How long should a copyright last?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

As to the objection that we can't shorten a period (life+50) after the convention is signed, if we can lengthen it as was done recently for music, then I think we can shorten it.

It was lengthened in countries where a minority of the world's people live. That minority is, AFAIK, free to go back to the most common standard, Life + 50.

In 1994, a different trade agreement was agreed to by 123 nations. So one can't rule out the equivalent of a new Berne Convention that all populous nations buy into.

Consider, however, that any such agreement would be a compromise. Suppose the compromise was stricter enforcement of a shorter copyright period. This might not be really popular on the internet. I'm thinking that the more pro-business parts of the compromise would get enormous negative publicity, scuttling the whole. Free speech issues might also get into the mix in an unattractive way. So while I'm not wholly against a new Berne Convention, I think the alternative of rolling back to Life + 50, one nation at a time, is closer to being a realistic reform. And I'm against rich countries unilaterally reducing the copyright term of developing nation authors, something the more radical plans in this thread sound like to me.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

In 1994, a different trade agreement was agreed to by 123 nations. So one can't rule out the equivalent of a new Berne Convention that all populous nations buy into.

It doesn't even require that. The Berne Convention is binding on the US only because the US Congress says it is. We can remove ourselves from it just as easily as we joined it-although removing ourselves might be more expensive (in terms of international relations at least).

Don't take this as advocating that the US 'go it alone' but do realize that international treaties aren't actually enforceable yet.

[crich70]

Life + 50 years sounds like a good choice.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

Except in the special case of a non-renewable resource (clearly not applicable here), monopolies are always a bad thing. This is why monopolies and market power tend to be subjected to government regulation. Sometimes however they are a necessary evil (e.g. because a market is a ntural monopoly, or as is the case here, because some sort monopoly is necessary to create investment).

NO. The monopoly covers all works not covered by some 'copy left' license. This is why there are so much fewer books from after the lengthening of copyright available today compared to before it was lengthened. This is part of the dead-weight loss, and happens regardless of whether there is one big monopoly or thousands of small ones. In fact it could actually be worse under thousands of little ones, due to the search costs of finding which tiny monopoly to license from.

You are grouping everything that is covered by copyright as one huge monopoly - which is a very strange definition that would appear to cover absolutely everything. "Oh yes, it's a monopoly that's run by millions of independent people selling their own thing independently, getting paid separately and competing with one another for sales." Are you sure that matches the dictionary definition?

In fact, what copyright right does is create a vast number of tiny monopolies. Each individual item covered by copyright is its own separate monopoly that has no impact on any of the other monopolies, nor on anyone else's right to create their own monopoly by creating their own original work.

But you are right about so many copyright monopolies carrying its own cost. One of the reasons why copyright is structured as it is (automatic and of some defined duration), is to make it self-tracking as far as possible. The system is not perfect (copyright ownership becoming lost etc.), but registration systems in the past have not been perfect either. Publishers these days are required to submit a copy of published works to relevant state and/or federal libraries, and while this is not a registration system as such, it does mean that there is less chance of works being completely lost.

Originally Posted by Hrafn

I take leave to doubt that, after two or more decades of writing, many authors are making a decisively significant proportion of their royalties from earlier decades. [...]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if that opinion is not substantiated by research or experience. There are a great many different situations, from books that sell in huge numbers when they first came out, to books that may not be recognised for years, to some that are part of a much longer spread of interest. For example The Game of Thrones is not far off twenty years old now (and he's been writing the series for over twenty years), and the series isn't even finished yet.

(I've said this before, but not yet had a satisfying answer: ) I find it difficult to see the demands for brief copyright as anything more than some strange idea that we are somehow entitled to these things for nothing, and I wonder where that sense of entitlement comes from. I am pleased to be able to pick up copies of books by Charles Dickens (for example) that I didn't already have on my shelf, but to me this is like some sort of bonus, I don't feel as though I have some sort of natural right to it.

