EU Piracy Report

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Only extremely popular books will have copyrights having even a small value, to the author's children, as an inheritance. I think the children of that tiny group of mega-popular authors are already getting enough inheritance (if their parents left then any) without having a continuing income from the rights. This isn't to argue for taking away all inheritance, just to say that it shouldn't be a reason for long copyright.

I've wondered where they, back in 1886, came up with the idea of Life + 50. I've never been able to find out the original justification, although there must have been one. Here's my hypothesis. Back then, successful authors often had much younger wives. And there was no government social insurance to support widows after their husband died. So, in my hypothesis, Life + 50 was to support the widow. Also, even if the husband and wife were the same age, back then it was common for one partner to live far longer than the other. Charlotte Bronte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, was less than 3 years younger than her, but outlived Charlotte by 51 years. Copyright could, theoretically, have prevented Nicholls from becoming a public charge.

I could be wrong -- I'm probably wrong -- and would be glad it someone could point me to any original Berne Convention debate on why 50 years is the charm.

This is not the most readable history of the Berne Convention formation, but this contains all the minutes of the various Berne Convention formation meetings.

ftp://ftp.wipo.int/pub/library/ebook...o_pub_877e.pdf

See in particular pages 90 and 104.

From page 104:

"On the subject of the first wish, Mr. Lavollee said that the French Delegation would have preferred the term of protection after the death of the author to be extended to 50 years.

Mr. Lagerheim endorsed that statement."

It's 243 pages long (but with pretty pictures in it), I have only given it a short browse.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

My thinking is if the book is that darned great, someone over the years would have found a way to get them to the masses, be it published last year, last decade, last century or a millennium ago.

I can of several that were that important. The Mythologies, the Bible/Koran/other religions texts, Shakespeare, etc.
I am pretty sure people that lived in those times could think of others they thought should be preserved.

I don't think you get the concept of orphaned books. Those are books whose ownership is so obscure that it's not possible or at least extremely expensive to find the owner and offer to pay them. There are a lof of such books and none of them are ancient books. Ancient books are out of copyright.

It's not possible to determine the value of any given book. You might find it worthwhile and I might not. Or the other way around. That's how it is when judging a book. It's a very different situation when looking at books as a whole. It's hard to say none of those books have value. It's almost certain some do. But they're lost to us now and by the time their copyrights expire they'll have been forgotten and many will be lost forever.

It's very unusual for books to stay in print beyond the first year. In his introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of "Pillars of the Earth" Ken Follet explains that most of his books were best sellers but Pillars never sold more than a modest amount. But all his other books were out of print a year later and Pillars kept selling just enough to keep it in print so that 25 years later it had sold more than all his other books combined.

The point is that most of his books were best sellers and were out of print after a year. That's the normal situation.

Now that we have ebooks and keeping books, which don't go "out of print" the problem of lost and forgotten books becomes a much bigger problem.

Also, as discussed in the video I linked to yesterday, all books are based on other books or other people's ideas. Public domain means we all own them. And we do. They're part of our culture. Part of what makes us who we are. They are us!

Barry

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by barryem

I don't think you get the concept of orphaned books. Those are books whose ownership is so obscure that it's not possible or at least extremely expensive to find the owner and offer to pay them. There are a lof of such books and none of them are ancient books. Ancient books are out of copyright.

It's not possible to determine the value of any given book. You might find it worthwhile and I might not. Or the other way around. That's how it is when judging a book. It's a very different situation when looking at books as a whole. It's hard to say none of those books have value. It's almost certain some do. But they're lost to us now and by the time their copyrights expire they'll have been forgotten and many will be lost forever.

It's very unusual for books to stay in print beyond the first year. In his introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of "Pillars of the Earth" Ken Follet explains that most of his books were best sellers but Pillars never sold more than a modest amount. But all his other books were out of print a year later and Pillars kept selling just enough to keep it in print so that 25 years later it had sold more than all his other books combined.

The point is that most of his books were best sellers and were out of print after a year. That's the normal situation.

Now that we have ebooks and keeping books, which don't go "out of print" the problem of lost and forgotten books becomes a much bigger problem.

Also, as discussed in the video I linked to yesterday, all books are based on other books or other people's ideas. Public domain means we all own them. And we do. They're part of our culture. Part of what makes us who we are. They are us!

Barry

Thank you for this.
If ebooks don't go out of print, how can they be lost or forgotten?

[latepaul]

The UK has a system for licensing orphaned works - explained here.

It sounds like a good system. I don't know how well it works in practice, but I appreciate the fact that orphaned works don't just become unusable.

In terms of reform I'd like to see us get more creative. Not just whether terms should be lengthened or shortened. I like the idea of having to renew with a fee that increases over time. That would keep Disney happy because they'll always be able to afford to renew Steamboat Willy but it'll incentivise people to get go of rights that aren't really being used.

And/or maybe we could have an initial term that works as now - a complete monopoly to the rights-holder - with a gradual reduction of rights after that. e.g. after X years you still hold the rights but you can't arbitrarily refuse license requests, maybe at some point after that maximum license fees kick in which then reduce over time, eventually there's a period where you retain moral rights only, then it falls out of copyright as now.

