UK Copyright Law - more stuff freed & available.

[pdurrant]

Note that this is a worth-while but very minor relaxation.

* A licence is required (from the UK Government)
* Getting a licence costs at least an application fee
* The licence only applies in the UK
* The licence only applies to the person who takes it out.

[Mike L]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

If rights holders do come forward, they should be compensated for future use, not past use. Where were they and why didn't they come forward earlier?

It's not a question of "not coming forward". We're talking about cases where nobody showed any interest in the work for years and decades; and now a historian or museum wishes to publish it. Why would the rights-holders have "come forward" before? Where would they have "come forward" to?

Mike

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Mike L

It's not a question of "not coming forward". We're talking about cases where nobody showed any interest in the work for years and decades; and now a historian or museum wishes to publish it. Why would the rights-holders have "come forward" before? Where would they have "come forward" to?

Mike

The point was that nobody knew who the rights holders were; so they had no way of contacting them to get the necessary permissions.

[Catlady]

This illustrates why a system whereby copyright would need to be renewed every X number of years after the death of the author would be beneficial.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ApK

So is real estate, so is chattle, and, likely, so is property.


Just like "deeds" are used to give that impression about places on the Earth.

All "property ownership" is an artificial construct of our society. There is an argument to made that aside from our bodies, our ideas and thoughts are the only things that we CAN truly own.

IP is no different and every bit as valid as the made-up notion that passing someone little slips of green paper creates a transfer of property ownership when you buy a thing in store.


Misframes it in this case. Use words to convey meaning. Don't try to impose meaning that isn't there by intentionally picking a wrong word, or to try to dismiss meaning that is there by refusing to use the right word.

You do that as rhetoric to persuade, not as the foundation for your argument.

Our society calls it intellectual property and has laws concerning it.
It is so.
Get over it.

So what you are saying is "we stole this fair and square, it's ours now!" Sorry, a simple refusal to address the distinctions between copyright and actual property and saying "get over it" doesn't mean that you are right, it just means that you are unwilling to engage in a honest discussion.

Barter has been around for thousands of years. Those little green pieces of paper are simply chits that are accepted by common usage. The idea of Intellectual Property as it is currently used, only dates back to the 60's and 70's (roughly the time when copyright went from being the limited time government granted monopoly to an infinite property right), though the idea of copyright and patents go back hundreds of years. We forget that until fairly recently, patents were only granted for things that could be made and copyright was 28 years.

[trainboy]

I believe always informative @infodocket shared this info about orphan works in the UK yesteday.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-a-licen...an-orphan-work

g

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Catlady

This illustrates why a system whereby copyright would need to be renewed every X number of years after the death of the author would be beneficial.

My favorite is that after the initial short term copyright expires, the copyright holder has to renew every year. However, I understand how that could be quite burdensome for an author who has a number of books under copyright. I also think that copyrights past the initial granting should require that the work remain publicly available and that fees should be tied to the price of the work.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

So what you are saying is "we stole this fair and square, it's ours now!" Sorry, a simple refusal to address the distinctions between copyright and actual property and saying "get over it" doesn't mean that you are right, it just means that you are unwilling to engage in a honest discussion.

No, it means address the distinctions. Don't pretend you are addressing them by making meaningless statements like "it's not property."

The idea of Intellectual Property as it is currently used, only dates back to the 60's and 70's

Bull. The term is at least two centuries old, and the concept was the there from the beginning of the idea of copyright whether it was called that or not.

And even if it were so, exactly where on the time spectrum between 40-50 years and "thousands of years" will you give up and accept the terms everyone else uses?

We forget that until fairly recently, patents were only granted for things that could be made and copyright was 28 years.

No we don't forget. But we realize things change.
Many of us want to restore terms closer to those old ones.
The way to get them is by demonstrating that it's better for society and lobbying or electing legislators who agree.
Pretending you can change anything by renaming IP doesn't help any one.

Is this how you'd have addressed slavery? "No people! Slaves are _not_ property! They are a government granted lifetime monopoly on indentured servitude!"

How does that help? How does that further the cause?

I think I'm done with you.
Someone else will hopefully address other public disservices you post.

ApK

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by ApK

So is real estate, so is chattle, and, likely, so is property.


Just like "deeds" are used to give that impression about places on the Earth.

All "property ownership" is an artificial construct of our society. There is an argument to made that aside from our bodies, our ideas and thoughts are the only things that we CAN truly own.

IP is no different and every bit as valid as the made-up notion that passing someone little slips of green paper creates a transfer of property ownership when you buy a thing in store.


Misframes it in this case. Use words to convey meaning. Don't try to impose meaning that isn't there by intentionally picking a wrong word, or to try to dismiss meaning that is there by refusing to use the right word.

