Petition to reduce US copyright to 28 years

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

There is no "natural state of creation." Public domain is a legal construct, and as such it's every bit as "artificial" as copyright.



Here's the opening statement of the Statute of Anne:

Whereas printers, booksellers, and other persons have of late frequently taken the liberty of printing, reprinting, and publishing, or causing to be printed, reprinted, and published, books and other writings, without the consent of the authors or proprietors of such books and writings, to their very great detriment, and too often to the ruin of them and their families: for preventing therefore such practices for the future, and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books....

The origin of copyright was not to provide for the public good, but to protect authors and their families from getting ripped off. It was imposed by the monarchy, not graciously provided by the people.



Unfortunately I can't respond fully to this, because that would veer way too much into P&R territory. That said....

People will pirate, period. Music has been available DRM-free, at reasonable prices, in open formats, by several vendors for years -- and it's only legal actions like shutting down Limewire that make small dents in piracy rates.

It's also screamingly obvious that most of the content that's pirated nowadays is far less than 28 years old. What do we see at the top of The Pirate Bay's charts? Adele, Bobby Ocean (a brand new release), Drake, Coldplay, Chris Brown, Linkin Park, LMFAO, the UK Top 40 for 17-06-2012. Almost nothing was published prior to 1984. All of it is available DRM-free at a reasonable price.

Is this what the protest against excessively long copyright terms looks like? Today's Top 40? What grand injustice are these people allegedly protesting, by downloading the entire Rihanna discography?

The public domain is the natural state. Let me see if I can explain it more clearly.

I create/invent something. My neighbor wants to copy it. Why can't he? Unless there is a enforcable legal mechanism to prevent it, he can. There is no physical reason why he can't.

That is what I mean by natural state. No ownership of creative ideas. That doesn't mean they aren't created, just that they aren't owned. Once created, they are free to anyone.

Now, this is not the most productive way to create invention/ideas/writing. But it is a way. And things do get invented and written. The stirrup. The bridle bit. The heavy plow. The gun. The printing press. The spinning wheel. Steel. The touchstone. The chimney. The water wheel...

Written. Greek Plays. Mathematics. The works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Livy, Homer, Chaucer, Beowulf, Shakespeare, Donne, et. al.

Copyright/Patent is better. It produces more ideas, by rewarding them. But people aren't born with a built-in copyright button. nor are Civilizations. Ancient Greece didn't have copyright law, nor did Rome (although Rome had a very highly developed legal system), nor to my knowledge, did the Islamic empires (pre 1600).

Copyright and Patent are tied to the rise of mass production. When (and where) there wasn't mass production there wasn't a copyright/patent system. And that's been most of the human existence.

One last comment. When a piece of property is abandoned, somebody else can claim it and put it to use. During the Dark Ages, the abandoned farms from the late Roman period were simply taked over and used again (the legal term from the times was Assartage. But copyright/patent, even as it is used today, does not let creative works be recopyrighted (reused) once the term is over. Once released from the legal framework, it returns to the "natural state", i.e. free for anyone to use. Not owned is normal for I.P. over time. Owned is not. The term of abnormality may be 20 years or 200, but it is still abnormal to the long term availability of creative works.

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

That is EXACTLY how most of us writers survive--WE KEEP PRODUCING.

I understand what you're saying, but that has much more to do with the marketability of a product than anything else. (By that I mean the quality of the work, the demand for the particular work, the amount of competition from similar works, desire to promote the product, etc..) It is something that producers in any market faces. In that sense, I don't think that the argument holds much weight.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by ApK

Again, the restriction is the artificial construct, not the 'natural' (I think we know what he meant by natural) unrestricted state.

It's all artificial. There is no concept of "natural" that applies to ebooks, public domain or copyright.

Originally Posted by ApK

The fact that some protesters just want free stuff out of selfish greed does not invalidate the legitimate protestations of others.

No, actually, it kinda does. RSE is making a categorical claim that appears to have more basis in wishful thinking than in reality.

You are deluding yourself if you believe people are downloading Lady Gaga as a form of protest against copyright. Most of those people probably don't have a clue as to how long copyright lasts.

Nor do they have a valid grounds for complaint, because that content is available DRM-free, internationally, in open formats, for a reasonable price.

