Petition to reduce US copyright to 28 years

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I know you did not mention squatting, but it seemed to be implied. If exclusitivity is removed from a house for example, you or your heirs still own it, just not exclusively. Someone else could go live there too.

Not the way the world works at present, and I am sure that some would argue that most homeowners would work hard and build or buy houses just from the overwhelming desire to do so, whether or not they got any long term benefit from them. Probably a few hundred would.

Helen

No, it's not implied. Let's go back the Copyright Clause again. "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Copyright, as well as patent, is similar to a lease. The author gets exclusivity for a period of time. The exclusivity isn't "taken away", it expires. No one could take away the exclusivity for a house, as it doesn't have an expiration.

If I build a new type of house, no one could take that house from me. I may be able to patent that type of house, and during that time of patent exclusivity, no one else may build another house of that type without my permission. After the patent expires, I still own the house, the only thing that has changed is that other people are now free to build houses of that type without my permission. No one could use the Copyright Clause to claim that physical property has an expiration date.

What rights squatters have, if any, are a reasonable subject for debate, but they have nothing to do with copyright.

[DarkScribe]

Originally Posted by spindlegirl

I actually edited the post because my analogy didn't make sense. I agree with you.

Fair enough - I will remove my response. Not much point in debating someone who agrees with you.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by HarryT

So, if you build a house, the government should take it away from you after 28 years? If you start a business, the government should take it away from you after 28 years? If you buy shares in a company, those shares should disappear after 28 years?

Why should copyright be different?

So whenever you buy a loaf of bread you keep sending money to the baker's heirs for 70 years, right?



Nobody's saying that government should take away something from you. After 28 years you are still the author and nobody can say otherwise. So nobody is taking nothing yours away from you.


Your house does not expire because it's actually yours.
If you've got an hangar full of printed books, they're not taken away from you as soon as their copyright expires, because they're actually yours. And if you want, you can freely sell them.


And when copyright of the books you wrote expires (which is long after your death), your heirs are nor prevented to make money from them.
They just have to compete with others having the same right. Which is what is generally called "free market".

So, nobody is taking anything away.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Format C:

So whenever you buy a loaf of bread you keep sending money to the baker's heirs for 70 years, right?

When you buy a book do you keep sending the money to the copyright holders for 70 years?

I don't, it is the other people who are buying the book who do that. And no-one is pointing a gun to their head to make them buy the book. Maybe they won't buy the book in which case no-one is sending money to anyone.

When I buy a loaf of bread, other people will AFAIK still have to buy their own loaf tomorrow or 70 years from now whether from the bakers heirs, current owner of the bakery or a different bakery entirely, or they could bake their own bread of course, but I doubt it will be free and delivered to them electronically.
Who knows though, could happen

Helen

[ApK]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Why should copyright be different?

They should be different to account for the differences in the nature of the things.
Physical property doesn't share all of the same properties and issues as intellectual properties so there is no reason why decisions and laws about one should be a standard for the other. In places where issues and solutions do overlap, there are similarities, like considering them both a kind of 'property' and applying concepts of 'ownership' and 'theft.'
That's a happy convenience.
ApK

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

No, it's not implied. Let's go back the Copyright Clause again. "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Copyright, as well as patent, is similar to a lease. The author gets exclusivity for a period of time. The exclusivity isn't "taken away", it expires. No one could take away the exclusivity for a house, as it doesn't have an expiration.

If I build a new type of house, no one could take that house from me. I may be able to patent that type of house, and during that time of patent exclusivity, no one else may build another house of that type without my permission. After the patent expires, I still own the house, the only thing that has changed is that other people are now free to build houses of that type without my permission. No one could use the Copyright Clause to claim that physical property has an expiration date.

What rights squatters have, if any, are a reasonable subject for debate, but they have nothing to do with copyright.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
So, if you build a house, the government should take it away from you after 28 years? If you start a business, the government should take it away from you after 28 years? If you buy shares in a company, those shares should disappear after 28 years?

Why should copyright be different?

While I think 28 years is too short a period, the government doesn't take anything away when copyright expires, the granted period of exclusivity simply expires.

Ah I was arguing the exclusivity that you mentioned should not be applied only to copyright if applied at all. Generally you have exclusive rights to your house. Well if we disregard insects and rodents etc.

In some countries, if your property is uninhabited for a period of time, vacation, working out of country, sabbatical etc. squatters have a pretty strong ability to squat, thus negating your exclusive use of your home and squatters can actually gain legal possession of it.

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...049946,00.html

Modern copyright laws were inacted mainly to protect the rights of authors and publishers (primarily publishers I suspect) upon the invention of the printing press, not to allow people free access to knowledge, but to ensure that there would be new knowledge and entertainment to access.


http://www.historyofcopyright.org/


And like HarryT I feel that authors works deserve the same rights as anyone else, whether it be a home they bought or built, a business or anything else acquired honestly.

Helen

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by plib

You obviously haven't been paying a lot of attention. I'm very far from a libertarian. However I'll give you irony points for a good simplistic knee-jerk reaction.



In other words lawyers mess about at the edges writing reams of paper on real estate and contract law once the real matter of who owns what is decided. If you noticed on your way to your knee-jerk reaction the phrase I used was " Force absolutely defines what is owned". I didn't say it defines the nature of property, I didn't say it defined the rules of ownership what I said what it defines who owns it. You can come up with all the legal definitions you want but the fact remains that if you can't defend something then you don't own it, or at least you won't own for much longer. If you disagree then I suggest you have a conversation with a Plains Indian, or any Indian for that matter - Sioux, Commanche, Navajo, Creek, I think you'd find they all have a similar view.




