Duration of copyright poll.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

I have no problem recognizing that copyright and property right are different.

Both are social inventions to faciliate production.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

Wikipedia has a nice definition that suits me - at least as far as the discussion on this topic.

Okay. Think of ideas as "intangible personal property".
______
Dennis

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Only physical works are property? Things that exist as concepts don't have a value and can't be owned?

Oh, dear.

Copyrights are like patents. They grow out of a recognition that creativity and innovation are necessary, and attempt to encourage that by providing the creators and innovators with an exclusive right to the proceeds of their work for a set duration. They explicitly recognize that ideas are property with a value.

Oh dear, indeed.
What the copyright laws recognise is that ideas have a value to society and as such society ought to find a way to reward those producing them. So far, the Western way of doing so has been through copyright (monopoly over the right to sell the idea), thought as the best compromise between the inherent evilness of monopoly and efficiency.
You'll note that nowhere in there is copyright defined as property.

How great the value is is another matter: ultimately, something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it, and having an exclusive right to something is no guarantee you'll be able to sell it.

But ultimately, people work for their own benefit, and lots of law revolves around ensuring that people do benefit from their work.

Should you come up with an idea that might have value and turned into something that can make money, you might have a different attitude on the matter.

Maybe. Fortunately, although the voice of authors and other beneficiaries from these laws can be heard, they do not have the power to directly influence the way the laws are written. That is done by much cooler and wiser people, who only have the benefit of society as a whole at heart.
Oh! Wait...

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by axel77

Both "property" and "intelectual" are social constructs. Both don't exist in this universe as any observeable facts. With the same argument you say there is no "intellectual property" you can say, there is generally no "property" at all.

The reason "property is associated with physical objects is that you can hold these in your hand (those too heavy notwithstanding).

In other words, to take my laptop, you'll have to pry it from my fingers. Once you do so, I won't have it anymore.

Intellectual production, on the other hand, can be had by as many people as you think of without diminishing what each of them possesses/knows.
Hence it isn't "property"

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Okay. Think of ideas as "intangible personal property".

Nope. Doesn't work.

If you have "intangible personal property" in the form of a security, for example. I cannot have it as well. If I acquire it, you lose it.

If you have an idea, and I acquire it, you do not lose that idea.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by axel77

I agree, even with "real property" its no "inherent right", but property a usefull idea which allowed human settlements to work. That those who cared of field and cattle are those who are entitled to "harvest" them... otherwise nobody would be encouraged to care for them until harvesting season. If its one thing anthropology showed us, is that "close-nature" societies often don't even know of the concept of property, especially if it are hunting societies not doing field work.

Yes I quoted myself to rebring this into the discussion. Even for physical things, there is nothing on them that makes them "property" to yours, but only social rules of other thinking its your property and working that way. Inventing "property" just made things work, that didn't do well wihout. Why should copyright be so different, as to treat it as a social invention.

I agree however that copyright is no "natural" right given to anybody.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

If you have "intangible personal property" in the form of a security, for example. I cannot have it as well. If I acquire it, you lose it.

Huh? Security is usually in economy one of the cases in point of a public good. That is you benefit from it, and cannot be stopped to benefit from it even when you don't want to be part of it and pay for it, say if the police checks your street regulary.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

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

No. It's not that.
I'm not preventing the author's son from getting the house, the bank account, and the car when daddy dies.

Simply he won't become the author of daddy's book when it happens...
And that's exactly what you'll obtain if you give him daddy's "rights" on the book.

Doctor's son won't be a doctor by birth.
So, why writer's son has to live as an author if he's not?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by 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, ...

That architect of yours has been allowed to build an house by the first Neanderthal man who built an house for the first time around 20.000 BC?
Or did he just stole other's Intellectual Property?

Have you got permission to publish a post about that house from the IP owner?

When you bought it, did you got the right to photograph it, or there's an extra amount to be paid for that?

Do the license permit you to show that house (whose design is architect's property) to other people? Or you have to blind every guest passing by?



Your house is not public domain. The idea to put a roof over four walls is. See the difference?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

They explicitly recognize that ideas are property with a value.

