Public Domain

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

Fiction has value, that's the whole point. If it wasn't protected by copyright, then it would not have any value.

There is just not "for the good of society" point to be made to transfer the rights of a fictional story to "society" from "the creator".

There is no limit to fiction, no limit to creativity. Giving Disney the monopoly on Mickey Mouse does not prevent Mighty Mouse. Rather it encourages Mighty mouse verses "Yet another Mickey Mouse story brought to you by .... anyone".

It wouldn't take long to completely disperse the value of Mickey Mouse if anybody and everyone could make Mickey Mouse stories and movies

I see no reason whatsoever in supporting those copycat manufacturers who have no creativity of their own, but could pump out Mickey Mouse hats by the millions as they drain the value away from Disney.

You keep asserting the same point, that you see no value in public domain, yet people keep pointing out example after example of works that are based on PD works. You can't have it both ways.

Copyright is a contract with the author. Society will give the author exclusive control of the work for a limited time and provide the resources to protect that control. In return, that work goes into pubic domain after that period of time. It's not a one way street.

The alternative for the author is what happened during the pre-copyright days, i.e. authors don't get protection and see their works reprinted without them being paid with the only recourse being public shaming (which is what Tolkien used against Ace Book's unauthorized edition of LOTR).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by leebase

Society is rewarded by having fiction. This is not like medical patents where after 20 years, everyone can make aspirin. Something I favor. There are not an infinite number of ways to do what aspirin does. Society never needs to own someone else's fiction work

You might equally well say that society should not spend time and money preventing people from copying someone else's fiction, because fiction has no practical value.

I am fully in favour of copyright in the lifetime of the author. I am even in favour of a time limited copyright after an author's death. My favoured copyright length would be 50 years from publication or the lifetime of the author, whichever is longer. I certainly don't favour abolishing copyright altogether.

But arguing for a perpetual copyright for fiction because it's of no practical value rather misses the point of a shared cultural heritage.

Fiction is part of our culture. Spending time and money protecting an excessively long copyright to enrich people who had nothing to do with the creation of the fiction is not sensible or fair.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You might equally well say that society should not spend time and money preventing people from copying someone else's fiction, because fiction has no practical value.

I am fully in favour of copyright in the lifetime of the author. I am even in favour of a time limited copyright after an author's death. My favoured copyright length would be 50 years from publication or the lifetime of the author, whichever is longer. I certainly don't favour abolishing copyright altogether.

But arguing for a perpetual copyright for fiction because it's of no practical value rather misses the point of a shared cultural heritage.

Fiction is part of our culture. Spending time and money protecting an excessively long copyright to enrich people who had nothing to do with the creation of the fiction is not sensible or fair.

Preach on, brother, preach on! (it's a southern saying)

Looking at it from a cultural point of view, I'm fine with a longer pure copyright that has the requirement that the work is available for purchase at a reasonable price. (yes, one can argue what a reasonable price is, but this sort of deal is fairly common with regards to patents and standards) I would make a derivative copyright much, much shorter, more like the 27 year mark. That gives the creator plenty of time to make money while allowing for the sort of creative work that artists typically use PD for.

The issue is that there are very few people who actually care about copyright and the vast majority of them are people who profit from longer copyrights, a la Victor Hugo.

[bgalbrecht]

My personal take on it is that at least 99% of any year's printed works achieve oblivion within a decade or two of publication. All permanent copyright would do is ensure that only a couple books from any given year will remain in print, the rest will be lost permanently. At least with public domain, there's a chance some of these works will be rediscovered by more than one or two individuals browsing a library or used book store. I think it's dumb to be concerned about the property rights of a few heirs several generations removed from the author, especially when limited term copyright and public domain has been firmly established for centuries.

It could be that leebase is really making the case for permanent copyright not for individual authors, but creative works so massive that it requires a corporation to make them. Again, these corporations make these works with the understanding that they have an extremely lengthy time period in which to make money from their work. Even then, there's no reason to expect that if they're making money on the work when the copyright expires that they'll totally stop making money on it. True, they may be one of many sources for it, but there will always be ways for them to convince buyers that it's worth it to buy the original.

