# New Bill to Limit Copyright to 56 Years, Would be Retroactive



## LuisCarlos17f (May 25, 2022)

New Bill to Limit Copyright to 56 Years, Would be Retroactive
					

A U.S. senator wants to end Disney’s copyright protection and yours too.




					petapixel.com
				


​New Bill to Limit Copyright to 56 Years, Would be Retroactive​
Senator Josh Hawley has introduced a bill that would cap copyright on intellectual property to a maximum of 56 years, with no extensions. If passed, the bill would also retroactively apply to existing copyrights.

If the bill passes it would impact hundreds if not thousands of intellectual works currently enjoying the protection nearly 100 years after the death of the original copyright holder.

---

Can you imagine it? That would be for all the entertaiment industry. Tencent could produce donghua (Chinese animation) based in famous characters from comics, books or movies previous 1966 year. Manga publishers could create their own version of known "old" western IPs.


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## deganawida (May 25, 2022)

It's about flipping time.  Copyright law here in the states has had expiration extended well past the lifetime of the creator.  It needs to be reigned in.


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## TwoSix (May 25, 2022)

Absolutely a positive thing.  It allows a creator to benefit from their creation for their lifetime, but little benefit for their estate.

You'd be surprised how many IPs can't be developed because the actual inheritance of the copyright is hazy or lost, but developers don't want to risk someone coming in with a lawsuit to claim it.


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## payn (May 25, 2022)

Maybe a good thing for the wrong reasons. I'm not sure this is coming from a genuine place and likely will kill its chances.


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## MGibster (May 25, 2022)

This could very well have an affect on treaties the United States has with various countries.  The USA isn't the only country on Earth with generous copyright protections.


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## trappedslider (May 25, 2022)

The moron who introduced it has no clue about copyright law and only did it to jump on Disney bashing bus.


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## Ryujin (May 25, 2022)

TwoSix said:


> Absolutely a positive thing.  It allows a creator to benefit from their creation for their lifetime, but little benefit for their estate.
> 
> You'd be surprised how many IPs can't be developed because the actual inheritance of the copyright is hazy or lost, but developers don't want to risk someone coming in with a lawsuit to claim it.



For this reason I think that it should be a scale involving time after the death of the author/creator, rather than a set time period. Say Life+10 years, or simply the life of the author/creator, with no inheritable rights. If you create something at 20 and live until 90 should you then potentially die a pauper?


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## niklinna (May 25, 2022)

About darn time! I'm just kind of amazed this is coming from a Republican....


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## Jer (May 25, 2022)

It's a grandstanding stunt, unfortunately, in an effort to "punish" Disney for perceived wrongs.  And because of that it's not going to be a serious thing.  Limiting copyright to a flat 56 years period would violate the Berne Convention, which the US is a signatory to (the Berne Convention has a minimum of life+50 copyright for works with an author, or 50 years after publication/first showing for works like films or where the author is unknown).

If they were serious about fixing copyright they'd be talking about revoking the Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998, which extended the terms well beyond the minimums required by the Berne Convention.  And IANAL but even then as far as I've been told they'd have to let the current copyright extensions put into place by that stupid act expire because of the Takings Clause of the Constitution, so Steamboat Willie will still be under copyright protection until 2024 regardless of anything anyone passes or doesn't pass before the deadline passes.


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## TeutonicBerserker (May 25, 2022)

This seems like just a stunt to build credibility for Hawley without actually accomplishing anything. Any bill that actually gets signed into law would exempt all "intellectual property" owned by Disney and anyone else rich enough to buy politicians (i.e., not you).


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## deganawida (May 25, 2022)

TeutonicBerserker said:


> This seems like just a stunt to build credibility for Hawley without actually accomplishing anything. Any bill that actually gets signed into law would exempt all "intellectual property" owned by Disney and anyone else rich enough to buy politicians (i.e., not you).



Likely correct on both points, but I'm still glad to see it being discussed legislatively, even if it is a stunt.  That's just me, though, and considering I broke one of my cardinal rules by commenting originally (I make a point of not discussing politics with anyone, usually, because I find it does nothing to help me grow), take with a huge helping of salt.


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## niklinna (May 25, 2022)

Jer said:


> It's a grandstanding stunt, unfortunately, in an effort to "punish" Disney for perceived wrongs.  And because of that it's not going to be a serious thing.  Limiting copyright to a flat 56 years period would violate the Berne Convention, which the US is a signatory to (the Berne Convention has a minimum of life+50 copyright for works with an author, or 50 years after publication/first showing for works like films or where the author is unknown).
> 
> If they were serious about fixing copyright they'd be talking about revoking the Sonny Bono Copyright Act of 1998, which extended the terms well beyond the minimums required by the Berne Convention.  And IANAL but even then as far as I've been told they'd have to let the current copyright extensions put into place by that stupid act expire because of the Takings Clause of the Constitution, so Steamboat Willie will still be under copyright protection until 2024 regardless of anything anyone passes or doesn't pass before the deadline passes.



Ah well, should've known coming from him it wouldn't have been thought through....


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## Uta-napishti (May 25, 2022)

Hawley is a giant jackass trying to pick a fight with Disney.  Still, this is a great idea.  56 years is about right, and it should be applied retroactively.


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## Blue (May 25, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> For this reason I think that it should be a scale involving time after the death of the author/creator, rather than a set time period. Say Life+10 years, or simply the life of the author/creator, with no inheritable rights. If you create something at 20 and live until 90 should you then potentially die a pauper?



Just to understand, you are saying that a property you fully control from ages 20 to 76 will leave you a pauper, but if you extend it for 14 more years you will not?  If it's that big of a deal, what happened to the money made during those 56 years?


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## Jer (May 25, 2022)

Uta-napishti said:


> Hawley is a giant jackass trying to pick a fight with Disney.  Still, this is a great idea.  56 years is about right, and it should be applied retroactively.



In the US it can't be applied retroactively without compensating the copyright holders for the property that the government would be taking from them and making public.  But reverting newly published works back to the pre-Sonny Bono Act standard and not granting any more extensions would be doable, fairly easy, and is something nobody is proposing (which is a good indication of how unserious the folks making copyright limitation proposals in the US Congress are tbh.)


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## aco175 (May 25, 2022)

Is this the place to call political figures we do not agree with a jackass and a moron?


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 25, 2022)

As a copyright attorney myself, I’m really not in favor of rolling back durations on it.  Beyond that?

This is mere political grandstanding that probably wouldn’t survive judicial review even if it did pass.  Which it won’t, because it would put the US at odds with the aforementioned Berne treaty and other international law.


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## Morrus (May 25, 2022)

How would that even work internationally? Would there need to be another treaty of some kind?


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## edosan (May 25, 2022)

deganawida said:


> but I'm still glad to see it being discussed legislatively, even if it is a stunt



I'm going to make a wild guess and say the only people that are discussing this are the Senator and the reporters that read the press release. 

This will die a quiet, rapid, and deserved death.


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## Ryujin (May 25, 2022)

Blue said:


> Just to understand, you are saying that a property you fully control from ages 20 to 76 will leave you a pauper, but if you extend it for 14 more years you will not?  If it's that big of a deal, what happened to the money made during those 56 years?



Spent on, you know, living? The vast majority of copyright holders don't make Spielberg money. Some die while still trying to be paid just what they're owed, by publishers.

_EDIT_ - For example a friend recently posted a picture of his $10.00 residuals cheque.


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## Eltab (May 25, 2022)

The "retroactive" part has Constitutional problems - "no _ex post facto_ law" - but the concept is sound.

It still has to go through (at least in theory) the committee process for legislation and persuade 51 Senators this is a good idea.  Plenty of opportunity to polish the rough edges ... or disappear the proposal into a black hole.


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## payn (May 25, 2022)

Eltab said:


> The "retroactive" part has Constitutional problems - "no _ex post facto_ law" - but the concept is sound.
> 
> It still has to go through (at least in theory) the committee process for legislation and persuade 51 Senators this is a good idea.  Plenty of opportunity to polish the rough edges ... or disappear the proposal into a black hole.



Wouldn't it need 60 senators?


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## Retreater (May 26, 2022)

payn said:


> Wouldn't it need 60 senators?



Last I counted the Ottawa Senators have 25 players on their roster. And now that their hockey season has ended, anything is possible. They could carry the deciding votes.


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## doctorbadwolf (May 26, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> For this reason I think that it should be a scale involving time after the death of the author/creator, rather than a set time period. Say Life+10 years, or simply the life of the author/creator, with no inheritable rights. If you create something at 20 and live until 90 should you then potentially die a pauper?



I'd be all for a 3 tier system. Total control from 20 years or death of the creator, then something like a non-commercial creative commons license with some automatic default "creator gets X percentage of income made from the IP" until the death of the author, and then after that the only protection is that you have to be cited as the creator of the IP when the IP is used by others.


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## trappedslider (May 26, 2022)

speaking of copyright Toni Basil gets her 'Mickey' acclaim — and copyright — 40 years later: 'I really thought I should put my foot down and receive money for it'


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## Snarf Zagyg (May 26, 2022)

Eltab said:


> The "retroactive" part has Constitutional problems - "no _ex post facto_ law" - but the concept is sound.
> .




That only applies to criminal laws.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2022)

Uta-napishti said:


> Hawley is a giant jackass trying to pick a fight with Disney.



*Mod Note:*

Discussing copyright is probably OK, but let’s not get into bashing the politicians in a truly personal fashion.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2022)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> That only applies to criminal laws.



While true, IP law- including copyright- contains the possibility of criminal penalties for violations, so it’s still an issue.


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## Snarf Zagyg (May 26, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> While true, IP law- including copyright- contains the possibility of criminal penalties for violations, so it’s still an issue.




Nope. Because this wouldn’t create retroactive criminal penalties. 

The ex post facto clause is much more limited than most people realize.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2022)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Nope. Because this wouldn’t create retroactive criminal penalties.
> 
> The ex post facto clause is much more limited than most people realize.



You’re probably right on this one.  Near as I can tell, Hawley’s proposal says nothing about changing the criminal penalties, just the duration.

OTOH, the First Amendment issues (doing this because Disney expressed a political opinion certain GOPers don’t like) and Fifth Amendment issues (taking property without due process) would remain significant barriers to this surviving a well-funded legal challenge.

(And I doubt Disney would be fighting this alone- amicus briefs would darken the skies.)


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## billd91 (May 26, 2022)

TeutonicBerserker said:


> This seems like just a stunt to build credibility for Hawley without actually accomplishing anything. Any bill that actually gets signed into law would exempt all "intellectual property" owned by Disney and anyone else rich enough to buy politicians (i.e., not you).



It’s probably not credibility, per se. It‘s publicity. If guys like Hawley and DeSantis want to compete against Trump in the primaries for the 2024 presidential cycle, they need *massive* publicity. The GOP primaries give primary winners lots of delegates fast (several are winner take all primaries) and that gives pretty big advantages to the biggest names in the running.


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## Gradine (May 26, 2022)

A good thing is a good thing, regardless of how our why it came about (a truth the American left could really stand to take to freaking heart). Disney's ludicrous stranglehold on copyright laws was always horrible and has been incredibly restricting on creativity for decades, an even more egregious proposition coming from a company that built it's brand and fortune upon the public domain.


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## GreyLord (May 26, 2022)

Blue said:


> Just to understand, you are saying that a property you fully control from ages 20 to 76 will leave you a pauper, but if you extend it for 14 more years you will not?  If it's that big of a deal, what happened to the money made during those 56 years?




Sometimes something isn't big until later, and sometimes something that WAS big and didn't bring in the money, may revert rights and then be able to bring in money later.

Oil! by Upton Sinclair was revived a little bit just a few years ago with "There Will be Blood" in the cinema.  It was 80 years after Oil! was written.  If he were alive, would you say he deserves nothing for them having used his story and book as a basis for inspiration?


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## Umbran (May 26, 2022)

Blue said:


> Just to understand, you are saying that a property you fully control from ages 20 to 76 will leave you a pauper, but if you extend it for 14 more years you will not?  If it's that big of a deal, what happened to the money made during those 56 years?




Let us consider the case of Peter S. Beagle - Hugo and Nebula Award winner, holder of a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, and SFWA Grandmaster.  You'd imagine that with such under his belt, he should be raking in cash from his work.

The man wrote one of his most popular works, _The Last Unicorn_, back in 1968.  It was made into a movie, with a script he wrote himself, in 1982.  Unfortunately, the company holding the contract from 1999, withheld _every red cent_ of the money due to him.  It took eight years of legal battles to get a settlement.  And then... his manager then screwed Beagle again, tying up not just _The Last Unicorn_, but most of his other work as well.  That only resolved in 2019.

And, by this law, he'd lose rights again in 2024.  

Most creators are not legal powerhouses, and can lose decades of livelihood in legal disputes. In having a mad on for big businesses, it is more than possible to stomp all over individuals.


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## Benjamin Olson (May 26, 2022)

Making it retroactive just means he's not serious, as that is almost certainly several trillion dollars in government takings of private property for which IP owners would have to be duly compensated, except that it's intangible property so it would also completely strangle our court system trying to litigate what the the values are.

Some critics will also point out that it violates US treaty obligations under the Berne Convention. It should be noted that, whatever the diplomatic consequences, treaties are not directly enforceable on US law, meaning that while in some countries the government is directly legally bound by it's treaties, a US law can ignore US treaties.

Personally I think the US never should have joined the Berne convention or changed our copyright laws to conform to it in the 1970s. The prior regime of more limited copyrights with renewals served the purpose for which Congress was given the specific enumerated power of creating copyrights and patents "to promote science and the useful arts", meaning the utilitarian idea that by giving people a _time limited_ exclusive right in their creations people are encouraged to create, but the public domain is ultimately enriched when their exclusive right ends. This was perverted by joining an international convention geared towards a different purpose of preserving some sort of artistic moral right in their creation, and whatever the merits of that, it has been further perverted by pure corporate rent collecting leading to lobbying to extend copyrights to an absurd length of time. 

A system where of a more limited length with renewals for people actually still using copyrights is much more friendly to having a public domain while giving people and entities more than enough incentive to create. Nobody decides to create or not create something based on what rents they can or can't collect over a half century down the line. Current copyright law just impoverishes the public domain for little useful purpose.

But while I support a copyright system in many ways similar to what Mr. Hawley is proposing, this is just political grandstanding. It will go exactly nowhere, and it will go exactly nowhere because _the whole point of it for him is being retroactive to punish corporations he dislikes, which is the absolutely terrible part._ That would put the US government on the hook for trillions, create a ridiculous burden on the judicial branch, through all large copyright based industries into abrupt disarray, and hence will bring the dollars of every media conglomerate to bear in making sure his bill goes exactly nowhere. 

Grandfathering in existing property interests is a basic part of how laws are made in the US and it is that way for a reason, whether you like those property interests and the people and entities who hold them or not.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2022)

Gradine said:


> Disney's ludicrous stranglehold on copyright laws was always horrible and has been incredibly restricting on creativity for decades



IMHO, when we only focus on the big players, we overlook the benefits  those same laws Disney and others fought for benefit the little guys…and through their estates, their families,

And I have to say- as a creator of IP myself- I’ve always been bothered by the “copyright restricts creativity” assertion.  Every creative person finds some kind of inspiration from other creators, but I’m leery of those whose ability to create seemingly depends too heavily upon the work of others.  Especially when it’s obvious you can do things inspired by copyrighted materials without violating the law.  There’s literally dozens of superheroes based on Superman, and similar iconic superheroes have their own cadres of copies.  All legal.


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## TeutonicBerserker (May 26, 2022)

Not only is any benefit for "little guys" purely unintentional, if there was a practical way to shaft the little guy even harder, they would do so. Take this as a general principle, and if you find an example in our society where it doesn't apply, chances are you're wrong.


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## LuisCarlos17f (May 26, 2022)

Thanks for your answers. I like to know this thread is interesting for you. 

It is hard to guess this is going to happen, because this not only affect comics and Hollywood productions, but also musical and literary industry. And we don't know the impact with other countries. Could a Japanese videogame studio to use characters from marvel comics for the 40-50's years (for example Silly Seal and Ziggy Pig)?  And an American publisher to publish a mash-up version of characters from European comics? (Blueberry is an French comics started in 1963, and Lucky Luke is French-Belgian from year 1946) Now let's imagine some American megacorporation bribing foreign politicians and then this happens in Spain, and USA can use IPs from Spain what now become "public domain", for example Zipi and Zape, two little children famous in the Spanish strips decades ago, becoming a potential rival for other more recent franchises because somebody created the right cartoon or webcomic. 

The Northamerican entertaiment industry could hire an army of lawyers saying if other countries don't follow the same rules then this may be an unfair disadvantage.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2022)

TeutonicBerserker said:


> Not only is any benefit for "little guys" purely unintentional, if there was a practical way to shaft the little guy even harder, they would do so.



Unintentional or not, the benefit exists.  And a lot of my clients (and associates) are happy to have it.  

(And believe me, not a one of them is is anything but a “little guy”.)


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## Uta-napishti (May 26, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> *Mod Note:*
> 
> Discussing copyright is probably OK, but let’s not get into bashing the politicians in a truly personal fashion.



Thanks for the reminder and for doing your job


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## CapnZapp (May 26, 2022)

trappedslider said:


> The moron who introduced it has no clue about copyright law and only did it to jump on Disney bashing bus.



This.

Reducing copyright duration is all good and well, but let's not give attention to a Republican just trying to punish Disney for trying to be less trans phobic.


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## Willie the Duck (May 26, 2022)

Gradine said:


> Disney's ludicrous stranglehold on copyright laws was always horrible and has been incredibly restricting on creativity for decades.