Originally Posted by ApK

However it should provoke a clear 'I'm not with them..." reaction if they don't want folks like you to lump them all together.

That's a nice thought, but the reality is that the handful of copyright protestors would be drowned out by the overwhelming majority of people who just want Free Stuff.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I'm a bit confused.
Isn't this petition for limiting copyright to life +28 years?
Is it strictly 28 years from date of creation (application)?

Kumabjorn, when I read it late at night the other day, I understood it to mean 28 years flat, not life + 28.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The term public domain is a legal construct, as are the legal ramifications. On the other hand there is no natural law regarding the ownership of property. Since the idea of the public domain reflects that, it is a much more natural state of being.

That's my point. You will have what we call the public domain, i.e., an uncontrolled access to ideas and their expressions without the existance of any law at all. You can't say that about copyright/patent. What I call the 'natural state' is what things default to, without any effort being placed to maintain something. A physicist might call it 'the lowest energy level'...

(There's a funny story waiting to be written about some aliens desperately trying to find one last human to sign over their I.P. rights to the aliens (under alien law) because without the signature, they can't preserve any of the human knowledge/artifiacts...And they can't find a human...)

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

That is what I mean by natural state. No ownership of creative ideas.

That's nice, but there is no "natural state" that applies to books, films, musical recordings, let alone ebooks.

Or do ebooks grow on trees? How did I not notice that?

Originally Posted by RSE

Now, this is not the most productive way to create invention/ideas/writing. But it is a way. And things do get invented and written. The stirrup. The bridle bit. The heavy plow. The gun. The printing press. The spinning wheel. Steel. The touchstone. The chimney. The water wheel...

And yet, some inventions were in fact closely held and controlled secrets. Few people are taught the ways of the shamans. Quite a few religions had "mysteries" that were only available to the initiated, such as the Eleusinian mysteries or many gnostic (early Christian) sects. No one bothered to write down the recipe for Greek fire. Guilds placed restrictions on who could produce certain goods, and techniques were often tightly managed. The less people who knew how to decode an encrypted message, the better.

Originally Posted by RSE

People aren't born with a built-in copyright button.

People also aren't born with a built-in anti-murder button. The prohibitions against and restrictions on killing other human beings are, per your description, "unnatural." Does that mean we should reject them? Or that we should embrace the "natural" state in which people can kill each other freely?

Or perhaps it's that the concept of "natural" should not be applied to the law, because it's nonsensical as a legal concept.

Originally Posted by RSE

Ancient Greece didn't have copyright law, nor did Rome (although Rome had a very highly developed legal system), nor to my knowledge, did the Islamic empires (pre 1600).

Those societies had very low literacy rates, and reproducing content like writings was very costly and time-consuming.

Copyright wasn't necessary until after the *cough* artificial device known as the printing press made it relatively cheap, easy and fast to produce books.

Originally Posted by RSE

When a piece of property is abandoned, somebody else can claim it and put it to use. During the Dark Ages, the abandoned farms from the late Roman period were simply taked over and used again (the legal term from the times was Assartage.

Yes, and they did a great job at it. They turned pagan temples into Christian churches, melted down bronze statues, tore down walls for use as building materials, chopped off the noses of statues to express superiority, tore statues and reliefs out of the temples and sold to foreigners on the open market.... Good example.

Originally Posted by RSE

copyright/patent, even as it is used today, does not let creative works be recopyrighted (reused) once the term is over.

Actually, that's not entirely correct. The SCOTUS recently ruled to restore the copyright of works that improperly went into the public domain in the US.

It would also be entirely possible to write the laws such that copyright expires without renewals, but to grant the rights holder a grace period of, say, 5 years after expiration to re-establish the copyright. The reason why we don't have this and so rarely see works returned to copyright is because it's highly impractical, and routine use would create confusion over what is or is not PD.

Further, it's not that the expiration of copyright "restores" copyright to its "natural state." The term "natural" is never cited in the Statute of Anne or the Copyright Clause, and is not cited as a concept in the US Copyright Act.

Public domain is the cessation of legal protection, and that's it. It's a beneficial aspect of our society, but ultimately it's as "natural" as physical property rights or protection against fraud -- which is to say "not at all natural."

