Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Hardly. Oddly enough the IP movement is really being pushed by patents rather copyright, thought we mostly talk about copyright here. Companies love to talk about their IP after they file patents for everything and anything. There was an amusing case where some guy who was trying to teach his kid about the patent process filed a patent on a tire swing and was granted one. Sigh.
Even the Supreme Court has recognized that they are going to need to address patents. They left it so long it's going to be a major effort to clean up. But there is a political will to address patents, mostly because of drug companies. I don't think there is a similar push to reform copyright.
|
Abuse of the provisions is indeed a problem (and one that has absolutely nothing to do with the terminology). The issues surrounding patents in the software industry make an interesting example, although it is not really appropriate to that discuss here. But abuse of the provisions does not necessarily mean we have to throw out the whole lot and start again - at least with the current systems we have some experience with what problems exist and can work toward solutions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
One restrain on copyright in the US is that while Disney may want to keep their copyrights, having Snow White in PD outside the US makes the attempt fairly moot. Prior efforts simply made copyright term more in line with the rest of the West. Once we start seeing major works such as Snow White, Gone with the Wind and Stagecoach enter public domain I think the whole copyright is property and belongs to the artist forever movement is going to lose a lot of steam. Who knows once the pressure by Disney lets up, the preservation movement will pick up again and they will finally do something about orphaned works.
|
Yes, I think this makes sense*. The global impact of the Internet does seem likely to make it fairly pointless to extend the US copyright beyond that in the rest of the world.
You can see a possible example of the effect already with Agatha Christie: the first two books are not public domain anywhere except the US, but still I see editions on Australian sites that are priced so you can be pretty sure the copyright holder isn't getting their share. These are legit' sites, so I can only assume the copyright holder is not spending much effort on these books any more. Maybe they try harder in bigger markets, I don't know.
We might suppose Disney (etc.) would find the US market large enough to try and actively protect their interests, but with so much being hosted offshore it will be next to impossible to stop without asking China for some help in developing national firewalls.
* Except the bit that implies "is property" has anything to do with the "belongs to the artist forever" argument. The two aspects of this are unrelated. Those that believe copyright should stay with with the artist forever will still believe that even if you change the words. A rose by any other name etc.