New Paper Argues for Reasonable Reduction in Copyright

[Ninjalawyer]

There's a new paper our (here) that argues that copyright terms should be reduced and that copyright shouldn't be a component of international "trade" agreements like the TPP.

From the paper:

Economic efficiency and constitutional law both suggest copyrights should serve to solve potential market failures, to “promote the progress of the sciences.” In examining how long the specific terms for copyright and patent should be, Milton Friedman deemed the subject a matter of “expediency”to be determined by “practical considerations.”

...

This report does not argue that copyright should be abolished, but the founders were clear that these monopolies had associated costs. Policy-makers want there to be incentive for content creation and some artistic works would never have been created without the ability to profit from those works. But we must also acknowledge that, at a certain point, there is no more cognizable additional incentive to extending copyright terms. It is thus an equation with two sides: no copyright is too little incentive while the current regime of copyright for life+70 provides incentives whose value is exceeded by the monopoly’s costs. The most beneficial copyright term is somewhere in between those extremes, and we believe it is closer to the copyright laws enacted by our founders.

Acknowledging the costs of excessively long copyright is critical to understanding why copyright must expire – not merely because that is what the Constitution prescribes, but because it is good policy

Even if you don't agree with the conclusions of the paper, it does provide a very succinct history of copyright in the U.S., and it's definitely worth reading for that alone.

As an interesting aside, the paper is written by Darek Khanna, who wrote a short paper previously while he was a staffer for the Republican party in the U.S. The paper was published, but Hollywood lobbyists freaked out and the paper was retracted and Khanna was canned (despite the fact that the Republican's own study committee vetted and approved the paper prior to publication).

[TechniSol]

It's a big issue, the conversation probably needs to be had about patents as well. Maybe the solutions in this case lie somewhere in the middle of lowering the periods, but giving the copyright holder more latitude during that period in preventing others from profiting from derivative work or outright theft.

OTOH, some would argue that at the core there exist only a limited number of characters, situations, stories and that all modern works exist only by "stealing" from the masters... SciFi authors have written(in jest?) of keeping a core set of literature and generally outright stealing from the masters and turning plot elements on their head coupled with changes in setting, time period, etc. to produce works where one might see obvious similarities, but where is the line? Is it a word, a sentence, paragraph, a notion, a concept, relationships, a narrative background or situation or some varying mix thereof?

Imagine this same problem with music, patents, worse yet software patents... ugh. Couple it with the proliferation of 3D printers and associated technologies. It's going to get very complicated as technology places great capability in nearly anyone's hands... OTOH, increased access to technology will allow a far greater number of people to participate in innovation than ever before.

[eschwartz]

I bet this will be even more effective than the previous attempts to rein in or protest against the length of copyright law.

@TechniSol, that reminds me of Thursday Next. A big problem in the BookWorld is the knowledge that:
"there are only 8 original plots."
"The last of the Original Ideas was used", well, I think "about 20 or 30 years back." (Err, not quite, since Thursday got a little piece of it fom Mrs. Haversham and bought a Generic with it for complicated reasons...)

[pwalker8]

Thanks for posting.

The fundamental issue with copyright (and patent) reform is that there is a well funded group that benefits from an infinite copyright, yet the benefit for a shorter termed copyright is less tangible. I think that as an abstract, most would be willing to support a copyright term much closer to the original term, yet since few would see a tangible benefit, few would actually fight for it.

I actually think that patent reform is much more likely than copyright reform.

[Ninjalawyer]

It the U.S., copyright seems like it should be "on the table" to be reformed since the concept of a "limited" copyright is baked into the constitution. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, and in fact the U.S. has been trying to export longer and more onerous copyright law all over the world for years.

I would even be okay with the current copyright term in the U.S. if it was simply the case that 20 years into the copyright period you had to renew.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

It the U.S., copyright seems like it should be "on the table" to be reformed since the concept of a "limited" copyright is baked into the constitution. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, and in fact the U.S. has been trying to export longer and more onerous copyright law all over the world for years.

I would even be okay with the current copyright term in the U.S. if it was simply the case that 20 years into the copyright period you had to renew.

Ninjalawyer, what's in our constitution has little to do with how our laws are actually writen and enforced.

Our constitution states clearly that lawful money should be Gold and Silver. Courtesy of executive orders from FDR, LBJ, and Richard Nixon, it is only paper. There are all sorts of other pieces ignored, but why bother to list them...

My gold 1/2 ounce is still standing against a zinc cent, betting that US copyright will at least be attempted to be extended again by 2022.

[Lemurion]

Irrational copyright laws fund most lobbying firms. Rational ones have no chance of passing until that part of the system is reformed.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

OTOH, some would argue that at the core there exist only a limited number of characters, situations, stories and that all modern works exist only by "stealing" from the masters...

And the 'Masters' in turn stole their ideas from stories that others came up with etc. and those authors got their ideas from still earlier writers/storytellers etc. all the way back to ancient times. The Greeks and Romans told stories of men interacting with the Gods and/or receiving magical swords or shields etc. and we do the same thing only we call them aliens or use technology to do the same things in stories today.

Ecc. 1:9-
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

[pwalker8]

There are some points in the paper that I had not considered, such as the issue of sheet music. I play guitar and had noticed that it's almost impossible to get sheet music for popular songs. Most people simply play by ear by listening to the recordings.

I like his proposal for a new copyright system, though I would say that the vast majority of copyright issues would go away if you went back to the original term of copyright for free, and then left the life plus 70 in place for copyright holders who wanted to renew on a regular basis for a fee. Something like that might have a better chance of being passed.

[tubemonkey]

Save Mickey

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Save Mickey

Unless you believe Walt merely "stole" the idea from the Performo Toy Company...

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

There's a new paper our (here) that argues that copyright terms should be reduced and that copyright shouldn't be a component of international "trade" agreements like the TPP.

From the paper:



Even if you don't agree with the conclusions of the paper, it does provide a very succinct history of copyright in the U.S., and it's definitely worth reading for that alone.

As an interesting aside, the paper is written by Darek Khanna, who wrote a short paper previously while he was a staffer for the Republican party in the U.S. The paper was published, but Hollywood lobbyists freaked out and the paper was retracted and Khanna was canned (despite the fact that the Republican's own study committee vetted and approved the paper prior to publication).

I can't understand why movies are protected by the same copyright rules as books. No one anticipated the needs of movies in 1788. The Constitution was obviously intended to deal with books since they didn't even have the technology to mass produce copies of color images in print.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Unless you believe Walt merely "stole" the idea from the Performo Toy Company...

Micky doesn't have an "e" in his name

[Moe The Cat]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Micky doesn't have an "e" in his name

In that case, Disney's creation is obviously different and borrowed nothing from Performo!

Does "Mickey" have an "e" in his name because "monkey" has an "e"?

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Irrational copyright laws fund most lobbying firms. Rational ones have no chance of passing until that part of the system is reformed.

Basically that means that we will never see any reform. Any chance of reforming lobbying firms are doomed!