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

I understand what you're saying, but that has much more to do with the marketability of a product than anything else. (By that I mean the quality of the work, the demand for the particular work, the amount of competition from similar works, desire to promote the product, etc..) It is something that producers in any market faces. In that sense, I don't think that the argument holds much weight.

No, you don't understand what I'm saying. Tell you what -- you write a book, sell it or try to for a few years, then come back here and tell me how it works. Better yet, write a book and give it away for a few years and let me know how that works out.

Many years of farming and ranching are years where you break even or take a loss. Same thing with writing. Sometimes there simply isn't enough demand for corn, or ocra or potatoes. But even in those years, no one expects the farmer to just give his work away for free. He may, like a book, be unable to sell it. He may have to give it to the pigs and chickens instead of other feed because that is what he grew. Sometimes there is a market for some books--and other years not. But by having copyright, guess what? Maybe my cozy mysteries aren't the hot item this year, but next year they are. Maybe werewolves are hot right now and Dragons aren't. But my Dragons of Wendal is still under copyright. In ten years, dragons might be the next best thing. Maybe the money I'm not making now, maybe I can make it then, while I'm writing Westerns in the hopes of a comeback.

No other producer is expected to work for free--why should writers be expected to only get compensated during some ill-defined timeframe, especially while they are still alive?

The natural flow of money from writing is not the same "Season" as farming, but there is nothing wrong with trying to protect an income source or potential income source for as long as possible (especially at least the lifetime of the producer.)

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

That's nice, but there is no "natural state" that applies to books, films, musical recordings, let alone ebooks.

Or do ebooks grow on trees? How did I not notice that?

They do grow on Project Gutenberg....

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

And yet, some inventions were in fact closely held and controlled secrets. Few people are taught the ways of the shamans. Quite a few religions had "mysteries" that were only available to the initiated, such as the Eleusinian mysteries or many gnostic (early Christian) sects. No one bothered to write down the recipe for Greek fire. Guilds placed restrictions on who could produce certain goods, and techniques were often tightly managed. The less people who knew how to decode an encrypted message, the better.

Which shows the copyright/patent system is better. Of course, niether one of us knows how many military secrets are out there now, even with a copyright/patent system...

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Those societies had very low literacy rates, and reproducing content like writings was very costly and time-consuming.

Copyright wasn't necessary until after the *cough* artificial device known as the printing press made it relatively cheap, easy and fast to produce books.

And copyright became effectively unenforcable with the growth of cheap computers and cheap massive storage devices. Technology giveth; and technology taketh away...

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Yes, and they did a great job at it. They turned pagan temples into Christian churches, melted down bronze statues, tore down walls for use as building materials, chopped off the noses of statues to express superiority, tore statues and reliefs out of the temples and sold to foreigners on the open market.... Good example.

And million dollar liabilities to welfare moms for breaking copyright laws?

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Actually, that's not entirely correct. The SCOTUS recently ruled to restore the copyright of works that improperly went into the public domain in the US.

It would also be entirely possible to write the laws such that copyright expires without renewals, but to grant the rights holder a grace period of, say, 5 years after expiration to re-establish the copyright. The reason why we don't have this and so rarely see works returned to copyright is because it's highly impractical, and routine use would create confusion over what is or is not PD.

Further, it's not that the expiration of copyright "restores" copyright to its "natural state." The term "natural" is never cited in the Statute of Anne or the Copyright Clause, and is not cited as a concept in the US Copyright Act.

Public domain is the cessation of legal protection, and that's it. It's a beneficial aspect of our society, but ultimately it's as "natural" as physical property rights or protection against fraud -- which is to say "not at all natural."

Y'all are all hung up over a word. I won't use natural, then. How about free? Things go into the P.D., they don't normally come out. I've read the SCROTUM ruling, their legal point was the items never should have been in the public domain in the first place. They were correcting an error. I can live with that.

You just want to pretend that the public domain doesn't exist, so it can't have any legal meaning. Sorry Charlie, but the addition to the public domain is the reason why all copyright/patents have expiring terms in the first place, despite the best efforts of the MPAA/RIAA....

