As it stands, copyright serves little positive social purpose. The overwhelming majority of creators get paid little if anything for their
work, and still there is a glut of content. So there should be no fear of the world losing lots of great content if there was no copyright.
Most of the benefit of copyright is reaped by the middle men, who profit off the work when the creatives that made it have long ceased to do
so (if they ever did). Abolishing copyright will thus mostly affect these middle men, and have little effect on content creation itself.
Those creatives that still want to get paid in a copyright-free era can find business models that don't rely on copyright, like performances,
donations, or kickstarter-like models where one is paid for future work.
There's no incentive to make a movie if it will never make any money. Without copyright, anyone can purchase it once and give it away for free or sell each copy for $0.01 and undercut all competition. Digital content takes X amount of work and then allows it to be duplicated by creating infinite copies. If someone can infinitely copy your work, you will never get paid for that X amount (or make any profit). While I don't strongly support current IP law, getting rid of it isn't the solution. It's like having an economy based on fake money, after a very short period of time the money becomes worthless (except here the money = work).
I am honestly sick of hearing "but no one will create anything without copyright" as if money was the sole motivator that made doing anything worthwhile.
To be fair, I think copyright has its place as a minimal safeguard for artists' work, but in its current form it is entirely too aggressive and lasts way beyond its scope should cover. Copyright should not be reason to send SWAT raids to people's homes, just as much as it should not cover 70 years after the artists' death.
I am certain that if we seriously rolled back copyright, our art would still thrive, albeit perhaps less AAA content.
I find it fascinating how the industry is so powerful that when you watch a Hollywood film in a foreign country you are shown a message which threatens with jail time for recording video and or audio.
There's a tendency to think of copyright mostly in money terms. For the big earners like disney, and certainly for most of the middlemen you mention it is mostly money.
For some creators though, it's different. I heard George RR Martin comment on this once. Tolkien's family (according to GRRM) did a great job guarding and protecting his works. He's horrified at the thought of a descendent making selling Targaryan cream buns or allowing shitty derivative novels. That isn't a money concern, but it is a property rights concern of sorts.
In any case, I think the sorts of right GRRM feels are his could still be preserved, without keeping all copyright the same.
Do you like to read? If you listed your top 20 books, by whatever criteria you choose, were any of them popular?
Would you feel good if under your system, the donations or other alternate payments ended up in the author’s rewards being cut? What if they were cut in half? Or even became negligible, because I don’t see any guarantees prescribed.
This is not just about Taylor Swift (no offense if you are a fan). We’re talking about works that can change lives, inspire people to do great things, even change the course of history.
The system has been abused and distorted. However I don’t see how that can make us sure the best solution is to throw the baby out with the bath water.
As it stands, capitalism serves little positive social purpose. The overwhelming majority of laborers get paid little if anything for their work, and still there is a glut of production. So there should be no fear of the world losing lots of great production if there was no capitalism.
Most of the benefit of capitalism is reaped by the middle men, who profit off the work when the laborers that made it have long ceased to do so (if they ever did). Abolishing capitalism will thus mostly affect these middle men, and have little effect on labor itself.
Those laborers that still want to get paid in a capitalism-free era can find business models that don't rely on capitalism, like the military, collective farming, or secret police-like models where one is paid for future work.
Plenty of content producers make money. Sure it’s the companies that employ the artists that make the most money, but that’s a general feature of our economy, not anything unique to copyright. I think Netflix is a huge vindication of copyright. It started out as a middleman simple peddling other people’s content. But copyright forced them to start producing their own content, and they’ve turned television on its head as a result. It’s probably s bigger change in the TV market than cable studios.
The thing about copyright is that it’s existenxe isn’t preventing the alternative models you’re talking about. Unlike any other form of property, copyright covers an individual’s own creations. Owning land is staking claim to something that existed for eons before you were born and will exist for eons after you’re dead. But copyright is over something unique you brought into the universe. With recording and distribution being so cheap, nothing prevents creatives from giving away their work and making money on their own unique contributions with performances or Kickstarter. But people want AAA production values. Just like how Kickstarter can’t raise enough capital to design and build something with mass market appeal like a MacBook Pro, it’s not suitable for making something like the new Star Wars movie. (Which I refuse to watch because blockbuster movies are dreck, but the public wants what it wants.)
I had a great idea for a book, but I decided not to write it when I realized that my great grandchildren might not be able to continue to collect royalties from it.
Even if it won't be extended, the damage has already been done.
Imho this whole complex around "copyright" and "intellectual property" is probably the biggest "capital bubble" in human history.