I don't know - I'm just thinking out loud but I do think we need to redress the balance somehow and just playing with the term length is only one thing we could do.

Although, of course, changing this wouldn't be easy. I can see why Ms Paley decided just to treat copyright as if it doesn't exist. Whilst I agree with her diagnosis of the situation, I don't agree that simply ignoring a bad law is the way forward.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Thank you for this.
If ebooks don't go out of print, how can they be lost or forgotten?

Ebooks do go out of print. Look at Baen books, an ebook pioneer. They usually do a contract for 10 years. Once the contract is over. They can't sell that ebook any more.

Example, the works of Cordwainer Smith. Baen had his entire output in 2 volume for 10 years. Now you can't buy those editions, they are out of print. (actually out of contract - same difference to someone wanting to get a copy to read.)

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Ebooks do go out of print. Look at Baen books, an ebook pioneer. They usually do a contract for 10 years. Once the contract is over. They can't sell that ebook any more.

Example, the works of Cordwainer Smith. Baen had his entire output in 2 volume for 10 years. Now you can't buy those editions, they are out of print. (actually out of contract - same difference to someone wanting to get a copy to read.)

Thanks for the clarification.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by shalym

Exactly. What if he hadn't been married, and had no living heir? Who gets control of the rights in that case? Does the book just fade into obscurity?

Shari

That's of course the question. Some fairly well known authors who die without close heirs will their copyrights to foundations. I think that Heinlein and Eddings fall into this group. Others, well who knows? In theory, there might be someone distantly related. At least with real estate, there is a method where the property can be declared abandoned.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Midlist authors who put out their back catalogs have been one of the biggest benefits of e-books for me. I'm happy to see them rescued from obscurity.

Yes, same here. I suspect that the two major reasons that modern readers have ever heard of H Beam Piper is because 1) many of his works went into public domain and 2) because Jerry Pournelle knew him and mentioned his works a fair amount, stirring up interest not only in the original works, but also generating interest by other authors who write in the shared world.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Ebooks do go out of print. Look at Baen books, an ebook pioneer. They usually do a contract for 10 years. Once the contract is over. They can't sell that ebook any more.

Example, the works of Cordwainer Smith. Baen had his entire output in 2 volume for 10 years. Now you can't buy those editions, they are out of print. (actually out of contract - same difference to someone wanting to get a copy to read.)

Yes, I have a number of ebooks that are no longer available. When Sony's ebook store shutdown and the rights transferred to Kobo. the ebooks they no longer had the right to sell did not transfer. I had about 5 or 6 out of a couple of hundred that were in that category. This is a major reason why the first thing I do with an ebook that I buy is download it, then remove the DRM.

[darryl]

It seems that the policy behind the Copyright Clause in the US Constitution, at least so far as books are concerned, is to create a large, rich and diverse range of books available to the public, consisting of books still subject to copyright and books in the public domain. It envisages that the former will of course be more expensive, but that all works will ultimately join the public domain.

Having books in either category not available to the Public is in my view completely foreign to the very purpose of copyright laws. It is my view that once a book has participated in the Copyright system, usually by being published, it should always be available for purchase by members of the Public. Full stop.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darryl

It seems that the policy behind the Copyright Clause in the US Constitution, at least so far as books are concerned, is to create a large, rich and diverse range of books available to the public, consisting of books still subject to copyright and books in the public domain. It envisages that the former will of course be more expensive, but that all works will ultimately join the public domain.

Having books in either category not available to the Public is in my view completely foreign to the very purpose of copyright laws. It is my view that once a book has participated in the Copyright system, usually by being published, it should always be available for purchase by members of the Public. Full stop.

It is useful to know the history of the times to understand the intent of the Copyright Clause.

Ben Franklin started the first lending library in 1731, in Philadelphia.

At the time, books were extremely expensive and most people had maybe a couple of books - the Bible, a primer and perhaps a couple of the old classics if you were particularly well read. Only the very wealthy such as Jefferson had large libraries. The majority of reading material for most was a combination of pamphlets and newspapers. It was common for newspapers to print a wide array of information, not just the news.

Copyright as such did not exist in the US. There was the copyright act of 1710, aka The Statute of Anne, which shifted the copyright from the monopolistic Stationer's Company (basically the printer's guild which was granted exclusive right to copy all works in 1662) to the authors. In order to be copyrighted, the author had to register the book with the Stationer's company and then provide copies of the work to a number of institutions (Stationer's company, the royal library and various universities). If one considers that a big print run would be perhaps 250 copies, that was somewhat of an expensive burden. The copyright term was 14 years, plus a renewal of 14 years. There were restrictions on how much one could charge for a book and foreign books were banned, except for the various Latin and Greek classics.

One sees the echo's of this law in the US Constitution and the initial copyright act in the US. The idea that one would use copyright to withhold literary works from the public was quite foreign.

