Seriously thoughtful How Copyright broke. Cory Doctorow

[bizzybody]

Just as right now as it was in 2006

https://www.locusmag.com/2006/Issues...ommentary.html

[Quoth]

USPTO, Big Media, DRM, DMCA, USA and Cory Doctorow. In that order.

Patents are far more broken. DRM is a problem. Copyright as such isn't at all broken.

[Quoth]

Misuse of Copyright law to bully

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/...copyright_ads/

In particular, the German giant Axel Springer, which has been pursuing a copyright claim through the courts for eleven years. You might assume that copyright exists to protect intellectual property and stop one party from ripping off another's content. Axel Springer's legal team proposes that because this protection also includes the right to stop others from modifying its content, blocking ads running in the content is against the law. If the law supposes that, you may think, then the law is indeed an ass, an idiot.

[nana77]

It recalls me of this:

Don't support me on Patreon, because I don't have one! (actually, as of Jan 13th 2017 I do, but only to pay the rent T___T) And don't donate to my Kickstarter, because I don't have one of those either. Instead, if you enjoyed this, give someone at your workplace, uni, school or whatever a random bar of chocolate or can or Coke or something. Seriously, it'll probably make their day.
That would totally make my day.

https://www.scifidimensions.com/who-...s-tie-fighter/

Did Lucasfilm/Disney ever comment on “Star Wars: TIE Fighter”?

While Lucasfilm/Disney did not officially endorse “Star Wars: TIE Fighter,” they generally tolerate fan-made creations as long as they are non-profit and do not infringe on their copyright. The immense popularity of the short likely contributed to their acceptance of the project. They’ve never filed legal issues against it.

The remastered version has another soundtrack:

ALL Rights belong to their respective owners:
Animation: OTAKING77077/ Paul Johnson 
  / otaking77077  
(approved by OTAKING https://i.imgur.com/hksyxRb.png) 
SFX: Starwars: Battlefront DICE/Electronic Arts/LucasArts
Music: SW: Rogue One/LucasArts

Update: I found out there are ads now, the revenue is going to WALT DISNEY Records due to their rightful copyright claim on the songs, Walt disney owns Star Wars anyways so it makes sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIE_Fighter_(film)

[Quoth]

And Disney had to be sued to pay copyright royalties to writers of official Starwars material. Mysteriously they claimed that after buying Lucas Arts they only had benefits and no obligations.

Copyright isn't broken. Big corporations are.

Winter is coming

(Northern Hemisphere)

[bizzybody]

What use is it to a person to hold copyright for decades after they're dead? Copyrights should be for a fixed term or the life of the author/creator, whichever is longer.

If a company / corporation goes out of business with none of their intellectual property rights purchased by anyone (it happens a lot) then all copyrights, trademarks, and patents filed by or owned by that entity should become null and void, public domain, non renewable, except in cases where there are contracts, deeds, or other documents returning or bequeathing remaining rights back to whom they were purchased from or to other persons or entities.

Same thing for individuals. If they do not bequeath in a will or otherwise explicitly transfer copyrights to other persons or entities for the remaining duration, then they should become non-revocable public domain.

The concept of "abandonware" for everything copyrightable needs to be established in law, mainly to get rid of the silly business of all the works still considered protected by copyright but with no valid living or existing claimants to that right so the works are stuck in limbo and unusable for a long time.

Copyrights should be only to allow the originator of a work to make an income from it, or designated assignees if the originator dies before the copyright expires. Aside from that, the originator should also be able to sell outright, rent, lease, or loan rights to the works to any other person or entity for any amount of time up to the expiration date of the copyright.

But there should always be a hard, non-extendable END to every copyright.

When Disney could no longer get the length of copyrights extended more on their earliest cartoons, they threw a wrench into anyone's plans to include them on DVDs of old public domain cartoons - by putting them on YouTube for free. If it's totally legal for others to make a dime off a Disney work without having to pay Disney, then Disney will forego that income if they can make it pointless for others to sell copies.

