Duration of copyright poll.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I'd consider death of the creator, with one caveat: That any financial dependents/immediate family members, if unable to take care of themselves through age (old or young) or infirmity, would continue to draw copyright until they were either of legal age to make their own living, established another source of income, or died.

That means the wife of a creator could draw upon it if the creator died before her, until she died or established other significant income, and a pre-adult would draw the income until they were a legal adult.

Anyone who was outside of the creator's circle of financial dependence would not be able to draw copyright upon the creator's death.

(I personally see this as a good arrangement for patents, as well.)

What about a taxi driver's family?
And a miner's one?
And a peasant's wife? Should she starve when he's dead?
And the President's?
And the Lawyer's?

That's nonsense.
Or it has sense only if every other worker's family is taken care of.
Or is a writer's family worth more for the society than the carpenter's one?


What you propose is: we have an aristocracy who has the right to have money just because they married (or were generated from) the right one, and the rest of the people who won't.

I don't like it at all.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Let's say you are 21. You write a novel. You reach the age of 72. Your work just became public domain. Some movie stuido decided to make a movie based on your work. The movie studio makes tons and tons of money from this movie. You are still alive, watching others make lots of money from your work and there is not a thing you can do about it. That is not fair in the least. You would be so pissed off. If the author is still alive, I do feel that he/she should be able to keep the copyright and make money on the work. I voted for 30 years after death for the work to become PD. But I also feel that once this 30 years after death has happened, any work that that author has written should be fully pD. And that includes someone else finding an unfinished manuscript, making it be finished and publishing it. So once the 30 years after death happens, that too becomes PD. So all those Tolkien books published after his death (even though they should have stayed unpublished) , would also go PD at the same time as the other books.

I'm 72.
I worked hard for 40 years in construction for less than 10$ a day.

Now, estate agencies are making millions with my work, and I see them.
And there isn't a thing I can do about it.
And i'm pissed off.
While I'm still alive, i deserve a percentage from every sales agreement in the buildings I worked on.

Or are you telling that Tolkien's work (made during the time he should have worked for the insurance company paying him) is somehow more valuable than mine?
Or that Tolkien is worth more than me as a human being?

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But I also feel that once this 30 years after death has happened, any work that that author has written should be fully pD. And that includes someone else finding an unfinished manuscript, making it be finished and publishing it. So once the 30 years after death happens, that too becomes PD. So all those Tolkien books published after his death (even though they should have stayed unpublished) , would also go PD at the same time as the other books.

This is one of the few cases where I think copyright should exist after the death of the original author. Otherwise, no one would bother finding and editing these manuscripts (and we would never have had H. Beam Piper's Fuzzies and Other People). But the copyright in this case should be shared with the editor.

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

It's an interesting poll topic, but it has a flaw in its methodology. It assumes that every voter thinks that the current span is the maximum that copyright terms should ever be: that is, it assumes that every voter wants a span of liftetime of the creator plus 70 years, or some amount less than that.

That's certainly not what Disney wants, and there's no way from these poll results to assess if anyone here feels that a longer span is the way to go (indeed, if one choice is copyright should be abolished, another should be that copyright is permanent and never expires).

I'm not advocating for any particular position here, but my mother the statistician would spank me if I didn't point out the inherent bias in the way the question is phrased.

I'll admit I didn't think of that one.

That said, one of the reason Disney hasn't been able to have such a thing passed is that nobody in their right mind would consider it reasonable, I think.

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Well, I wouldn't expect that anyone would have voter for NO copyright protection at all either. But it happened.

BOb

Contrary to the infinite duration copyright idea, it has live examples.

And there are people who are beginning to get pretty pissed at what has been happening with the copyright's owners lately...


Interesting point, ever since there's been more than 10 votes, the ratio has mostly stayed the same:
- 1/3 is in favor of a copyright duration that goes up to or beyond the death of the author
- 2/3 wants to put a hard limit on it.

I assume of course the later are not thinking X or death of the authors, whichever is the longest.
Personnaly, I'd settle for X or death of the author, whichever is the shortest.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Trenien

Personnaly, I'd settle for X or death of the author, whichever is the shortest.

