EU Piracy Report

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

(And bye the bye, Mart Twain's last living descendant died at his Life + 56. . .)

.....

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by shalym

#2? "Another flaw is that there are books out there right now that are orphaned, and nobody knows who has the rights. Because of the way that copyright is structured in the US, the copyright for some of these books won't be available until years after anyone who is interested in the books is dead."

How does that nail your argument? Because of the "years after anyone who is interested in the books is dead." part? The point is that people won't be interested in the books because they won't know about them, and probably couldn't get a copy even if they did.

Again...If Shakespeare's works had been written now, (or even 75 years ago) they would probably be forgotten, since his last heir died about 50 years after Shakespeare himself did, and the works would still be in copyright with no way to distribute or perform them.

Shari

That's the issue. There are so many works in history that we only know about because they were mentioned in passing, or were quoted by someone else. This is because through much of history, the total number of copies of a book might range up into the hundreds if that.

If you look at modern books, then pre eBook, unless you were a very successful author, once the initial run was done, then the only place the book can be found is in a used book store. To a certain extent, success tends to be a matter of luck. One of my favorite authors from the 80's was Brian Daley. He never really hit it big, but I think that was more because he got lost in the shuffle than anything else. If it wasn't for the fact that his widow released his books as ebooks, I certainly wouldn't be able to replace the books that I have of his since the books have been out of print in paper for quite some time.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That's the issue. There are so many works in history that we only know about because they were mentioned in passing, or were quoted by someone else. This is because through much of history, the total number of copies of a book might range up into the hundreds if that.

If you look at modern books, then pre eBook, unless you were a very successful author, once the initial run was done, then the only place the book can be found is in a used book store. To a certain extent, success tends to be a matter of luck. One of my favorite authors from the 80's was Brian Daley. He never really hit it big, but I think that was more because he got lost in the shuffle than anything else. If it wasn't for the fact that his widow released his books as ebooks, I certainly wouldn't be able to replace the books that I have of his since the books have been out of print in paper for quite some time.

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

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Here is the why.
If the information is out there in another book, then why worry about orphaned books.
They are not that important to society which is what some people are trying to claim.

It seems kind of silly to try to determine if any particular book is important to society. Everyone has a different opinion about any particular book. There is no answer to that. It's a meaningless question.

The question which can be answered is whether there are orphaned books that have value to society and that answer is obviously yes. And since that's the case there's a problem with orphaned books.

Here's a link to a TED talk on youtube by Nina Paley that talks about this and a lot more involving copyright. I'm not suggesting that her answer is the way we should go. It's not. But this is a sincere artist dealing with a serious problem in the best way that she can and then trying to extract from the situation a more general principle. I may not agree with her but I certainly have a lot of respect for what she's done and how she's expressed herself.

The talk is titled "Copyright is Brain Damage". It's very much worth seeing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO9FKQAxWZc

Barry

[Greg Anos]

I watched it. I concur. Thanks Barry.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One of my favorite authors from the 80's was Brian Daley. He never really hit it big, but I think that was more because he got lost in the shuffle than anything else. If it wasn't for the fact that his widow released his books as ebooks, I certainly wouldn't be able to replace the books that I have of his since the books have been out of print in paper for quite some time.

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.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by barryem

It seems kind of silly to try to determine if any particular book is important to society. Everyone has a different opinion about any particular book. There is no answer to that. It's a meaningless question.

The question which can be answered is whether there are orphaned books that have value to society and that answer is obviously yes. And since that's the case there's a problem with orphaned books.

Here's a link to a TED talk on youtube by Nina Paley that talks about this and a lot more involving copyright. I'm not suggesting that her answer is the way we should go. It's not. But this is a sincere artist dealing with a serious problem in the best way that she can and then trying to extract from the situation a more general principle. I may not agree with her but I certainly have a lot of respect for what she's done and how she's expressed herself.

The talk is titled "Copyright is Brain Damage". It's very much worth seeing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO9FKQAxWZc

Barry

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.

[shalym]

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.

...and none of those were ever copyrighted. Would we know about any of them if they weren't allowed to be distributed/performed/recited because the copyright lasted 70 years after the death of the creator, and all of the creator's heirs died within 50 years of the creator?

Shari

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by shalym

...and none of those were ever copyrighted. Would we know about any of them if they weren't allowed to be distributed/performed/recited because the copyright lasted 70 years after the death of the creator, and all of the creator's heirs died within 50 years of the creator?

Shari

Ok silly question, what difference does when the heir dies matter?
Copyright is Life +70 unless renewed.
Therefore if one writes a book, lives say 50 years more, then the book will automatically go into PD 70 years later if the heir does nothing.
So 120 years after the book is written, anyone can do anything with it.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

...Copyright is Life +70 unless renewed...

Speak for yerself , it is life plus 50 here and publish date plus 25 for publisher's typography.

And now that the USA has bailed out of the TPP trade agreement (we were going to be forced to change), hopefully it may stay that way.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Ok silly question, what difference does when the heir dies matter?
Copyright is Life +70 unless renewed.
Therefore if one writes a book, lives say 50 years more, then the book will automatically go into PD 70 years later if the heir does nothing.
So 120 years after the book is written, anyone can do anything with it.

Because if nobody is around to keep it published or performed, people will forget about it. If nobody knows who owns the rights, it can't be published or performed.

Shari

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Ok silly question, what difference does when the heir dies matter?
Copyright is Life +70 unless renewed.
Therefore if one writes a book, lives say 50 years more, then the book will automatically go into PD 70 years later if the heir does nothing.
So 120 years after the book is written, anyone can do anything with it.

There is no renewal with Life + X.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

That flew all over me. Authors are not second class citizens and shouldn't have to pay money to create something for people that think they have a right to tell the person how long they can make money off the book and that the author's children are not entitled to an inheritance.

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.

[Cinisajoy]

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.

Your hypothesis is probably accurate. Also life spans were much shorter back then.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

...and would be glad it someone could point me to any original Berne Convention debate on why 50 years is the charm.

I don't know of any reference but I think the 50 years at the Convention likely came about as a compromise among those attending taking into account their own preexisting post death terms.

But how those preexisting terms of the attendees came about I do not know, it may be as your hypothesis. In A Short History of Copyright, Atkinson and Fitzgerald state:

When Jefferson proposed a copyright term of 19 years (the average period of life remaining to members of the US population in 1790) he pointed out that ‘ the earth belongs in usufruct to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it’. He probably did not consider the possibility of the United States legislature providing for posthumous terms of such length that, for practical purposes, the duration of copyright might as well be stated to be infinite.

Of course, if 50 years is effectively infinity then 75 years is effectively infinity plus some, which is a new take on math and perhaps smacks of "lets just make sure".