[ficbot]

You are implying that people are against writers profiting from their works. Maybe some of the more unapologetic 'pirates' are, but most people in this thread are just asking for a fair balance. By having a fixed term (I do think life of the author plus a bit is fair; life plus 50 is pushing it a little too far for my tastes; life plus 75 is imho unreasonable) the author gets to profit from their creations. But the author also has to acknowledge that they borrowed from those who came before and therefore that others in the future get to borrow from them in the same way. Baum go to borrow from the public domain to create The Wizard of Oz (he was not the first to write stories about little girl heroines, or fantastical worlds with flying creatures). So Baum's work goes into the public domain and Maguire borrows. And now the thank you that he gives those he borrowed from is that some say in the future (not right now, but someday, when the copyright expires after he is dead and gone) someone might borrow from him. Fair is fair. He did not create his work in a vacuum. But he did create it. So he gets protections for a fixed time, and then he compensates those who came before him by having his own work return to the pool of human culture from which others can later draw. I see nothing wrong with this.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by ficbot

You are implying that people are against writers profiting from their works. Maybe some of the more unapologetic 'pirates' are, but most people in this thread are just asking for a fair balance. By having a fixed term (I do think life of the author plus a bit is fair; life plus 50 is pushing it a little too far for my tastes; life plus 75 is imho unreasonable) the author gets to profit from their creations. But the author also has to acknowledge that they borrowed from those who came before and therefore that others in the future get to borrow from them in the same way. Baum go to borrow from the public domain to create The Wizard of Oz (he was not the first to write stories about little girl heroines, or fantastical worlds with flying creatures). So Baum's work goes into the public domain and Maguire borrows. And now the thank you that he gives those he borrowed from is that some say in the future (not right now, but someday, when the copyright expires after he is dead and gone) someone might borrow from him. Fair is fair. He did not create his work in a vacuum. But he did create it. So he gets protections for a fixed time, and then he compensates those who came before him by having his own work return to the pool of human culture from which others can later draw. I see nothing wrong with this.

I'm not arguing with your length of time, but when you say borrowed--sure, we're influenced, but in some cases, we paid for the work. Shoot, if I think about who I believed influenced me most, I paid for ALL of those books because I wasn't a library-goer at the time. I was buying books then and a lot of them. If I look back at earlier influences (Nancy Drew, Trixie Beldon) most of my "payment" into the system was via my parents taxes because those were almost all library books.

I'm not saying others aren't influenced by PD works, but there's no real reason to argue FOR a specific shorter copyright (or longer) because it isn't as though a book is unavailable to influence someone just because it isn't PD. A writer could still buy the book and be influenced just fine. As I said, thinking about it, I'd say the most influences in my writing were largely books I bought.

I do agree that there needs to be a balance. It is even more true today that works can remain available (For sale or not) in an electronic form that makes them very accessible for longer periods of time. That has nothing to do with whether they are PD or not.

Perhaps your worry stems from the fact that currently older works can be impossible to obtain, but looking forward, that won't necessarily be the case.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by DarkScribe

Fair enough. Keep it legal. Maybe I can't see it because I can't see such a small saving being of consequence. In a world where (here) a paperback book can hit forty dollars - and we are over parity with the US, the difference between one dollar - or 99¢ - and eight dollars doesn't seem that great. I still can't see any great advantage to individuals. How many people are really going to rush out and buy huge quantities of very old books if they dropped it back to twenty-eight years? About as many as buy them here - almost no one.

The whole issue is moot in that the likelihood of it happening is pretty close to zero.

DarkScribe my life and general philosophy has benefited enormously by reading out of copyright books.

Had Project Gutenberg and other sources not had copies of out of copyright authors and titles my life would be far less enriched.

In some cases I didn't know of the author and in other cases I hadn't bothered to either read them or borrow them (if that was possible).

It's only for the mere fact that I could access these books in a clean and font readable format that I did.

For some authors, it was a curiosity factor - 'what was all the fuss over'. For other authors it was the fact that PG and others had deemed them to be suitably 'classic' to keep in the public eye.

I'm also now starting to identify that I might give myself a research project on a particular style and genre of fiction book and part of my decision making is identifying if the material (books) that could fulfil my research were available primarily via e-resources, and how I could obtain a copy.

Copyright rules impact not just the popular authors and titles, but ALL authors and titles, and the 50 year + death ruling that Aus followed until 2005 at least meant that books not in the provenance of any particular publishing house got the opportunity of being re-published and brought back to life, or being available via PG et al, 20 years more quickly than they will since the roll over to the US wishes in 2005.