[crossi]

As for the Berne and other conventions I see no reason while after signing such a convention as times change or experience shows it was a bad decision that a nation should be stuck with it forever. I really prefer that such conventions are never signed in the first place. I see no need for every country to try to force others to all be the same in areas when there is no pressing need like civil liberties, mutual defense and the like.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by crossi

As for the Berne and other conventions I see no reason while after signing such a convention as times change or experience shows it was a bad decision that a nation should be stuck with it forever. I really prefer that such conventions are never signed in the first place. I see no need for every country to try to force others to all be the same in areas when there is no pressing need like civil liberties, mutual defense and the like.

Myself, I'd prefer there were an international authority that actually could enforce international treaties. The fact that there isn't is all that lets nations renege on agreements-if you do that personally the other party(ies) can appeal to the government which will either force you to uphold your end or punish you for failing to do so. I guess what we need is a world government but I just don't see that becoming reality in my lifetime.

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by gmw

For example The Game of Thrones is not far off twenty years old now (and he's been writing the series for over twenty years), and the series isn't even finished yet.

The Game of Thrones is a TV series. A Song of Ice and Fire is the book series. The first book in the series is titled A Game of Thrones. It is 17 years old, and ranks only #1,002 at Amazon. The latest, A Dance with Dragons, now two years old, ranks #81. guess which one contributes the vast majority of George R. R. Martin's royalties? As I said above:

Originally Posted by Hrafn

To put it another way, to sell your back-catalog, you've got to keep yourself in public view, and the main way to do that is to publish a new book that sells quite well. But if you can do that, the question has to be do you really still need the monopoly on the earliest parts of your back catalog?

You are grouping everything that is covered by copyright as one huge monopoly - which is a very strange definition that would appear to cover absolutely everything. "Oh yes, it's a monopoly that's run by millions of independent people selling their own thing independently, getting paid separately and competing with one another for sales." Are you sure that matches the dictionary definition?

You keep harping on about a difference that makes no difference! The fact that " it's a monopoly that's run by millions of independent people selling their own thing independently" makes little or no economic difference. In economic language, books are highly imperfect substitutes for each other, and therefore impose very little competitive pressure on each other. What matters is that nearly all books are subject to this monopoly system.

One of the reasons why copyright is structured as it is (automatic and of some defined duration), is to make it self-tracking as far as possible. The system is not perfect (copyright ownership becoming lost etc.), but registration systems in the past have not been perfect either. Publishers these days are required to submit a copy of published works to relevant state and/or federal libraries, and while this is not a registration system as such, it does mean that there is less chance of works being completely lost.

"Self-tracking"?

Please explain to me how the fact that a copy of a book is kept in some state or federal library somewhere (assuming of course that the publisher did what they were "required") enables a would-be licensee 50+ years hence to track down the copyright owner? Orphaned copyrights, and the legal risks they impose on potential republishers are a massive cost that the current system, with its overly-long copyright period and non-existent responsibilities to retain copyright ownership, imposes upon the economy. As a physical analogy, if you abandoned a bicycle 20 years ago, could you expect it to still be there, and sue anybody who you discovered was now riding it?

Why should we care that copyright enables so many more books to be written, if it also means that we can't buy a copy of many (most?) of them?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by crossi

As for the Berne and other conventions I see no reason while after signing such a convention as times change or experience shows it was a bad decision that a nation should be stuck with it forever. I really prefer that such conventions are never signed in the first place. I see no need for every country to try to force others to all be the same in areas when there is no pressing need like civil liberties, mutual defense and the like.

You misunderstand the Berne Convention; it doesn't "force others to all be the same". What it does is to grant foreign copyright holders the same rights in each country as citizens of that country have. Eg, it grants US authors the same intellectual property rights in the UK that UK citizens have, the same rights in France that French citizens have, etc. It does not mean that those rights have to be same in every country (and, indeed, they aren't).

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

The Game of Thrones is a TV series. A Song of Ice and Fire is the book series. The first book in the series is titled A Game of Thrones. It is 17 years old, and ranks only #1,002 at Amazon. The latest, A Dance with Dragons, now two years old, ranks #81. guess which one contributes the vast majority of George R. R. Martin's royalties? As I said above:

Did you think to check out the box set? Currently ranks at #44. That's not too shabby.