Can you explain how? Do they stop people from trying to tell Cinderella stories, or is it only their own exclusive work that is affected? 

I'm not sure what I think about this law. I don't know that I, in particular, need to be able to use someone else's narrow creation (Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) 50, 100, or 200 (well past when I think whatever law the US has in effect today will matter) years from when the creator invented them. Why am I not creating my own inventive work. To me, what's important would more be the scope of what someone can claim as theirs (can Disney come after me for my own anthropomorphic mouse character, Fred), which this doesn't seem to address at all.


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## billd91 (May 26, 2022)

Willie the Duck said:


> Can you explain how? Do they stop people from trying to tell Cinderella stories, or is it only their own exclusive work that is affected?
> 
> I'm not sure what I think about this law. I don't know that I, in particular, need to be able to use someone else's narrow creation (Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) 50, 100, or 200 (well past when I think whatever law the US has in effect today will matter) years from when the creator invented them. Why am I not creating my own inventive work. To me, what's important would more be the scope of what someone can claim as theirs (can Disney come after me for my own anthropomorphic mouse character, Fred), which this doesn't seem to address at all.



Corporations will often complain about "infringements" that may not be strictly infringements in an effort to intimidate or exhaust the litigation budget of their target. Disney won't be an exception there.

That said, the issue of Sherlock Holmes is a particularly interesting one. Most of the works featuring him as a character are out of copyright protection - but some are in the US under US copyright law (though not UK law). The makers of Enola Holmes, the novels and the movie, were  sued under the claim that they leaned on those works that are still under copyright - because those were the ones in which Doyle made Holmes a more emotional and warmer person and less of a cold fish. They apparently settled or something since the lawsuit was dismissed with the agreement of all sides.


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## LuisCarlos17f (May 26, 2022)

If "too old" American trademarks become public domains then companies could bet for foreigns IPs because their copyrights are protected for more time. 

The audience will would rather the franchises by their current owners at least because these can be together with other popular characters created later. A Chinese manhua publisher could launch a xianxia version of Batman, but the Western reader would miss lots of characters from recenter years still owned by DC/Warner, for example Harley Quinn. Or we could find radical changes but these totally accepted by the fandom, for example a Batwoman with a secret crush for a handsome prince, or a Wonder Woman/Diana Prince (with a little touch of magical girl) who has been married and breed children.  

I guess if this happen we will see a gentlemen's agreement and no IPs by other company will be touched beyond some cameo or easter egg, or intentional parody. 

Can you imagine it? No-American streaming services could use older American movies and teleseries, or retelling, for example a soap-opera becoming a gothic horror series.


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## aco175 (May 26, 2022)

Would this affect other IP like Coke's secret formula or the 7 spices in KFC chicken?  Those appear to be old enough to qualify.  Is it like a patent on a new drug where the intent is to allow the company to recoup the investment in development?


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## CatullusCato (May 26, 2022)

Is this a case of a fight where we hope both sides lose?


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## Cadence (May 26, 2022)

aco175 said:


> Would this affect other IP like Coke's secret formula or the 7 spices in KFC chicken?  Those appear to be old enough to qualify.  Is it like a patent on a new drug where the intent is to allow the company to recoup the investment in development?




Don't secret recipes have no protection beyond being kept secret?


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## Jer (May 26, 2022)

aco175 said:


> Would this affect other IP like Coke's secret formula or the 7 spices in KFC chicken?  Those appear to be old enough to qualify.



Those aren't published works so no.  Trade secrets aren't covered by copyright but they are in the US afforded some protections under the law (like if you work for a company with a trade secret and you sell it to a competitor you're going to face prosecution over that IP theft despite the fact that the secret doesn't have any copyright or patent protection).



aco175 said:


> Is it like a patent on a new drug where the intent is to allow the company to recoup the investment in development?



Patents are different because they're more like a deal with the inventor to not keep trade secrets.  In exchange for making the details of their invention public they get a government enforced monopoly on the invention for a period of time.  Patents are generally better for the public than trade secrets because it encourages the sharing of information so it doesn't get lost and can be built on while trade secret protection encourages the opposite.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2022)

Uta-napishti said:


> Thanks for the reminder and for doing your job



*Mod* *Note:*

Just a reminder, regardless of your _intent_, in-thread commentary on moderation is not permitted.


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## Mallus (May 26, 2022)

How about 20? Or 10.


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## Cadence (May 26, 2022)

Mallus said:


> How about 20? Or 10.




10 or 20 seem atrocious to me.

Under 10 years, the Last Wheel of Time book comes out and the first one is free a few months later, and the Dresden Files is out before being close to done.

Under 20 years Song of Fire and Ice is already out there without being finished.

I think people who make their money on creativity and artistry deserve incomes too.   Even if its a cult classic that doesn't kick in for decades or they're a small timer who needs a lot before they add up.

---

I sometimes wonder about a thought experiment where everyone checks either "IP abider" or "No IP Laws".  If you pick the former you have to abide by them forever even if those who check the later don't.  If you check the later, then nothing you ever make ever is protected by them and no company that checked the former can hire you.


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## Staffan (May 26, 2022)

Two things:

1. This is a poorly conceived publicity stunt that would not be workable for reasons like international treaties and such.

2. That said, current copyright law is far too unbalanced in favor of "creators", who are mostly corps. I put "creators" in quotes because in an enormous majority of cases, the rewards of the current copyright regime are reaped not by the actual humans who create things, but by corps who control market access and demand enormous tolls by creators before they can access the markets.

If you could get all other things to work out, I think a reasonable copyright term would be something like 30-40 years. But that would require reworking society so that aging human creators would have other financial safety nets than their long tail of royalties, and that seems hard to do, and a significantly bigger project than copyright reform. A more reasonable compromise term would be something like 70 years, which should suffice for almost every human. Some suggest life+X years, but I don't think it's a good idea to incentivize people to shorten other people's lives to make things hit the public domain sooner.

I would also drastically expand the definitions of "fair use", to cover basically everything that doesn't compete with the original product or is a direct translation into another language or medium. For example, diegetic use of a work in another work would be fair use, such as having a poster on a wall in a movie, or someone listening to music in passing. Things like using screenshots with funny commentary ("memes" or reaction gifs), reaction videos, or gameplay videos? All fair use. Creating things to be used with another thing, such as coffee capsules to be used with a coffee machine, or an adventure or sourcebook for use with a game? Sure, go ahead.


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## Rabulias (May 26, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Under 20 years Song of Fire and Ice is already out there without being finished.
> 
> I think people who make their money on creativity and artistry deserve incomes too.   Even if its a cult classic that doesn't kick in for decades or they're a small timer who needs a lot before they add up.



While I absolutely agree with your sentiment, I must admit there is a selfish inner voice that said to me: "Hmm, with a 20-year profit horizon looming, maybe GRR Martin would have finished the books by now!"


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## dragoner (May 26, 2022)

Won't happen, not that I think it should, I am fine with the IP laws the way they are.


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## Staffan (May 26, 2022)

Willie the Duck said:


> Can you explain how? Do they stop people from trying to tell Cinderella stories, or is it only their own exclusive work that is affected?
> 
> I'm not sure what I think about this law. I don't know that I, in particular, need to be able to use someone else's narrow creation (Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) 50, 100, or 200 (well past when I think whatever law the US has in effect today will matter) years from when the creator invented them. Why am I not creating my own inventive work.



Because sometimes, there's value to be had in retelling a story or basing a story on another one.

Since you used Sherlock Holmes as an example, one of my favorite "mainstream" TV shows in reasonably recent years was based on a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. No, not that self-indulgent thing with Benedict Cumberbatch. I'm talking about Elementary, the show that moved Sherlock Holmes to New York and had Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu in the main roles. It was awesome, and would never have happened if Sherlock Holmes had still been copyrighted.

Lots of people have also enjoyed the EX series of D&D modules, which take place in Wonderland. Those could not have been done without Alice in Wonderland being in the public domain. But we'll never be able to make a similar visit to Narnia, or Middle-Earth, because those are locked behind seemingly perpetual copyright.

Neil Gaiman wrote a story named Snow, Glass, Apples, which is a retelling of Snow White with a pair of twists: it's told from the Step-Mother's point of view, and Snow White is a vampire (or at least something very similar). That could not have been done had the actual character and story of Snow White been under copyright. Notably, while people can do things with Snow White herself, they can't use the Disney names for the dwarves because those come from the movie which is under copyright.


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## Ryujin (May 26, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I sometimes wonder about a thought experiment where everyone checks either "IP abider" or "No IP Laws".  If you pick the former you have to abide by them forever even if those who check the later don't.  If you check the later, then nothing you ever make ever is protected by them and no company that checked the former can hire you.



As a sometime professional photographer, I come down on the side of the IP holder. Not necessarily the next 5 generations under them. I have enough trouble tracking illegal use of my IP "because it's on the internet, so it must be free" is how everyone thinks. So much so that I had to make my watermarked thumbs free under CC, no edit/emix license, because I simply couldn't keep up. I've had people build complete websites using my images. People have sold calendars that used them thinking that I would be "honoured to be included." One guy was writing a weekly real estate newsletter, in which he used a few of my shots every time. (Really don't get that one, because I shoot motorsports.)


----------



## Ralif Redhammer (May 26, 2022)

Counterpoint against further limiting copyright:









						New Horror Movie Turns Winnie the Pooh Into a Serial Killer
					

Horror film Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey feels like a concept the studio's been sitting on since 2010.




					gizmodo.com
				




In all seriousness though, I think that since companies with great big franchises have the most to lose here, I don't think the bill has a chance. Nor do I believe for a second that the bill isn't motivated by punitive intent.

Not that it isn't a nuanced issue. For every instance where a corporation has profited off of the actual creator's characters while barely acknowledging their contributions, there's one where I can think of countless worst-case scenarios without an estate to safeguard certain intellectual properties. It's like, how horrible would a sequel to Lord of the Rings written by someone else be?


----------



## Ryujin (May 26, 2022)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Counterpoint against further limiting copyright:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Pretty bad.


----------



## Staffan (May 26, 2022)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> It's like, how horrible would a sequel to Lord of the Rings written by someone else be?



In all honesty, probably not worse than the Hobbit movies.


----------



## Zardnaar (May 27, 2022)

Personally I think copyright should be good for ones lifetime or something like 50-100 years. Long enough to exploit if you invent something but not perpetual.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 27, 2022)

Staffan said:


> Since you used Sherlock Holmes as an example, one of my favorite "mainstream" TV shows in reasonably recent years was based on a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. No, not that self-indulgent thing with Benedict Cumberbatch. I'm talking about Elementary, the show that moved Sherlock Holmes to New York and had Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu in the main roles. It was awesome, and would never have happened if Sherlock Holmes had still been copyrighted.



OTOH, the original 2 detectives in Law & Order: Criminal Intent are based on Holmes & Watson (with a generally more competent Watson analog).  He had his own Moriarty-esque opponent who was in 4-5 episodes.  When DiNofrio stepped away for a while, Goldblum’s character provided a similarly hyper-competent detective with different flaws.

They told stories “mostly“ original to the show.  Great show, and would have been completely legal even if the original wasn’t in the public domain.  

And as I noted above, Superman is still in copyright, and there are literally dozens of versions of him in DC comics _and_ in the universes of their competitors.


----------



## Ralif Redhammer (May 27, 2022)

I have no doubt that if given the opportunity, someone would try to finish the abandoned sequel that Tolkien started.



Ryujin said:


> Pretty bad.




What's so frustrating is that those movies have moments where you can see the original story shining through, where you can see what they might have been before all the studio interference.



Staffan said:


> In all honesty, probably not worse than the Hobbit movies.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg (May 27, 2022)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> I have no doubt that if given the opportunity, someone would try to finish the abandoned sequel that Tolkien started.




Chuck Tingle could totally do it!

_Angry Descendants of Aragorn Pounded by the Fear of their Latent Gayness over a Human Transitioning into an Orc_


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## Ralif Redhammer (May 27, 2022)

I'd buy that! 



Snarf Zagyg said:


> Chuck Tingle could totally do it!
> 
> _Angry Descendants of Aragorn Pounded by the Fear of their Latent Gayness over a Human Transitioning into an Orc_


----------



## Ryujin (May 27, 2022)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> I have no doubt that if given the opportunity, someone would try to finish the abandoned sequel that Tolkien started.
> 
> What's so frustrating is that those movies have moments where you can see the original story shining through, where you can see what they might have been before all the studio interference.



I quite enjoyed the original LotR trilogy even if there were some things dropped, that I wish had been in them. OTOH I haven't even seen a minute of "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" that wasn't in the trailers, or in reviews. It just kept getting worse as things moved along.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 30, 2022)

Another example of a horror movie made based on IP that is still under copyright- you may recognize it:


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## Ryujin (May 30, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Another example of a horror movie made based on IP that is still under copyright- you may recognize it:



Parody is an accepted form of IP use, though asking permission is generally a good idea.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 30, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Parody is an accepted form of IP use, though asking permission is generally a good idea.



I’m well aware (copyright attorney).  What people do not realize is how broad the safe harbor of parody is.  That movie is NOT a comedy, it’s a legit horror movie with comedic elements.  

I checked last night: there’s over 170 variations on Superman in DC, Marvel and other comic book companies’ universes.  The first of them, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel, outsold DCs original, and survived a copyright challenge.  All on a copyrighted character and under copyright themselves.  Some of which were themselves parodied by DC Comics.

Clearly, you don’t need all the trappings of Superman to tell a Superman story.

So, again, I have to question when someone talks about copyright stifling creativity as a major reason to reduce copyright protection.


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## Ryujin (May 30, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I’m well aware (copyright attorney).  What people do not realize is how broad the safe harbor of parody is.  That movie is NOT a comedy, it’s a legit horror movie with comedic elements.
> 
> I checked last night: there’s over 170 variations on Superman in DC, Marvel and other comic book companies’ universes.  The first of them, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel, outsold DCs original, and survived a copyright challenge.  All on a copyrighted character and under copyright themselves.  Some of which were themselves parodied by DC Comics.
> 
> ...



I remembered that you were a copyright attorney, but somehow had it in my head that your post was made by someone other than you. Don't know where that came from. 

Parody and review are two pretty powerful pieces of creative armour, but they aren't impenetrable. Disney has used their bottomless bank accounts, for example, to stifle any parody attempts on a regular basis.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 30, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Parody and review are two pretty powerful pieces of creative armour, but they aren't impenetrable. Disney has used their bottomless bank accounts, for example, to stifle any parody attempts on a regular basis.



The fact that Disney can defend its rights better than others with less money- even to the point of abuse- is not the best argument to strip those same rights from others.

That the wealthy can defend their rights better than the less powerful is a truism in _every_ field of law, in every aspect of life. Reducing _their_ rights by necessity reduces the rights of the less fortunate in the same position. And whatever remains of their rights after restructuring? They will still be able to defend themselves better.  If you cut copyright durations to 25 years, Disney would still be able to throw an army of lawyers at a possible infringement.

IOW, it doesn’t solve any problem, it simply shifts where the problem is encountered,


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## Mirtek (May 30, 2022)

GreyLord said:


> Sometimes something isn't big until later, and sometimes something that WAS big and didn't bring in the money, may revert rights and then be able to bring in money later.



Same applies to inventors and patent. Except that those have to be paid for when you file them and do expire. Many people had their inventions only become big once their patents had run out.


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## Ryujin (May 30, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The fact that Disney can defend its rights better than others with less money- even to the point of abuse- is not the best argument to strip those same rights from others.



Never said that it was. In fact, as a content creator myself, I would quite like to be able to defend my own IP without needing truckloads of cash that I don't have.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 31, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Never said that it was. In fact, as a content creator myself, I would quite like to be able to defend my own IP without needing truckloads of cash that I don't have.



I create content as well besides working as a copyright attorney, and I wouldn’t represent myself in a copyright case.  I’d have to shell out $$$, same as anyone else.

Realistically, _you can’t take cash out of the equation_.  For ANY interaction in the legal system in a capitalist society.  Until all attorneys are government agents, throwing money at a lawsuit is always going to have a potential effect on the verdict.

Flip the script: imagine being a small or solo holder of copyrights, and BigCorp decided to challenge your IP.  Unless you win on a pretrial motion, you might be fighting towards a Pyrrhic victory.  You could win the case and still lose your IP as BigCorp outspends you to bankruptcy,

That’s essentially what happened with Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel.  DC sued Fawcett, claiming that character infringed on Superman…and _lost_.  Captain Marvel was deemed not to be an illegal infringement of the copyrights in Superman, meaning Fawcett had perfectly valid copyrights in CM.  But it cost Fawcett so much to achieve that victory that Fawcett soon went bankrupt, even while Captain Marvel titles outsold Superman comics.  When Fawcett folded, DC Comics bought up the rights to Captain Marvel, which they own to this day.


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## Ralif Redhammer (May 31, 2022)

The Battle of Five Armies would have been a perfectly acceptable in a Warhammer Fantasy Battle movie. For the Hobbit, it was just one more excess on top of an already overburdened tale.



Ryujin said:


> I quite enjoyed the original LotR trilogy even if there were some things dropped, that I wish had been in them. OTOH I haven't even seen a minute of "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" that wasn't in the trailers, or in reviews. It just kept getting worse as things moved along.