[leebase]

Oookay. We know there was a time with no copyright and that some of Disney's work is based on those works. What isn’t established is that Disney could well have come up with his own stories is the others had been copywrited.

We know that Disney has a huge corporation that employs tens of thousands of people creating all kinds of products and services on top of its copyrighted characters and stories.

With all that - Disney's monopoly has had zero effect on other stories and characters being created. Society has not been held back in any way. Just the opposite....Disney creating a theme park that makes good money’s led to Universal creating its own theme park based on its own set of copyrighted stories and characters.

This is unlike medicine or technology where there is only a finite number of ways to solve a particular problem.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by leebase

Oookay. We know there was a time with no copyright and that some of Disney's work is based on those works. What isn’t established is that Disney could well have come up with his own stories is the others had been copywrited.

Perhaps he could have, but he didn't. If you had perpetual copyright, you lose the ability to explore minor characters from well known stories, like Gilbert's and Stoppard's plays on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or, yes, all the Disney stories like Pinocchio and Snow White which were derivative works. In the case of Pinocchio, it was written in 1883, and the author died in 1890, so the 1940 movie had just entered public domain in most of Europe, although it would have been in the public domain in the US for almost 30 years.

Right now, they estimate that over half of the copyrighted works in the US between 1923 and 1963 either didn't get renewed, or if they got renewed, nobody knows who currently has the rights to them. With perpetual copyright, that's only going to get worse. For the works where nobody kept track, either because it had been out of print so long that they forgot, or the author or heirs died intestate, or the records between the publisher and creator got lost (for example, the publisher went out of business, or got sold) so nobody can proved the rights anymore, the works would be lost, because without clear proof of ownership, they would never get reprinted.

You'd also end up with situations like that of Edgar Pangborn, whose literary estate eventually went to Peter Beagle. Here in the US, the only books available are used books and the ebook editions of the books in the public domain because he or his heirs didn't renew the copyright. Beagle presumable could make arrangements with a publisher, but my impression is that he's been so wrapped up with his own problems with his former agent, that he'll never get around to doing so. Another author lost to oblivion.

Sure, many authors lose relevance over time. But sometimes, it's nice to discover the chain of influence from author to author. But with perpetual copyright, that would get harder and harder as more authors get progressively inaccessible when the number of sales drop too low, and when someone owning the rights dies without clearly passing the ownership on to the next generation.

Finally, for the past several centuries, we've had a time-limited copyright. Everybody who produces a creative work knows that their heirs won't be able to benefit from it eventually. There are very few works with enough appeal that they remain income generators a century later. Why should we relegate the rest of creative works to oblivion for the benefit of the few creative work owners that are making money off of them that much later? Or worse yet, end up with a couple of corporations who end up owning something like 90% of all creative works because they specialize in buying the entire creative estate from dying artists or their heirs for a pittance? Especially, if they make their business model "buy dead authors works for next to nothing, and then extract larger settlements from authors and/or publishers for any similarities to the dead author's work".

[leebase]

I already stipulated that the unlimited copyright was only for works still being maintained. Because of elapsed copyright Disney was able to make money on Pinocchio...without recompense to the author or his heirs. You can too, btw. Everybody can as the story is in the public domain.

So we see how Roy Disney benefitted. How did society benefit? Instead of getting a new work, they get a story already told. And if you want to stick with “we got a movie” - technology has since made a movie like Pinocchio very unlikely. If Disney were to make Pinocchio today, there’d be 12 different Pinocchio movies released within a year. Nobody is going to invest Hollywood movie money in a property they don’t own the copyright for.

So today...because Pinocchio is in the public domain, there is LESS likelihood anyone is going to invest money making something special out of it. There are no end of folks willing to simply copy a work...that takes no effort and ensures there is very little reward for anyone trying to make use of it, Its the same reason copyrights exist in the first place.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

I already stipulated that the unlimited copyright was only for works still being maintained. Because of elapsed copyright Disney was able to make money on Pinocchio...without recompense to the author or his heirs. You can too, btw. Everybody can as the story is in the public domain.

