02-09-2012, 01:47 PM | #361 | |
Philosopher
Posts: 2,034
Karma: 18736532
Join Date: Jan 2012
Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2 gen, Kindle Fire 1st Gen, Kindle Touch
|
Quote:
Here is an opinion piece where he argues for eternal copyright. His argument is deeply flawed at best. He compares copyright for "limited times" to slavery. Intellectual property is a purely governmental construct. An author does not truly own the book, they merely own government-granted monopoly on copying the book. Calling it "stealing" for the book to someday enter the public domain is question begging. Physical property exists whether or not government exists. Copyright doesn't exist except as a creation of government. I support copyright, but I can't support his eternal copyright, it would lead to stagnation. |
|
02-09-2012, 05:41 PM | #362 | ||
King of the Bongo Drums
Posts: 1,622
Karma: 5927225
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Excelsior! (Strange...)
|
Quote:
Quote:
Now, you can either read the article as a condensation of the argument in his book - and therefore not in favor of eternal copyright - or as an extension of the argument in his book - and therefore in favor of eternal copyright. But it really doesn't matter, because I have only been talking about the argument as made in his book. As for "supporting eternal copyright", it depends on what the copyright law says. I would have no problem at all with an eternal copyright law that said "if copyright applies, after 20 years, the owner may not forbid the use of the copyrighted work, but is entitled to one percent of any gross receipts in excess of $1000 from the use or sale of the copyrighted work or an immediate derivative." I would have a lot of problem with the further extension of copyright as it currently exists. The only reason I think that the descendants of Shakespeare shouldn't get royalties is that there aren't any descendants of Shakespeare. How much they should get is open to discussion. Arguably, the royalty should diminish over time to practically nothing. In most instances, time & the division of interest should take care of that. And it would probably be a good idea to provide that after a term of years, copyright can only be owned by a real person, not a corporation or institution. Last edited by Harmon; 02-09-2012 at 05:56 PM. |
||
02-09-2012, 06:11 PM | #363 | |||
Philosopher
Posts: 2,034
Karma: 18736532
Join Date: Jan 2012
Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2 gen, Kindle Fire 1st Gen, Kindle Touch
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
If it wasn't for the public domain, Shakespeare might have been forgotten. One reason it is so widely performed is that no one has to pay to perform it. Shakespeare has made an immense contribution to culture by being in the public domain. If it was under copyright, culture would be strangled. |
|||
02-09-2012, 07:20 PM | #364 |
Philosopher
Posts: 2,034
Karma: 18736532
Join Date: Jan 2012
Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2 gen, Kindle Fire 1st Gen, Kindle Touch
|
If copyright had been eternal in the past, we would have been robbed of Shakespeare, his wasn't the first telling of Romeo and Juliet.
With physical property, law merely gives you a mechanism to help you defend your property beyond the limits of your own power to do so, law doesn't create property. If I own a house, even without law, I have at least some degree of power to protect my house. But a house isn't analogous to intellectual property, if I take your house, you no longer have it, but if I take a copy of intellectual property, you still have it. Intellectual property is like me seeing your house and making one like it. You're not out anything. Without law, short of building a dome around your house to prevent me from seeing it, there's nothing you could do to prevent this. We might well decide that we really want to encourage houses, so we could tell people they can't make a house just like yours without your permission. We would then give you that right, but only for a limited time, in exchange for people being able to use that design after the limited time has expired. If patents did not exist, there would be little incentive to create. But if patents were eternal, creation would come to a halt. If patents had been eternal, we probably wouldn't even have the light bulb, because no one could stand on the shoulders of giants. If I were forced to choose, I would choose no patents over eternal patents. It is the same thing with copyright. I favor copyright, but oppose eternal copyright. |
02-10-2012, 12:50 AM | #365 | |||
King of the Bongo Drums
Posts: 1,622
Karma: 5927225
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Excelsior! (Strange...)