That is the unfortunate truth of the matter. Having worked at a major law firm that did a lot of IP for a very big client, I've seen just how much money can be thrown at the smallest and most blatant of infringers, in cases where they probably could've just held up one of the hideously cheap bootleg t-shirts as evidence and called it a day in court.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Realistically, _you can’t take cash out of the equation_.  For ANY interaction in the legal system in a capitalist society.  Until all attorneys are government agents, throwing money at a lawsuit is always going to have a potential effect on the verdict.
> 
> Flip the script: imagine being a small or solo holder of copyrights, and BigCorp decided to challenge your IP.  Unless you win on a pretrial motion, you might be fighting towards a Pyrrhic victory.  You could win the case and still lose your IP as BigCorp outspends you to bankruptcy,


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## billd91 (May 31, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That’s essentially what happened with Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel.  DC sued Fawcett, claiming that character infringed on Superman…and _lost_.  Captain Marvel was deemed not to be an illegal infringement of the copyrights in Superman, meaning Fawcett had perfectly valid copyrights in CM.  But it cost Fawcett so much to achieve that victory that Fawcett soon went bankrupt, even while Captain Marvel titles outsold Superman comics.  When Fawcett folded, DC Comics bought up the rights to Captain Marvel, which they own to this day.



It's such an interesting case. 

Fawcett won the initial lawsuit, but they also suffered a partial defeat when DC appealed. Their win was partly dependent on a claim that DC had failed to copyright their newspaper strips and thus the Superman copyright had been abandoned. The funny part of it all isn't simply that they won, rather, the legality of Captain Marvel as a legit Superman copy was established by the same appeal that ultimately torpedoed their efforts. While the appellate judge ruled that Captain Marvel wasn't a copyright infringement even though is powers were largely the same, the stories relied on in the initial case may actually have violated copyright and that needed to be retried. 

When the appellate court sent it back for retrial to determine if the stories really had been copied, Fawcett decided it wasn't worth it. Superhero titles were in a bad slump at that point so they got out of that biz by selling off to Charlton Comics (which eventually succumbed to a later slump with most of its heroes ending up with...wait for it... DC). But Fawcett did return to making comics into the 1960s with Dennis the Menace and soldiered on to 1980.


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## trappedslider (May 31, 2022)

Ironically i bet we're giving this more thought than the senator did.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 31, 2022)

trappedslider said:


> Ironically i bet we're giving this more thought than the senator did.



Not a shred of doubt about it.


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## MGibster (Jun 1, 2022)

aco175 said:


> Would this affect other IP like Coke's secret formula or the 7 spices in KFC chicken? Those appear to be old enough to qualify. Is it like a patent on a new drug where the intent is to allow the company to recoup the investment in development?



You can't copyright a recipe.  So Coca-Cola's "secret" formula and the Colonel's blend of elven herbs and spices aren't protected.  


LuisCarlos17f said:


> If "too old" American trademarks become public domains then companies could bet for foreigns IPs because their copyrights are protected for more time.



Trademark and copyright are two very different things.  A trademark protects symbols that establish the identity of a particular product.  The Coca-Cola bottle's distinctive shape (I think), the Rolex crown, and the Nike swoosh are all examples of trademarks.  If you see a shoe with that swoosh, a bottle with that shape, or a watch with the crown you know exactly who made it.  Generally speaking, trademarks don't come with an expiration date.  A copyright protects the original expression of an idea and expires after a set period of time.


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## Snarf Zagyg (Jun 1, 2022)

MGibster said:


> You can't copyright a recipe.  So Coca-Cola's "secret" formula and the Colonel's blend of *elven* herbs and spices aren't protected.
> .




BEST. USE. OF. ELVES….. 


EVER!!!!!!


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## MGibster (Jun 1, 2022)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> BEST. USE. OF. ELVES…..



 I regret not using numerals.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 1, 2022)

MGibster said:


> the Colonel's blend of elven herbs and spices aren't protected.






Snarf Zagyg said:


> BEST. USE. OF. ELVES…..
> 
> 
> EVER!!!!!!



“Do you want original, spicy, extra crispy, spicy extra crispy, cram, spicy cram or lembas?”


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## Snarf Zagyg (Jun 1, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I regret not using numerals.




I REGRET NOTHING, EXCEPT NOT ORDERING MY BUCKET OF SPICY ELF X-TRA CRISPY!


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## Rabulias (Jun 1, 2022)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> BEST. USE. OF. ELVES…..
> 
> 
> EVER!!!!!!



_The Chef's Complete Book of Typo Recipes _also refers to "rendered bard" in many Southern recipes.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 1, 2022)

Rabulias said:


> _The Chef's Complete Book of Typo Recipes _also refers to "rendered bard" in many Southern recipes.



I bet those recipes taste funny.


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## Lanefan (Jun 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As a copyright attorney myself, I’m really not in favor of rolling back durations on it.



Why not?  The durations as they stand now are far too long.  Life-plus-twenty seems more than enough if the author is known; 50 years flat if the author is unknown and-or the IP is owned by a corporation.

Further, an author or creator ought to be able to sign (one or more of) their creation(s) over to the public domain at any time - including having such in their will - should they so desire, something which from what I gather is currently impossible at least in the USA and Canada.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> This is mere political grandstanding that probably wouldn’t survive judicial review even if it did pass.  Which it won’t, because it would put the US at odds with the aforementioned Berne treaty and other international law.



Sad, but probably true.


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## Lanefan (Jun 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The fact that Disney can defend its rights better than others with less money- even to the point of abuse- is not the best argument to strip those same rights from others.
> 
> That the wealthy can defend their rights better than the less powerful is a truism in _every_ field of law, in every aspect of life. Reducing _their_ rights by necessity reduces the rights of the less fortunate in the same position. And whatever remains of their rights after restructuring? They will still be able to defend themselves better.  If you cut copyright durations to 25 years, Disney would still be able to throw an army of lawyers at a possible infringement.



Which merely points to a fundamental problem with the so-called legal system in most countries: access to it is not equitable.

It would take a major upending of the system to fix this, an upending which you as a lawyer unfortunately might not like very much.  

For a start, lawyers would not be hired by those involved in a suit or case but would be randomly assigned by the bench based on that lawyer's specific skill sets.  Each side in a suit or case would be strictly limited to having the same number of lawyers as the other.  All these lawyers would be paid by the state* on a wage basis, and the whole thing would be state*-run.

So, were I to sue you for something the state* would assign each of us whichever lawyer was next up on the local list, and that's who we'd have to work with; ditto if I were to sue Disney or Amazon were to sue me.

All in all, not too dissimilar from how nationalized health care works in the UK or Canada.

* - by 'state' here I don't mean the USA version of state, I mean the judicial branch of the national government of the country this takes place in.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 1, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Why not?  The durations as they stand now are far too long.  Life-plus-twenty seems more than enough if the author is known; 50 years flat if the author is unknown and-or the IP is owned by a corporation.



Personally, I disagree with your opinion.

Excluding own creations from the discussion, most of my copyright clients have been solidly middle class or lower.  Several were below the poverty line.  And those creations didn’t spring from a vacuum- they almost all had some kind of financial support in their endeavors from family.

If it so happened that one of the songs or poems found a new audience and gained commercial value 30, 40 years down the road, _IMHO_, their survivors deserve to see some return on that loyalty, even if the artist has passed on.

How often does it happen?

Old songs find new life all the time.  Old poems and stories get set to music.  Or film.  Or TV.

_Stranger Things_ has Kate Bush’s 80’s hit “Running Up That Hill” hitting #1 on iTunes.  “Dancing with myself” has inspired a game show.  I hear old music in commercials all the damn time, like Billy Cobham “Stratus”, ”Fractal Zoom by Brian Eno, Biggie Smalls’ “Hypnotize”, Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight”, etc.  (I know several of those were major hits; not all.)

The Verve famously ripped off a lesser tune by The Rolling Stones to make “Bittersweet Symphony”- incorporating segments without crediting them to avoid payi mechanical royalties.  (They also ripped off Aphrodite’s Child- Vangelis’ family’s band on another song on that same album, but it was never released as a single,)  If they had paid the fee, they might have had a longer career.

Just a reminder, too: copyrights exist in the recording AND the composition.  Just because you’ve never heard the song _before_ doesn’t mean it won’t be recorded in the future.



Lanefan said:


> Further, an author or creator ought to be able to sign (one or more of) their creation(s) over to the public domain at any time - including having such in their will - should they so desire, something which from what I gather is currently impossible at least in the USA and Canada.



Actually, abandoning copyright is recognized in American law.  There just isn’t a clear codification of how to do it.  Abandonment notices are recorded by the Copyright Office, but there’s no response given that it is effective.

The law of abandonment, such as it is, is hidden in court decisions, not legal codes.  The methodology the courts provide: the copyright owner must intend to abandon the copyright, and must perform an overt act to manifest that intent,  That’s it.



			https://www.lawcatalog.com/media/productattach/l/j/ljp_694publicdomain.pdf


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 1, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> For a start, lawyers would not be hired by those involved in a suit or case but would be randomly assigned by the bench based on that lawyer's specific skill sets.



This is a *horrible* idea.  There’s a reason why some lawyers in a given field can justify higher fees.  It’s not a 1:1 relationship, but in many ways, you get what you pay for.

Do you really want to trust your copyright case- potentially your livelihood- on a ping pong ball in a hopper?  Tangentially: would you rather hire a criminal defense attorney or use the public defender’s office.

Attorneys aren’t interchangeable.  There are different levels of competence.  There are different levels of resources.

Throwing myself under the bus, I had a band come to me looking for help on a piracy case (mid-1990s).  They had a record label deal with a small company, and their first single was doing OK.  It was also being pirated 3x more than it was being legitimately sold, mostly on Russian websites.  The best I could do was ask the CC companies to stop processing that site’s charges- basically, slow, ineffective whack-a-mole.  Anything truly effective would have required someone with more resources and connections than I had then.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 1, 2022)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Counterpoint against further limiting copyright:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Best Mythos story I ever read was by Neil Gaiman. Hell, it used the Mythos and Sherlock Holmes. It’s a hell of a story. 

The fact is, if copyright was very limited or only protected your right to be credited for your work, etc, exclusivity just wouldn’t be how creators make a living. They’d still make content and make a living.  

But we needn’t go so far. We could simply make copyright nontransferable except to living relatives and documented heirs/via will. 

And tbh, I don’t even really believe that society _needs_ to allow relatives to hold exclusive rights to works created by their dad or whatever.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jun 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> OTOH, the original 2 detectives in Law & Order: Criminal Intent are based on Holmes & Watson (with a generally more competent Watson analog).  He had his own Moriarty-esque opponent who was in 4-5 episodes.  When DiNofrio stepped away for a while, Goldblum’s character provided a similarly hyper-competent detective with different flaws.
> 
> They told stories “mostly“ original to the show.  Great show, and would have been completely legal even if the original wasn’t in the public domain.
> 
> And as I noted above, Superman is still in copyright, and there are literally dozens of versions of him in DC comics _and_ in the universes of their competitors.



But it is wholly absurd that a corporation with no relation to the creator of, say, Wonder Woman, can legally hold onto that copyright, and frankly it’s beyond ridiculous that Superman, a century old character, can still be copyright protected!  

How does that serve the public good? 

And there is a difference between works like Law and Order CI, and works like Elementary. Both have a great deal of value.


----------



## Lanefan (Jun 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Personally, I disagree with your opinion.
> 
> Excluding own creations from the discussion, most of my copyright clients have been solidly middle class or lower.  Several were below the poverty line.  And those creations didn’t spring from a vacuum- they almost all had some kind of financial support in their endeavors from family.
> 
> If it so happened that one of the songs or poems found a new audience and gained commercial value 30, 40 years down the road, _IMHO_, their survivors deserve to see some return on that loyalty, even if the artist has passed on.



That's what the plus-twenty is for.  There has to be a hard limit somewhere.  One could even extend that to "life of (creator or spouse) plus twenty" to be fair to the spouses; but extending it to cover descendants is too much.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> How often does it happen?
> 
> Old songs find new life all the time.  Old poems and stories get set to music.  Or film.  Or TV.
> 
> _Stranger Things_ has Kate Bush’s 80’s hit “Running Up That Hill” hitting #1 on iTunes.



Kate Bush is still alive and likely will be for a while yet, so she should be fully benefitting from this renewal of interests in what IMO is an excellent song.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> “Dancing with myself” has inspired a game show.  I hear old music in commercials all the damn time, like Billy Cobham “Stratus”, ”Fractal Zoom by Brian Eno, Biggie Smalls’ “Hypnotize”, Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight”, etc.  (I know several of those were major hits; not all.)



And if those people are still alive they should be getting royalties from those uses.  We're not disagreeing on this I don't think.

Where we disagree is over what happens after the creator dies.  For example Ronnie James Dio died in 2010; I could get behind keeping his rights going until twenty years after Wendy (his widow) dies or remarries, but that's it.  After that, public domain.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> The Verve famously ripped off a lesser tune by The Rolling Stones to make “Bittersweet Symphony”- incorporating segments without crediting them to avoid payi mechanical royalties.



And as the songwriting people within the Rolling Stones are (somehow!) still alive they'd be able to sue over that, one would think.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Actually, abandoning copyright is recognized in American law.  There just isn’t a clear codification of how to do it.  Abandonment notices are recorded by the Copyright Office, but there’s no response given that it is effective.
> 
> The law of abandonment, such as it is, is hidden in court decisions, not legal codes.  The methodology the courts provide: the copyright owner must intend to abandon the copyright, and must perform an overt act to manifest that intent,  That’s it.
> 
> ...



This is v_ery_ interesting; and completely goes against what I was told by some IP lawyers at their GenCon seminar a few years back when I raised the same question. (their presentation was around gaming-related content e.g. adventures and rules; I posed the question as related to music and-or lyrics, which is what I do, and was told then that I couldn't surrender copyright even if I wanted to).


----------



## billd91 (Jun 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> This is a *horrible* idea.  There’s a reason why some lawyers in a given field can justify higher fees.  It’s not a 1:1 relationship, but in many ways, you get what you pay for.
> 
> Do you really want to trust your copyright case- potentially your livelihood- on a ping pong ball in a hopper?  Tangentially: would you rather hire a criminal defense attorney or use the public defender’s office.
> 
> ...



That's still pretty much an indictment of the system that leaves richer defendants with higher (or even any) competence compared to poorer ones who can't afford the expensive lawyers. Access to justice isn't equitable.


----------



## werecorpse (Jun 1, 2022)

That’s the golden rule. Whoever has the gold makes the rules


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 1, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> But it is wholly absurd that a corporation with no relation to the creator of, say, Wonder Woman, can legally hold onto that copyright, and frankly it’s beyond ridiculous that Superman, a century old character, can still be copyright protected!



Superman isn’t 100 yet.  Superman first appeared in 1938, and is slated to hit the public domain pretty soon, along with Batman and Wonder Woman.

As for absurdity?  One of the bundle of rights in what we call copyright is the power to sell it outright.  You can’t sell something devoid of value.  (Well, besides NFTs.)

Besides, as pointed out numerous times, Supes has dozens of non-DC knockoffs despite being under copyright…and a fairly valuable and well defended one at that.  I find it absurd that people utterly unconnected to the creation of a piece of IP feel a need to assert a right to using the EXACT copyrighted form is something as opposed to an homage after the mere passage of time.

With other forms of property, that doesn’t really happen.


doctorbadwolf said:


> How does that serve the public good?



How does using the original IP of something serve the public good when alternate versions are perfectly legal?


doctorbadwolf said:


> And there is a difference between works like Law and Order CI, and works like Elementary. Both have a great deal of value.



Certainly there are differences.  But they’re not so great that it somehow justifies the shortening of copyright durations,


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 1, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> That's what the plus-twenty is for. There has to be a hard limit somewhere.



I agree.  We just disagree on how long that period should be. 

Copyright law- like all law- is an arbitrary thing created by humans. This is all consensus-based stuff.  We had tens of thousands of years of human civilization before copyright was created, and did OK.


Lanefan said:


> Kate Bush is still alive and likely will be for a while yet, so she should be fully benefitting from this renewal of interests in what IMO is an excellent song.



The point was that old IP can find new value decades after it was created.  Bush’s song and the others- famous and obscure- were chosen as exemplars.


Lanefan said:


> I posed the question as related to music and-or lyrics, which is what I do, and was told then that I couldn't surrender copyright even if I wanted to).



It’s not a well known issue. 

I’d been in practice for more than a decade before I found out, and I only found out because of random chance.  None of my professors ever MENTIONED abandonment of copyright, presumably because it’s such a rare thing.  And the guy who taught the class on Entertainment Law had been in practice for decades in Hollywood & Broadway.  He taught using redacted contracts from his own career and those of his associates.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 1, 2022)

billd91 said:


> That's still pretty much an indictment of the system that leaves richer defendants with higher (or even any) competence compared to poorer ones who can't afford the expensive lawyers. Access to justice isn't equitable.



I won’t say you’re wrong.

But it’s hard to level a playing field that depends so much on the skills of individual practitioners.  There’s an old joke told in law schools- and probably medical schools as well- that just by the rules of statistics, someone out there is the worst lawyer in the country…and his waiting room is full on Monday morning,


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jun 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Superman isn’t 100 yet.  Superman first appeared in 1938, and is slated to hit the public domain pretty soon, along with Batman and Wonder Woman.



Great. Does the difference in exact number actually inform the discussion in some way? 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> As for absurdity?  One of the bundle of rights in what we call copyright is the power to sell it outright.  You can’t sell something devoid of value.  (Well, besides NFTs.)



Okay?


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Besides, as pointed out numerous times, Supes has dozens of non-DC knockoffs despite being under copyright…and a fairly valuable and well defended one at that.  I find it absurd that people utterly unconnected to the creation of a piece of IP feel a need to assert a right to using the EXACT copyrighted form is something as opposed to an homage after the mere passage of time.