Tangible goods are finite on this planet, intangible goods (like IP) are not, so they are the perfect tool for keeping this "perpetual growth machine" aka world economy going, even if actual resources become scarce, we will never run out of ideas to "monetize".
In that regard, I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the developed economies have moved from manufacturing industries, dealing with actual goods and finite resources, to "service industries", where most of the value is generated through "ideas" which are infinite.
It's easy to put a value on something tangible, you can calculate the resources that go in there, the man-hours needed to manufacture it, the costs of the manufacturing facilities. The same does not apply to most intellectual property, its whole value is pretty much an arbitrary estimation with no limiting factors in terms of real-world resources, as such there are no rational limits to how much one could charge for them.
As you say, it's not perfect, but it would absolutely help us preserve culture beyond what is still classic 75+ years from now.
We have lost the vast majority of silent era films and more historical films will follow since it's illegal for you to save them to digital format without the explicit consent from the content creator. We won't lose Casablanca or The Seventh Seal since they're preserved by historical archives and companies can still make money screening them but TV-movies like Star Wars the Holiday Special is only being preserved by illegal means because nobody bothers enforcing its copyright. Sure, that movie is an abomination, but film historians 100 years from now would presumably want some proof that Lucas made it and that it really was the first appearance of Boba Fett.
I think this is a good solution. There are and will still be companies that want to protect and make money off of their old assets. I really don't want to see a market flooded with Mickey Mouse knock off garbage.
But if the creator is dead and nobody is making any money off their work, then put it in the public domain so it doesn't get lost in time.
In 2018, the copyright on those early Mickey cartoons will end (if Congress doesn't repeat the sins of '76 and '98, that is—and you can bet we'll be pulling out all the stops to prevent that). What happens then?
Almost nothing, if Disney and friends get their way.
title card for Steamboat Willie Those Mickey cartoons are almost certainly in the public domain anyway. In the late 1920s, copyright wasn't automatic: rightsholders had to undertake certain "formalities"—registering with the Copyright Office and displaying correctly formatted notices—and then renew those formalities periodically. Scholars who've looked into the matter make a very good case that the early Disney organization flubbed its registration, notice and renewal, and there are probably cartoons that are in the public domain today.
Which is not to say that Disney wouldn't sue you if you tried to remix them, upload them to the Internet Archive, or sell them in on a compilation DVD of other public domain cartoons from the period. They almost certainly would, and it would cost you an unthinkable sum of money to defend yourself. Emerging victorious but impoverished, you would have won a small victory.
But at that point, we expect that Disney will try to use another body of law to suppress creativity and commerce involving Mickey Mouse, whether or not "Steamboat Willie" and "Plane Crazy" are in the public domain: trademark law. If you sell something Mickeyish—including its public domain cartoons—Disney might ask a court to stop you because people who buy the
cartoons from you may think they're buying from Disney. Back to court with you!
They discuss is briefly but my understanding is the copyright only protects the work itself. IE the movie steamboat willie could now be freely published by anyone with access to it? But Disney will still own the trademark and be the only entity that can produce new original Mickey Mouse content?
> ...and be the only entity that can produce new original Mickey Mouse content?
This is confusing to me. If copyright is up on Steamboat Willie, producing derivative works based on Steamboat Willie has to be allowed, so original content that remixes and adds to Steamboat Willie to make a new cartoon must be OK.
Trademarks are about protecting the use of "marks" (i.e., logos, names, etc.) for use in "trade". So having a trademark on Mickey Mouse means that you can't use Mickey Mouse to advertise or promote your product, and this can probably construed broadly (e.g., sample screenshots of a game, packaging material). Even if it can't Disney is not known for being shy on litigation, and it's totally possible for them to sue you even if they have only a slim chance of victory. Using Mickey Mouse as a cameo would be totally legal if he's not used to advertise it, although the tricky part could be holding that the cameo comes from public domain work and not later, still-copyrighted derivatives.
Sherlock Holmes appears in unauthorized works even though some of the original Doyle works are not public domain, but I'm not sure how trademark complicates things.
The basic argument is that "big content" don't seem to be pushing it, scared off by the protests against SOPA.
Honestly, I think the clickbait "why" does the article a disservice: it is a more in depth work than the 150 word bullet point with gifs that the "why" advertises.
Most people wouldn't complain if a new category of copyright were created just for Disney, and anyone else who wants an extra 75 years. Let it be opt in. Most people understand why Disney values its mouse etc., and that it stands to lose income if copyright expires. We get it that they're a special case. We the people can live without that stuff in the public domain. Why doesn't Congress just ask us? (Or would that be unequal protection under the law?)
I disagree. Disney has money, and all politicians spend at least half of their working hours soliciting money in exchange for the promise of writing laws. It will be extended.
