Europe votes on anti-piracy laws

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why do you have this fixation that copyright has something to do with writing books? Copyright gives you (or your heirs - for 70 years, anyway) the right to control distribution of what you've already written.

There's no difference between an author dieing, and a living author simply deciding to stop writing. His books still "live on", regardless of whether he's writing any more.

Look at that woman whose name entirely escapes me at the moment who wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird". She wrote that when she was young and (AFAIK) hasn't written another word since. She's lived on the income from sales of that book. By your argument, presumably she shouldn't be allowed to earn any money from it if she isn't writing any more?

Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.

from Flint's article which i linked to on the first page, about how long copyright should last :

First, authors need to have enough protection to enable them to be able to make a living as full-time writers.

Second, that protection has to be long enough to provide them with a motivation to write for the public, and see doing so as a possible profession.

But that's it. Those are the only two legitimate concerns. Any term of copyright which exceeds that minimum necessary length, as Macaulay put it in the quote I cited in my last column, has no legitimate purpose. Once you cross that line, a necessary evil has simply become an evil—and the farther past that line you go, the more evil it gets.

copyright only exists to encourage writers to keep writing. it's not intended to be some kind of eternal cash cow.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.

Thanks! The name was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn't remember it.

copyright only exists to encourage writers to keep writing. it's not intended to be some kind of eternal cash cow.

But "To Kill a Mockingbird" has been precisely that for Ms. Lee. She's never written another word, and has lived (I believe) very comfortably for her entire life on the income from that one book. Should that money be taken away from her? Some people here seem to be suggesting that it should!

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Now, our business owner dies. Can his wife continue to receive income from the business? Sure - the law has no problem with company ownership being passed to your descendents. Should the author's situation be different?

Yes, for all the reasons Macauley enumerated.

I think Life + 90 is excessive. I agree with Macauley's proposal which was common law for quite a while until Disney started lobbying when the realized they would loose rights to Mickey Mouse or something.

But, originally is was publish date + 28 years or till authors death whichever comes last. They wanted to change it to death plus 60 years and Macaulay explained why that would be very bad.

A second time the same proposal came up, to extend it to death + 25 years... the reasoning was that if you published something later in life, perhaps a few years before you died, your estate didn't get a chance to enjoy the rewards of that work. At this time Macaulay came up with a counter proposal of publish date + 48 years. That proposal was adopted.

A link to Macauleys speech's on this topic below. Everyone on this thread should read it: http://baens-universe.com/articles/McCauley_copyright

BOb

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Once again I ask, why is 20 year limit for patent acceptable, but 70 to 150 year limit is needed for copyright?

Because patent law was founded with the goal that new processes and inventions should be made public to benefit society at large. You can't say the same about books - can you?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because patent law was founded with the goal that new processes and inventions should be made public to benefit society at large. You can't say the same about books - can you?

I guess it would depend on the subject of the book.

Dale

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because patent law was founded with the goal that new processes and inventions should be made public to benefit society at large. You can't say the same about books - can you?

YES, you can !!! that is exactly what public domain is about !!!

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why do you have this fixation that copyright has something to do with writing books? Copyright gives you (or your heirs - for 70 years, anyway) the right to control distribution of what you've already written.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have the idea the copyright has something to do with encouraging authors to write books because historically, that's why this form of limited monopoly was legalized. It's been discussed ad nauseum at MR and elsewhere.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think Harper Lee should still be able to control distribution of To Kill a Mockingbird. Perhaps she could still be making a living from that book, perhaps not. Perhaps if she'd lost copyright on the book, she'd have written something else by now. Perhaps not. It's irrelevant. She holds the monopoly society granted in order to encourage writers, but hasn't written anything else. She can earn a living on the lecture circuit if she still wants to make money, or she can write new introductions every now and then and see if she can get publishers to print new editions and give her the proceeds. But I think she's long since made back the investment of writing the book.

Nor do I think non-minor heirs should receive sole benefits from the writing (or other copyrightable) efforts of a deceased creator. Unless they're like Christopher Tolkein, making a living of sifting through the parent's upublished works, of course.

