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Comment by dx211 | Hacker News Reader

> The fact that nobody benefits much is very much worth pointing out.

Warner Brothers, Disney, etc. benefit from this, as do their employees, in quite concrete terms.

I thought they were emphasizing the fact that, under the previous scheme, authors had to do something to renew copyright, which meant that unexploited works automatically lapsed into the public domain. Under the current law, even works whose authors do not care remain under copyright.

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.

Seriously, at this point why can't Disney buy themselves copyright extensions instead of all this legalized bribery?

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...

That gives me an idea for a copyright scheme.

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.

If we made these laws protect Disney exclusively and leave everyone else out of it, and we would be better off.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate and say that the Winnie the Pooh copyright is better off in the hands of a large corporation that can use it to create wealth. Besides that, it's not like the Queen of England owns it and keeps it hidden away where only VIPs can see it (I'm looking at you, Vermeer's The Music Lesson). They use it to create media that the majority of people on this forum have happily consumed. What do we get if it goes into the public domain? The ability to download old books for free that you'd otherwise have to pay...oh...fifty cents for at the local St. Vincent De Paul? Slash fiction? (Again, Devil's Advocate, so no down votes.)

The wealth creation is completely artificial. I'm not sure how having to pay a tax to Disney for a Winnie lunchbox "creates wealth" more than getting the identical thing for cheaper.

Basically your post is a more subtle version of the broken window fallacy.

I think his point is you wouldn't get the same thing. If Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain today, a decade or two from now nobody would know who he was. You might get some cheap Pooh-themed lunchboxes from China early on, but without Disney pumping money into him, Winnie would fade into obscurity. (e.g. Винни-Пух, the people's Winnie)

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 think you're incorrect. It will mean more entities will be able to freely create properties based on Winnie the Pooh, instead of just one. For example, right now the board game industry is getting floooooded with Cthulhu themed games, since it's now in the public domain, to the point where the publisher for the game Smash Up made "The Obligatory Cthulhu Expansion". It's almost as prevalent as the generic "Zombies" theme right now.

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.

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