Yes you keep pointing it out, but it’s not compelling. Superman isn’t owned by his creators, so I have absolutely no regard for any supposed rights to exclusive ownership. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> With other forms of property, that doesn’t really happen.



Inheritance is a whole bag of too-political worms. We likely disagree quite a bit on that too. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> How does using the original IP of something serve the public good when alternate versions are perfectly legal?



The freedom to create new works using old elements is a fundamental part of the human experience. It is one of the oldest pursuits known to man. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Certainly there are differences.  But they’re not so great that it somehow justifies the shortening of copyright durations,



Yes, it does. Copyright is a subversion of human nature that only serves the good when it is very limited in scope. Particularly, the transfer of ownership to non-individual entities to enrich the already wealthy at little to no benefit to the actual creator is a detriment to society.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jun 1, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> but extending it to cover descendants is too much.



Far too much. Inheriting land is one thing. Inheriting the right to hoard the use of creative work beyond the lifespan of any individual person is right out.  

_Only_ the creator and their partner should ever get full copyright protection. Anyone else should get, at most, 20 years of copyright.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Jun 1, 2022)

Don't get me wrong, I think copyright reform is needed. I just don't think that a bill that specifically is designed to be a punitive measure against a specific company for the reasons behind this one is the way to go.



doctorbadwolf said:


> Best Mythos story I ever read was by Neil Gaiman. Hell, it used the Mythos and Sherlock Holmes. It’s a hell of a story.
> 
> The fact is, if copyright was very limited or only protected your right to be credited for your work, etc, exclusivity just wouldn’t be how creators make a living. They’d still make content and make a living.
> 
> ...


----------



## Ryujin (Jun 1, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Besides, as pointed out numerous times, Supes has dozens of non-DC knockoffs despite being under copyright…and a fairly valuable and well defended one at that.  I find it absurd that people utterly unconnected to the creation of a piece of IP feel a need to assert a right to using the EXACT copyrighted form is something as opposed to an homage after the mere passage of time.



Well there's getting something that's subjectively good (Axanar), rather than something that's subjectively trash (Discovery), but that doesn't rise to a legal right


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 1, 2022)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Don't get me wrong, I think copyright reform is needed. I just don't think that a bill that specifically is designed to be a punitive measure against a specific company for the reasons behind this one is the way to go.



Oh I agree. And it isn’t even written in a way that would be all that helpful.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg (Jun 2, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Superman isn’t 100 yet.  Superman first appeared in 1938, and is slated to hit the public domain pretty soon, along with Batman and Wonder Woman.
> 
> As for absurdity?  One of the bundle of rights in what we call copyright is the power to sell it outright.  You can’t sell something devoid of value.  (Well, besides NFTs.)
> 
> ...




While I generally agree with you points, I do have …. concerns ….. about the music industry right now.


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## dragoner (Jun 2, 2022)

Personally if I never saw Tolkien or Star Wars stuff again, I would not be sad, and if something were to be done see more of it? Uh, no. That's what bills like this seem to be trying to do, is free up already popular IP's. It is like Bilbo Baggins porno, it probably exists, and I don't want to see it.


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## Horwath (Jun 2, 2022)

Patent length is 20 years, so...


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## TheSword (Jun 2, 2022)

Copyright can stifle creativity by limiting the number of people that can develop an IP (edited for clarity).

But it also gives monetary value to IP which encourages investment which can develop an idea.

… it’s a quandary.


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## Fifth Element (Jun 2, 2022)

TheSword said:


> Copyright can stifle creativity by limiting the number of people that can develop an idea.



Untrue. You can't copyright an idea, only a very specific expression of an idea. See, for example, the 170 copies of Superman mentioned in the thread previously.


----------



## Fifth Element (Jun 2, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Yes you keep pointing it out, but it’s not compelling. Superman isn’t owned by his creators, so I have absolutely no regard for any supposed rights to exclusive ownership.



That's the part you're missing. A creator cannot be said to have full rights over their creation if they are not able to sell it to someone else.


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## Ryujin (Jun 2, 2022)

Fifth Element said:


> That's the part you're missing. A creator cannot be said to have full rights over their creation if they are not able to sell it to someone else.



And that's where things can get really messy. There's a good doc you can find on Youtube about the history of Judge Dredd and it mentions why the Stallone movie was a walking lawsuit.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Jun 2, 2022)

Fifth Element said:


> That's the part you're missing. A creator cannot be said to have full rights over their creation if they are not able to sell it to someone else.



2 things

First, that's absolutely absurd. A thing not being able to be sold doesn't make it not yours. It just means it's a type of thing that can't legally be sold. 

Second, you _can_ sell it, under the rules I'd prefer. The new owner just has a much more limited time frame to make exclusive use of it. If they sell it, the timeframe doesn't reset, it just continues from the original date of sale.


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## TheSword (Jun 3, 2022)

Fifth Element said:


> Untrue. You can't copyright an idea, only a very specific expression of an idea. See, for example, the 170 copies of Superman mentioned in the thread previously.



Thanks. By saying development I though expression was implied, but. Edited for clarity.

My point still stands though.


----------



## LuisCarlos17f (Jun 3, 2022)

Have you thought about this? If some IPs become public domain, then others could publish spin-off based in the next generations.


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## Umbran (Jun 3, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Have you thought about this? If some IPs become public domain, then others could publish spin-off based in the next generations.




But, as Danny has pointed out,  you can already.

As has been noted, you can file the serial numbers off of Superman pretty easily, and use him.  You can do that as well for future generations - and that's been done, too.  In fact, the recent TV shows _Jupiter's Legacy_ and _Invincible_ (and the comics they are based on) have themes of "faux-Superman's children".

What's at stake in comics (and fiction) aren't the themes and ideas.  They are the exact name "Clark Kent", the big red S on his chest, and the name of the homeworld Krypton, and the like.

So, in fiction, what's at stake isn't _creativity_.  It is the ability to cash in on the cachet of a character that someone else created.  

This is different from the music industry, for example, in which cover songs (and now sampling) are an important part of the art.


----------



## Mannahnin (Jun 3, 2022)

Umbran said:


> This is different from the music industry, for example, in which cover songs (and now sampling) are an important part of the art.



I think fiction could easily see similar riffing on and creative use of characters if our IP laws didn't obstruct it so much.


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## Umbran (Jun 3, 2022)

Mannahnin said:


> I think fiction could easily see similar riffing on and creative use of characters if our IP laws didn't obstruct it so much.




The point is that there's plenty of riffing on characters being done already!  170 riffs on Superman!


----------



## Mannahnin (Jun 3, 2022)

Umbran said:


> But the point is that there's plenty of riffing on characters being done already!



No, I'm talking about riffing by using the actual characters. 

Yes, you can do a fair amount with similar characters, as was being discussed, but it's not the same thing.  Just like imitating the drum sound from When the Levy Breaks is not the same thing as actually sampling the song.

And writing an antisocial detective with a sidekick is not the same thing as using Sherlock for Elementary.


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## dragoner (Jun 3, 2022)

I know with maintaining copyright on my star maps, it's only so someone does not make some third reich in space, or something; not that I am going to make money, because I have not. I actually made them as a learning tool, for myself, except hopefully to others as well.


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## Ryujin (Jun 3, 2022)

dragoner said:


> I know with maintaining copyright on my star maps, it's only so someone does not make some third reich in space, or something; not that I am going to make money, because I have not. I actually made them as a learning tool, for myself, except hopefully to others as well.



Third Reich in space = Azuriach Imperium (Space Opera RPG)


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## dragoner (Jun 3, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Third Reich in space = Azuriach Imperium (Space Opera RPG)



There are also other close or adjacent games to the TR in space. I am friends with most of the people doing the Space Opera stuff, the main feel I get from it is more libertarian American, a strong internet vibe.


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## Umbran (Jun 3, 2022)

Mannahnin said:


> No, I'm talking about riffing by using the actual characters.




Ah.  So, I think you have it _completely backwards_.  

In fiction, you can do a riff that everyone recognizes as a riff without infringing on copyright, because in fiction you don't need the particulars to riff - you need the themes.  So, you get 170 riffs on Superman.

In music, doing a recognizable riff on a work without using the details of the original is extremely difficult, because the art of music leans much less heavily on subtexts and themes, and more on the particulars of pieces.  

Copyright in music is effectively _more restrictive_ than that in fiction, because of the differences in the art forms.  The music industry, however, is generally more permissive in allowing licensing.  



Mannahnin said:


> Yes, you can do a fair amount with similar characters, as was being discussed, but it's not the same thing.




So, the argument is that long copyright protection serves to limit creativity.  _Creatively_, what is different about being able to use the ideas and themes, but not the Big Red S itself?  Darned little.  What is different isn't about the writer's creativity - it is about the _marketing_ of the resulting piece.


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## Mannahnin (Jun 3, 2022)

Umbran said:


> What is different isn't about the writer's creativity - it is about the _marketing_ of the resulting piece.



I don't think this true at all.  I think you're being conceptually limited by acceptance of the status quo.

Again, a show or story about an updated/alternate (or even the same exact character, just with a new plot) Sherlock Holmes or Winnie the Pooh is functionally different than a show about another, similar detective or bear.  It's not just marketing.

There is no one definitive "official" Robin Hood.  There are many takes on the character and many different stories.  I think this is a manifest good.


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## Lanefan (Jun 3, 2022)

Umbran said:


> So, the argument is that long copyright protection serves to limit creativity.  _Creatively_, what is different about being able to use the ideas and themes, but not the Big Red S itself?  Darned little.  What is different isn't about the writer's creativity - it is about the _marketing_ of the resulting piece.



In the ten-ish (?) years since (much of) Lovecraft's material became public domain there's been an explosion of material based on all things Cthulhu, an explosion that's only just now finally starting to die down some.

If creativity wasn't being limited while that material was still under copyright, that explosion would have - if it happened at all - been much smaller.


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## dragoner (Jun 3, 2022)

Stuff can still be licensed as well, so part of the discussion seems to be wanting to use others IP for free. Circling this back on RPG's, I remember people saying around 2010 or so that Traveller should be taken away from Marc Miller, you know, the guy that retired an insurance salesman, partially because why did he deserve to have a kickstarter that did $300k.


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## Staffan (Jun 3, 2022)

Umbran said:


> So, the argument is that long copyright protection serves to limit creativity.  _Creatively_, what is different about being able to use the ideas and themes, but not the Big Red S itself?  Darned little.  What is different isn't about the writer's creativity - it is about the _marketing_ of the resulting piece.




I would argue that neither The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen nor the more recent TV series Penny Dreadful would have been as successful had they not been able to use the actual characters of Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, Dorian Gray, or Victor Frankenstein but instead had to use knockoffs. The stories in those comics/that show continue on from the published stories about those characters, and they are stronger for it.

By more modern standards, I think there's value in being able to write a book featuring Popeye, Batgirl, Sailor Moon, Spider-Man, Buffy, and Valerian teaming up against the Homelander. Ideally narrated by Blackadder.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 4, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Great. Does the difference in exact number actually inform the discussion in some way?



Duration varies between human creators of copyright and business entities.  Had Superman’s creators published him for themselves as opposed as in the scope of their employment, Superman’s entry into the public domain would be even further in the future.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Okay?



This bears on what can be transferred, for how much, and when.  

If someone created and self-published a great piece of IP, but it languished in obscurity until after the creator’s death, the duration of copyright would be a major factor on whether or not his estate (and successors in interest- family, friends, charities, etc.) could capitalize on that IP at all.  The longer copyright endures, the better they will be able to get something of value for that IP.  Shorter copyright durations means a corporation need only play a waiting game until they can use it without compensating those the IP creator cared about.

And as I pointed out, copyrighted material CAN have cyclical fluctuations in value…but they DO decrease over time in general.  So to me, 20 years after a creator dies is WAY too short.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Yes you keep pointing it out, but it’s not compelling. Superman isn’t owned by his creators, so I have absolutely no regard for any supposed rights to exclusive ownership.



There’s not real distinctions in the copyright bundle of rights beyond duration, which favors human creators over business entities.

But the shorter copyright endures, the less value it has to its creators and any successors in interest.  Even corporate-owned works for hire would decrease in value.  If you’re a corporation paying people to create IP, you’ve got to assess whether or not expanding your use of it will give you a good ROI.  Superman didn’t make the jump to movies until 13 years after his creation; TV at 14 years.  Those shows and that movie might never have been made by Supes’s owners if their copyright was soon to expire.


doctorbadwolf said:


> The freedom to create new works using old elements is a fundamental part of the human experience. It is one of the oldest pursuits known to man.



It is, and as noted, a great many creative processes begin with being inspired by the creative works of others.

But also noted is the fact that copyright does not stop one from creating something based on something else, just 1:1 copies and some other things deemed too similar to it.

Prokofiev created Peter & The Wolf in 1936.  Just 30 years later, Jimmy Smith created a jazz version of it that is highly respected and sought out.  You can hear elements of Prokofiev’s original music in Jimmy Smith‘s interpretation- enough to identify the characters- but it’s clearly also different; it is it’s own thing,

Prokofiev’s copyright didn’t stifle Smith’s creativity.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Yes, it does. Copyright is a subversion of human nature that only serves the good when it is very limited in scope.



Clearly, I disagree.



doctorbadwolf said:


> Particularly, the transfer of ownership to non-individual entities to enrich the already wealthy at little to no benefit to the actual creator is a detriment to society.



You speak as if the corporation is the only one benefitting.  

Corporations buying the rights to extant IP have to pay fair market value to the creators.  

If they’re paying for works-for-hire, how much the corp pays them in wages will be at least partially dependent on their ROI calculations- the more valuable the IP, the more they can afford to compensate the creators.  Record contracts illustrate this very clearly.  Recording artists with record deals agree to produce a certain number of albums over the duration of a contract, with the companies holding the copyrights in the albums.  The more albums you move, though, the higher royalty rates you can get; the bigger chunk you get from other income streams, like concerts & merch.

And remember, megastars who manage to hold onto their earnings often try to buy their copyrights back.  Even though he lost the Beatles catalog bidding war to Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney was prepared to shell out a major chunk of his wealth based on the continuing commercial value of that music.  It’s possible but less likely he- or MJ- would have bid on that music about to become public domain because it was owned by corporate holders.  That saga took _another_ turn in 2020, when McCartney finally got ownership of his music after 50 years of trying.

Last I checked, Sir Paul is still an individual…

If corporate copyright were shorter, he wouldn’t be reaping the full benefits of his (and his bandmates’) work.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 4, 2022)

Umbran said:


> The music industry, however, is generally more permissive in allowing licensing.



Yep.  You give credit; you pay a fee.  Job done.

There’s even websites that ID samples by who created them and who used them.  So if you suspect a certain drum sequence was a sample, you could look it up and know for sure.


Mannahnin said:


> Yes, you can do a fair amount with similar characters, as was being discussed, but it's not the same thing. Just like imitating the drum sound from When the Levy Breaks is not the same thing as actually sampling the song.



Ice-T did exactly that in a killer track, “Midnight”, pairing Bonham’s epic drumming with Tony Iommi’s guitar riff from Black Sabbath’s “N.I.B.”  It’s one of my favorites by him for so many reasons, but some of the lyrics are not “Grandma Friendly”.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 4, 2022)

Staffan said:


> I would argue that neither The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen nor the more recent TV series Penny Dreadful would have been as successful had they not been able to use the actual characters of Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, Dorian Gray, or Victor Frankenstein but instead had to use knockoffs.



That’s what licensing agreements are for.

Licensing agreements made the movie _Heavy Metal _possible.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 4, 2022)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> While I generally agree with you points, I do have …. concerns ….. about the music industry right now.



So do I, but I bet they differ! 

What’s bugging you?


----------



## Staffan (Jun 4, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> But the shorter copyright endures, the less value it has to its creators and any successors in interest.



See, you're coming at this from the perspective of "What brings the most money to creators and/or owners?". I don't. I'm coming at this from the perspective of "What gets the most creative stuff done?"

People generally don't write* things with the expectation that they'll make it big when someone makes a movie of it 30 years from now. The decision to write and publish a book is made in the here and now: will this book make enough to recoup the advance we're paying the author as well as other expenses like editing, overhead, etc? Should Hollywood decide to make a movie from it, that's bonus money.

And since people generally don't have 30-, 50-, or 100-year perspectives on what to create and publish, having a copyright term that long doesn't help getting more things created. And therefore, the copyright term shouldn't be that long. If the problem is "But how do aging creators eat?", that can be solved in other ways.

* or paint, or compose, or whatever their creative endeavor is.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Last I checked, Sir Paul is still an individual…
> 
> If corporate copyright were shorter, he wouldn’t be reaping the full benefits of his (and his bandmates’) work.



McCartney appears to have been amply compensated when those records were released in the 60s and 70s, and for quite some time afterwards. Does he really need to *keep* being compensated? I mean, I go to work every day, and get paid at the end of the month, but no-one's paying me for the work I did a year ago. I need to keep working. Why should creative work be different?


----------



## Staffan (Jun 4, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That’s what licensing agreements are for.



Sure, licensing dozens of characters belonging to dozens of creators would in no way be a logistical or legal nightmare, particularly if those rights are spread over multiple companies in different parts of the world.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 4, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You speak as if the corporation is the only one benefitting.



No, I don’t.

I speak as though I’m proposing that the greatest need to shorten copyright lies with corporations, and it is entirely possible to do so without screwing over small creators.  

Nothing you’ve said makes me any less inclined to believe the above.