Then again, I'm not much of a fan of inherited wealth overall....

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Then again, I'm not much of a fan of inherited wealth overall....

There's actually a difference of inheriting wealth, which is a tangible property, not granted by the right of the law... (gold is real). Where as a copyright is as you said a granted ownership of the right to do something.

I am all for Rawlings kids getting all of her wealth that she choose to pass on without the Tax man getting ANY of it... she already paid taxes on all those earnings. (No, I don't want to start a discussion about inheritance tax). But, for them to have rights to the books she wrote all their lifes, and all their kids, kids lifes... if this were the case nothing would ever get to the public domain.

BOb

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I really don't see the relevence of that. Lots of legal "monitoring" is done by private companies. Eg, most of the CCTV monitoring here in the UK is "private". Presumably in this case the courts would only get involved if a person were to ignore the repeated warnings they'd receive and be prosecuted.

That a similar thing is already taking place somewhere doesn't make it right. If it did, you could argue that torture is perfectly acceptable since there are various places in the world where it is common practice.

From my point of view, what is currently happening in UK - and elsewhere, UK is at the forefront only - is an abuse of civil rights of such a scale that I can only compare it to various coups that have happened in many parts of the world. In that respect, I believe we're on the verge of entering one of the darkest page of Human History.

Do you have a problem with the basic concept of people being punished for breaking the law?

Which law are we talking about, exactly? Have you heard of the concept of "civil disobedience"?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because patent law was founded with the goal that new processes and inventions should be made public to benefit society at large. You can't say the same about books - can you?

Yes I can. I can see no reason to favor one type of creative act over another, nor one kind of public domain over another. Certain powerful entities have made the distinction for selfish economic reasons, both to shorten patent (to gain access to creative ideas without having to pay for them) and enlongate copyright (to make common people continue to pay for a creative process, preferably in pertpetuity), but I see no moral or public benefit for these changes. Only to the powerful interests br-b-ing (excuse me, lobbying) governments for economic favors. Please explain why copyright deserves such special benefits. Is not the public better off for free access to Shakespeare, Balzac, Dumas, Mark Twain, et.al., as it is to free manufacturing access to penicillin, refrigeration, the light bulb, canned food, et. al. ???

[HarryT]

The purpose of patent law was not (originally) to ensure "free" access to inventions, but rather to make the knowledge public in the first place. It came about originally because skilled craftsmen were dying and taking their "trade secrets" to the grave with them. Patent law was introduced to encourage people who invented something to make it public - the key point about patent law is that you have to fully and publically disclose your entire "secret" as a part of the process. That allows anyone to access the information.

So it's not so much whether "free" access to Dickens and Shakespeare is beneficial - it's more a case of is it better to have them publish than keep all their work "secret" and have nobody else ever see it?

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

So it's not so much whether "free" access to Dickens and Shakespeare is beneficial - it's more a case of is it better to have them publish than keep all their work "secret" and have nobody else ever see it?

Isn't there a case for saying the current copyright arrangements will condemn a lot of books to oblivion?
There won't be any commercial reason to preserve them, by the time copyright expires they'll be forgotten.
Who knows what's already been lost?

[HarryT]

I agree. I'm certainly not arguing for "perpetual copyright", but I think that a reasonable term after death is justifyable for the reasons I've previously stated (letting dependents carry on receiving income). Perhaps something like death + 25 years?

[Trenien]

It appears relevant so I've decided to post a poll on what people consider would be a reasonable term for copyright.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26277

[Ramen]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I agree. I'm certainly not arguing for "perpetual copyright", but I think that a reasonable term after death is justifyable for the reasons I've previously stated (letting dependents carry on receiving income). Perhaps something like death + 25 years?

The problem I and probably many others have, is that "death" is simply to vague. The result is death + X which is simply too conservative (in the mathematical sense).

Date of publication + X is far more concise. The only instance where a family wouldn't inherit copyright would be for an old work. This is fine by me for the reasons others have stated above (encouragement, etc).