This sentence is now in my head.
I own my head, I'm pretty sure about it.
So, now I'm actually owing that sentence you wrote.

Am I a thief or something?
And what if you, as the legitimate owner of that idea, don't want it to be in my head?
Should I break my skull to take it out?

Please, tell me.

[axel77]

Originally Posted by axel77

Eitherway if the ancestor author makes money with copyrighted work during his life, they heirs sure have a right to claim that money. Now where to draw the line, just because he is dead? I mean how about the ancestor author being in deep comatose for years? Does he still get the money for his book and can bequeath it to his heirs until they turn of the machines?

Wouldn't this be an extremely paradox situation created by law?

Format C: please elaborate on this question.

[Jellby]

For most physical items, we pay the creator/manufacturer once and for all, no matter how successful the item is, how many people benefit from it (or whether anyone at all benefits), the amount of happines it brings, or whatever. Someone makes a table, you buy the table, the carpenter gets paid a (hopefully) fair amount for his work and everyone is happy. You can use the table in your birthday parties and pass it to your children, or you can store it in a cellar and never use it, but that doesn't change the amount you paid to the carpenter, and wheter he is alive or dead doesn't change anything either.

The problem with copyright is we expect people to be paid more or less depending on the success their creations find. From a writer's perspective, it would be perfectly fair if a publisher paid him a fixed amount for writing a book. He's done the work, he gets paid, what's the problem? Of course, if the book sells exceptionally well and movies are made and many people makes lots of money, he may think that's not fair, but if he agreed on the terms at the beginning I don't think he should complain...

(Still, the "problem" of copyright would be shifted to the publisher, though...)

[axel77]

Originally Posted by Jellby

For most physical items, we pay the creator/manufacturer once and for all, no matter how successful the item is, how many people benefit from it (or whether anyone at all benefits), the amount of happines it brings, or whatever. Someone makes a table, you buy the table, the carpenter gets paid a (hopefully) fair amount for his work and everyone is happy. You can use the table in your birthday parties and pass it to your children, or you can store it in a cellar and never use it, but that doesn't change the amount you paid to the carpenter, and wheter he is alive or dead doesn't change anything either.

The problem with copyright is we expect people to be paid more or less depending on the success their creations find. From a writer's perspective, it would be perfectly fair if a publisher paid him a fixed amount for writing a book. He's done the work, he gets paid, what's the problem? Of course, if the book sells exceptionally well and movies are made and many people makes lots of money, he may think that's not fair, but if he agreed on the terms at the beginning I don't think he should complain...

(Still, the "problem" of copyright would be shifted to the publisher, though...)

I pay my landlord every month for my flat... but the building was only built once.

As far as I see, copyright does not say if payment should be once and for all, or continously. Its the authors choice what to go for. Just as physical property the owner can chose between selling and renting. Even there you can also "lease", that is in some conditions you pay just for using it, altough not even temporary in your ownership.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Format C:

No. It's not that.
I'm not preventing the author's son from getting the house, the bank account, and the car when daddy dies.

Simply he won't become the author of daddy's book when it happens...
And that's exactly what you'll obtain if you give him daddy's "rights" on the book.

Doctor's son won't be a doctor by birth.
So, why writer's son has to live as an author if he's not?

Passing along copyright doesn't make son the author. It simply passes along the rights to any earnings from the book while the rights last.

Whether or not son becomes an author is up to son. But you agree son can inherit the bank account. With copyright inherited, he gets income earned by Dad's books that go into the bank account.

If Dad has currently selling titles generating royalties when he dies, what happens to the money? If copyright ends upon the author's death, son doesn't get it. The publisher keeps it. Is that what you prefer?
______
Dennis

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Passing along copyright doesn't make son the author.

Copyright is granted to the author. So by passing on the copyright to the son, you are granting a non-author the rights of an author. In effect, you are making the son the author.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

It simply passes along the rights to any earnings from the book while the rights last.

Ah, no. It passes on the potential earnings from the book.

When the father dies, does the company he works for pay the son the salary the father would have made had the father lived?

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

But you agree son can inherit the bank account. With copyright inherited, he gets income earned by Dad's books that go into the bank account.

You are still confused between copyright and property right.