So we see how Roy Disney benefitted. How did society benefit? Instead of getting a new work, they get a story already told. And if you want to stick with “we got a movie” - technology has since made a movie like Pinocchio very unlikely. If Disney were to make Pinocchio today, there’d be 12 different Pinocchio movies released within a year. Nobody is going to invest Hollywood movie money in a property they don’t own the copyright for.

So today...because Pinocchio is in the public domain, there is LESS likelihood anyone is going to invest money making something special out of it. There are no end of folks willing to simply copy a work...that takes no effort and ensures there is very little reward for anyone trying to make use of it, Its the same reason copyrights exist in the first place.

Just like Disney would never make another Little Mermaid movie because the Little Mermaid story is in PD, or that Alladin is in PD? Of course, Disney has done a live remake of the Little Mermaid. How many times have there been remakes of Beauty and the Beast? Disney made a ton of money on the live remake of their animated Beauty and the Beast in 2017, it's the 12th movie by that name, but that doesn't seem to be an issue, nor was there much confusion about which was the Disney version and which ones weren't.

[leebase]

I will do something rare. I will concede the point...I was wrong. Little Mermaid indeed proves that Disney will spend millions making a movie based on a public Domain story, even in these modern times of easy copying.

I do not, however, concede that Hans Christian Anderson’s heirs deserved no money from Disney. I think that the value to society is fulfilled by the creation of an original story and there is no need for a time limited copywrite.

It’s an opinion. YMMV

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by leebase

I will do something rare. I will concede the point...I was wrong. Little Mermaid indeed proves that Disney will spend millions making a movie based on a public Domain story, even in these modern times of easy copying.

I do not, however, concede that Hans Christian Anderson’s heirs deserved no money from Disney. I think that the value to society is fulfilled by the creation of an original story and there is no need for a time limited copywrite.

It’s an opinion. YMMV

I think you may not have sufficiently considered bgalbrecht's last point. Unlimited copyright would be a magnet for copyright trolls. The ability to tell new stories would be greatly restricted by the need for new stories to bear no relationship to the vast body of existing, copyright, work.

Consider the music copyright cases recently, where the resemblance has been on a few bars out of an entire song. Look at what would happen with a few centuries of copyright fiction for trolls to mine and claim that new stories are derivative works.

[leebase]

In my perfect world, copyright of fiction would not be like today’s copyright of music. Though you really can’t get past “human judgement” no matter how you write laws.

I’m not so sure “patent trolls” are all that different from publishers. They had to pay to,get the rights. So if the Hans Christian Anderson heirs sold their copyrights....that’s still them getting the value from the work Hans created...rather than Disney.

Those who want to be free of licensing fees need merely to write a new story. Those who want to take advantage of built in cultural awareness would have to compensate the rights holder for the privilege.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

In my perfect world, copyright of fiction would not be like today’s copyright of music. Though you really can’t get past “human judgement” no matter how you write laws.

I’m not so sure “patent trolls” are all that different from publishers. They had to pay to,get the rights. So if the Hans Christian Anderson heirs sold their copyrights....that’s still them getting the value from the work Hans created...rather than Disney.

Those who want to be free of licensing fees need merely to write a new story. Those who want to take advantage of built in cultural awareness would have to compensate the rights holder for the privilege.

The problem is that no one writes a new story. Everyone gets ideas from somewhere. The big reason that one doesn't see a bunch of copyright battles is that for the vast majority of works, there is no money to fight over. Remember, selling 10,000 books is considered pretty good.

I've always been interested in where artists get ideas. On Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash's Storyteller's album (a live album), they talk about where they get the inspiration for songs. Lots of talk about PD. They also mentioned that they "borrowed stuff" from each other all the time and joked about it.

In the author's notes in various books, the author will sometime talk about where he or she got the inspiration for a book. Needless to say that for a lot of the space opera's the Horatio Hornblower Saga and Aubrey/Maturin Saga are mentioned frequently.

Game of Thrones was loosely based on the War of Roses.

You get the idea. While you might wave you hand and say that all you need to do is change the name, there have been lawsuits over such things. That's why I pointed out the Star Wars/Battlestar Gallactica lawsuit. That's what happens when there is money involved.