----------



## Ryujin (Jun 4, 2022)

Staffan said:


> McCartney appears to have been amply compensated when those records were released in the 60s and 70s, and for quite some time afterwards. Does he really need to *keep* being compensated? I mean, I go to work every day, and get paid at the end of the month, but no-one's paying me for the work I did a year ago. I need to keep working. Why should creative work be different?



Why? Because it _is_ different. When you work a job, day in and day out, you get paid. Creatives can work for decades without making a cent. Being able to bridge the times when they aren't making anything, or aren't even making subsistence level income, is how they survive. Just because someone like McCartney is more successful than most doesn't mean the rules should be different.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 4, 2022)

dragoner said:


> Stuff can still be licensed as well, so part of the discussion seems to be wanting to use others IP for free. Circling this back on RPG's, I remember people saying around 2010 or so that Traveller should be taken away from Marc Miller, you know, the guy that retired an insurance salesman, partially because why did he deserve to have a kickstarter that did $300k.



Like I said way upthread, I’d be fine with a multi-tiered system, whereby after a certain timeframe copyright on an IP changes to basically a Creative Commons license, before eventually becoming public domain. 

What I disagree with the most is that we need long copyright terms in order for companies to pay a living wage to creators.


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## Umbran (Jun 4, 2022)

Staffan said:


> See, you're coming at this from the perspective of "What brings the most money to creators and/or owners?". I don't. I'm coming at this from the perspective of "What gets the most creative stuff done?"




The most creative, in terms of quantity, or quality?

We already have more creative works, in quantity, than can be be consumed by the market.  And you've not established that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, for example, is specifically more creative than an original work.

It is important to note that the original main focus of copyright _was not fiction_.  The first copyright law in the US was "The Copyright Act of 1790, An Act for _the Encouragement of Learning_, by Securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of Such Copies" (emphasis mine).  And there was a term limit on copyright not to allow creation of new fiction, but to encourage creativity in “science and the useful arts”.

In the sciences, one must base new work on old.  In fiction, that's not really necessary.  You may _like it_, but it isn't necessary to be creative.


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## dragoner (Jun 4, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Like I said way upthread, I’d be fine with a multi-tiered system, whereby after a certain timeframe copyright on an IP changes to basically a Creative Commons license, before eventually becoming public domain.
> 
> What I disagree with the most is that we need long copyright terms in order for companies to pay a living wage to creators.



Rules are ideally made to protect the weak, not the strong, using McCartney as an example is ridiculous. Stripping what little protections there are from creators, will not promote creativity. 

Personally I find a lot of derivative works to be boring, IP seems to promote more creativity, not less.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 4, 2022)

dragoner said:


> Rules are ideally made to protect the weak, not the strong, using McCartney as an example is ridiculous. Stripping what little protections there are from creators, will not promote creativity.
> 
> Personally I find a lot of derivative works to be boring, IP seems to promote more creativity, not less.



It doesn’t matter what you find boring. 

The rules don’t currently protect the “weak”, and I’m not the person who brought up McCartney, so please keep replies to me relevant to things _I_ have said.


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## dragoner (Jun 4, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> It doesn’t matter what you find boring.
> 
> The rules don’t currently protect the “weak”, and I’m not the person who brought up McCartney, so please keep replies to me relevant to things _I_ have said.



It matters to me. 

McCartney, and all the big IP seems to be at contention, and the proposed changes definitely don't seem to be protecting the weak. I know as a creator, I have seen things posted that seem awfully derivative of what I have done, except I'm not the one to go after them, I mean, I do not even read all that others write just to know. Also, certainly, like reading good writers, they often call out who they got their ideas from, like Corey, when someone mentioned Sagan with their gates in the Expanse, said they were similar, though, they actually got their idea from Pohl's Gateway.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 4, 2022)

dragoner said:


> the proposed changes definitely don't seem to be protecting the weak.



What specific proposals that I have made strike you as not protecting the weak?


----------



## Snarf Zagyg (Jun 4, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> So do I, but I bet they differ!
> 
> What’s bugging you?




The prevalence (and success) of lawsuits in regard to songs that that do not sample, but "sound" similar. 

I am using the term loosely- but for an artist to create new music, it is nearly impossible to create something that is truly new. Now, whether that's because the artist inadvertently used a hook that is "too close" to something in the past, the artist heard it at some point and didn't realize they were using it, or the artist is paying homage (or even copying) is difficult to determine.

But the _in terrorem_ effect of those lawsuits is incredibly high; for example, while were might be able to discuss the actual procedural issues behind the 9th COA's decision upholding the jury verdict, the loud message to most is that if there is any chance of going to the jury, you better settle. 

Basically, when it comes to music (and rights holders) you are getting something similar to the patent troll effect, except copyrights last longer. 

IMO, etc.


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## dragoner (Jun 4, 2022)

Definitely shortening the time someone holds copyright to their work.


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## Ryujin (Jun 4, 2022)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> The prevalence (and success) of lawsuits in regard to songs that that do not sample, but "sound" similar.
> 
> I am using the term loosely- but for an artist to create new music, it is nearly impossible to create something that is truly new. Now, whether that's because the artist inadvertently used a hook that is "too close" to something in the past, the artist heard it at some point and didn't realize they were using it, or the artist is paying homage (or even copying) is difficult to determine.
> 
> ...



One of the issues seems to be that there are only so many logical tonal progressions that are appealing to the Western listener. It's basically math. There are going to be repetitions, even in a vacuum, which is why part of the process is to prove exposure to the allegedly infringed-upon work.

_*Another Experience I've Had:*_
Back in the early '00s I wrote a piece on motorcycle road safety, for the riding group of which I was a founding member. I took a great deal of time with it and had distilled almost 20 years of what I had learned in my riding experience (both alone and leading group rides), racing schools (8), and ART (advanced rider training; 2) classes. I took no compensation for it because I was trying to help the community, especially new riders. Within a month or two I found it on two other riding groups' websites. That wouldn't have bothered me, given the reason for its creation, but there was zero attribution and I had not received a request for it to be used by anyone. In fact the reason why I found out about it being used by one of these sites, was because someone who was a member of both groups thought that _I_ had taken it from one of those other sites, as they seemed to be claiming it as their own. A request and attribution, and I'd have been fine with it. Ultimately my piece was taken down by them and replaced with pieces that might as well have been spat out by an online thesaurus app.


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## Staffan (Jun 5, 2022)

Umbran said:


> The most creative, in terms of quantity, or quality?



Both. Sturgeon's law applies: 90% of everything is crap. But if there's more stuff, that 10% that's good is going to be bigger. See also: the explosion of d20 material in the early 00s spurred on by enabling the licensing of D&D material on extremely generous terms, which is pretty close to putting D&D in the public domain in its effect. There was a lot of crap, a bunch of serviceable material, and some real gems.



Umbran said:


> We already have more creative works, in quantity, than can be be consumed by the market.  And you've not established that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, for example, is specifically more creative than an original work.



I don't need to establish that it's "more creative". I only need to establish that it fills a very well-regarded niche, which is clearly the case. It's a successful and critically acclaimed comic, and there's even been a movie made based on it.

The public domain is filled with characters with which we are all familiar, and that can be easily appropriated to your own story. Merlin, Cinderella, Robinson Crusoe, Dracula, Robin Hood, Alice, Ariel, Puck, and the list goes on. There is no reason Superman, James Bond, The Moomins, Pippi Longstocking, Blackadder, the Doctor, Jim Kirk, Spock, Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax, and other creations of the 20th and 21st centuries should not be allowed to join that public domain pantheon.

I also find it particularly galling that Disney is leading the charge to extend copyright given that they made a significant portion of their wealth by providing their own interpretations of public domain stories and characters. Disney gets to make movies based on Snow White, the Jungle Book, Pinocchio, and Oliver Twist, but we can't publish stories with Scrooge McDuck, Luke Skywalker, or Spider-Man.


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## Cadence (Jun 5, 2022)

Staffan said:


> The public domain is filled with characters with which we are all familiar, and that can be easily appropriated to your own story. Merlin, Cinderella, Robinson Crusoe, Dracula, Robin Hood, Alice, Ariel, Puck, and the list goes on. There is no reason Superman, James Bond, The Moomins, Pippi Longstocking, Blackadder, the Doctor, Jim Kirk, Spock, Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax, and other creations of the 20th and 21st centuries should not be allowed to join that public domain pantheon.




You want things created in the 21st century (within the last 23 years or less) to be in the public domain already?



Staffan said:


> I also find it particularly galling that Disney is leading the charge to extend copyright given that they made a significant portion of their wealth by providing their own interpretations of public domain stories and characters. Disney gets to make movies based on Snow White, the Jungle Book, Pinocchio, and Oliver Twist, but we can't publish stories with Scrooge McDuck, Luke Skywalker, or Spider-Man.




You too can make your own takes on the original Snow White, Killing, Pinnochio, and Oliver Twist, right?

Is the first year of Scrooge only a decade and a half away from being open? (It's only a as each thing expires right? So they can sue the snot out of people who act like the whole ouvre is open?)

Luke is under 50 years and Spider-Man is around 60?  That feels kind of like a difference from, say Snow White at 210 years?


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## Cadence (Jun 5, 2022)

Just so I'm on the right page.  Public domain isn't just right to do derivatives, but also to publish the original too, right?

And things only enter the public domain as individual things.  So when Episode IV is out, one still can't do anything from any of the other movies, books, or shows?  (Or even cleaned up later versions of episode IV.  Are copies of the VHS and DVD still off the table, just copies of the original film?).


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## billd91 (Jun 5, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Just so I'm on the right page.  Public domain isn't just right to do derivatives, but also to publish the original too, right?



That’s right.


Cadence said:


> And things only enter the public domain as individual things.  So when Episode IV is out, one still can't do anything from any of the other movies, books, or shows?  (Or even cleaned up later versions of episode IV.  Are copies of the VHS and DVD still off the table, just copies of the original film?).



Just the original content. So in Star Wars’s case, if some aspect of a character changed, like Luke becoming Vader’s son, that would be off limits even if Luke circa A New Hope was available in the public domain. And any restored scenes, like Han’s conversation with Jabba, wouldn‘t be available either, until those entered public domain as well some years later.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 5, 2022)

Snarf Zagyg said:


> The prevalence (and success) of lawsuits in regard to songs that that do not sample, but "sound" similar.
> 
> I am using the term loosely- but for an artist to create new music, it is nearly impossible to create something that is truly new. Now, whether that's because the artist inadvertently used a hook that is "too close" to something in the past, the artist heard it at some point and didn't realize they were using it, or the artist is paying homage (or even copying) is difficult to determine.
> 
> ...



I agree that there’s more C&D letters and lawsuits in music than 20 years ago.  There’s also a similar effect going on with YouTube takedown orders, especially for companies hiring musicians to demo their gear and people teaching techniques and music theory online.  Rick Beato- a notable music producer- has had several of his vids taken down at least temporarily due to him demonstrating how to play this or that, or illustrating why a musician did what he did.

And yes, many of them ARE frivolous.  Part of that has to do with the limitations on how many patterns there are that sound pleasing to human aesthetics.  Part of that has to do with the information age’s technology making it easier to detect said patterns.  Part of it is the desire to minimize entry barriers for initiating legitimate lawsuits perforce lowering those same barriers for the frivolous ones.

That last one is squarely on the legal profession.  I strongly suspect that if the penalties for us attorneys wasting the courts’ time with frivolous/nuisance suits were a bit steeper, we’d see fewer of them.

The thing is, part of this litigious environment is ALSO due to the aftereffects of music piracy and the waning power of major labels as small-scale self-production becomes cheaper.

The latter phenomenon increased the percentage of the music industry being small labels and self-publishers, none of whom have the bankrolls Sony and the other big labels have to fight the former issue.  Small operators HAVE to be aggressive in protecting themselves with C&Ds and takedowns because lawsuits STILL take time and money.  Way back in the late 1990s, Ani Di Franco started producing her stuff in her own label.  She found the time and effort she spent fighting piracy of her music was actually taking time away from creating it in the first place.  It hasn’t really gotten better.


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## Ryujin (Jun 5, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I agree that there’s more C&D letters and lawsuits in music than 20 years ago.  There’s also a similar effect going on with YouTube takedown orders, especially for companies hiring musicians to demo their gear and people teaching techniques and music theory online.  Rick Beato- a notable music producer- has had several of his vids taken down at least temporarily due to him demonstrating how to play this or that, or illustrating why a musician did what he did.
> 
> And yes, many of them ARE frivolous.  Part of that has to do with the limitations on how many patterns there are that sound pleasing to human aesthetics.  Part of that has to do with the information age’s technology making it easier to detect said patterns.  Part of it is the desire to minimize entry barriers for initiating legitimate lawsuits perforce lowering those same barriers for the frivolous ones.
> 
> ...



The Youtube takedown thing has been out of control since its inception. There are musicians/composers who have received copyright strikes for posting their own original works, because they are those works, and it has been a nightmare for them to have the strikes removed.


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## Staffan (Jun 5, 2022)

Cadence said:


> You want things created in the 21st century (within the last 23 years or less) to be in the public domain already?



Maybe not yet, but soon. I don't know what copyright duration is the best for benefiting the creation of Stuff, but I think people in their middle age should be able to make stuff based on the things they enjoyed as a child or teen. So maybe 30 years or so, and there should be significantly stronger protections for fair use. For example, Wikimedia Sweden was sued by a collection society on behalf of people making public art (statues, architecture, etc.) because of a database showing these things, and lost. This, to me, is nonsense. A picture of a statue is not the same as the statue, and should not be protected by copyright. Neither should someone making a movie where someone is in a newspaper store have to license all the covers in the store. Reaction videos should be protected as well.

In my ideal world, this would not be the first step. Current creators have made economic decisions based on current circumstances, so any changes need to be cushioned somehow. But as a matter of principle, I don't see why someone should be able to continually make money from things they did decades ago. Write more books, make more records, shoot more movies. Or get a more traditional job.


Cadence said:


> You too can make your own takes on the original Snow White, Killing, Pinnochio, and Oliver Twist, right?



Yes, but what is good for the goose should be good for the gander. Disney has made movies based on culturally relevant works made by others, so others should be able to make Stuff based on Disney's culturally relevant stuff. 


Cadence said:


> Is the first year of Scrooge only a decade and a half away from being open? (It's only a as each thing expires right? So they can sue the snot out of people who act like the whole ouvre is open?)
> 
> Luke is under 50 years and Spider-Man is around 60?  That feels kind of like a difference from, say Snow White at 210 years?



When the Jungle Book was released, the work it was based on was a little over 70 years old. I think 70 is still far too long, maybe it should be about half that.


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## Ryujin (Jun 5, 2022)

Staffan said:


> Maybe not yet, but soon. I don't know what copyright duration is the best for benefiting the creation of Stuff, but I think people in their middle age should be able to make stuff based on the things they enjoyed as a child or teen. So maybe 30 years or so, and there should be significantly stronger protections for fair use. For example, Wikimedia Sweden was sued by a collection society on behalf of people making public art (statues, architecture, etc.) because of a database showing these things, and lost. This, to me, is nonsense. A picture of a statue is not the same as the statue, and should not be protected by copyright. Neither should someone making a movie where someone is in a newspaper store have to license all the covers in the store. Reaction videos should be protected as well.
> 
> In my ideal world, this would not be the first step. Current creators have made economic decisions based on current circumstances, so any changes need to be cushioned somehow. But as a matter of principle, I don't see why someone should be able to continually make money from things they did decades ago. Write more books, make more records, shoot more movies. Or get a more traditional job.
> 
> ...



I agree that a picture of something should not, in and of itself, be a violation of copyright unless the picture is of a picture without comment or context. One of the things that I find to be patently ridiculous is that a picture of the Eiffel Tower, taken at night, is a copyright violation.









						Why Your Eiffel Tower Photos May Be Illegal
					

Nighttime pictures of the Paris monument can violate French law.




					www.huffpost.com


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 8, 2022)

Staffan said:


> See, you're coming at this from the perspective of "What brings the most money to creators and/or owners?".



Yes, the people who actually did the work.



Staffan said:


> I don't. I'm coming at this from the perspective of "What gets the most creative stuff done?"



As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, copyright prevents/limits copying something too closely, but not _actual creativity.  _Let’s be honest here: what is more creative, copying someone’s work exactly and making a few changes to tell a story or doing an identifiable homage that tells the same tale?

When a philosophy teacher friend of mine noticed one of her students copied several paragraphs from her (the teacher’s) own father’s textsbooks , it was called “plagiarism.”  Had the student reformulated those ideas into her own words, she might not have gotten expelled.


Staffan said:


> People generally don't write* things with the expectation that they'll make it big when someone makes a movie of it 30 years from now.



Some do, but most don’t, true.  But why should we punish a lack of long-term perspective?  Especially in a world where “sampling” is no longer confined to D


Staffan said:


> If the problem is "But how do aging creators eat?", that can be solved in other ways.



Suggest some.

Most of the ways in which copyrighted material generates income are directly related to the copyright itself.  The big bucks for musicians come from songwriting royalties, concerts and merchandise, nor record sales.  Of those, only concerts don’t require control of a copyright to be an income stream for the IP creator.  And musicians like Jason Becker (ALS rendered him a paraplegic) cannot perform.

There are no retirement plans, etc.


Staffan said:


> McCartney appears to have been amply compensated when those records were released in the 60s and 70s, and for quite some time afterwards. Does he really need to *keep* being compensated? I mean, I go to work every day, and get paid at the end of the month, but no-one's paying me for the work I did a year ago. I need to keep working. Why should creative work be different?