Originally Posted by Hrafn

You keep harping on about a difference that makes no difference! [...]

This is not the place for an economics course, if you can't see the difference for yourself then there is little I can do for you, I'm sorry.

Originally Posted by Hrafn

[...]Why should we care that copyright enables so many more books to be written, if it also means that we can't buy a copy of many (most?) of them?

But that's not really the point of limiting copyright is it? You aren't going to completely solve the lost copyright owner problem even if you drop the length down to just a couple of years, and a couple of decades is more than enough time to lose many owners. Tracking copyright ownership is a separate issue to the length of copyright.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by crossi

I see no need for every country to try to force others to all be the same in areas when there is no pressing need like civil liberties, mutual defense and the like.

This no longer applies in the same way because of eBooks. Suppose that the US copyright term was set at thirty years. Then www.gutenberg.org would quickly put up loads of popular books by living British authors. It seems to me that this would result in a unilateral reduction of copyright not just in the US, but in all English-speaking countries.

Project Gutenberg could put up a notice saying that visitors should consult their national copyright laws, but they wouldn't have to, and I don't think such notices are effective. Lots of Europeans who would never go to something like Pirate Bay would keep on freely downloading from Project Gutenberg, making profitable sale of those eBooks almost impossible.

The US is in a different situation here than most countries. New Zealand going to a thirty year copyright might not greatly harm foreign authors. But a low US copyright period would effectively force the same for English language literature worldwide.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

This no longer applies in the same way because of eBooks. Suppose that the US copyright term was set at thirty years. Then www.gutenberg.org would quickly put up loads of popular books by living British authors. It seems to me that this would result in a unilateral reduction of copyright not just in the US, but in all English-speaking countries.

Project Gutenberg could put up a notice saying that visitors should consult their national copyright laws, but they wouldn't have to, and I don't think such notices are effective. Lots of Europeans who would never go to something like Pirate Bay would keep on freely downloading from Project Gutenberg, making profitable sale of those eBooks almost impossible.

The US is in a different situation here than most countries. New Zealand going to a thirty year copyright might not greatly harm foreign authors. But a low US copyright period would effectively force the same for English language literature worldwide.

You have a point, but.

Are we to believe that authors would be saying to themselves " I guess I better not write another book, if I'm only going to collect on it for thirty years."

Luck;
Ken

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

You have a point, but.

Are we to believe that authors would be saying to themselves " I guess I better not write another book, if I'm only going to collect on it for thirty years."

Luck;
Ken

Are you saying that some won't? A few authors, painters etc. have only gained popularity long after their death. Some even because of their death. They have had no time to profit from their work, and their families have had no benefit either.

I have a question for all.

How many have been waiting impatiently for 29 years for a specific work to become public domain. And why have you been waiting? If for example the book cost $100 in 1983, and you saved a nickel a day, you could buy it in under 5.5 years. A quarter a day in slightly over a year. If the book cost 6.95 which was typical, in just over 2 years a penny a day would do it. I guess I lack the mental stamina and innate thriftiness needed to wait 30 years to save a penny or even a quarter a day so 50 would seem no different.

Helen

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

How many have been waiting impatiently for 29 years for a specific work to become public domain. And why have you been waiting? If for example the book cost $100 in 1983, and you saved a nickel a day, you could buy it in under 5.5 years. A quarter a day in slightly over a year. If the book cost 6.95 which was typical, in just over 2 years a penny a day would do it. I guess I lack the mental stamina and innate thriftiness needed to wait 30 years to save a penny or even a quarter a day so 50 would seem no different.

Helen

Most of the works that I want to see in the public domain are unavailable. They sit languishing.

I don't like the "only a penny a day" argument. My income is severely limited. $100 is $100. Even Bill Gates does not have an unlimited supply of pennies.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Seriously--and I don't mean to be offensive when I ask this--but, sez who? (Yes, I know I'll catch crap for this post, but, what the hell. In for a penny...)

This is one of those "truisms" that has always boggled me. That art should be created for the love of it, and not for filthy lucre. That any art created purely for filthy lucre is somehow inferior to, or besmirched by, any thought of monetary gain or compensation. What complete and utter old bollocks! (Katsunami: this isn't directed at you, but please do give it some thought).