If you look at patent trolls, their whole business model is to buy up patents, many of them useless, and suit for patent violations counting on the fact that most companies will settle rather than fight the suit in court.

Now, consider a company that buys up a bunch of copyrights, many obscure then sues a bunch of authors for violating one or more of those copyrights. Remember, one of the copyright violation claims in the Star Wars case was the claim that Skyler was too close to Skywalker. Now, imagine if you have a business model where lawyers are aggressively looking for ways that any new work might have violated their copyright, which is what is happening in the patent world.

Most individual authors barely make ends meet. They can't afford to fight it out in court. Rowling was able to fight back when she got sued for copyright violation, but imagine if she got sued after her first book and didn't have the money. You could certainly kiss the indie authors movement bye-bye. Most of them would be sued into oblivion.

[leebase]

Themes are not copyrightable. You are speaking of a bad copyright law. We already have different versions of the same story...even with copyright. Every television season there will be 2 if not 3 versions of the same show. Somebody gets an idea...others hear about it, and react quick to get their version of "cop buddy show, only it's women...oooh...with a woman who used to be a doctor...or a dentist".

There really is no limit to imagination....even though there are about 7 archetype stories that all are all descendant from.

With copyright, you get Lord of the Rings and Sword of Shanarra. You get Jack Reacher and John Puller (look it up, Lee Child feels ripped off, but can't do anything about it).

Without copyright....you get people using the exact names, characters, recognizable universe. Like Disney. Why should Disney be able to directly product Little Mermaid...borrowing the cultural knowledge without compensation?

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by leebase

With copyright, you get Lord of the Rings and Sword of Shanarra. You get Jack Reacher and John Puller (look it up, Lee Child feels ripped off, but can't do anything about it).

Just looked at it...I can well imagine he feels ripped off! I would too, if I were in his shoes

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by leebase

Fiction has value, that's the whole point. If it wasn't protected by copyright, then it would not have any value.

There is just not "for the good of society" point to be made to transfer the rights of a fictional story to "society" from "the creator".

There is no limit to fiction, no limit to creativity. Giving Disney the monopoly on Mickey Mouse does not prevent Mighty Mouse. Rather it encourages Mighty mouse verses "Yet another Mickey Mouse story brought to you by .... anyone".

It wouldn't take long to completely disperse the value of Mickey Mouse if anybody and everyone could make Mickey Mouse stories and movies

I see no reason whatsoever in supporting those copycat manufacturers who have no creativity of their own, but could pump out Mickey Mouse hats by the millions as they drain the value away from Disney.

I don't think that Disney is being harmed by having to prevent unauthorized Mickey Mouse hats by using trademark laws rather than copyright laws. Its monopoly on Mickey should last as long as it's willing to enforce trade mark.

While I don't feel that we are seriously losing out because of a lack of derivative works based on Mickey Mouse, I admit that my main reason for feeling like that is because I don't much care for Mickey Mouse, if Disney managed to bankrupt itself and Mickey disappeared I'd barely notice.

Normally, I particularly enjoy reading derivative fiction, I like retellings and deconstructions of fairy tales. I'm the sort of person who owns eight versions of Beowulf and delights in the way Pratchett subverted the praying scene from Tom Brown's School Days in Pyramids. I own several Star Trek novels.

I enjoyed the fanfic I read that was based on the what-if that Austen wrote at the end of Mansfield Park. As a general rule I also enjoy fanfic that take carelessly written mass media and writes out the plot holes, I enjoy works giving alternate points of view. There are a handful of works which I feel are perfect as they are and any derivative work would be a let-down but no one is forcing me to read fanworks based on them. I also enjoy social criticism through satire and parody.

This is why I think that changing things to prevent derivative works would be a net loss of enjoyment and social criticism.

As for controlling the copying of works (copyright proper), it is true that the main effect of increased copyright terms is that a greater number of works risk disappearing forever as they go out-of-print. This effects those who study social history which depends on the accessibility of the most common writings (including literature) to draw proper conclusions.

For every C. S. Lewis or Tolkien, for every Mickey Mouse there's hundreds if not thousands of enjoyable works that didn't provide enough of a pay out to stay in print. [and the experience of the US shows that allowing renewable copyright just confuses the issue]