Is your work worth 1000x or more than when it was created?  If it is, isn’t that more of an indictment of YOUR compensation than a reason to limit his ability to profit from his own creations?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 8, 2022)

Staffan said:


> Sure, licensing dozens of characters belonging to dozens of creators would in no way be a logistical or legal nightmare, particularly if those rights are spread over multiple companies in different parts of the world.



Licensing issues have created issues for many projects I know.  One of the most famous ones I can think of is the original _Heavy Metal _movie and it’s soundtrack.

Thing is, absolutely none of the issues that plague complicated projects like _HM_ would be solved by shortening copyright to the levels proposed thus far.  You’d need to reduce protection to something on the order of 15 years or less after creation to solve licensing issues.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 8, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> No, I don’t.
> 
> I speak as though I’m proposing that the greatest need to shorten copyright lies with corporations, and it is entirely possible to do so without screwing over small creators.



Copyrights currently get transferred from creators to businesses back to creators and other successors in interest, like friends, families and charities.  Some IP creators produce their works for businesses they own.

My church’s music director did this.  His compositions and recordings are owned by his record label.

IOW, in the current regime, changing what IP rights corporations can have and transfer perforce affects what rights others can have, including the crea themselves.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Nothing you’ve said makes me any less inclined to believe the above.



We are clearly far apart on this, yes.


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## trappedslider (Jun 8, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Licensing issues have created issues for many projects I know.  One of the most famous ones I can think of is the original _Heavy Metal _movie and it’s soundtrack.



And the years-long struggle to get WKRP on DvD with its original soundtrack and music. Along with a few popular shows from the 90s that had music from the same decade.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 8, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> The Youtube takedown thing has been out of control since its inception. There are musicians/composers who have received copyright strikes for posting their own original works, because they are those works, and it has been a nightmare for them to have the strikes removed.



I put a lot of that down to YouTube not investing in the personnel required to ascertain the difference between legit and bogus claims.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 8, 2022)

trappedslider said:


> And the years-long struggle to get WKRP on DvD with its original soundtrack and music. Along with a few popular shows from the 90s that had music from the same decade.




It took 32 years to get the DVDs released, yes.  But the series was available on VHS in 1998- 16 years after the series ended.  The _basic _licensing issues had been resolved at that point.

The hitch was that DVDs became a commercial product in 1995.  And there was a BIG fight over how royalties were going to be calculated on the new tech..  Same kinds of fights occurred when cassettes were introduced, and CDs, DATs, and LaserDiscs, too.  Ditto all the various non-physical electronic formats like mp3s, .wav files, pdf and so forth.

That’s because all these royalty calculations have clauses about compensation rates for “new”, “experimental”, etc. technologies.


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## trappedslider (Jun 8, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It took 32 years to get the DVDs released, yes.  But the series was available on VHS in 1998- 16 years after the series ended.  The _basic _licensing issues had been resolved at that point.
> 
> The hitch was that DVDs became a commercial product in 1995.  And there was a BIG fight over how royalties were going to be calculated on the new tech..  Same kinds of fights occurred when cassettes were introduced, and CDs, DATs, and LaserDiscs, too.  Ditto all the various non-physical electronic formats like mp3s, .wav files, pdf and so forth.
> 
> That’s because all these royalty calculations have clauses about compensation rates for “new”, “experimental”, etc. technologies.



Yeah, I remember that shout factory did release the DvDs but fans were not happy without the original music. I know the Sabrina the Teenage Witch series also doesn't have the original music, which makes me sad, so I didn't get it when I saw it.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 8, 2022)

trappedslider said:


> Yeah, I remember that shout factory did release the DvDs but fans were not happy without the original music. I know the Sabrina the Teenage Witch series also doesn't have the original music, which makes me sad, so I didn't get it when I saw it.



On the one hand, it’s clear that the copyright holders of the licensed music- both individuals and other corporations- hold some serious trump cards in this game.  But that IS part of the reason why copyright exists.

And to be honest, sometimes, people’s opinions on what and how their IP gets licensed change- sometimes radically.  Same goes fo successors in interest.  Individuals AND corporations other than the original IP creators have granted or ended licenses worth fortunes.


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## Ryujin (Jun 8, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I put a lot of that down to YouTube not investing in the personnel required to ascertain the difference between legit and bogus claims.



Oh, it's definitely a Youtube problem. Some have had strikes automatically placed against them by the algorithm, without an external request. Others have had copyright claims placed against them by major record labels, who have no claim at all on the work (self published).


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## trappedslider (Jun 8, 2022)




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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 8, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Copyrights currently get transferred from creators to businesses back to creators and other successors in interest, like friends, families and charities.  Some IP creators produce their works for businesses they own.



Yes, I think it's safe to assume that everyone is aware of this. If copyright were set up differently, those creators would simply manage their creations differently. You haven't established any benefit to society from it being set up the way it is.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> My church’s music director did this.  His compositions and recordings are owned by his record label.
> 
> IOW, in the current regime, changing what IP rights corporations can have and transfer perforce affects what rights others can have, including the crea themselves.



Yes. Just as the current regime has an effect on the rights of creators. There is no options that doesn't.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> We are clearly far apart on this, yes.



Sure. When I publish my own IP, very soon, it will be under a creative commons license, and my will will include the release of that IP into the public domain, because I believe that it is actively unethical to do otherwise.


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## Cadence (Jun 8, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Sure. When I publish my own IP, very soon, it will be under a creative commons license, and my will will include the release of that IP into the public domain, because I believe that it is actively unethical to do otherwise.




How did you pay any of the artists or editors or other contributors, or support yourself while you made it?

Edit: "my will" are two important words there. Doh!  As noted below I missed them when asking this.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 8, 2022)

Cadence said:


> How did you pay any of the artists or editors or other contributors, or support yourself while you made it?



With money, generally.  

You know that Creative Commons isn’t public domain, right? Depending on the specific license you can retain exclusive commercial use, or allow any use without restriction other than accreditation and the use of a similar license when publishing derivative works.


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## Cadence (Jun 8, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> With money, generally.
> 
> You know that Creative Commons isn’t public domain, right? Depending on the specific license you can retain exclusive commercial use, or allow any use without restriction




I was going to ask which check boxes you checked, but then missed a "my will" in the second phrase!  They kind of change things.   Sorry about that!!

So, which check boxes?


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 8, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I was going to ask which check boxes you checked, but then missed a "my will" in the second phrase!  They kind of change things.   Sorry about that!!
> 
> So, which check boxes?



I haven't finalized those decisions, yet. I'm still researching how they interact with different platforms and such. But, my preference is the attribution-non-commercial-share-alike license, because it is how I think copyright should work anyway. All non-commercial use should just be fair use. 

Should I manage to make real money from the IP, I will eventually go CC0 before my own passing. I'm not exactly planning on that, though. 

I'm also researching other options, but it seems to me that stuff like open gaming license is great for big well known games, not so much for small indie games. 

I think that's about as far in depth as I want to go derailing the thread, though. lol


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## see (Jun 9, 2022)

The core problem here is that adhering to Berne is an obligation of TRIPS, and adhering to TRIPS is a condition of WTO membership. Theoretically, WTO conditions can be renegotiated; in practice, that is a huge pain in the rear, given nearly 200 countries have to all be brought into agreement.

In addition to that, the US is party to a whole host of other trade treaties that have IP provisions specify minimum terms of either life +50 or life +70. In principle these could _all_ be renegotiated, sure . . . but in practice?

Blowing up the whole framework of modern international trade by unilaterally abrogating all those treaties is something that the US _could_ do, sure. But absolutely every US company that exports _anything_ -- and their workers -- will flood the offices of Congress with noise if a bill that would do so ever gets anywhere, because it'll threaten their livelihoods.

So, existing copyright terms are not going to be reduced (Berne prohibits it), future copyrights will not be for any duration less than life +50 years (Berne/TRIPS/WTO and a whole pile of other trade agreements), and future copyrights will most likely be life +70 years (additional trade agreements).


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 9, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> You haven't established any benefit to society from it being set up the way it is.



The benefit is self-evident: IP creators have more ability to benefit from their work than ever before.  More forms of IP creation are viable ways of making a living, thriving or even actually becoming rich than at any prior point in human history.  And some of those who have done exceedingly well have used their wealth to lift others up.  I can think of several, but one of the best examples is Dolly Parton.  If- like McCartney- she were deemed by some to have been “compensated enough already”, there’s literally millions of people who would be worse off.

Besides, if shifting bargaining power from businesses to workers is a desirable goal, strong protections for IP creators is a good thing.

OTOH, you haven’t provided any viable alternative.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Sure. When I publish my own IP, very soon, it will be under a creative commons license, and my will will include the release of that IP into the public domain, because I believe that it is actively unethical to do otherwise.



Great!  Such is your right.  But not everyone is you.

Sting is worth somewhere around $500m, last I checked, and he’s stated that he has no intention of leaving his kids much if any of it in his will.

Personally, if I had an IP-based fortune like that, there would definitely be some charitable donations.  But the first people in line to benefit from my estate would be the friends and family that enabled me to create that IP in the first place.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 9, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> The benefit is self-evident:



Oof. Never trust “self evident”. _Nothing_ is self-evident. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> IP creators have more ability to benefit from their work than ever before.  More forms of IP creation are viable ways of making a living, thriving or even actually becoming rich than at any prior point in human history.  And some of those who have done exceedingly well have used their wealth to lift others up.



Great, and they still would if their IP protection were limited to their lifetime, and to 20 or 30 years if sold to a corporation. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> I can think of several, but one of the best examples is Dolly Parton.  If- like McCartney- she were deemed by some to have been “compensated enough already”, there’s literally millions of people who would be worse off.



Not under any proposal I’ve made. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Besides, if shifting bargaining power from businesses to workers is a desirable goal, strong protections for IP creators is a good thing.



Can be, are not now. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> OTOH, you haven’t provided any viable alternative.



I sure as heck have, you may have missed them, but that isn’t on me. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Great!  Such is your right.  But not everyone is you.
> 
> Sting is worth somewhere around $500m, last I checked, and he’s stated that he has no intention of leaving his kids much if any of it in his will.



Good for Sting. Has nothing at all to do with anything I’ve said. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Personally, if I had an IP-based fortune like that, there would definitely be some charitable donations.  But the first people in line to benefit from my estate would be the friends and family that enabled me to create that IP in the first place.



Great. If the copyright on your works ended with your passing…that hypothetical fortune wouldn’t magically disappear.  

What on Earth do you _think_ I’m proposing? Because it seems thoroughly divorced from the actual statements I’ve made.


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

I hope this law passes, although it sounds too good to be true


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> strong protections for IP creators is a good thing.




Good for them maybe, and for whoever's publishing them, but it's actively detrimental to literally everybody else.

EDIT:
We need sweeping reforms to make it harder in general to monetize things. All the helpful and bonhomous artists and hobbyists that used to be around have been either replaced by businesspeople or corrupted into businesspeople, and they've strangled the community that used to exist on the internet; sacrificed it in the name of Mammon and the Almighty Dollar


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 9, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Good for them maybe, and for whoever's publishing them, but it's actively detrimental to literally everybody else



Well, kinda. The current set of IP laws largely suck, and a lot of work for hire and the like is fairly predatory and benefits the artist less than just getting a job at O’Reilly Autoparts and doing art as a hobby would. 

However, exclusive right to commercial use during your own lifetime is fairly sensible. I’d be fine with “shorter of the creators lifetime or 75 years”, but I’m also fine with “creator’s lifetime, plus 20 years for familial or documented heirs who gain ownership upon the creators passing, but only 30 years for IP owned by an organization, after which rights revert to the specific creator or creators of possible, and if not reverts to public domain”. 

But some degree of exclusive _commercial use _rights is perfectly sensible. 

 IMO creators have no moral right to control non-commercial use of an IP.


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

Personally, if it were up to me, I wouldn't let businesses ever own IP at all, at most they would be allowed to non-exclusively license it from the creators.

And I'd limit it all to 20 or 30 years. It seems to me self-evident that whatever a generation grows up watching is rigntfully a part of their shared culture by the time they grow up.


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> OTOH, the First Amendment issues (doing this because Disney expressed a political opinion certain GOPers don’t like) and Fifth Amendment issues (taking property without due process) would remain significant barriers to this surviving a well-funded legal challenge.




If the first amendment somehow _prevents_ copyright from being weakened - despite the fact that it should invalidate copyright entirely - than we have truly failed as a country


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## TheAlkaizer (Jun 9, 2022)

I have very limited knowledge as to how copyright laws work. But I've read this thread and it was a very interesting read.

Personally, I don't really agree that copyright laws stifle creativity. Anyone can look at the absurd amount of consumable media released every year (games, movies, series) to see how creative and thriving this all is. I don't see why anyone would need to borrow exact characters or other elements of an IP to be creative, as opposed to getting inspired, exploring the same themes or aesthetic.

But the meat of the debate here seems to be about how long after a creator's death should the copyright expire. Most seem to agree that it should become public really shortly after their death.

I have a question... my personal situation is the following. My father worked in journalism for most of his life (some twenty-five years) and at 50, he decided to quit it all to become a writer. He's written a few books and is hoping to publish more, sell more copies. He makes very little money from this at this point.

As he's growing older, we have had a discussion about inheritance. He told me that he doesn't have much money to pass down to me, or a property. But he hopes that what he spent the last twenty years of his life creating will be some some of inheritance to pass to me. I thought that made sense. He could have kept working at his job, not created anything and eventually pass me some money; but I'm personally very proud of him for having the guts to do what he wanted to do, and I see it as fair that his work could become some sort of inheritance.

So, why do I have the feeling from most posts in this thread that an IP, and the revenues and control that comes with it, should not be in some way passed down to the next generations? Don't we want to encourage individuals to be creative? It seems unfair to me that all the work my father did, and wish to pass to me would become public domain shortly after and that then anyone, like my neighbour or someone with more means than me, could exploit that IP and profit from it.

Not all creators become very wealthy from creating, and not all creators create their best work (or work at all) early in their life.


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## Mannahnin (Jun 9, 2022)

TheAlkaizer said:


> So, why do I have the feeling from most posts in this thread that an IP, and the revenues and control that comes with it, should not be in some way passed down to the next generations? Don't we want to encourage individuals to be creative? It seems unfair to me that all the work my father did, and wish to pass to me would become public domain shortly after and that then anyone, like my neighbour or someone with more means than me, could exploit that IP and profit from it.
> 
> Not all creators become very wealthy from creating, and not all creators create their best work (or work at all) early in their life.



I think this strikes to the heart of some fundamental questions about the nature of property and wealth, and the concept of Intellectual Property. 

To what extent can (and should) an idea be the property of a human being?  To what extent can the use of that idea be justly denied to others, given that it is not a limited resource in the same way that a physical object is? 

To what extent is a designated heir more worthy of the value of such property than any other human being who also didn't do any work to create it? 

Is there greater benefit in sharing such ideas than in restricting their usage? 

Is money the main reason people create things?  Like music, or poetry, or stories?

I agree that creators should be compensated for their work in creating things.  I'm a bit more skeptical about the overall benefit of restricting the usage of ideas for an extended period after their death.


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

Mannahnin said:


> To what extent can (and should) an idea be the property of a human being?  To what extent can the use of that idea be justly denied to others, given that it is not a limited resource in the same way that a physical object is?




0.00%

Intellectual property is intrinsically inimical not only to free speech and free expression but ultimately also to free thought as well


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## Mannahnin (Jun 9, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> 0.00%
> 
> Intellectual property is intrinsically inimical not only to free speech and free expression but ultimately also to free thought as well



I know other people with the same view.

I was asking the questions more rhetorically, though.  I think really digging into the issue may in practical terms run afoul of the board's rules on politics a bit. It's a big area.

I do think the current structure shouldn't be assumed to be just or reasonable though, and that it's worth folks reading about how it's evolved and how it's abused.  From patent trolls to Disney and co.


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## Ryujin (Jun 9, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> 0.00%
> 
> Intellectual property is intrinsically inimical not only to free speech and free expression but ultimately also to free thought as well



Then there is precisely zero reason for anyone to want to create anything new.


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## Mannahnin (Jun 9, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Then there is precisely zero reason for anyone to want to create anything new.



I think every hobbyist creator in this forum not trying to get paid for their work is evidence to the contrary.


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## Ryujin (Jun 9, 2022)

Mannahnin said:


> I think every hobbyist creator in this forum not trying to get paid for their work is evidence to the contrary.



Then I'll add a codicil: As a career.


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## Mannahnin (Jun 9, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Then I'll add a codicil: As a career.



Definitely more defensible.  I'm still not sure it's true, though.


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## Rabulias (Jun 9, 2022)

TheAlkaizer said:


> Not all creators become very wealthy from creating, and not all creators create their best work (or work at all) early in their life.



You have raised a very good and valid point here. If copyright lapses on the death of the creator, say we have two people, Creator A and Creator B, who both live to be 80 years old.

Creator A generates a masterpiece work when they are 25 years old. In the 55 remaining years of their life, they collect income from the work, and leverage it to build a fortune to pass on to their heirs.

Creator B creates an equally masterful work (yes, it is impossible to quantify creative quality, but for sake of this example, bear with me) when they are 70 years old, and only have 10 years to reap the rewards, and so can only pass a smaller inheritance to their children and grandchildren.

This does not seem equitable to me. I know some dislike the idea of inheritance and building of generational wealth, but I don't see that going away. If one built a private business, one could pass that on to descendants. No one is calling for laws saying that after someone dies, any businesses they founded, money earned, or physical material they acquired must be given up to "the public domain." Why do some want to treat creators and their creations so differently? I believe there is an infinite amount of creativity in the world; it won't run out, so we don't need to keep "refilling the tank."

