). If the pre-1978 rules were to be reinstated today, without backdating, then that 1978 work would still take 70 or 95 years. With backdating, it would become public domain in 2034.
I just would like to know your bases for your disagreement, and ask for some examples. Maybe there is a misunderstanding.
Let's consider something other than copyright. It is bad to retroactively prosecute people for new crimes, but (for example) should people convicted of sodomy prior to 2003 have to serve out their (up to life) sentences, or since the act is no longer illegal, should they be freed? Surely, if an act is no longer a crime, it's abhorrent to treat people who have committed that act as criminals.
I think you mean the copyright holders. When the authors sign it off to somebody else they are different entities.
Companies like Disney do not require regulations like this in order to survive; they would do fine with less onerous copyright terms, and everyone else in society would benefit.
If you're a smart guy with Robert Heinlein and copyright is more limited to a few years would you ever have written Starship Troopers? Or would you have gone into something like the real estate business which can last generations and keep your children and grandchildren happy & fed after you're long dead?
Would the 1998 Starship Troopers movie have been released based on the 1959 book if copyright had been at its original 14 years?
How about a lot of the "cult classic" works of today that only became really popular and earned money tens of years after their original release?
I don't know what the right answer is, but it's a fallacy to assume that we'd have the same state of affairs if the incentives we can gave people to create creative works automatically expired after their death.
Yes, a Starship Troopers movie would have been released with shorter copyright terms. It is cheaper to make a movie if you do not have to pay for the IP. Movies based on expired works are common, like Disney's movies based on books by Lewis Carroll, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm. Derivative works can be very profitable.
> I'm not advocating 14 years; I think 28-56 is fair.
Before you mentioned that "every artist on this list is dead" as if it were patently absurd for copyright to survive the author. Maybe it is, but to use my previous example why would a talented author is his 80s with young children write another novel if that were the case instead of going into the real estate business?
> Yes, a Starship Troopers movie would have been released with
> shorter copyright terms. It is cheaper to make a movie if you do
> not have to pay for the IP.
It's sometimes advantageous that a work you want to use is copyrighted, because that means you can secure exclusive rights to publish a derived work based on it.
I know this is HN and money is the name of the game, but... some people like creating things and if they want to do it in their 80s, they will. (Also it's extremely unlikely you'll have young children in your 80s) I doubt anyone publishes their first book with high expectation of success and huge income. So why would it be the case for the last one?
Jesus the guy wrote Silmarillion in his seventies, a book that had no chance of being a bestseller and he barely lived to finish. Tolkien didn't write because he thought it was a "sweet gig", he wrote because he was a writer.
There is this mindset that refuses to believe that any motivation other than money is suspect, the nerd community used to be blessedly free from it.
Didn't stop the very successful 2009 and 2011 Sherlock movie franchise, or the ongoing very successful BBC Sherlock movie series...
Certainly, and it might have been made sooner, but not having to pay royalties to create a derivative work would definitely not stop someone from making it.
> How about a lot of the "cult classic" works of today that only became really popular and earned money tens of years after their original release?
These later creations would attract new audiences to the original authors newer works. Its not a void where your public domain creations are gone and no longer influential.
> we'd have the same state of affairs if the incentives we can gave people to create creative works automatically expired after their death.
Can you find any evidence of independent IP creators exclusively working under the pretense of being able to will their IP to descendants for profit?
The vast majority of writers, musicians, photographers - any creative profession - are never in it for money. Because very few people can make money from these professions even with draconian IP, because its a popularity contest. You get one in a thousand that become popular successes, while the rest create out of passion with no expectation of profit. When the vast majority of creative IP is being made without profit motive, obviously copyright terms are uninfluencial upon all those except the successful - it goes as far as the existence of IP hurts the hobbyist creator because they have to navigate a minefield of how derivative their ideas are.
Uh, you know you still get to keep the money you make, right? Like, we're not going to confiscate any unspent proceeds from a work after the copyright term is up. If you produce a work which is a huge success and makes you rich, then you're still going to be rich.
You give a director a big budget from their past successes, not necessarily because the underlying thing is somehow easier or harder to make money off of due to copyright. That's icing, not cake.
Look at Fox churning out Fantastic Four movies, which are best to say the least about. Copyrights and IP does not necessarily produce a better content for society.
On the contrary, better content does win in the long run.
Why focus on that, instead of (say) the revenue not made by the Silmarillion movies Peter Jackson can't make because the books aren't in the public domain?
A media conglomerate sent a DMCA notice to Google for my app, and Google took it down. Then my Admob was cut off for the app (luckily I had ad mediation). The DMCA notice said the 93 and 95 year old works were in copyright in some country, although they were not specific as to which country exactly.
I had to go through a whole rigmarole to get my app back on Google Play, which almost didn't happen (I had to appeal). I removed those two works and shut off access for my app to Australia, the UK, India and Canada. Not that this was required but I can't go through this again and lose the income.
It wasn't Disney, but Disney is big in supporting these laws. Yet Disney started off by ripping off Alice in Wonderland in a cartoon. Disney made his money ripping off a book published not long before he rips it off, now they have a media monopoly and want to shut the gates up behind them for eternity. Which is not even possible, because the nature of the Internet, mobile etc. is such that this doesn't work any more. It's an old model which does not and can not work and will not work as things are and as they are going to be, yet there will be a lot of waste and problems as they continue to try to do this.