|
Quote:
Without law, you have only what you are strong enough to keep. If you want to call that "property" you may, but the word has no actual meaning used that way. You cannot speak of "property" without at the same time speaking of law. There is no basis for a coherent non-religious argument involving the existence of property rights without accepting that law creates those rights. There is, of course, a religious argument that substitutes God-given rights for law, but the curious thing is that such an argument eventually brings you back to the understanding that the manner in which those rights are sustained is through law. Either way, without law, there is no such thing as property rights. Quote:
Quote:
On the other hand, because of the lack of copyright, we do not have any accurate version of Shakespeare's plays. If you know anything beyond high school Shakespeare, you know, for instance, that there are two different versions of Hamlet. We are extremely lucky to have any Shakespeare at all, precisely because his works were not protected. Had he had the protection of copyright, we probably would have some of his missing plays, and certainly what we do have would be more authentic. Last edited by Harmon; 02-10-2012 at 01:00 AM. |
|||
02-10-2012, 01:05 AM | #366 | |
Paladin of Eris
Posts: 3,119
Karma: 20849349
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: USAland
Device: Kindle 10
|
Quote:
You lost me. How would reducing the number of copies that could be made and the ability of people to freely preform over the years have increased the amount of work that has lasted to this day? Is there some magical conservation of bard-fu? One copy is has 1000 years of power but 1000 copies only last for a year each? I don't normally use drugs but I'd very much like to try whatever it is you're on. |
|
02-10-2012, 07:40 AM | #367 | |
Wizard
Posts: 4,896
Karma: 33602910
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: PocketBook 903 & 360+
|
Quote:
You also seem to consider that it is bad to have two different versions of Hamlet. I would say that two is better than one. |
|
02-10-2012, 09:20 AM | #368 | |
Philosopher
Posts: 2,034
Karma: 18736532
Join Date: Jan 2012
Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2 gen, Kindle Fire 1st Gen, Kindle Touch
|
Quote:
Let us stipulate for the moment that property only exists as a creation of government. Helprin claims that copyright is a natural right, not a created right. If I am mistaken in claiming that property is meaningless without law, and property is whatever government says it is, then Helprin is certainly mistaken in claiming that copyright is a natural right, let alone eternal copyright. If property is whatever government says it is, then the public domain can't possibly be "stealing", let alone analogous to slavery. I am not arguing for the abolition of copyright, I'm not even arguing to shorten copyright, just that copyright should not be eternal. Continually extending copyright so that nothing again enters the public domain is no different than eternal copyright. Maybe we should just give a special copyright to Mickey Mouse so that other works can enter the public domain. Without the public domain, the great majority of works die. Last edited by QuantumIguana; 02-10-2012 at 09:42 AM. |
|
02-10-2012, 12:45 PM | #369 | ||
King of the Bongo Drums
Posts: 1,622
Karma: 5927225
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Excelsior! (Strange...)
|
Quote:
Per Dr. Debora B. Schwartz (English Department, California Polytechnic State University): http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl339/problems.html Quote:
If your plays are protected by copyright, you get royalties for performances by other companies. Performances of what? Of scripts you sell them. So you are much more likely to prepare a formal script to actually sell. The number of copies is not reduced - it is increased. Further, since your work is protected by law, you aren't as concerned about other companies stealing it if you allow copies of the script to circulate. It's lack of copyright that reduces copies of scripts, because unprotected scripts are subject to pirating. So much of the play is kept in your head, or that of the actors. Probably, the only reason we have many of his scripts at all is that they had to be written down & presented to the censor before they could be performed. |
||
02-10-2012, 12:55 PM | #370 | |
King of the Bongo Drums
Posts: 1,622
Karma: 5927225
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Excelsior! (Strange...)
|
Quote:
As for Hamlet, I'd be happier to have the Hamlet Shakespeare wrote, with any revisions he himself made, rather than pieces of Hamlets from different performances, imperfectly recalled by actors and playgoers, collected after his death and put together these days in various ways by modern textural theorists in an attempt to reconstruct what Hamlet looked like. And I will guarentee you that Shakespeare would have loved copyright, and mocked you in the famous play he never wrote, The Internet Pirates, or Love's Labour Paid For. |
|
02-10-2012, 01:05 PM | #371 | |
Philosopher
Posts: 2,034
Karma: 18736532
Join Date: Jan 2012
Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2 gen, Kindle Fire 1st Gen, Kindle Touch
|
Quote:
From Wikipedia: Shakespeare based Hamlet on the legend of Amleth, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum as subsequently retold by 16th-century scholar François de Belleforest. He may also have drawn on or perhaps written an earlier (hypothetical) Elizabethan play known today as the Ur-Hamlet. Also from Wikipedia: Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1582. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but, to expand the plot, developed supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Shakespeare's source for the tragedy are the accounts of King Macbeth of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. |
|
02-10-2012, 01:07 PM | #372 | |||
King of the Bongo Drums
Posts: 1,622
Karma: 5927225
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Excelsior! (Strange...)
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
|||
02-10-2012, 01:13 PM | #373 |
King of the Bongo Drums
Posts: 1,622
Karma: 5927225
Join Date: Feb 2009
Device: Excelsior! (Strange...)
|
|
02-10-2012, 01:29 PM | #374 |
Philosopher
Posts: 2,034
Karma: 18736532
Join Date: Jan 2012
Device: Kindle Paperwhite 2 gen, Kindle Fire 1st Gen, Kindle Touch
|
I do not concede the point, and I haven't changed the subject. There simply is no possible way to interpret his article as calling for copyright to be limited. Even at life +70 years, he still calls that stealing, the equivalent of slavery or confiscating farms. His point is that there should be no point where the work enters the public domain.
Last edited by QuantumIguana; 02-10-2012 at 01:54 PM. |
02-10-2012, 03:01 PM | #375 | |||
Wizard
Posts: 4,896
Karma: 33602910
Join Date: Oct 2010
Device: PocketBook 903 & 360+
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Or he would have been a pirate, or he wouldn't have had the money to pay the royalties and his works would have never been created. |
|||
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Seriously thoughtful a voté ! | zelda_pinwheel | Lounge français | 1 | 03-21-2010 12:58 PM |
Unutterably Silly Vote for me! | pshrynk | Lounge | 90 | 11-06-2008 01:59 PM |
In Copyright? - Copyright Renewal Database launched | Alexander Turcic | News | 26 | 07-09-2008 09:36 AM |
Government US Copyright Office: Report on Orphan Works. US Copyright Office. PDF | Nate the great | Other Books | 0 | 01-03-2008 07:16 PM |