I have found numerous pirated ebooks for free online. Please tell me the benefits of

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

This is one of those rare occasions where I agree with you - I think it would be reasonable to not only reduce the maximum copyright length, but also to introduce a requirement to renew copyright after a certain length of time in order to keep it.

However, given that the Berne convention explicitly prohibit a requirement to register works for copyright, I don't see any prospect of a renewal requirement being introduced anywhere.

The best we can hope for is a return to the Berne convention minimum of life+50.

[Edit: I just saw your idea of requiring registration for copyright length > life+50. I'd prefer to just see copyright length reduced to the Berne minimum.]

Paul, Politics is the art of the possible. If the Mouse House has to keep it copyrights, no matter what, let them pay and keep them. I'm thinking about all those "orphaned works", hoping to let them in the PD without further extensions. Make Mickey pay for releasing those orphan works. . .

[Pulpmeister]

"Orphaned works" is an issue on its own. In my trawling through newspapers and other obscure corners of the web I have come across many works that have been out of print for many years, and whose descendants (and therefore probable copyright owners) are hard if not impossible to find, and even the authors themselves can't be properly identified.

Those which are I can positively identify and are definitely PD Life +70 I have collected and posted here (notably Mark Hellinger). But these are a minority. In one year alone, 1931, more than 150 full length novels were serialised in Australian newspapers with authors named; and another fifty of so without any author identification at all. Some of the authors are well known (eg Arthur Upfield) , but many are vanishingly obscure and probably pseudonymous.

As it stands, these orphan works can be lost forever, regardless of merit, because they are probably still copyright but have no known owner and aren't sufficiently commercial to interest anybody but hobbyists. Who wants to take the risk of re-publishing as an ebook an old newspaper serial by A E Yarra (clearly a pseudonym, named after Melbourne's Yarra river, real name unknown), who might just possible be alive still? Or have litigious descendants, also unknown?

I know in photograph copyright law in some countries there is a provision for "orphaned works". I would like to see something like, "orphaned works, being works whose copyright owners cannot reasonably be identified, date of publication plus 50 years." Not necessarily becoming out of copyright, because the legitimate owner might turn up still, but protected against suit for any breach of copyright up until ownership is proved.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given the definition of the World Intellectual Property Organisation that Intellectual Property is "a category of property", I’d regard their viewpoint as “definitive” on the matter. They have 191 member states and administer 26 international treaties, so I think their word on the matter can be taken as authoritative.

I don't. You cite an organization dedicated to treating the various forms of government granted monopolies (copyright and patents) as property as the authoritarian expert on the definition of property. Certainly, it's the definition that they would like to have accepted by everyone.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't. You cite an organization dedicated to treating the various forms of government granted monopolies (copyright and patents) as property as the authoritarian expert on the definition of property. Certainly, it's the definition that they would like to have accepted by everyone.

They have more expertise than anyone else does on the matter. Should I take the opinion of "Some Random Guy on the Internet" as being more knowledgeable than that of the arbiters of international law on Intellectual Property?

[gmw]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't. You cite an organization dedicated to treating the various forms of government granted monopolies (copyright and patents) as property as the authoritarian expert on the definition of property. Certainly, it's the definition that they would like to have accepted by everyone.

I figure this post is missing either a smiley face or a tin-foil hat. Which is it?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by gmw

I figure this post is missing either a smiley face or a tin-foil hat. Which is it?

Neither. One of the most effective rhetorical devices is to get the other side to accept your definitions. Once you convince everyone that a government granted monopoly is actually property, then the idea that this monopoly ought to be treated just like any other property, i.e. it belongs to you and your heirs forever, is a fairly logical next step.

The term Intellectual Property, to describe government granted monopolies, was coined by a lawyer. Arguing to extend a government granted monopoly (known as rent seeking in economic terms) doesn't play nearly as well with the public as arguing that because it's property, it should be extended.

Copyright started as a government granted monopoly to printers not to authors. Authors didn't get copyright protection until 1710. Rhetorical language has shaped the debate on copyright since the beginning. Daniel Defoe first used the term "pirate" to describe someone who made a copy of his work during the debate leading to the passage of Statute of Anne. Since people knew real pirates at the time, it was a rhetorical device to paint people who engaged in such perfectly legal actions (at the time) as villains.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They have more expertise than anyone else does on the matter. Should I take the opinion of "Some Random Guy on the Internet" as being more knowledgeable than that of the arbiters of international law on Intellectual Property?