I just don't think that will fly. If you publish and die a year later, the publishers won't have the exclusive anymore... I don't expect they want that to happen. Especially for Steven Kink, JK Rawling and some of the other prolific witter's publishers.

BOb

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Trenien

I assume of course the later are not thinking X or death of the authors, whichever is the longest.
Personnaly, I'd settle for X or death of the author, whichever is the shortest.

I'd be ok with that too. But I'm ok with a fixed limit regardless of the lifespan of the author, and I think it would be a lot easier to administer and check.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

It's an interesting poll topic, but it has a flaw in its methodology. It assumes that every voter thinks that the current span is the maximum that copyright terms should ever be: that is, it assumes that every voter wants a span of liftetime of the creator plus 70 years, or some amount less than that.

That's certainly not what Disney wants, and there's no way from these poll results to assess if anyone here feels that a longer span is the way to go (indeed, if one choice is copyright should be abolished, another should be that copyright is permanent and never expires).

Quite so, and it's a bit pointless in practical terms. It's not like discussions here will actually affect decisions as to length of copyright.

But DisneyCo is trying to make sure Mickey and friends never become public domain. I can't blame them for wanting that outcome, but I'm deeply unhappy about the side effects.

The simple solution from my view is two forms of copyright. Copyright as stands is for the author's like plus X number of years, and the concept was devised back before corporations generally held such rights. It's fine for rights held by individual creators. But Disney is a corporation, and won't die in that sense. I'd say rights held by a legal entity like Disney need to be treated differently than rights held by an individual.

As far as I'm concerned, Disney can have the rights to Mickey and friends in perpetuity, if in the process other forms of rights are not altered.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Format C:

What you propose is: we have an aristocracy who has the right to have money just because they married (or were generated from) the right one, and the rest of the people who won't.

I don't like it at all.

It's called "inheritance", and the right to pass along property you have accumulated to your designated heirs when you die.

You dislike that?
______
Dennis

[Utahcowboy]

Having copyright last longer than the life of the author only benefits one person... the publisher. Considering the fairly recent fiasco between John Steinbeck's family and Penguin books, it is clear that the publisher nor the terms of copyright ever have the continuing family in mind. Authors never know what kind of sales they will do nor what kind of impact their writings will have, and in the case of Steinbeck, his books should be free to have, learn from, and enjoy. Publishers are just greedy and I am sure that they had a lot to do with the current law on copyright. However, during an authors life time, I think it is his right as the artist and creator to sap every penny he or she can out of what they created. As far as the authors descendants are concerned, if the author was successful, then they will happily inherit their estate, if the author was not then having the copyright wouldn't benefit them anyway. Besides they weren't the ones who wrote the book so they don't deserve the copyright anyway.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Utahcowboy

Having copyright last longer than the life of the author only benefits one person... the publisher. Considering the fairly recent fiasco between John Steinbeck's family and Penguin books, it is clear that the publisher nor the terms of copyright ever have the continuing family in mind. Authors never know what kind of sales they will do nor what kind of impact their writings will have, and in the case of Steinbeck, his books should be free to have, learn from, and enjoy. Publishers are just greedy and I am sure that they had a lot to do with the current law on copyright. However, during an authors life time, I think it is his right as the artist and creator to sap every penny he or she can out of what they created. As far as the authors descendants are concerned, if the author was successful, then they will happily inherit their estate, if the author was not then having the copyright wouldn't benefit them anyway. Besides they weren't the ones who wrote the book so they don't deserve the copyright anyway.

Bull.

Intellectual property is still property, and can have value. As such, it's something that can be legitimately passed on to designated heirs in a will.

A copyright that extends beyond the author's lifetime is something that can be passed to the heirs. It may have current value, in terms of continuing royalties from books in print. It may have potential value, in that it may be possible to resell the work(s) to another publisher in a new edition.