All that said, IMO the eventual release into the public domain is a good thing, but not necessarily for spurring the creative efforts of others. Rather, I would like to see works preserved and passed on for future generations to see/read/enjoy, as well as get some insight into the society/culture of the time of their creation. And yes, it may inspire them, either directly or indirectly, in their own creations, but that is a side benefit. I do not want to see a work disappear just because "it won't make money" and the copyright-holders do nothing with it.


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## Ryujin (Jun 9, 2022)

Mannahnin said:


> Definitely more defensible.  I'm still not sure it's true, though.



Then consider this: A completely open model for IP only really benefits those with the money to capitalize upon an IP. If, for example, Doc Smith's Lensmen series was suddenly available to all, who would stand to make more profit from it; the Smith family, or Disney? Who would essentially have the credit for it, given that the majority of movie goers wouldn't have read the seminal work? That's just one I've pulled out of thin air, but you could just as easily say GRRM and "Game of Thrones." Why would HBO have paid for it, of they could just, you know, take it? And there are thousands of excellent writers, with good ideas, that could simply be used by large studios without compensating the creator. That just doesn't sit right with me. As I've said in other posts, I have suffered from the, "It's on the internet, so it must be free!" mindset with my own IP.


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## Staffan (Jun 9, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Yes, the people who actually did the work.



I put in a day's work, I get a day's pay. I don't get paid again for the same work later.

From my point of view, copyright is *unnatural*. The natural state of an idea or a creative work is that anyone should be able to build upon it. If I use a sample from a song someone wrote in a song I write, that does not diminish the original. Both can co-exist without any problem.

This is unlike physical property. Let's take a bike, for example. In most cases, only one person can ride a bike at a time. If I'm riding a bike, my friend can't ride the same bike at the same time. They either need to get their own bike, or they can borrow mine in which case I can't ride it while they have it. The bike is a scarce resource. It makes sense to have ownership of the bike, because that means the owner gets to decide who uses it at any one time.

But an idea or a piece of art is fundamentally *not*. If I listen to a song, nothing prevents a friend I'm having over from listening to the same song. We can both listen to the song at the same time, and you could even say that the shared experience adds to the benefit of the song. Maybe we'll even sing along, adding our own interpretations to the song, or dance, or whatever. Either way, that song is an unlimited resource. It can be shared infinitely. It may be tied to a physical artifact like a record in which case that particular artifact is a limited resource, but the song itself can be copied and listened to into infinity.

Copyright imposes an artificial scarcity on creative works. It's like if we had a machine that could produce unlimited amounts of food at zero cost, and someone wanted to ban it because it would screw over the farmers.

But since we currently don't have infinite zero-cost food, artists need to get paid to eat, and until we can get to the stage of fully automated luxury space communism copyright seems to be the least bad solution. But it should be limited to not do more damage to the common cultural cache than necessary.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, copyright prevents/limits copying something too closely, but not _actual creativity.  _Let’s be honest here: what is more creative, copying someone’s work exactly and making a few changes to tell a story or doing an identifiable homage that tells the same tale?



Both can be creative. But one lowers the bar to letting your own creativity flow, because it lets you build upon things that already exist and focus on the things that you yourself add to the mix. If I can publish adventures for the Forgotten Realms without Wizards' permission, I can focus on making a kick-ass adventure instead of having to build the whole setting where the adventure takes place.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Suggest some.



Start by creating a good social safety net and a decent healthcare system.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Most of the ways in which copyrighted material generates income are directly related to the copyright itself.  The big bucks for musicians come from songwriting royalties, concerts and merchandise, nor record sales.  Of those, only concerts don’t require control of a copyright to be an income stream for the IP creator.  And musicians like Jason Becker (ALS rendered him a paraplegic) cannot perform.



Again, build a civilized society where you don't starve just because you can't work.


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## Cadence (Jun 9, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Then consider this: A completely open model for IP only really benefits those with the money to capitalize upon an IP. If, for example, Doc Smith's Lensmen series was suddenly available to all, who would stand to make more profit from it; the Smith family, or *Disney*? Who would essentially have the credit for it, given that the majority of movie goers wouldn't have read the seminal work? That's just one I've pulled out of thin air, but you could just as easily say GRRM and "Game of Thrones." Why would *HBO* have paid for it, of they could just, you know, take it? And there are thousands of excellent writers, with good ideas, that could simply be used by large studios without compensating the creator. That just doesn't sit right with me. As I've said in other posts, I have suffered from the, "It's on the internet, so it must be free!" mindset with my own IP.



Why would HBO or Disney make a TV series or Movie if there was no IP protection?  Wouldn't it immediately appear online somewhere for free (or at least skipping through a couple ads)?  Why would anyone not just watch it their?


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## Ryujin (Jun 9, 2022)

Cadence said:


> Why would HBO or Disney make a TV series or Movie if there was no IP protection?  Wouldn't it immediately appear online somewhere for free (or at least skipping through a couple ads)?  Why would anyone not just watch it their?



Thank you. I said that only the big boys could stand to make a profit. I didn't say that they would. I was waiting for the natural flow of the idea


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## Ryujin (Jun 9, 2022)

Staffan said:


> I put in a day's work, I get a day's pay. I don't get paid again for the same work later.
> 
> From my point of view, copyright is *unnatural*. The natural state of an idea or a creative work is that anyone should be able to build upon it. If I use a sample from a song someone wrote in a song I write, that does not diminish the original. Both can co-exist without any problem.
> 
> ...



As has already been stated, creative work isn't the same as regular labour. What would you say if your employer told you, "I didn't like the expression on your face today, while you were building that deck, so you're not getting paid"? What if that was the rule, rather than the exception; that your income came at the whim of your employer? Intellectual property is something that's far more difficult to quantify, or codify, than any sort of specific labour, and that's why we have/need specific laws to deal with it.

Also, as I have previously said here, without the ability to survive as a creative, there is no incentive to be one. OK, so you might have a bunch of people moonlighting as painters, or all of the actors might really be the stereotype; wait staff who are "also" actors, just waiting for that big break. That, in your scenario, will literally never come.

If we had that machine that could create infinite food, for zero cost, then you might have a situation in which creatives were willing to work for the air that they breathe. That's Star Trek, not our world.


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## billd91 (Jun 9, 2022)

TheAlkaizer said:


> So, why do I have the feeling from most posts in this thread that an IP, and the revenues and control that comes with it, should not be in some way passed down to the next generations? Don't we want to encourage individuals to be creative? It seems unfair to me that all the work my father did, and wish to pass to me would become public domain shortly after and that then anyone, like my neighbour or someone with more means than me, could exploit that IP and profit from it.



I want to emphasize that this would be work *your father did*. Not you. The question comes up - how much or even why should you be able to profit from his work at all?

This is one of those issues at the heart of the copyright persistence debate with respect to an individual's IP rights. Does society owe exclusive rights to a copyrighted work to someone other than the author? I think the +20 years is a perfectly reasonable duration to cover an author's typical dependents until they're likely to be of the age of majority and no longer dependents. But beyond that? I think it's a fair question.

The question becomes even more important with respect to corporations owning IP rights, particularly given the long tail they currently have after the death of the creator. Universal Music will have Bob Dylan's music under their control for, what, 70 years after his death? And they'll be able to milk that pretty thoroughly with the kind of resources (and lobbyists) only a large corporation has access to.


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## Ryujin (Jun 9, 2022)

billd91 said:


> I want to emphasize that this would be work *your father did*. Not you. The question comes up - how much or even why should you be able to profit from his work at all?
> 
> This is one of those issues at the heart of the copyright persistence debate with respect to an individual's IP rights. Does society owe exclusive rights to a copyrighted work to someone other than the author? I think the +20 years is a perfectly reasonable duration to cover an author's typical dependents until they're likely to be of the age of majority and no longer dependents. But beyond that? I think it's a fair question.
> 
> The question becomes even more important with respect to corporations owning IP rights, particularly given the long tail they currently have after the death of the creator. Universal Music will have Bob Dylan's music under their control for, what, 70 years after his death? And they'll be able to milk that pretty thoroughly with the kind of resources (and lobbyists) only a large corporation has access to.



+20 is probably a reasonable time period, but I have come to see that there does need to be something beyond the death of the creator. I would even be swayed to agreeing with a longer period, by a suitably well reasoned debate.

_See? People can be swayed by internet debate_ 

IP is more ephemeral than liquid or real assets. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be some sort of legacy involved. It is still "property" after all.


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Then I'll add a codicil: As a career.




So be it. As long as there are enough hobbyists that doesn't really matter.


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> +20 is probably a reasonable time period, but I have come to see that there does need to be something beyond the death of the creator. I would even be swayed to agreeing with a longer period, by a suitably well reasoned debate.




creator's life+20 would put the length a copyright lasts after the creator dies in the same ballpark as how long a patent lasts _in total_. And there's certainly no issue with patents not lasting long enough.


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## Ryujin (Jun 9, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> So be it. As long as there are enough hobbyists that doesn't really matter.



I strongly suspect that few would be satisfied with the results.


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## Bohandas (Jun 9, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> I strongly suspect that few would be satisfied with the results.




Then you, I presume, must be too young to remember the golden age of Newgrounds


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## Bohandas (Jun 10, 2022)

And in any case, it doesn't matter, we're a decade or two away from AI being able to replace the professionals, at least in the realms of writing and still art, with no loss in quality. And if copyright is still in place when we get there it'll be the worst of both worlds.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Then you, I presume, must be too young to remember the golden age of Newgrounds



Hardly. I'm pushing 60. That you state it had a "golden age" implies that it had a finite lifespan.


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## Bohandas (Jun 10, 2022)

I suppose you're right, Newgrounds, at least, did survive the efflux of developers into the shovelware mobile game racket, and they eventually find a workaround after they and the other flash sites were sabotaged by Adobe and the mainstream web browsers. But they were diminished by it. And many smaller similar sites were destroyed or rendered unusable.

(as an aside, can someone point me to a link to the latest version of Opera Portable (not opera mobile, opera portable, the self-contained version of the desktop one that can be run without an installer) that won't automatically disable flash if I enable it? As I said, while Newgrounds has a built-in workaround, a lot of these other old sites don't)

EDIT:
Also, people talk about golden ages for plenty of things that aren't over yet


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## Bohandas (Jun 10, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Then consider this: A completely open model for IP only really benefits those with the money to capitalize upon an IP. If, for example, Doc Smith's Lensmen series was suddenly available to all, who would stand to make more profit from it; the Smith family, or Disney? Who would essentially have the credit for it, given that the majority of movie goers wouldn't have read the seminal work?




The Smith family, obviously. How on Earth would Disney profit from it in this scenario. It would br free on the internet the day after it opened. There wouldn't be any profit for Disney to withhold from the Smiths. And the Smiths would thus make the greater profit by vitue of not having lost millions of dollars. 

This whole scanario relies on the outdated 20th centruy assumptions that things can't be copied and distributed essentially for free.

And since this outdated argument is and aleays has been the main argument for copyright protections it follows that copyright protections are an outdated concept too.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> The Smith family, obviously. How on Earth would Disney profit from it in this scenario. It would br free on the internet the day after it opened. There wouldn't be any profit for Disney to withhold from the Smiths. And the Smiths would thus make the greater profit by vitue of not having lost millions of dollars.
> 
> This whole scanario relies on the outdated 20th centruy assumptions that things can't be copied and distributed essentially for free.
> 
> And since this outdated argument is and aleays has been the main argument for copyright protections it follows that copyright protections are an outdated concept too.



Except that the moment that the Smith family published it, it would be "free on the internet." That was the whole point that I wanted someone to get around to, when I posted that. Thanks to @Cadence for the assist there. This. This is why that model is simply unsupportable. 

Give me that Star Trek post scarcity economy and we can have people who do creative work, for no recompense. Hell, even make it UBI and there are some who would, I'm sure. As long as people have to work for food and lodging, that's not going to happen.


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## TheAlkaizer (Jun 10, 2022)

billd91 said:


> I want to emphasize that this would be work *your father did*. Not you. The question comes up - how much or even why should you be able to profit from his work at all?




I don't necessarily disagree. So if my father had bought a house, or had kept working for the last twenty years, that's *his work* not mine and I shouldn't inherit? Why is creative work not working the same?


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

TheAlkaizer said:


> I don't necessarily disagree. So if my father had bought a house, or had kept working for the last twenty years, that's *his work* not mine and I shouldn't inherit? Why is creative work not working the same?



I agree (now  ). Property is property, be it intellectual or physical.


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## billd91 (Jun 10, 2022)

TheAlkaizer said:


> I don't necessarily disagree. So if my father had bought a house, or had kept working for the last twenty years, that's *his work* not mine and I shouldn't inherit? Why is creative work not working the same?



The nature of owning a creative work is *very *different. You may own a physical copy of his notes or a specific copy of a book he wrote, but owning the copyright to a work isn't like owning something physical that cannot be infinitely duplicated, is at risk of being destroyed/stolen or otherwise taken from your possession, and doesn't not degrade in condition if you fail to physically maintain it. As long as the work is in demand, a copyright holder can distribute the work (in some form) again, and again, and again, and never reduce his capacity to continue to do so.
So, yeah, why *should *they work the same?


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## TheAlkaizer (Jun 10, 2022)

billd91 said:


> The nature of owning a creative work is *very *different. You may own a physical copy of his notes or a specific copy of a book he wrote, but owning the copyright to a work isn't like owning something physical that cannot be infinitely duplicated, is at risk of being destroyed/stolen or otherwise taken from your possession, and doesn't not degrade in condition if you fail to physically maintain it. As long as the work is in demand, a copyright holder can distribute the work (in some form) again, and again, and again, and never reduce his capacity to continue to do so.
> So, yeah, why *should *they work the same?



So as a creative, if I want to leave something from what I build to my children, I am very much encouraged to sell the rights to it in my waning years and turn it into something physical. Actually, I'm encouraged to not pursue creative careers. Not only are they often not as paying as others, success is rare, but I can hardly ensure that my children might have better opportunities in life than me.

Then yeah, I'd consider myself pro-copyright. I much prefer someone to be able to profit from his own work, and decide who gets to profit from it for a number of years after then to push into public domain because someone else is apparently so _creative_ that they really need to use the very content of a preestablished IP to produce something and make their living.

It is _so_ easy to pull inspiration and navigate the different IPs and use their success by exploring similar worlds, characters, settings and themes. I don't see why having access to a specifically version of it required.


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## Bohandas (Jun 10, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Except that the moment that the Smith family published it, it would be "free on the internet." That was the whole point that I wanted someone to get around to, when I posted that.




Their profit of zero still beats the company that goes millions of dollars in the hole to make a movie that everyone's gonna watch on the internet, therefore. my point still stands. Their profit is higher because they've lost nothing. They've literally lost nothing.


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## Bohandas (Jun 10, 2022)

billd91 said:


> The nature of owning a creative work is *very *different. You may own a physical copy of his notes or a specific copy of a book he wrote, but owning the copyright to a work isn't like owning something physical that cannot be infinitely duplicated, is at risk of being destroyed/stolen or otherwise taken from your possession, and doesn't not degrade in condition if you fail to physically maintain it. As long as the work is in demand, a copyright holder can distribute the work (in some form) again, and again, and again, and never reduce his capacity to continue to do so.
> So, yeah, why *should *they work the same?




Exactly.

It's not like there's any other place in society where you can do your job once and then get paid for it over and over again.

EDIT:
Actually strike that. If you're a relative of a corrupt politician or CEO you can get a no-show job. But other than THAT there's no other place where you can do your job once and get paid for it over and over again.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 10, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Then there is precisely zero reason for anyone to want to create anything new.



And yet people have made new things throughout history, even though IP exclusivity is a very modern invention.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 10, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Also, as I have previously said here, without the ability to survive as a creative, there is no incentive to be one.



But this has never been true, in any era or locality, in all of history. Copyright is not required for artists to profit from their work. 

You know artists made art for a living before copyright, right? 

No one cared that Shakespeare was retelling stories others had already told, or using characters thought up by past generations. No one cared. No one said, “why would I pay to see this play if it isn’t wholly novel and unique and original!?”

And yet, Shakespeare made _both_ novel and derivative plays, and _both_ are considered amongst the best plays ever written in the West.


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## Lanefan (Jun 10, 2022)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, copyright prevents/limits copying something too closely, but not _actual creativity.  _Let’s be honest here: what is more creative, copying someone’s work exactly and making a few changes to tell a story or doing an identifiable homage that tells the same tale?



The branch of creativity it really limits (or limits the potential returns on) is - I guess a term for it would be "additive" creativity, where someone takes existing material and uses it as a basis on which to add new material; material which may or may not be better than what the copyright holders could or did ever produce.

For example, were I to hypothetically come up with a half-decent script for a James Bond movie I wouldn't be able to just make the movie and release it.  Instead, my only option would be to try to sell the script to whoever owns the Bond franchise these days, and if they declined it all I'd be able to do with that piece of creative work is bin it.  Doesn't exactly encourage me to sit down and start writing. 


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Most of the ways in which copyrighted material generates income are directly related to the copyright itself.  The big bucks for musicians come from songwriting royalties, concerts and merchandise, nor record sales.  Of those, only concerts don’t require control of a copyright to be an income stream for the IP creator.  And musicians like Jason Becker (ALS rendered him a paraplegic) cannot perform.
> 
> There are no retirement plans, etc.



Which is why I've been saying copyright should always last at least as long as the creator is alive provided the creator still holds the copyright.  It's the after-the-creator-dies piece where the arguments arise.

Any sold or forcibly-transferred* copyright should have a hard expiry date of x-years after the date of sale or transfer from the original creator regardless of anything else.