I personally blame the early Christian/Catholic Church for perpetrating this silliness. The Church, always seeking to get the most for nothing, convinced thousands upon thousands of laborers and artisans to "donate" their services for early churches, cathedrals, and the like, for "the glory of God." So that they were buying their way into the Kingdom of Heaven with the sweat from their brow, instead of asking the Church to actually <gasp!> pay for their work. I truly think that this is to whence you can trace back this idea that art for the sake of art, (which originally existed in large part only in churches, and for the glory thereof) is somehow better than art for MONEY.

But let's look at all the artists we have apotheosed to the top steps of our admiration staircase today--Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Turner, Picasso, and, let's not forget, Ansel Adams, just for fun--all of whom worked for commissions, payment, and....da-dum, MONEY. Turner didn't die impoverished. Nor did Adams, right?

And what do we mean when we say, "starving artist?" Don't we really mean...failed artist? Perhaps on a nice day, we mean, "artist whose talent hasn't yet been recognized," when we're in a kind mood...but when I hear people say, starving artist, or would-be author, they don't mean it kindly. They mean, wanna-be. Well, if a wanna-be means, isn't yet, and you have a studio full of watercolors or a computer full of books, and people think that means, wanna-be, then that means that a person who has surpassed "wanna-be" is commercially recognized.

So, in short: WHO SAYS that art created for art's sake is somehow better than that which is created upon commission? Most of the works in Rome were created for money or for Papal favor (which = cash, back then). Much of what's in the Louvre was completed to be SOLD for money. What's the proof of that theorem, really?

The only argument I can see for this, at all, is if that one takes a commission to paint someone's daughter or wife, (or husband, let's not be sexist here) and does it accurately and competently, and makes him/her look like a beast, well...yes. Compromise may well be required. And when you work in a strictly-commercial environment, like an Ad Agency, you have to do what the client likes/wants/works to sell their product. But, those are specific cases. The idea that art for the love of it is somehow superior to art done for money seems pretty thoroughly disproven, if you look at what we consider to be art today, on all fronts. Whether written (Joyce serialized Ulysses in publication), sculpture, watercolors, modern interpretive dance (do you all think that the dancers in those companies are dancing for free, or the choreographer is working for free?), the idea itself doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

Moreover, I think this does a disservice to the artist. The argument below:



...essentially says, "what you do for art is not work." It's not labor. That, somehow, it's fun and thence, all the sweat and labor and study and effort that went into becoming a brilliant painter, or a great writer (the infamous 10,000 hours) may be freely discounted, and ignored. That because it's art, the artist didn't really work, and therefore, should be happy as an unpaid hobbyist.

I mean...what kind of thinking is this?

When I read a piece of literary fiction, or even genre fiction, I know damned well that somebody sat at their computer, pen and pad, whatever, for a year or two or 10, and WORKED at writing that. Simply because I choose to read their labor for entertainment doesn't mean that they didn't work at it. If one plays video games, do you assume that all those game designers--who are artists in their own right--did it for love, and shouldn't be compensated, either?

Honestly, this mindset seems to be cognitive dissonance. Art is something high and wondrous and noble, that should only be attempted or achieved for the love of it, but at the same time, it's ONLY art, created with time, and therefore, unworthy of being considered labor, and the work put into creating it has no value. Hunh? Do you think the same about programmers, lawyers, accountants, and other professions that sell their time by the hour?

People seem to be viewing copyright issues as some "constraint" to prevent (these same evilly capitalistic, but simultaneously nobly artistic) authors from "profiting" (gods forbid, crass filthy lucre) from their labors for "too long," too long being determined by the poster, and seemingly based on some type of worthiness standard. To the contrary--copyright exists to encourage these artists to create, so that they are rewarded for their labors; so that their labors are not taken and used/viewed/sold without compensation to the artist who created them.