[Quoth]

Maybe Author's life + 20 or 25 years (for partner or child, longer only benefits huge corporations). The excessive time now was due to Disney and friends lobbying.

[Sirtel]

Life of the creator, period. No more reason to support their spouses/relatives than anyone else's. They can earn a living themselves. If my hairdresser or plumber dies, will their spouses and children get any special benefits? Why should authors'?

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Life of the creator, period. No more reason to support their spouses/relatives than anyone else's. They can earn a living themselves. If my hairdresser or plumber dies, will their spouses and children get any special benefits? Why should authors'?

Where I think the comparison fails is that with books, the publisher can continue to sell the book, but the author's estate doesn't get any benefits from that.

So I'd only accept such a ruling if the book goes into public domain at the same time.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

So I'd only accept such a ruling if the book goes into public domain at the same time.

Yes, of course.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Life of the creator, period. No more reason to support their spouses/relatives than anyone else's. They can earn a living themselves. If my hairdresser or plumber dies, will their spouses and children get any special benefits? Why should authors'?

That has some validity, but sadly not going to happen.

Actually I doubt that copyright terms will be reduced unless all civilisation entirely collapses.

The difference from a plumber or electrician vs Intellectual property is than no human labour is required. The work has all been done already, even if the author was Christopher Paolini and he lives to 90 years old, he's maybe getting 72 years of royalties.

Note that publishers like the House of Random Penguins would simply make more profit if royalties ended with a popular author's death. Maybe unscrupulous publishers would hasten a popular author's death.

The tontine in original form was banned in some countries for this reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

That has some validity, but sadly not going to happen.

Actually I doubt that copyright terms will be reduced unless all civilisation entirely collapses.

The difference from a plumber or electrician vs Intellectual property is than no human labour is required. The work has all been done already, even if the author was Christopher Paolini and he lives to 90 years old, he's maybe getting 72 years of royalties.

Note that publishers like the House of Random Penguins would simply make more profit if royalties ended with a popular author's death. Maybe unscrupulous publishers would hasten a popular author's death.

The tontine in original form was banned in some countries for this reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

The book should go into public domain when its author dies, so no one will benefit.

Copyright extending past the author's death to benefit their relatives is unfair to everyone else's relatives who is not an author. Of course, the real reason is not to support the author's spouse or kids, but so that publishers could still sell dead authors' works and get money for them.

I'm sure that copyright terms won't be reduced. Too much money in the business.

[nana77]

Great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_cut_privilege
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change...rs_re-releases

Prior to making A New Hope, Lucas experienced dissatisfaction with the changes made to his previous films by the studios that produced them. His first feature, THX 1138 (1971), had five minutes removed by Warner Bros.His next film, American Graffiti (1973), had several minutes removed by Universal Pictures.
[...]
People who alter or destroy works of art, and our cultural heritage, for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians ... Today, engineers with their computers can ... add or subtract material to the philosophical taste of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue ... Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see ... the past generation as it saw itself, and how it worked with the mediums that were available to it.

The scene was later altered so that Greedo also shoots at Han, leading to the infamous fan controversy known as "Han shot first", which the character has since come to be most associated with.

This instead has an entire chapter by itself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first
Nice what Lucas said there too - imho.
I wasn't to know abot this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmy%...alized_Edition

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Life of the creator, period. No more reason to support their spouses/relatives than anyone else's. They can earn a living themselves. If my hairdresser or plumber dies, will their spouses and children get any special benefits? Why should authors'?

It's not fair if you write a new book and then you die not long after. So it should be (IMHO) life+15 years.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

The book should go into public domain when its author dies, so no one will benefit.

Copyright extending past the author's death to benefit their relatives is unfair to everyone else's relatives who is not an author. Of course, the real reason is not to support the author's spouse or kids, but so that publishers could still sell dead authors' works and get money for them.

I'm sure that copyright terms won't be reduced. Too much money in the business.

Actually, the publisher still benefits. When the author dies and the book then becomes public domain, the publisher can still sell the book. The family gets nothing more from it.