You should recognize the prejudices of your source. Americans, of course, do not generally buy into the international arbitration meme. We have our own law and court system.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You should recognize the prejudices of your source. Americans, of course, do not generally buy into the international arbitration meme. We have our own law and court system.

Which would be the prejudice of your sources, no?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You should recognize the prejudices of your source. Americans, of course, do not generally buy into the international arbitration meme. We have our own law and court system.

Every country has its own law and court system, but WIPO, in their role as a UN Agency, act as arbiters of the international treaties that govern dealings between countries. I really don't think that they can be regarded as "biased", but you are of course entitled to your own opinion!

[gmw]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You should recognize the prejudices of your source. Americans, of course, do not generally buy into the international arbitration meme. We have our own law and court system.

At least sources have been offered that confirm copyright as a property. If you actually have any sources to back up your opinions to the contrary then I'd be interested in seeing them - even if they are biased.

You may want to argue about the rhetoric used to establish the situation with copyright (I don't), but I fail to see why you would deny the current reality. Even if you don't agree that it should be so, it seems obvious that copyright will continue to be considered a property by all affected parties, and its status as a property is irrelevant to anyone not affected.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't. You cite an organization dedicated to treating the various forms of government granted monopolies (copyright and patents) as property as the authoritarian expert on the definition of property. Certainly, it's the definition that they would like to have accepted by everyone.

OK, I gotta ask--US Law, International law, and myriad other sources and authorities all define copyright as property. Period. That's established, and not subject to argument.

Is your point that you don't agree with the existing law and rulings, so you're simply posting your thoughts on the matter, or are you actually trying to say...what? That none of the legal authorities, the US Congress, treaties, etc., have the right to define it as property?

I mean...what's the discussion you're trying to have, here?

Hitch

[gmw]

Epiphany! Well, maybe.

I'm thinking the confusion over the concept of copyright as a property comes from the fact that many people speak of copyright infringement as theft. Thus a person could be forgiven for thinking we are saying that the crime is theft of the copyright property, but this is not the case (the theft is of a benefit of the property, not the property itself).

An imperfect example of the distinction (I'm not saying this is exactly the same thing) comes with land ownership: Trespass can be breaking the law, but the person isn't stealing your land (other than what sticks to their shoe), they are only depriving you of certain rights associated with land ownership (rights defined by and enshrined in law, by those tricky lawyer people - you no longer have to raise an army to defend your farm).

Or we might try another land-based comparison: When your neighbour moves the boundary fence they haven't stolen your land - it's still there - they have merely assumed use of benefits of your land, and deprived you of the same.

Like I said, neither of those are perfect analogies, but I think they demonstrate that copyright can be (and is) a property, but that infringement of copyright is not the theft of that property; it is theft of a benefit the owner is entitled to from that property.

[DiapDealer]

The problem is that while I think of illegal downloading as theft. I don't think it as theft of property, per see. It's just that nothing other than theft comes close to accurately describing "taking something without paying for it" for me. And that's what illegal downloading is: taking something you're not entitled to have without paying for it. If that's not theft, then nothing is, in my opinion.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The problem is that while I think of illegal downloading as theft. I don't think it as theft of property, per see. It's just that nothing other than theft comes close to accurately describing "taking something without paying for it" for me. And that's what illegal downloading is: taking something you're not entitled to have without paying for it. If that's not theft, then nothing is, in my opinion.

I agree with you, but I didn't really want to re-open the argument of whether copyright infringement is technically theft or not. My primary point was that I think - maybe - pwalker8 objected to calling copyright property because of the (potential) confusion I discuss in the previous post. This would explain what otherwise - to me - seems like an attempt to say the sky is not blue.

But once pwalker8 understands that defining copyright as property does not affect the argument over whether copyright infringement is theft, then maybe the sky can go back to being blue.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The problem is that while I think of illegal downloading as theft. I don't think it as theft of property, per see. It's just that nothing other than theft comes close to accurately describing "taking something without paying for it" for me. And that's what illegal downloading is: taking something you're not entitled to have without paying for it. If that's not theft, then nothing is, in my opinion.

I, too, struggle with defining it without using the word "theft." Of course, I know the legal terminology; but at least, the publisher/author has been damaged. Their rightful earnings have been stolen (withheld) from them--that is certain. The property, legally, has not been taken, but the earnings have. There's no other way of describing the loss of money, really, so to me, like you, it's theft.


Hitch