And the "too long standard" seems to be established by the mere convenience of the person who thinks that the works are valuable enough to entertain, enlighten or enrich him or her...but not valuable enough to pay for that entertainment, enlightenment or enrichment. And certainly not enough to allow an artist's family or children to enjoy the fruits of his labor! Oh, no...for that, he should get a REAL job, so that his earnings aren't taken from his family when he dies. Silly bastard, why should he have the same rights as everyone else? He's only an artist, after all. Obviously, as we can see here from these discussions, indirectly opined by so many, that's not a "real" job.

I would seriously love to see the arguments here all in favor of taking an electrican's life savings away from his family when he died. Or an accountant's. Or anyone else's--particularly your OWN. You'd never even consider it. In short--you're simply arguing that artists belong to some lesser class of people, some subset that don't deserve to earn and keep their earnings like everyone else. And it's only being argued because some of you want faster access, at no cost, to the products of their artistic lifetimes. That's the real irony.

Hitch

Art for art's sake....I don't think that is quite the issue. The issue is that in any creative endevor, most of the time people will fail. You can sneer and call the failures wanna-bees, but the fact is only a few people of any artistic endevor are commercial sucessful. And of those, a rare one will be come a mega-success. The right place, the right time, the right product....Try hitting that triple bullseye.

And it has nothing to do with skill or quality. Sorry, not true. I've seen master artists have their works ignored, and I've seen pig slop become a runaway success.

The point about art for art's sake in cold-bloodedly blunt. You had better enjoy doing it for it's own sake, because the odds are massively against you making a comfortable living off of it. You can't just look at the sucesses, just like you can't trade a stock chart out of the middle. Van Gogh was a failed artist in his lifetime. Nobody had even heard of Emily Dickinson in her lifetime. H P Lovecraft invented the modern horror genre, and lived and died in abject poverty. E.E.Smith PH.D. invented space opera, and bluntly said that he made more money laying bricks that he did writing. Bad quality? His works stayed in print from the late 1950's for nearly 50 years in paperback. (He died in 1965.) Frank Herbert almost never got Dune published in the 1960's. Would he have been a wanna-bee if it hadn't got published?


As to money and copyright....Follow the money. Who gets most of it? The artist? Shucks no, the middleman gets it. Whether that middle man is a Hollywood Studio, a Music Label, or a Publishing Company, they get most of the money. And being Corporations, they insist that they deserve every possible dime that can be milked from these copyrights - forever. Sure they'll throw the few alms they are required to the artist and/or heirs, but make no mistake, they don't give a D.R.A. about the artists in question. The art's just something to flog...And the artist's cut is just a tax, a tax they don't even have to pay if they don't exploit it. You can't get a sweeter deal than that - if you are a middleman.

But the whole copyright deal was based on the <public>, not the creator, granting the limited monopoly to encourage more creation of copyright items (art). The question is - how long is the optimum length to encourage more creation? Not grant a perpetual source of income for Corporation, not to feed the widow(er), the grandkids, or the great-great-great grandkids of the artist. But to encourage the artist to create more?

And the ultimate point about encouraging the the creator - dead creators don't create.

The historical record shows that a 56 year copyright is adequate to produce the necessary incentive. And I can use the period from 1909 to 1976, as an example of all the art that was created under the 56 copyright. If certain artworks were not created under these terms, because they were too short, I cannot see the gain later on by extending the copyright in the post 1976 era. Now There may be arguements for somewhat longer, and maybe a little shorter (McCauley favored 42 years), but continually extending copyright does nothing but enrich the middlemen. It is even contraproductive, as it merely provides incentives to milk old material, rather than create new material...

RSE

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

[...]As to money and copyright....Follow the money. Who gets most of it? The artist? Shucks no, the middleman gets it.[... snipped for brevity, you can read the rest above ...]

To a certain extent I agree with you, it's the middlemen (the publishers, the printers, the distributors), that get most of the money. BUT ... drop the copyright and what exactly changes? All you're left with are the middlemen, and you can be sure at least some of them will continue to find ways to make sure they continue to get paid.

For many years to come there will continue be print books, so publishers and printers will continue to earn. For ebooks you only have to look at existing Internet business practices to see that such middlemen continue to make money. When you drop the copyright the main one you're actually making a long term difference to is the creator.