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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
You're trying to defend life+ copyright on the basis of things happening at the very start of the copyright period.
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No, you are misreading my comments. If you go back to post #53 (to which you replied with the contract idea), you'll see that I started off by asking "What about abolishing copyright altogether?" and asking for an alternative that protects a creator's rights. Since then, I've pointed out how and why contract-only scenarios are largely ineffectual at that task, and make several current problems worse.
I.e. copyright
duration is a separate aspect and is not what I am discussing. I am defending the
general concept of copyright, and pointing out that it helps the individual artist protect their rights (as opposed to a common misperception that it is exclusively designed to screw everyone except big publishers). On that basis, while copyright durations can be modified, it does not make sense to completely abandon the idea of copyright strictly because you believe the duration is too long.
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Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
Again, I am not advocating use of contract law in that way, I'm saying that it simply makes mincemeat of the argument that you need copyright that long for that reason.
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They are two separate arguments altogether (general copyright vs long copyrights). And yet again, a contract can extend longer than life + 70. So without a separate law requiring works to go into public domain at a certain point in time, contracts fail to meet
your goal of reducing the period of time before a work enters PD.
Though I did say that I personally am not particularly bothered by life + 70, I never said that copyright
had to be that long, nor has anything I've said -- especially in terms of the contract discussion -- that it
ought to be that duration. Nor would I be particularly put out by shortening it to, say, life + 50, or perhaps a long set number of years (75, 100). Considering that an artist can produce a work and drop dead the next day, and his family / estate should have the rights to the work for at least some period of time, copyright periods longer than 60 days make sense.
Further, I don't mind extensions for highly specific situations (e.g. Mickey Mouse), but can't think of a way to design copyright laws that would allow an extension of that sort which can't be widely exploited.
Or, another way to put it is that contracts can be used and abused to the same (if not greater) extent than copyright -- while offering fewer abilities and advantages to the creator of the content.
My point in the "contract" discussion is that contracts are obviously not sufficient to offer the same level of protection, as it isn't automatic and cannot guarantee that anything ever makes it into public domain; and that not only does it fail to fix the duration issue, it actually makes it worse.
Separately, I do not see an alternative to copyright as a
general concept. Since contracts cannot replace copyright, looks like you don't have one either....
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Originally Posted by zerospinboson
A very good argument indeed in a world where retroactive copyright extensions are as common as the common cold.
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It is, if you actually comprehend it.
To be explicit yet again: Copyright law requires that at a certain point in time, works go into the public domain. In a contract-only environment, no such law exists. Therefore, publishers could legally write a contract that permanently holds the rights, or the rights could revert to the author at a certain point. I.e. in a contract-only environment, works will
never go into public domain unless an individual or organization explicitly chooses to surrender the rights. Plus, companies wouldn't need to lobby Congress for extensions, since they'd have hold perpetual rights via the contracts. Not to mention that you'd have to agree to a contract every single time you buy an object -- a process that would drown us all in legalese. Or, that retailers could design highly restrictive rights, treat all purchases as licenses or leases of limited duration, deny you the legal right to lend or resell works, deny you the ability to parody or quote for fair use, etc.
You could add a law saying "regardless of contracts, works must go into PD after x years." But then you'd have the exact same potential issue of legislatures adding extension after extension, and there is no improvement compared to the current situation.
And the reality is that extensions aren't implemented nearly as frequently as you suggest (or assume). In the US, durations started in 1790 (14 years + 14 year renewal); changes were made in 1831 (28 + 14 renew); 1909 (28 + 28); 1976 (75 or life + 50); 1998 (life + 70 or 95/120 for works for hire). So that's 4 extensions in over 200 years. And tucked in there was adoption of the Berne Convention, which grants copyrights automatically even without filing formal documents.
To put it another way, I do not share your cynicism that copyrights will get an extra 20-year duration, every 20 years, from now until the end of time.
I'm still open to alternatives to copyright or sensible adjustments to current laws, but a contract-only scenario fails to offer any improvements.