The Library of Congress was burned out during the war of 1812 and the the burning of Washington, DC. Jefferson offered his personal library to help jump start replacing it. Jefferson's library was most likely one of the largest and most diversion in the US at the time. He had some 6,487 books. That gives an idea of how rare books were.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, at one time, the US copyright laws required anyone who wanted to copyright a literary work, to provide two copies to the Library of Congress.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by barryem

I don't think you get the concept of orphaned books. Those are books whose ownership is so obscure that it's not possible or at least extremely expensive to find the owner and offer to pay them. There are a lof of such books and none of them are ancient books. Ancient books are out of copyright.

Like?

It's not possible to determine the value of any given book. You might find it worthwhile and I might not. Or the other way around. That's how it is when judging a book. It's a very different situation when looking at books as a whole. It's hard to say none of those books have value. It's almost certain some do. But they're lost to us now and by the time their copyrights expire they'll have been forgotten and many will be lost forever.

I agree that it's impossible to judge the value of any given book, for the reasons stated. I tend to disagree that in this day and age, any book remotely current will expire and be lost forever, if only because a) someone will probably try to sell a bootleg copy on Amazon or b) Gutenberg and any inheritors/successors will probably try to keep it alive, as well, but...it could happen, yes.

Of course, I'd point out that it's happened throughout history, regardless of copyright provisions. All this angstSturms sturm und Drang is truly down to the digital age because previously, nobody thought that they'd go grab someone's now-PD book and scan it, convert it, keep it, etc. You'd just buy a copy of the book, someplace in time, and hang on to it. Like so many other things, the digital age's capabilities are driving this entire discussion.

It's very unusual for books to stay in print beyond the first year. In his introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of "Pillars of the Earth" Ken Follet explains that most of his books were best sellers but Pillars never sold more than a modest amount. But all his other books were out of print a year later and Pillars kept selling just enough to keep it in print so that 25 years later it had sold more than all his other books combined.

Y'know, I've read Follett for dog's years, and I think the idea that his books were OOP after a year is a bit of an exaggeration.

The point is that most of his books were best sellers and were out of print after a year. That's the normal situation.

This seems bizarre to me. What publishing house would willingly NOT print more copies fo a book that's in high demand, like a best-seller? I seem to recall--in Follett's case, specifically--seeing at least one of his books on the tables at B&N for quite a long time. I mean, Brown's DaVinci Code was on the bestseller list for what, two years? Obviously, they didn't stop printing copies, and why on earth would they? Does that seem sensible to anyone?

Now that we have ebooks and keeping books, which don't go "out of print" the problem of lost and forgotten books becomes a much bigger problem.

Can you elaborate?

Also, as discussed in the video I linked to yesterday, all books are based on other books or other people's ideas. Public domain means we all own them. And we do. They're part of our culture. Part of what makes us who we are. They are us!

Barry

We certainly all own the PD books. No argument there.


Hitch

[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Like?

Probably the clearest examples are outside of books -- photographs. Go to pretty much any old magazine, and you can find pictures that don't note the photographer, and many of these companies won't have records internally anymore for such "trivia". But they are still copyrighted.

There are plenty of old, weird pictures floating around the internet where people can't even figure out what the photo is about, much less who took it.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Like?

I'll use James Branch Cabell as a poster boy. (1879-1958) He was an American Fantasist, and a highly literate one. He was part of the Southern Literary Renaissance, which produced many Pulitzer Prize winning authors from 1910- 1930. You will find some Sinclair Lewis (Nobel Prize for Literature, 1930) but how many others post 1922? Willa Cather? Joseph Hergeheimer? Frances Newman?

Meanwhile, back to the mirror and white pigeons. . .

Everything Cabell published before Jan 1, 1923, is PD. The book he published in 1923 and there after will not start going PD until 2019. 40 years of no PD, unlike any other nation in the world, just to protect old Hollywood movies?

Originally Posted by Hitch

I agree that it's impossible to judge the value of any given book, for the reasons stated. I tend to disagree that in this day and age, any book remotely current will expire and be lost forever, if only because a) someone will probably try to sell a bootleg copy on Amazon or b) Gutenberg and any inheritors/successors will probably try to keep it alive, as well, but...it could happen, yes.

Project Gutenberg does nothing until the work is in public domain. I know, I have provided books from my library for Project Gutenberg. The issue is from going from OOP to PD. You can't legally save it, but the underlying media may be disintegrating.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Of course, I'd point out that it's happened throughout history, regardless of copyright provisions. All this angstSturms sturm und Drang is truly down to the digital age because previously, nobody thought that they'd go grab someone's now-PD book and scan it, convert it, keep it, etc. You'd just buy a copy of the book, someplace in time, and hang on to it. Like so many other things, the digital age's capabilities are driving this entire discussion.


[snip]

Hitch

In this world of DRM? With DRM, if the gadget dies, so does the e-book. But you are right, nowadays, every person has their own printing press. And that is blowing up the power the intermediaries had over what could be sold to the public.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Thank you for this.
If ebooks don't go out of print, how can they be lost or forgotten?

Print books have been going out of print for a long time. Ebooka s are relatively new. The vast majority of all copyrighted books were never made into ebooks. Most never will be because by the time the copyright expires they're forgotten.

Barry