The founders idea of patent and copyright as being meant to last as long as a working lifetime (20 years) died a long time ago. This is just one more evidence of the democracy moving to plutocracy.
Let's watch it get renewed. Then, up-vote my comment.
What does this mean in reality... You could make derivative works of the original Mickey Mouse free from copyright infringement? Would copyright still be in place for subsequent Mickey Mouse productions?
I think the copyright is slowly becoming irrelevant, I have a feeling that the real push is to treat copyrights the same way as patents (intelectual property), so for instance, you cannot make a cartoon with Mickey Mouse even if you make character a bit different or call it differently, or you cannot take a Disney story with slightly different characters. Basically, it won't be any more about protecting own creative work but about creating an artificial scarcity.
I don't know what you think a Disney story is, but all of Disney's major works are based on existing folk stories and other works already in the public domain.
They will, and the article addresses that (edit: see EFF article at the bottom for in-depth explanation), but they won't have the copyright to "Steamboat Willie" anymore, which is as it should be.
Disney itself benefited greatly from the Grimm Brothers and other fairy tales, they should let new generations benefit from theirs.
[+] [-] jeremyjh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmoriarty|8 years ago|reply
As it stands, copyright serves little positive social purpose. The overwhelming majority of creators get paid little if anything for their work, and still there is a glut of content. So there should be no fear of the world losing lots of great content if there was no copyright.
Most of the benefit of copyright is reaped by the middle men, who profit off the work when the creatives that made it have long ceased to do so (if they ever did). Abolishing copyright will thus mostly affect these middle men, and have little effect on content creation itself.
Those creatives that still want to get paid in a copyright-free era can find business models that don't rely on copyright, like performances, donations, or kickstarter-like models where one is paid for future work.
[+] [-] nv-vn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Chardok|8 years ago|reply
To be fair, I think copyright has its place as a minimal safeguard for artists' work, but in its current form it is entirely too aggressive and lasts way beyond its scope should cover. Copyright should not be reason to send SWAT raids to people's homes, just as much as it should not cover 70 years after the artists' death.
I am certain that if we seriously rolled back copyright, our art would still thrive, albeit perhaps less AAA content.
[+] [-] sschueller|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalbasal|8 years ago|reply
For some creators though, it's different. I heard George RR Martin comment on this once. Tolkien's family (according to GRRM) did a great job guarding and protecting his works. He's horrified at the thought of a descendent making selling Targaryan cream buns or allowing shitty derivative novels. That isn't a money concern, but it is a property rights concern of sorts.
In any case, I think the sorts of right GRRM feels are his could still be preserved, without keeping all copyright the same.
[+] [-] WhitneyLand|8 years ago|reply
Would you feel good if under your system, the donations or other alternate payments ended up in the author’s rewards being cut? What if they were cut in half? Or even became negligible, because I don’t see any guarantees prescribed.
This is not just about Taylor Swift (no offense if you are a fan). We’re talking about works that can change lives, inspire people to do great things, even change the course of history.
The system has been abused and distorted. However I don’t see how that can make us sure the best solution is to throw the baby out with the bath water.
[+] [-] namlem|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] libertymcateer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cuckcuckspruce|8 years ago|reply
As it stands, capitalism serves little positive social purpose. The overwhelming majority of laborers get paid little if anything for their work, and still there is a glut of production. So there should be no fear of the world losing lots of great production if there was no capitalism.
Most of the benefit of capitalism is reaped by the middle men, who profit off the work when the laborers that made it have long ceased to do so (if they ever did). Abolishing capitalism will thus mostly affect these middle men, and have little effect on labor itself.
Those laborers that still want to get paid in a capitalism-free era can find business models that don't rely on capitalism, like the military, collective farming, or secret police-like models where one is paid for future work.
[+] [-] rayiner|8 years ago|reply
The thing about copyright is that it’s existenxe isn’t preventing the alternative models you’re talking about. Unlike any other form of property, copyright covers an individual’s own creations. Owning land is staking claim to something that existed for eons before you were born and will exist for eons after you’re dead. But copyright is over something unique you brought into the universe. With recording and distribution being so cheap, nothing prevents creatives from giving away their work and making money on their own unique contributions with performances or Kickstarter. But people want AAA production values. Just like how Kickstarter can’t raise enough capital to design and build something with mass market appeal like a MacBook Pro, it’s not suitable for making something like the new Star Wars movie. (Which I refuse to watch because blockbuster movies are dreck, but the public wants what it wants.)