As to ebook non-fiction author/title access this is still an undervalued arena and not one I hear discussed much on these pages either.

So yes - I take umbrage at you suggesting that 'How many people are really going to rush out and buy huge quantities of very old books if they dropped it back to twenty-eight years? About as many as buy them here - almost no one.'

[mSSM]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Copyright/Patent is better. It produces more ideas, by rewarding them. But people aren't born with a built-in copyright button. nor are Civilizations. Ancient Greece didn't have copyright law, nor did Rome (although Rome had a very highly developed legal system), nor to my knowledge, did the Islamic empires (pre 1600).

You claim that (as do many other people), but what is your proof? There are other people who say that in today's world, where technologies ("ideas") are being overhauled very very quickly, simply being the first to market an idea is actually reward enough (same thing applies to art, I would think).

So: can you point me to some studies? Personally, I really don't know, so I am really curious about your justification for that claim.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by mSSM

You claim that (as do many other people), but what is your proof? There are other people who say that in today's world, where technologies ("ideas") are being overhauled very very quickly, simply being the first to market an idea is actually reward enough (same thing applies to art, I would think).

So: can you point me to some studies? Personally, I really don't know, so I am really curious about your justification for that claim.

No, no studies. Look around you. How many people are doing whatever they do with their time because of economic incentives? Creating/inventing takes work, I've done a little. Incentives should cause them to do that work. Look at countries that have blocked incentives (mostly, but not all, Marxist), and look at the rate of inventions and other IP coming from them compared to other countries where incentives are not blocked.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

You just want to pretend that the public domain doesn't exist, so it can't have any legal meaning.

Uh... no. That's not even close to my position.

I am not, in any way shape or form, advocating for perpetual copyrights. Absolutely nothing I've said here could possibly be correctly interpreted as opposition to public domain, or as an advocation of perpetual copyrights. I even explicitly stated -- in the section you quoted -- that public domain is beneficial.

What I am saying here is:

• Copyright law is not designed to favor the middle man. It's designed to favor the rights holder.
• Both copyright and public domain are social constructions. Thus the term "natural" does not apply.
• Short copyright terms will not solve any issues, and will not dissuade anyone from violating copyright.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

DarkScribe my life and general philosophy has benefited enormously by reading out of copyright books.

Had Project Gutenberg and other sources not had copies of out of copyright authors and titles my life would be far less enriched.

In some cases I didn't know of the author and in other cases I hadn't bothered to either read them or borrow them (if that was possible).

It's only for the mere fact that I could access these books in a clean and font readable format that I did.

For some authors, it was a curiosity factor - 'what was all the fuss over'. For other authors it was the fact that PG and others had deemed them to be suitably 'classic' to keep in the public eye.

I'm also now starting to identify that I might give myself a research project on a particular style and genre of fiction book and part of my decision making is identifying if the material (books) that could fulfil my research were available primarily via e-resources, and how I could obtain a copy.

Copyright rules impact not just the popular authors and titles, but ALL authors and titles, and the 50 year + death ruling that Aus followed until 2005 at least meant that books not in the provenance of any particular publishing house got the opportunity of being re-published and brought back to life, or being available via PG et al, 20 years more quickly than they will since the roll over to the US wishes in 2005.

As to ebook non-fiction author/title access this is still an undervalued arena and not one I hear discussed much on these pages either.

So yes - I take umbrage at you suggesting that 'How many people are really going to rush out and buy huge quantities of very old books if they dropped it back to twenty-eight years? About as many as buy them here - almost no one.'

Umbrage eh? Ok, take some more. It's free.

You are not the norm, as if you were places like Gutenberg would be providing one hell of a lot more texts - per capita - than they do. I have been working - volunteering - with them for years and am still amazed at how little real interest there is in the huge quantity of great literature that is freely available. Many people when they first get an eReader grab a few free books, but few seem to continue to do so. If any of the "statistics" for pirating books are close to true, far more people pirate books than choose free public domain books. If they are pirating books then they are clearly readers, but as so many ignore great literature for modern - often trashy - alternatives, they are not too discerning. I doubt that the status quo would change very much if copyright was reduced.