Unless you legally restricted from doing so, there is no reason to protect these assholes. Tell everyone who did this and for which works.
Even, this things only serve to profit rich people based on blocking everyone from making progress, and by progress i mean both technology and art.
I sincerely think some action is needed for yesterday, we need to take this down ASAP.
Also, Aaron Swartz may have made me a little extremist about this.
I made a graph of all shadows that ever existed in France: http://espadrine.tumblr.com/post/136054168016/public-domain-....
Case in point: "Elementary" [1] is a Sherlock Holmes series where both Moriarty and Watson are women, Sherlock Holmes lives in NY and he doesn't get along with Inspector Lestrade.
If things never fall into public domain, doing something like this can be either very expensive (e.g. paying royalties) or plain impossible (e.g. the author simply doesn't allow it).
Copyright laws were meant to incentivize authors to create more, but no amount of incentives will make Sir Arthur Conan Doyle create more interesting stories, about Sherlock Holmes or otherwise.
We accept some limits on this right so that creative people can earn a living, but fundamentally, people have a right to the stories and images that shape their lives and the lives of people around them.
If the works of Shakespeare were still under copyright and still controlled by some distant descendants, and those people decided to disallow any new adaptations or printings of his work, it wouldn't just be unfortunate; it would be unjust. The works of Shakespeare now make up a part of our shared human experience, part of our understanding of the human condition, part of our lens for viewing the world. The were created by one person, but now they have been merged into the common culture it is unjust and undesirable for them to be controlled by any one person.
It highlights in numerous ways why public domain is essential for creative process. But it boils down to this: there is nothing new under the sun and the spirit of the copyright law is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts," as written in the constitution. The current abuse of copyright law causes the exact opposite.
As the article says, public domain breaths new life into forgotten works. It's culturally important to lift the access and publishing restrictions of old works that we learn from and reflect on where we came from.
Historical art is important to celebrate, rediscover, republish and enjoy without fear of copyright takedowns by faceless corporate stooges looking to line their pockets.
One possibly crackpot theory that just occurred to me is that in the _Futurama_ universe, copyright was extended so far as to be perpetual[1]
[1] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ubbd92/futurama-nibbler-s-birt...
And of course you can get digital copies from sites like Project Gutenberg.
https://medium.com/@jkdegen/5-seriously-dumb-myths-about-cop...
> Myth #5. Artists Feel Restricted by Copyright
Remixing works under copyright means you need the author's permission to do so, usually by paying royalties. This would be fine if copyrights ended at some point. Currently, in the US, they last way past the death of the author.
> Myth #4. Copyright Harms the Public Domain
He mentions The Little Prince as if all works are really popular. There are tons of works that are not popular, their authors don't even care about them anymore or are dead or companies have gone bankrupt, and remain under copyright. This makes it illegal for people to make copies and keep these works alive. Access to such usually also requires payment and what's affordable for some may not be so affordable for others.
> Myth #3. Copyright is an Attack on Artistic Freedom
He only mentions the freedom of the original author. Indeed, their freedom is not touched. Everybody else is hurt, though. Nobody else can express their artistic freedom on works under copyright without permission (which usually means paying royalties, but can also be impossible if the author doesn't approve the derived work).
> Myth #2. Copyright Costs Consumers
Nobody argues that authors need to be compensated for their work. How much is "fair" is a whole different story. Should they keep being compensated 25 years, 50 years, 100 years, 500 years, forever?
> Myth #1. Copyright only helps Corporations
Copyright, in general, is a good thing. Perpetual copyright is not. Copyright that extends beyond the life of the original author is not. After some time, only corporations will benefit, since their heirs will live much beyond the original authors and will profit on someone else's work.
EDIT: Here's a nice video on why eternal copyright is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4
I don't think the compensation argument is a good one. First of all its wielded as if work somehow is valuable in it self and thus warrants "compensation". Which cannot be true, there are many things not worth doing, and even some things better not done at all. In reality though not even copyright ensures any work is compensated. Which, even further makes the connection between copyright and creative work incentives weak.
As others in this thread has pointed out, there are other motivations than monetary. So it's not even given that "compensation" is needed at all (whatever we mean by "needed")
But even if we deem compensation required, what is to say that a free market would fail to provide compensation? As a developer most of the code I produce is paid for buy clients with no specific dependency on copyright. What makes other creative industries different?
So not only do I question your #2, even #1 is suspect in my mind. I don't believe copyright in general is a good thing, and in my mind the burden of proof that it is lies on those promoting it.
As a developer, most likely your clients hold the copyright to the code you write, especially if this is not explicit in any other way. And even if you go one step further, the entire free software movement is based on copyright: the existence of copyright is what guarantees software remains free once published. Otherwise, people could just fork the code and close the source again.
To your last point, given that copyright already exists, is in place, and lasts for way too long, I believe it's the other way around: the burden of the proof lies on whoever wants to change it.
But the right to refuse derived work is just as essential to justice as the right to royalties on creative work. For example, Kurt Vonnegut had (and his estate has) the moral right to say "no!" to a neo-Nazi that wants to "remix" Harrison Bergeron into a new story promoting racism.
Whether the derived work is bad or good is beyond this conversation as one could argue is original work is not good/bad enough.