[+] [-] blkhawk|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmihal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Isamu|8 years ago|reply
I'm hoping to get more creative after I die. Don't have the time for it now.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] shams93|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xxs|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madshiva|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] shirian|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freeflight|8 years ago|reply
Tangible goods are finite on this planet, intangible goods (like IP) are not, so they are the perfect tool for keeping this "perpetual growth machine" aka world economy going, even if actual resources become scarce, we will never run out of ideas to "monetize".
In that regard, I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the developed economies have moved from manufacturing industries, dealing with actual goods and finite resources, to "service industries", where most of the value is generated through "ideas" which are infinite.
It's easy to put a value on something tangible, you can calculate the resources that go in there, the man-hours needed to manufacture it, the costs of the manufacturing facilities. The same does not apply to most intellectual property, its whole value is pretty much an arbitrary estimation with no limiting factors in terms of real-world resources, as such there are no rational limits to how much one could charge for them.
[+] [-] baldfat|8 years ago|reply
Make 4 year extensions for copyright to cost $1,000,000 per item. Increase the fee to account for inflation.
Micky Mouse and Sherlock Holmes (2nd Half) will stay locked up but the 99.9% of the other works are freed.
It isn't perfect but it will release the rest into public domain.
[+] [-] pimmen|8 years ago|reply
We have lost the vast majority of silent era films and more historical films will follow since it's illegal for you to save them to digital format without the explicit consent from the content creator. We won't lose Casablanca or The Seventh Seal since they're preserved by historical archives and companies can still make money screening them but TV-movies like Star Wars the Holiday Special is only being preserved by illegal means because nobody bothers enforcing its copyright. Sure, that movie is an abomination, but film historians 100 years from now would presumably want some proof that Lucas made it and that it really was the first appearance of Boba Fett.
[+] [-] jbob2000|8 years ago|reply
But if the creator is dead and nobody is making any money off their work, then put it in the public domain so it doesn't get lost in time.
[+] [-] GFischer|8 years ago|reply
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/well-probably-never-fr...
In 2018, the copyright on those early Mickey cartoons will end (if Congress doesn't repeat the sins of '76 and '98, that is—and you can bet we'll be pulling out all the stops to prevent that). What happens then?
Almost nothing, if Disney and friends get their way.
title card for Steamboat Willie Those Mickey cartoons are almost certainly in the public domain anyway. In the late 1920s, copyright wasn't automatic: rightsholders had to undertake certain "formalities"—registering with the Copyright Office and displaying correctly formatted notices—and then renew those formalities periodically. Scholars who've looked into the matter make a very good case that the early Disney organization flubbed its registration, notice and renewal, and there are probably cartoons that are in the public domain today.
Which is not to say that Disney wouldn't sue you if you tried to remix them, upload them to the Internet Archive, or sell them in on a compilation DVD of other public domain cartoons from the period. They almost certainly would, and it would cost you an unthinkable sum of money to defend yourself. Emerging victorious but impoverished, you would have won a small victory.
But at that point, we expect that Disney will try to use another body of law to suppress creativity and commerce involving Mickey Mouse, whether or not "Steamboat Willie" and "Plane Crazy" are in the public domain: trademark law. If you sell something Mickeyish—including its public domain cartoons—Disney might ask a court to stop you because people who buy the cartoons from you may think they're buying from Disney. Back to court with you!
[+] [-] madebysquares|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] humanrebar|8 years ago|reply
This is confusing to me. If copyright is up on Steamboat Willie, producing derivative works based on Steamboat Willie has to be allowed, so original content that remixes and adds to Steamboat Willie to make a new cartoon must be OK.
[+] [-] jcranmer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] votepaunchy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SiempreViernes|8 years ago|reply
Honestly, I think the clickbait "why" does the article a disservice: it is a more in depth work than the 150 word bullet point with gifs that the "why" advertises.
[+] [-] teddyh|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ataturk|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] beautifulfreak|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MechEStudent|8 years ago|reply
The founders idea of patent and copyright as being meant to last as long as a working lifetime (20 years) died a long time ago. This is just one more evidence of the democracy moving to plutocracy.
Let's watch it get renewed. Then, up-vote my comment.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] keir-rex|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|8 years ago|reply
Yes, though be careful not to infringe on Disney's trademarks while doing so.
> Would copyright still be in place for subsequent Mickey Mouse productions?
Yes.
[+] [-] js8|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotancohen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _pmf_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GFischer|8 years ago|reply
Disney itself benefited greatly from the Grimm Brothers and other fairy tales, they should let new generations benefit from theirs.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_animated_films_...
and, most importantly:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/well-probably-never-fr...
[+] [-] jlebrech|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jnnz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emodendroket|8 years ago|reply