Comment by demallien | Hacker News Reader

Comment by demallien | Hacker News Reader

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From the 40s, I don't know, but that's not really the question. Before this vote, the limit was set at 50 years, which meant that all those bands from the 1960s, who are still making decent money, would start to lose income. Think the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Bob Dylan.

Of course, I don't feel terribly much sympathy for them - they've all lived lives of privilege that I will probably never know, and I don't see why they should be able to continue making even more money from something they did half a century ago.

I wouldn't mind so much, except that in the music world, the idea of a derived work has received such a broad definition by the legal system. I mean, I don't think it unreasonable that the Beatles should continue to receive money for copies of their performance of Hey Jude, but why can't another artist do a cover without having to pay them, 50 years down the track? IP was supposed to aid creative expression, not stifle it!

I mean, I don't think it unreasonable that the Beatles should continue to receive money for copies of their performance of Hey Jude, but why can't another artist do a cover without having to pay them, 50 years down the track? IP was supposed to aid creative expression, not stifle it!

This extension only applies to their recordings (as performers). The songwriting copyright is already set at 70 years, so nothing is changing there.

"IP was supposed to aid creative expression, not stifle it!" IP is supposed to benefit creators not plagiarists. Copying someone elses' work is not creative expression.

Tell that to Walt Disney -- last I checked, he built his fortune by "plagiarizing" out-of-copyright stories. And what about all those movies based on Wells, Verne, Conan-Doyle, Christie, Austen? One of the most successful songs ever, in economic terms, is "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum: a blatant riff on two compositions by Bach. The likes of Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton would have gone nowhere without the ability to ransack the humongous catalogue of blues classics -- if the original black musicians and composers had enjoyed modern copyright terms, you wouldn't have had any of that. Same for Bob Dylan and folk songs.

All art is derivative, originality is a myth.

To quote Lawrence Lessig, "No one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt Disney did to the Brothers Grimm."

It's important to note it isn't just Walt who raped the Brothers Grimm, but the entire corporation has the mentality of pillaging myth and legend like it's their 90 year old grandma's jewellery box and they need another hit of meth.

Pillaging? There's absolutely nothing wrong with giving a new voice to stories that have become part of our cultural consciousness. That's precisely how cultures evolve. We build upon the creations of those who went before us, adding our own unique touches and flourishes.

The only pillaging here is being done by politicians and lobbyists who are preventing new developments from being adapted and evolved. The creative contribution of Hendrix's recording of "All Along the Watchtower" is something many of us appreciate, but we've also seen glimpses into what sort of creations can be made with it (e.g., Battlestar Galactica's adaptation at the end of Season 3) and we're now being denied that by decisions like these.

You're discussing a problem with the licencing price for a copyrighted work and suggesting that it being out of copyright is best for all parties. It would be more prudent to resolve the licencing issue so that artists can build upon others work and net the original artist more money.

The problem is that the music industry is too engrossed with its 'potential profits' that it can't find any 'actual profits'. They'll sell the licence to a 10 second segment of a song for a million dollars, which no one will buy and the record will get more obscure and less in demand just because the licencee could make huge money and their work is integral on that licence.

This could be resolved simply by saying the licence fee is $1 per unit sold per year. A song that sells a million copies in its first year maybe should have a licence fee of a million dollars for valid reasons. A 40 year old recording that shipped 10 units last month, definitely isn't worth a million, and $120 in a licence fee is probably the most money the artist or studio has seen from it in a long time.

I'm sorry, but the abolition of slavery took a civil war to resolve and it didn't have nearly as much money entangled in it as the copyright industry does. So unless The Pirate Bay launches an army, I don't think copyright is going anywhere. It would be more commendable to actually get the clauses exploited by corporations for (and sometimes against) their own gain fixed.

You are assuming that perpetual copyright is beneficial to society.

Time limited copyright (say 10 years) almost certainly is beneficial, perpetual copyright is harmful both culturally and in the long run economically.

No in fact I am not, and have said multiple times I am not in favour of perpetual copyright.

Perpetual copyright on copyrights as they are today would cause a great amount of work to be lost due to the owners greed and stupidity.

As per my suggestion on licencing a work could become free-use much sooner than the copyright period expires. Anything with no units shipped would mean its a free license.

As I've said elsewhere, and originally, I'm in favour of 20 years and extensions for derivative works, and perhaps then only on the right to produce derivatives and on no other rights like reproduction.

I think we are basically on the same page.

Copyright should be granted for free for a short amount of time.

Once that is up, the copyright holder should have the option of extending the copyright. They should be made to pay for this right, since the extension of the copyright only really benefits them.

This would allow copyright holders to keep a hold of stuff that is obviously profitable, at the same time the vast majority of stuff would enter the public domain.

Besides the obvious mention of jazz below, how about the instrumental arrangements from (European) classical music to modern instruments; the adaptations to contemporaneous orchestra settings; the musical mashups, so praised in the web 2.0 ? etc...

There are creative interpretations of existing works (or parodies) or simply sampling for electronic music. Creation involves some degree of imitation.

Sampling is blatantly non-creative, "parody" is simply a weasely justification for riding on the coat tails of someone else's accomplishment, "creative interpretation" ditto.

Not a big fan of jazz, I take it?

(It'd be interesting there if the extension were not to 70 years, but to 170 years; much of the music industry's jazz catalogue would retroactively be plagiarism, because it frequently quotes from out of copyright jazz standards, and even older folk songs.)

Copyright extensions are not retroactive, fwiw. Once a copyright has lapsed, it's gone forever.

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