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Comment by leeter | Hacker News Reader

I personally think the better solution is going back to how copyright worked pre 1976, where copyright had to be positively asserted to exist and everything else went into the public domain. I'm also of the position that a 'make available' clause needs to be added to ensure that a work is constantly available during its period of copyright; moreover if the rightsholder should fail to make it available for longer than a set period of time it reverts to the public domain permanently. Finally I think the default period for copyright should be 23years (in line with patents) with progressively more expensive renewals based on the annual income of the property, the goal being to encourage people to let things go into the public domain unless they are extremely profitable.

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IMO copyright for creative works should last a year, maybe two or three, but no more. The most income something generates is usually when it just gets released. Movies, for example, usually don't even count their revenue from outside of movie theaters.

This is the only way to make copyright mostly work, and make people respect it. Right now it's so long it could as well never expire. On the other hand, if it only lasts several years, many people would have the choice of paying right now or waiting for the copyright to expire and getting it for free. It's also very unfortunate that the entirety of our pop culture is covered by copyright right now.

And second thing to make it work even better: copyright should not be transferable. It should not be possible to sign something to forfeit your exclusive rights to your own work.

> usually don't even count their revenue from outside of movie theaters

I assure you, people are counting revenue. They're not releasing Blurays as a charity.

I meant in publicly available "box office" figures and all that. Box office earnings alone usually cover all the expenses already, many times over.

I'm fairly sure the only reason for this is to minimize backend payments to actors & directors.

Exactly, it's to not pay anyone that has terms in their contracts that say something like "earns 1% of the film's profits". If all the revenue is paid out to the studio in the form of "consulting fees" then voila: no profits.

The industry doesn't exist in a vacuum - movies and TV shows are all financed with the expectation of long tail revenue and the people financing them are the ones who invented Hollywood accounting. A lot of the big budget stuff would be too risky without that revenue and it effects everything from the actor-SAG-studio relationship to licensing deals between major studios.

So we would get smaller but more movies, about real stuff and not generic stuff that can be mass marketed.

> I meant in publicly available "box office" figures and all that. Box office earnings alone usually cover all the expenses already, many times over.

Maybe it covers the expenses for the studio but it's not necessarily sufficient for all artists involved in the creation. Movie tickets (and/or other short term revenue streams) would have to be more expensive if artists (actors, writers, directors, ...) wouldn't be able to get a cut of streaming- and other secondary exhibition revenue for a while after release.

Would moral rights have a longer period in this case? In the current US copyright regime with a long forward, moral rights aren't really considered too much, but with a shorter covered period it might actually happen during the author's lifetime that their art is used in a way that they don't approve.

>The most income something generates is usually when it just gets released.

YouTube is still making me pay to see movies (again) that I saw decades ago. Meanwhile, didn't Bob Dylan sell his entire catalogue for $300 million, just last year? David Guetta, $100 million? Paul Simon? I am not saying this is how I want things to work. Just that your statement seems factually... troublesome?

The GP parent said "most" while you're listing obvious outliers.

"Most income." They said the "most income for something" (presumably "anything"), not: "income for most things".

> IMO copyright for creative works should last a year, maybe two or three, but no more. The most income something generates is usually when it just gets released.

Errrrrr. No. Not in my experience in music copyright.

A whole bunch of musical works for a specific "group" currently earn waaaaaaay more in copyright royalties than they used to 60 years ago (I shall neither confirm neither deny the name of the band due to the many lawyers they have).

Then there's the musicians who make way more on their works being used in television/film five years after the initial release.

Of course there's the entire library/background music industry, where a random television producer can choose some five year old sting for their hit show. Also see previous point.

Not to mention when a musician samples an old track, accurately credits them in the royalty share (props to you folks) and it turns out the song is a massive hit.

Plus the many myriad of other weird and wonderful things that happen in the imperfect, non narrow thing we call the world.

> This is the only way to make copyright mostly work, and make people respect it. Right now it's so long it could as well never expire.

Most businesses/companies tend to go with the current system (begrudgingly or not) or they get taken to court.

The law is on the copyright holder's side. There is inherent value behind these "works" which society has deemed important enough to require copyright to become law. I can disagree with a law as much as I want, but I'm sure as shit gonna toe the line when the police are walking past.

Hence why YouTube gets cagey about copyright. They don't wanna be sued and go through the whole GEMA takedowns/potential fines/potential jail time thing again [0]. They have a lot more to lose than in 2012.

On a more personal note -- people can choose whether or not they respect copyright. I buy all my music. All of it. I respect musicians and want them to be fairly paid for the valuable work they do for our culture, society and for myself.

If you don't, then go and torrent some stuff. Vote with your wallet.

> On the other hand, if it only lasts several years, many people would have the choice of paying right now or waiting for the copyright to expire and getting it for free.

You're basically asking to make everything free 5 years later.

Totally. Not. Going. To. Happen.

You will have a lot of musicians shouting at UK members of parliament. At a time when they're already having hearings/committees on making royalty payments fairer for musicians and the prime minister is personally getting called out on it [1].

> It's also very unfortunate that the entirety of our pop culture is covered by copyright right now.

I see literally zero copyright happening on Facebook posts, where I assume most of pop culture is still happening (it's still 2013 right?).

> And second thing to make it work even better: copyright should not be transferable. It should not be possible to sign something to forfeit your exclusive rights to your own work.

It's my asset. I should be able to do what I damned well want with my asset.

Maybe I want to sell the rights and go on a 3 week drugs and hookers bender?

Or maybe I need to pay off some debts? People go bankrupt and stuff and have to sell off assets. Copyright is an asset.

Much like anyone who owns a house owns an asset. Again, this comes back to the value that society has placed in musical works.

Reason I'm posting this comment -- every so often I see some "enlightened" person on HN claiming how to fix copyright.

You can't. It's like democracy, it ain't perfect but it's the best we've got right now.

Could it be better? Sure. But don't try and do a full rewrite, cos that's how you completely and utterly destroy s good thing [2].

Source: used to work for the only music PRO in the UK.

Caveat: it was a few years ago and I was drinking a lot at the time, mind

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2012/4/20/2962194/youtube-gema-copy...

[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-57382459

[2]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

So if I release a book as a small time author, and it is recognised as being good but doesn't do too well commercially, a major publisher with distribution and marketing reach can just republish it a year later when copyright lapses? I'm not sure I enjoy that idea.

Like many things in our society there is a disjoint between small and enormous entities. Yes, Disney can make a lot of money off Frozen in the first year or two. I probably couldn't even if you handed it to me.

I agree lifetime-plus is too much and we need to own our culture, but I think a few years is too little. 5 years, maybe 10, seems more reasonable as it captures the cultural zeitgeist but we all move on. And for smaller creators, it's similar to a change in job role or career every 5-10 years which is fairly typical.

One or a few years is to short. 25 is about right. Most movies are based on books that are several years old.

I wholly agree with this but the extension period should be forever with exponentially increasing fees not based on the profit of the work which can be gamed like movies are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Why forever and not terminated at the author’s funeral (or 20 years after publication, whichever is later)?

This is tougher when the work is produced by a team and the copyright is owned by the company.

There also needs to be logic to handle this other case.

Wouldn't help; with Content ID the big companies are positively asserting copyright to things they don't own.

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