And as far as the author being successful and the heirs happily inheriting the estate, define "successful". For every internationally bestselling author who becomes rich and famous, there are a thousand who make a living at best. Copyrights may be one of the few things of value in the estate to pass along.

Publishers are often greedy, but the Steinbeck case is not typical. the problem is that many famous older works were published under contracts which no savvy writer would accept now. And the law is racing to catch up in any case. For instance, there was a spat between (I believe) Random House and Rosetta a while back, over a bunch of books which had been written and contracted for long before digital publishing was a gleam in anyone's eye. There was no mention of ebook rights in the contracts. The publisher still had the books under valid contract, but did the contract cover electronic editions?

Nowadays, ebook rights are one of the things specifically covered in a publishing contract, and what "Out of print" means is now generally a combination of the paper volumes no longer in print, plus low ebook and Print On Demand sales as evidence that the publisher has lost interest and the rights should revert.
______
Dennis

[axel77]

I think in this whole discussion the same "misconceivness" is done as when people arguing about patent laws. The discussions go a long of the poor little genius, that does in his attic/garage cool things, and that must be protected by the law. While reactually in reality large companies are using this little-man-protection laws to extend their sphere of control. Any death+X clause oversees that most "worthwhile" copyright things are group/company works today. The same misconceivness in patentlaw, where companies are creating hugh "nuclear arsenals of patents" where they could sue anybody in the same field of work into ground, and thus have not to worry about any others patents themselves, as it is between the big players "mutually assured destruction", and thus both can live happily next to each other, on the expense of the little mans.

People just like to go with extreme pictures, as if they are mottos for their way. I know this is offtopic here, but recently I watched a TV-discussions about cars in the inner city (vienna), while the pro people always used mental pictures of the poor little disabled, who just needs his car to anywhere. That moment I just so much wanted to be there to ask, are all this people who I see every morning in a traffic jam behind their windscreens disabled?

[LazyScot]

I'd love to have this poll split down by (published?) authors and non-authors. I think that might surprise us -- I wonder if there is anyone from the Society of Authors (or the non-UK equivalents) hereabouts.

Like most, each month I have to pay a fair amount for the house I live in (bear with me here, please!). Now it is possible that the builder/architect/... is/are dead. Does that mean I don't have to pay for the house? Does the house become public domain? So some artefacts maintain value after the creator dies, and we see no problem with this. If we invest all the value solely in the physical instance, and nothing in its creation, then we have no motivation of innovation, creation, science, technology, ...

I know some authors (likes of Rowling, Rankin, McCall Smith, Banks, ...) earn a reasonable living from their writing; I suspect a lot earn sums that are not so much below the minimum wage as possibly measured in the range 10 cents/hour/year of copyright. The only way they can extract a decent living is by being able to gain revenues from their work for a long time, and hoping that as they build up a portfolio of books, they "cross-sell" themselves. And this means they need a very long copyright -- at the least until their death.

Pragmatically, the publishers also have an interest in keeping the rights (as mentioned earlier by pilotbob, and probably others). And I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some certainity for them. This argument is many hundreds of years old, and I think the arguments for a reasonable copyright are as strong as they ever where. Just because some people might be abusing copyright, doesn't make it wrong.

And as I understand it, there is nothing preventing someone waving copyright (Creative Commons?) or making their content freely available (i.e. still copyrighted, but no-one need pay for it).

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Intellectual property is still property

You've fallen for the "Intellectual property" propaganda.

"Intellectual property" isn't, never has been, never will be, property.

Period.

"Intellectual property" does not exist. It's simply a term created by those who would like ideas to be able to be owned and want people to start believing that ideas can be owned.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

A copyright that extends beyond the author's lifetime is something that can be passed to the heirs.

A copyright is a government granted right given to the author. The heirs have no legitimate claim to a work created by an ancestor.

[pshrynk]

Well, my Irish ancestors were really good at drinking a lot and then getting into fights. Mostly with English. Now, my cousins and I engage in that internecine warfare all the time by getting drunk and getting into bloody rows with one another. Damn those grandparents who inter-married!

Or was that what you meant by that?