* - by this I mean for example copyrights that transfer to corporations due to those awful employment contracts that stipulate that anything you create related to the company's business while employed becomes the property of the company even if you do it on your own time.


Dannyalcatraz said:


> Is your work worth 1000x or more than when it was created?



Yes.

A thousand times zero, however, does not amount to much.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> But this has never been true, in any era or locality, in all of history. Copyright is not required for artists to profit from their work.
> 
> You know artists made art for a living before copyright, right?
> 
> ...



"A living" is a relative term. Shakespeare made a living by putting on those plays, not from their writing, and those stories that he told about actual historical figures would effectively have been in the public domain by the time he wrote them anyway, by today's standards. Without wealthy patrons he'd have been nowhere. That doesn't really work for authors, in an age where a quick scan and internet post can take away their ability to sell the books (that they would still need seed capital to print). 

Painters typically made a living by working on commission to the powerful and wealthy. Or they traded a painting for a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese, when the innkeeper thought it was worth that much. Van Gogh didn't do that well at making a living. Now those paintings sell for literally millions.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 10, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> "A living" is a relative term. Shakespeare made a living by putting on those plays, not from their writing, and those stories that he told about actual historical figures would effectively have been in the public domain by the time he wrote them anyway, by today's standards. Without wealthy patrons he'd have been nowhere. That doesn't really work for authors, in an age where a quick scan and internet post can take away their ability to sell the books (that they would still need seed capital to print).



And yet, he and a ton of others made a living as playwrights. Without copyright. 


Ryujin said:


> Painters typically made a living by working on commission to the powerful and wealthy. Or they traded a painting for a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese, when the innkeeper thought it was worth that much. Van Gogh didn't do that well at making a living. Now those paintings sell for literally millions.



And plenty of artists can’t make a living now, I’m spite of incredible talent and creativity.


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## billd91 (Jun 10, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> For example, were I to hypothetically come up with a half-decent script for a James Bond movie I wouldn't be able to just make the movie and release it. Instead, my only option would be to try to sell the script to whoever owns the Bond franchise these days, and if they declined it all I'd be able to do with that piece of creative work is bin it. Doesn't exactly encourage me to sit down and start writing.



If it *has* to be James Bond and not some other highly skilled spy working for MI6, sure. But it's not like there aren't plenty of other spy characters out there. Gadget-using spy is a big enough pool for a lot of people to play in.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> And yet, he and a ton of others made a living as playwrights. Without copyright.
> 
> And plenty of artists can’t make a living now, I’m spite of incredible talent and creativity.



I would argue that they made a living as directors. They just had to write their own material. And what happened then doesn't bear a lot of resemblance to today.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

billd91 said:


> If it *has* to be James Bond and not some other highly skilled spy working for MI6, sure. But it's not like there aren't plenty of other spy characters out there. Gadget-using spy is a big enough pool for a lot of people to play in.



But MI-6 is under copyright! Oh.... wait....


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## billd91 (Jun 10, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> But MI-6 is under copyright! Oh.... wait....



If it was, that would be an interesting way for the British government to suppress anyone writing about it and its activities.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 10, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> I would argue that they made a living as directors. They just had to write their own material. And what happened then doesn't bear a lot of resemblance to today.



You'd be wrong. Objectively. 

Further, it absolutely unravels your attempt to argue that without copyright no one has any reason to create anything new. It's an entirely absurd argument with no basis in reality.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> You'd be wrong. Objectively.
> 
> Further, it absolutely unravels your attempt to argue that without copyright no one has any reason to create anything new. It's an entirely absurd argument with no basis in reality.



That's not my argument. At all. My statement is that without the ability to make a living from their creative work, there is little incentive to be creative. You may consider that a semantic difference but create situation in which copyright isn't crucial to making at least a subsistence level income, in _*today's*_ world, and you might have something.


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## Cadence (Jun 10, 2022)

I wonder how many peoples' creative endeavors are partially motivated by the dream of hitting the big time some day.


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## Lanefan (Jun 10, 2022)

billd91 said:


> If it *has* to be James Bond and not some other highly skilled spy working for MI6, sure. But it's not like there aren't plenty of other spy characters out there. Gadget-using spy is a big enough pool for a lot of people to play in.



Well, yes; there's James Bond, and then there's various knockoffs.

And if those knockoffs hew too close to the original - as in close enough that pretty much only the names are changed - you're into the copyright muck again.


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## Ryujin (Jun 10, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Well, yes; there's James Bond, and then there's various knockoffs.
> 
> And if those knockoffs hew too close to the original - as in close enough that pretty much only the names are changed - you're into the copyright muck again.



"Our Man Flint"
"Danger Man"
"The Saint"
"Matt Helm"
"Austin Powers"
"The Avengers"
"Maxwell Smart"

... to name a few.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 11, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> That's not my argument. At all. My statement is that without the ability to make a living from their creative work, there is little incentive to be creative. You may consider that a semantic difference but create situation in which copyright isn't crucial to making at least a subsistence level income, in _*today's*_ world, and you might have something.



But that is provably false. You stated upthread that “no one would do it” if you couldn’t really make a career of it, but that is entirely absurd in every facet. Not only that, but only one person has advocated no copyright protection at all, and even @Bohandas has been willing to entertain compromise on that position.

But even eliminated IP protection of all kinds wouldn’t stop artists working as artists, nor would it stop hobby creation. We _know_ that because history has _proven it_ for well over _ten thousand years. _


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 11, 2022)

Cadence said:


> I wonder how many peoples' creative endeavors are partially motivated by the dream of hitting the big time some day.



While I think most of us daydream about it, I’d wager that less than 10% make art on a regular basis, challenge themselves to get better, etc, with any delusion that they are likely to make it big.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 11, 2022)

Also, has everyone forgotten that patronage has seen a renaissance due to digital payment and information sharing? 

I’ve personally only commissioned several hundred dollars of art, but most of the artists I commissioned make art for a living on the basis primarily of commissions! 

Besides all of which, copyright is a bandaid on the (professional content creation context of the) larger problem of our societies failure to adjust to the exponentially increased productivity by decreasing the amount of work an individual needs to perform in order to live comfortably.


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## Ryujin (Jun 11, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> But that is provably false. You stated upthread that “no one would do it” if you couldn’t really make a career of it, but that is entirely absurd in every facet. Not only that, but only one person has advocated no copyright protection at all, and even @Bohandas has been willing to entertain compromise on that position.
> 
> But even eliminated IP protection of all kinds wouldn’t stop artists working as artists, nor would it stop hobby creation. We _know_ that because history has _proven it_ for well over _ten thousand years. _



And I simply don't agree with that premise or that it's "provably false", and I'll leave it at that.


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## Irlo (Jun 11, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> And I simply don't agree with that premise or that it's "provably false", and I'll leave it at that.











						American Visionary Art Museum
					

Welcome to the nation's museum for self-taught, intuitive artistry.




					www.avam.org


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 11, 2022)

Irlo said:


> American Visionary Art Museum
> 
> 
> Welcome to the nation's museum for self-taught, intuitive artistry.
> ...



Pfft no one makes art as an end in itself. 

Anyway, limiting copyright more won’t dramatically diminish the appeal of custom commissioned art, and limiting it to the life of the author +10 to 20 years, with transfers of IP shortening the term to, say, 50 years, wouldn’t harm any creative industry. It’d employ fewer lawyers and accountants, perhaps, but I think there is likely plenty of work out there for both of those jobs. 

I’d still also prefer to have copyright only protect against unlicensed commercial use, but whatever, as long as IPs aren’t held hostage by people who weren’t alive when they were made, up to 75 years or more after the creator’s passing, I’m fine.


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## Bohandas (Jun 11, 2022)

Lanefan said:


> Any sold or forcibly-transferred* copyright should have a hard expiry date of x-years after the date of sale or transfer from the original creator regardless of anything else.
> 
> * - by this I mean for example copyrights that transfer to corporations due to those awful employment contracts that stipulate that anything you create related to the company's business while employed becomes the property of the company even if you do it on your own time.




Although ideally those clauses should be banned as well. (And really most other things that go into employment contracts as well. Unless the person signing it is part of the upper eschelons of society I can't really see any way that an employment contract could ever not be unconscionable)


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## Bohandas (Jun 11, 2022)

doctorbadwolf said:


> You'd be wrong. Objectively.
> 
> Further, it absolutely unravels your attempt to argue that without copyright no one has any reason to create anything new. It's an entirely absurd argument with no basis in reality.




Furthermore, any people who would stop as a result of copyright disapearing I don't want to support anyway


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 11, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Furthermore, any people who would stop as a result of copyright disapearing I don't want to support anyway



Eeeeeh capitalism demands work, if someone has the talent to make money via art, go for it. I get the sentiment, but, yeah…not much stays sacred in the face of a social order where most of us are one bad month away from camping in an alley.


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## MoonSong (Jun 12, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> The Smith family, obviously. How on Earth would Disney profit from it in this scenario. It would br free on the internet the day after it opened. There wouldn't be any profit for Disney to withhold from the Smiths. And the Smiths would thus make the greater profit by vitue of not having lost millions of dollars.



You are forgetting trademarks. Trademarks are completey independent from copyright. Thanks to trademarks, the big corps still stand to make a profit out of creative work. 

Remove copyright and then we have the big companies outright stealing stories and characters through trademark law. In this hypothetical, Disney still gets to profit and then can use trademark law to prevent everybody from using the novels ever again. They don't even need to mention the original author ever again.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 13, 2022)

MoonSong said:


> You are forgetting trademarks. Trademarks are completey independent from copyright. Thanks to trademarks, the big corps still stand to make a profit out of creative work.
> 
> Remove copyright and then we have the big companies outright stealing stories and characters through trademark law. In this hypothetical, Disney still gets to profit and then can use trademark law to prevent everybody from using the novels ever again. They don't even need to mention the original author ever again.



It's always wild to me, and I don't mean this as a dis or anything, that folks respond to criticism of a thing as if we would have to keep everything around that thing exactly the same in the process. 

It should be obvious that if copyright were significantly rewritten, so too would be trademark, and possibly even patent law, and probably other stuff that only IP law experts even realize the connection to copyright of. 

Also, it's not like that rewrite couldn't include a provision that attribution is legally mandatory. 

Finally, IIRC trademark law wouldn't really allow what you describe in any but quite rare cases, because _other people would be using that property regularly_, which would undercut any attempt of any one party to claim the right to that trademark. I'm open to being corrected on this, though. The rest stands regardless.


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## MoonSong (Jun 13, 2022)

Sorry for stuff being out of order. On the phone and have no idea how to reorder.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Also, it's not like that rewrite couldn't include a provision that attribution is legally mandatory.



Attribution is a moral right, which is part of copyright. Remove copyright and you remove attribution. Keep attribution and you are preserving some form of copyright.


doctorbadwolf said:


> It's always wild to me, and I don't mean this as a dis or anything, that folks respond to criticism of a thing as if we would have to keep everything around that thing exactly the same in the process.



Trademark is very hard to remove. Not only because of the high economic value it provides, but also because it serves an accountability purpose. Cars, food, medicine, medical equipment, even something as simple as a lightbulb that could turn potentially dangerous if made incorrectly need trademarks to be able to locate the people responsible for it if things go wrong due to failing to comply with regulations. If everybody could bottle their own soda and call it coca cola it would be harder to locate who produced a bad batch. Trademark is a necessary evil.


doctorbadwolf said:


> Finally, IIRC trademark law wouldn't really allow what you describe in any but quite rare cases, because _other people would be using that property regularly_, which would undercut any attempt of any one party to claim the right to that trademark. I'm open to being corrected on this, though. The rest stands regardless.



Conan stories are public domain. Yet while anybody can republish and adapt them, they can't include Conan in the name because the trademarks are still living. Which is the same reason Detective Conan is known as Case Closed in the West by the way.

 And with trademarks, the one with the most money has the best chance of establishing one. Right now, little people can and has won trademarks by being there noticeable before, but with a creative work there just isn't enough headstart.


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## doctorbadwolf (Jun 13, 2022)

MoonSong said:


> Sorry for stuff being out of order. On the phone and have no idea how to reorder.
> 
> Attribution is a moral right, which is part of copyright. Remove copyright and you remove attribution. Keep attribution and you are preserving some form of copyright.
> 
> ...



hmm. I’ll try again. 

1. I don’t care about pedantry. Consider attribution a form of copyright or don’t, I don’t care. The _point_ is that removing exclusive rights to use an IP does not actually necessitate removing attribution. 

2. I don’t know why you’re trying to explain trademark, while providing no information I haven’t already demonstrated knowledge of. You also replied to me as if I were advocating for the removal of trademark, which is odd.


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## Bohandas (Jun 13, 2022)

MoonSong said:


> You are forgetting trademarks. Trademarks are completey independent from copyright. Thanks to trademarks, the big corps still stand to make a profit out of creative work.
> 
> Remove copyright and then we have the big companies outright stealing stories and characters through trademark law. In this hypothetical, Disney still gets to profit and then can use trademark law to prevent everybody from using the novels ever again. They don't even need to mention the original author ever again.




Remove trademark law too then. That's simple and obvious enough.

EDIT:
also, the government should start breaking up some of these big companies. Especially Disney.


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## MoonSong (Jun 14, 2022)

Bohandas said:


> Remove trademark law too then. That's simple and obvious enough.
> 
> EDIT:
> also, the government should start breaking up some of these big companies. Especially Disney.



As I said in another post, trademarks allow for accountability of businesses, to enforce safety standards and to protect consumer rights.  Without trademarks these become quite hard to do. 

And breaking up big businesses helps a little but the resulting companies still remain in the same hands. So instead of a monopoly, you get a cartel.


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## Bohandas (Jun 17, 2022)

MoonSong said:


> As I said in another post, trademarks allow for accountability of businesses, to enforce safety standards and to protect consumer rights.  Without trademarks these become quite hard to do.



Is it really that helpful to the consumer that only Johnson&Johnson can call their band-aids "band-aids" and everyone else has to use some weird circumlocution




MoonSong said:


> And breaking up big businesses helps a little but the resulting companies still remain in the same hands. So instead of a monopoly, you get a cartel.




Maybe they could be shut down instead?


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## Eltab (Jun 18, 2022)

MoonSong said:


> And breaking up big businesses helps a little but the resulting companies still remain in the same hands. So instead of a monopoly, you get a cartel.



US antitrust law does not compel the rigorous efforts to remove 'overlapping board membership' &c that would be needed to completely separate a monopoly-company into multiple independent competing successor-companies.  I cannot speak to any other nation's laws.


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## MoonSong (Jun 18, 2022)

Eltab said:


> US antitrust law does not compel the rigorous efforts to remove 'overlapping board membership' &c that would be needed to completely separate a monopoly-company into multiple independent competing successor-companies.  I cannot speak to any other nation's laws.



As far as I understand, Standard Oil had to be broken up twice before it took for good. Still Rockefeller made a lot more money out of still owning a significant share in all of the new companies. And the Sherman act was actually a kind of an anti-union law... 



Bohandas said:


> Is it really that helpful to the consumer that only Johnson&Johnson can call their band-aids "band-aids" and everyone else has to use some weird circumlocution



Because that way every single producer of band-aids labels itself, essentially taking responsibility for every time band-aids go wrong and cause a health issue. Yes, even a band-aid could stand to cause harm (what if some manufacturer created a lot with paste that was toxic to the skin? Or used non-grade plastic for the body of the bandaid? or shipped a contaminated lot that infected people who used the bandaids? Without a trademark to locate the producer of the lot it would be hard to ensure they take responsibility and more and more manufacturers would feel safe to ignore safety laws).


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## Bohandas (Jun 18, 2022)

MoonSong said:


> Because that way every single producer of band-aids labels itself, essentially taking responsibility for every time band-aids go wrong and cause a health issue. Yes, even a band-aid could stand to cause harm (what if some manufacturer created a lot with paste that was toxic to the skin? Or used non-grade plastic for the body of the bandaid? or shipped a contaminated lot that infected people who used the bandaids? Without a trademark to locate the producer of the lot it would be hard to ensure they take responsibility and more and more manufacturers would feel safe to ignore safety laws).




Perhaps, but that only requires a tiny fraction of what trademark law currently covers. As long as a company owns the name of their company that is entirely sufficient for this purpose. They don't need to own the name of the product. The consumer will know if it was made by Johnson&Johnson because it says "Johnson&Johnson" if it was and the name of some other company if it was made by some other company.

EDIT:
I definitely agree that the consumer needs to know the name of the manufacturer though. In fact, if it was up to me they'd also be required to list their parent corporation and their subsidiaries as well, so that it would be easy to tell who was really pulling the strings.


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## trappedslider (Jun 18, 2022)

The most recent large company break-up that I can remember would be Bell System - Wikipedia


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jun 21, 2022)

I was watching a video in youtube about patents may be not so necessary, but it was in Spanish languange. It mentioned something about the tragedy of anticommons, and this said the abuse of trademark could block the innovation by the no-biggest companies. 









						Tragedy of the anticommons - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## LuisCarlos17f (Jul 5, 2022)

Disney could soon lose exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse
					

The beloved character was created in 1928 and will enter the public domain in 2024




					www.theguardian.com
				




Disney could soon lose exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse​The beloved character was created in 1928 and will enter the public domain in 2024


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## Ryujin (Jul 5, 2022)

LuisCarlos17f said:


> Disney could soon lose exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse
> 
> 
> The beloved character was created in 1928 and will enter the public domain in 2024
> ...



Unless they throw money at the situation in order to "handle" it.


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## Gradine (Jul 5, 2022)




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