New Paper Argues for Reasonable Reduction in Copyright

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

My extend it forever sentiment is based on one factor - property. If someone creates a work, they should be allowed to keep it forever.

I'm at odds with current laws on property rights and that places me in an extremely small minority around here. To me, property is property. I make no distinction between tangible and intangible property.

Since there's little chance that my views would ever get enacted into law, I strongly favor extensions as the best way to achieve perpetual copyright.

Intangible property is an impossibility. It's like a solid gas. Copyright is simply a government granted monopoly for the right to copy a work of art, no more, no less. What you are saying is that you support the right of the government to grant a person the right to control the copying of a work of art forever.

Interestingly, the original granting of copyrights had nothing to do with the actual creator of the art. People were granted a copyright on the bible. The good thing about copyrights back then is they were granted at the whim of the crown. What the king could grant, he could take back. Such grants frequently did not survive the granting king.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

What you are saying is that you support the right of the government to grant a person the right to control the copying of a work of art forever.

What's wrong with that? The works belong to the creators and they should have the right to control them as they see fit; and forever.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The public get zero good out of a work that is not publicly available. The value of Huck Finn is that the public at large is able to read the work, not that some guy can write a porno novel based on it. To take an example, if I can't read Doc Smith's Lensman series because it's under copyright and the copyright holder is either unknown or unwilling to make it available, then there is no public good.

I disagree that books in the public domain are simply turned into "porno novel" by new authors (really?), but I am also concerned about the availability of new books. And that's another benefit of shorter copyrights.

Copyright has a tendency to make books disappear that might otherwise be available if they were available in the public domain. The Atlantic has a good article on the issue here, but here's a succinct summary:

By this calculation, the effect of copyright appears extreme. Heald says that the WorldCat research showed, for example, that there were eight times as many books published in the 1980s as in the 1880s, but there are roughly as many titles available on Amazon for the two decades. A book published during the presidency of Chester A. Arthur has a greater chance of being in print today than one published during the time of Reagan.

Copyright advocates have long (and successfully) argued that keeping books copyrighted assures that owners can make a profit off their intellectual property, and that that profit incentive will "assure [the books'] availability and adequate distribution." The evidence, it appears, says otherwise.

There's a tendency to think that the public domain is just a trough where pigs can rub their disgusting snouts all over other authors' works, and I disagree with that. But leaving that aside, too long copyright still has negative consequences for book availability.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Intangible property is an impossibility. It's like a solid gas. Copyright is simply a government granted monopoly for the right to copy a work of art, no more, no less. What you are saying is that you support the right of the government to grant a person the right to control the copying of a work of art forever.

Interestingly, the original granting of copyrights had nothing to do with the actual creator of the art. People were granted a copyright on the bible. The good thing about copyrights back then is they were granted at the whim of the crown. What the king could grant, he could take back. Such grants frequently did not survive the granting king.

Don't bother engaging him. He makes the same arguments in every thread like this (arguments which generally start at "herp" and end at "derp"), including his steam engine example. Different posters have wasted their time pulling apart his arguments and explaining what copyright is and isn't at law and in history, and he just keeps coming back to the same conclusion that he can't support, but that he firmly believes.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I disagree that books in the public domain are simply turned into "porno novel" by new authors (really?), but I am also concerned about the availability of new books. And that's another benefit of shorter copyrights.

I don't follow your logic there. How would a shorter copyright term affect the availability of a new book? A new book will always be protected by copyright, unless its author chooses to release it into the public domain.

For a new book, copyright protection will increase its chance of being published. No publisher is going to spend money publishing a book that anyone can simply take and freely copy.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

For a new book, copyright protection will increase its chance of being published. No publisher is going to spend money publishing a book that anyone can simply take and freely copy.

But what minimum length of copyright is necessary for this good effect? Certainly not life+70!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

But what minimum length of copyright is necessary for this good effect? Certainly not life+70!

No, I entirely agree. I'd go for something like life+20, personally. I certainly think an author should retain control of their work during their lifetime, and be able to make reasonable provision for their family after their death, but 70 years after death is way too long.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, I entirely agree. I'd go for something like life+20, personally.

My preferred option would have a fixed term of 50 years from publication, with a caveat of a maximum term of 100 years from creation. (So no getting fifty years of protection from publishing something 99 years after it was written!)

That's plenty of time for anyone to get a good return on their creation.

But we'll never see it.

[tubemonkey]

If the idea is to benefit society, then copyright should last until the death of the author. Anything less cheats the author of income and anything more cheats society of whatever they're supposed to benefit from.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't follow your logic there. How would a shorter copyright term affect the availability of a new book? A new book will always be protected by copyright, unless its author chooses to release it into the public domain.

For a new book, copyright protection will increase its chance of being published. No publisher is going to spend money publishing a book that anyone can simply take and freely copy.

I think you're confusing two separate issues, and I apologize if I was unclear.

Longer copyright terms affect the availability of older books that are no longer being published (see the Atlantic article on this). Publishers will publish books that are in the public domain, as happens today, just like companies will release movies on DVD that are available in the public domain. These works can also become available on-line or otherwise without a publisher, making them more widely available.

I'm guessing that you would agree that copyright can bury older works where the copyrightholder isn't interested in publishing. Feel free to correct me on that.

Books that are not in the public domain are not available to be republisehd or reused. In 50 years, I still won't be able to create a story set at Hogwarts without permission, so in that sense copyright affects what I can create. In my post above, I indicated that I thought reusing worlds and expressions was a good thing, but my main point was that there are down sides to copyright in that it makes older books less available.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Longer copyright terms affect the availability of older books that are no longer being published (see the Atlantic article on this). I assume we agree on this point, but feel free to tell me otherwise.

We do agree on that. It was your remark that longer copyright terms affected the availability of new books that I didn't understand. New books will always be protected by copyright, by the mere fact that they are new.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

What's wrong with that? The works belong to the creators and they should have the right to control them as they see fit; and forever.

Let them try to control it forever without copyright. Now, let them show a little gratitude for being granted that temporary right.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Let them try to control it forever without copyright. Now, let them show a little gratitude for being granted that temporary right.

Gratitude to the State for allowing creators to temporarily keep what they created? Maybe we should afford land owners this same wonderful right? Life + 70 and your land reverts back to the State.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Gratitude to the State for allowing creators to temporarily keep what they created? Maybe we should afford land owners this same wonderful right? Life + 70 and your land reverts back to the State.

We do something very similar in the UK in the form of death duties (inheritance tax). If, when you die, the value of your estate exceeds a relatively modest value (currently £325,000 - about half a million dollars), then your heirs have to pay 40% tax on the entire value of the estate. This means that each new generation of heirs to the property has to come up with 40% of its value in order to keep it, so in three generations (roughly the length of a copyright term) the government receives rather more than the estate's value in the form of tax.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

We do something very similar in the UK in the form of death duties (inheritance tax). If, when you die, the value of your estate exceeds a relatively modest value (currently £325,000 - about half a million dollars), then your heirs have to pay 40% tax on the entire value of the estate. This means that each new generation of heirs to the property has to come up with 40% of its value in order to keep it, so in three generations (roughly the length of a copyright term) the government receives rather more than the estate's value in the form of tax.

Outrageous; but then death taxes always are.