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Comment by DrPhish | Hacker News Reader

I think its fair that renewals would be allowed beyond that, but that the cost of doing so should increase on an exponential scale. That way the value of keeping a thing copyrighted would eventually be eclipsed by its value as a public property, fulfilling the social contract of limited protection in exchange for eventual public ownership.

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That probably makes copyright renewals cost-effective for corporations making millions but not so for an author getting a nice $5k/yr annuity. (Or pick your numbers. But making cost a decision point for renewal definitely favors the big guys.)

Yes, and adds a nice tax to the mix.

From the tone of your post, you seem to think this is a problem. If so, why?

So corporations can renew copyrights but not most individuals in practice. That seems problematic. Because, I don't know, the cards are already so stacked against individual content creators we don't want to make things worse?

If we really care about getting the content released to the commons as early as possible, just apply a single shortened date to everyone.

A single shortened date is a good start.

I don't have a problem with 'buy an extension to copyright', though - that money can fund public goods that benefit everyone.

On the other hand, the more valuable content can in commercial use for longer.

It is as large an obstacle to the hoarding and disappearing of content corporations do today as any alternative, so I'd go for the easiest, whatever that is.

I think the argument is that a corporate entity would be willing to lose a large amount of money by extending copyrights on their back catalog, if only to keep those works from competing with their current offerings that make them loads of money.

A strong enough exponent, and the costs of holding the old works back would very quickly eclipse the protected profits.

Have the fee be based time but scale with profits. So that author making 5k/year's fees may only would only have the fee increase by a few hundred per renewal whereas a company making 500k/year would see their fees go up by a few thousand per renewal etc. As an example.

That introduces a massive accounting element. At least the current system is simple. By all means, shorten copyright terms. But let's not make it a complex mess that no one can really figure out.

Then you kick off an arms race where regulators are constantly fighting to keep up with increasingly sophisticated money laundering techniques to obscure how valuable an IP actually is. A lot of money would be siphoned off by lawyers just so they can fight back to a stalemate.

Why make it complicated? Just let works fall into the public domain after a couple decades.

Indeed, the one thing that can't be manipulated by dubious actors is time.

"Hollywood Accounting" just means that works will never generate a profit..

So include a condition like "for twice the (undervalued) amount you state, anybody can ...".

If they price they quoted was fair, they should be more than happy to sell it for twice that. If it was too low, well shouldn't have lied. If it is too high, more money to the public.

Can you name any piece of intellectual property that has a small, recurring income after 30 years?

It makes it cost effective for content which is highly profitable. A corporation isn't going to pay to keep garbage registered at a high fee but an individual will pay to keep something that is raking in mountains of cash. Not that it really matters much because virtually everything stops bringing in any money at all by 30 years. The only things that continue to have value are names and characters.

The exact names and likenesses might be preserved via Trademark as a form of consumer protection.

Meanwhile, derivative like works could still be created as long as they were clear to not confuse consumers.

> A corporation isn't going to pay to keep garbage registered at a high fee

Look at patent registry

The fees are neither high nor increasing with time.

They are not high but in many countries they do increase with time: e.g. in Germany the maintenance fee is 70 EUR in the third and fourth years, increasing year by year to 1940 EUR in the 20th year (and 4520 EUR in the 26th year in the case of supplementary protection)

https://www.dpma.de/docs/english/formulare/allg_eng/a9510_1....

Wouldn't corporate branding be enough?

Even if Mario entered into public domain, Nintendo Mario games would still be the superior choice. It isn't like people would be allowed to claim their game was an official Nintendo Mario game. Profitable IPs would also be able to grow their IP as a means of protection. For example, there would be a significant time lag between when Mario would enter the public domain and Yoshi would, and as such more recent Nintendo games couldn't be copied because they include Yoshi (replace Yoshi with dozens of even newer characters).

Edit: One way to think of it is that others could only use the cannon as it existed 30 years ago. As long as the IP isn't dropped and fans like where it is going, that provides a significant barrier of protection from others branching off and making their own cannon.

It wouldn't be so much that thousands of people make a Mario game (people do that already) and Nintendo gets screwed as much as EA makes a Mario game and and uses the IP without paying Nintendo anything.

EA being able to freely make "Battlefield Mushroom Kingdom III: Micropayments Edition" would not be a good thing.

Nintendo (or better yet, and indie developer) remaking EA's public domain works into better products would be a great thing.

Why would it not be a good thing? Every game involves people using public domain material and not paying the entity who would've owned it. Imagine if every game with dragons had to pay whomever currently held the IP for dragons, that wouldn't be good.

> Even if Mario entered into public domain, Nintendo Mario games would still be the superior choice

FTR, The source code for Super Mario Bros. X, a well-known Mario fangame, is now open under the MIT license.[0,1]

[0] https://www.supermariobrosx.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25160

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/opensourcegames/comments/f8tira/the...

Original author should probably get one free renewal that should cover most of his lifetime.

After that, renewals should occur every 5 years and get expensive.

The goal is to encourage those who can create to do so--not create a rental property in perpetuity for corporations or estates.

> Original author should probably get one free renewal that should cover most of his lifetime.

I don't really get this. If someone spends 6 months, or even a year or two, writing a book, why should they be entitled to profits from the sale of that book for the rest of their lives? That seems a little excessive to me.

If you find that excessive, do you also consider that founders of startups should relinquish their shares "to the public domain" after some time?

No, I don't. Because I don't equate ideas and property.

> If someone spends 6 months, or even a year or two, writing a book, why should they be entitled to profits from the sale of that book for the rest of their lives?

Because, in spite of what the Internet thinks, good creators are rare and we should wish to encourage them.

In addition, good creators often aren't recognized immediately--there is time lag. Corporations shouldn't get to profit from your labor of 20 years simply because it took that long for you to become popular.

No, I think that is the opposite of what makes sense. We should allow popular properties that have already provided good profits for their creators to lapse as soon as possible into the public domain, since they have the largest impact on culture, and the lowest impact on their creators' livelihoods.

Mickey Mouse is much more relevant, would lead to much more creative work, and would hurt Disney much less if it were public than making some song by some band which at best has a small dedicated following public.

Perhaps 30 years and then make it a yearly auction?

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