You do that as rhetoric to persuade, not as the foundation for your argument.

Our society calls it intellectual property and has laws concerning it.
It is so.
Get over it.

Why are you so upset at the idea that words were given meaning by someone who needed to coin a name for a particular concept??? Would you rather we not used any kind of words at all, because some random Joe Shmoe on the internet claims you aren't allowed to use what is in his/her arbitrary opinion the wrong word?
You seem to be quite good at rhetoric yourself. (Since you seem to believe doing so is evil...)


Land property has long been accepted as something you can own, by virtue of the fact that you can stand on it and protect it, and the fact that once taken by another you no longer have your land anymore. It is a natural form of property, and has been accepted as such since the beginning of time.

Intellectual property is nothing but thoughts, and can be copied an unlimited number of times without taking anything away from the original owner. It is reasonable to say that it is not really property in the accepted, traditional sense. And historically speaking, it was accepted that you could not own an idea. Or a thought. (You can refuse to speak of "it", but that doesn't mean that you own "it", just that no one else thought of "it". If they did think of "it", would you say they stole it from you?)
The fact that intellectual property exists is an artificial construct of society. Land property is NOT an artificial construct of society. (It has been around since before society, in fact. )

Property ownership is not necessarily defined by the little pieces of paper tokens which we use as expressions of intent.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

[...]

You've misunderstood everything I said, it seems.

Two points worth simple correction:

Why are you so upset at the idea that words were given meaning by someone who needed to coin a name for a particular concept???

I'm not. Exactly the opposite. I'm arguing that others should accept the commonly understood chosen words, and stop claiming that by arguing the word, you can effect the thing.

You seem to be quite good at rhetoric yourself. (Since you seem to believe doing so is evil...)

1. Thank you!
2. I don't believe it's evil. I believe it's the way to effectively present an argument and to persuade.
What I find evil is having only rhetoric where you should have sound argument and evidence and logic.

ApK

p.s. I'd always heard stories about cultures that had no concept of owning property (land).
They defended it anyway.
Real property can be defended with physical force. Intellectual property is defended by laws. It's a perfectly valid analogy of terms.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ApK

No, it means address the distinctions. Don't pretend you are addressing them by making meaningless statements like "it's not property."



Bull. The term is at least two centuries old, and the concept was the there from the beginning of the idea of copyright whether it was called that or not.

And even if it were so, exactly where on the time spectrum between 40-50 years and "thousands of years" will you give up and accept the terms everyone else uses?


No we don't forget. But we realize things change.
Many of us want to restore terms closer to those old ones.
The way to get them is by demonstrating that it's better for society and lobbying or electing legislators who agree.
Pretending you can change anything by renaming IP doesn't help any one.

Is this how you'd have addressed slavery? "No people! Slaves are _not_ property! They are a government granted lifetime monopoly on indentured servitude!"

How does that help? How does that further the cause?

I think I'm done with you.
Someone else will hopefully address other public disservices you post.

ApK

What part of "as it is currently used" don't you understand? The term itself was coined back in the 1700's, but the current usage (i.e. as a term to describe any idea that a company wants protection for) only goes back to the 60's and 70's

Here is an interesting article by William Fisher for the Harvard law school on the growth of Intellectual Property

https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property99/history.html

And no, pointing out the history of intellectual property doesn't equal wanting to bring slavery back. It simply means that I actually did some research in the area.

[Tarana]

so little value that the publisher and the heirs of whoever wrote it just forgot about it?

It's not that they forgot about it. In some cases, a publisher went bankrupt and a buyer only bought part of the catalog. That's what happened to several popular children's music collections from the 60s and 70s such as Let's Pretend . I would also guess that there are many cases where there simply aren't any heirs. I don't think the government can 'inherit' anything much less a copyright or trademark.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I don't think the government can 'inherit' anything much less a copyright or trademark.

Sure they can. If someone dies without leaving a will, and no heirs can be found, the value of their estate goes to the Treasury.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Thanks for posting this. It's an interesting item.

One thing I am curious about is this statements:



I wonder who will remunerate the rights owners. Is it the organisation or individual (such as a museum) which is reproducing the work? That would seem to defeat the object. Or is the Intellectual Property Office? And if so, where does the money come from?

I'm only asking out of curiosity. I'm not trying to make a point.

Thanks to the link given by trainboy we can answer that. It appears the rights owner gets the license fees paid for use. That seems very sensible to me. They are probably only going to have a small proportion of rights holders coming forward so the thing is not going to be a net cost to the taxpayer.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sure they can. If someone dies without leaving a will, and no heirs can be found, the value of their estate goes to the Treasury.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_vacantia

I was told that that happened to H Beam Piper's copyrights, no heirs so they went to the State of Pennsylvania which sold them to ACE.