And that was kinda my point, the legislature can only define property law, and make it stick, if the robber barons go along with it, or there is enough force exerted on them by the rest of society to make them go along with it. Legislation on property law isn't worth a fart in the wind if they can't enforce it.



Again, if you read what I said, I never said it did. I said it defines who owns it.



And do you think the people who were evicted would have gone if they could have outgunned the police, and subsequently the FBI or Army? What, precisely, would have made them move out if they didn't want to? Absent the threat of force who would leave? And if they didn't leave the the bank's bit of paper defining the "tenets of the contract" is just a worthless piece of paper.



TL;DR: If you don't believe force ultimately determines who owns what, society with "rule of law" or not, then go resettle Plains Indians on the great plains, or Palestinians in Israel, or white farmers on Zimbabwean farms (admittedly that's pushing the "rule of law" bit, but in a way proves the point even better). Even a country that purports to operate by "the rule of law" can only do so because the ultimate sanction of the law is the application of force. At which point lawyers are irrelevant.

"Libertarian" because libertarians are always eager to point out that laws are enforced at the point of a gun.

But your whole point is basically that the government enforces its laws? Which may include the use of force? I don't disagree with this of course, but I think it's a fairly trivial point for you to have gone to such lengths to explain.

My point is simply that what "property" is is defined by law - which you seem to agree with?

My larger point, though, is that property in land is not any more "natural" than owning a copyright is "natural." In both cases the nature of the property is defined by law, not by nature. The fact that someone can use force to defend a piece of land he is farming is no different from the fact that he can also use force to defend his intellectual property. It's not the force that defines the property.

Re: Indians - Interestingly, the abstract of title for my house begins: "All of the land in Indiana originally belonged to the Miami Indians;" it then follows the land as it is ceded to the US by some treaty around 1820, sold by the US to someone in 1821; then sold and subdivided until I purchased it.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Ah I was arguing the exclusivity that you mentioned should not be applied only to copyright if applied at all. Generally you have exclusive rights to your house. Well if we disregard insects and rodents etc.

In some countries, if your property is uninhabited for a period of time, vacation, working out of country, sabbatical etc. squatters have a pretty strong ability to squat, thus negating your exclusive use of your home and squatters can actually gain legal possession of it.

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...049946,00.html

Modern copyright laws were inacted mainly to protect the rights of authors and publishers (primarily publishers I suspect) upon the invention of the printing press, not to allow people free access to knowledge, but to ensure that there would be new knowledge and entertainment to access.


http://www.historyofcopyright.org/


And like HarryT I feel that authors works deserve the same rights as anyone else, whether it be a home they bought or built, a business or anything else acquired honestly.

Helen

Do you have a perpetual right to something you lease? That is the correct analogy. Because the law grants you a lease on all the rights to exploit a particular copyright.

The government leases other things, like off-shore drilling leases. Those are usually tied to a timer and are extended for as long as minerals are produced, if they are produced. Otherwise they end at the end of the timer. But they are not permanent ownership.

Copyright holders are lucky. They don't have to pay a percentage of their gross to the government for the right to have their lease. Drillers do. There are grazing leases on public land. You may (or may not) pay a $60 one time fees for a formal copyright. You are not being billed for every sale.

Note, there's nothing in Berne to stop taxation of copyrights...

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Do you have a perpetual right to something you lease? That is the correct analogy. Because the law grants you a lease on all the rights to exploit a particular copyright.

The government leases other things, like off-shore drilling leases. Those are usually tied to a timer and are extended for as long as minerals are produced, if they are produced. Otherwise they end at the end of the timer. But they are not permanent ownership.

Copyright holders are lucky. They don't have to pay a percentage of their gross to the government for the right to have their lease. Drillers do. There are grazing leases on public land. You may (or may not) pay a $60 one time fees for a formal copyright. You are not being billed for every sale.

Note, there's nothing in Berne to stop taxation of copyrights...

Your analogy doesn't work. The correct analogy would be if the company being granted the drilling lease actually put the oil there in the first place. The author created the resource, not nature or society. Without the author the book wouldn't exist, and even under copyright a book still benefits society. So the least society can do is protect the author's interests.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

"Libertarian" because libertarians are always eager to point out that laws are enforced at the point of a gun.

I'm not a Libertarian in the usual sense that the description is used however on this point, ultimately, they are correct. It's not necessarily enforced at the point of a gun every day against every jaywalker or speeder but the ultimate underlying sanction is the use of force as can be seen in every courtroom that the accused enters in handcuffs.

But your whole point is basically that the government enforces its laws? Which may include the use of force? I don't disagree with this of course, but I think it's a fairly trivial point for you to have gone to such lengths to explain.

My point is simply that what "property" is is defined by law - which you seem to agree with?

About right, although if we're talking fundamentals I'd reverse it a little and state that without the threat of the use of force the whole concept of a government by rule of law would not survive. Under the rule of law the law can define property. If the law cannot be enforced then the concepts of property that it defines become meaningless. So it is not that the "government enforces its laws", it's that without government force there can be no law, be that the US constitution or the laws of the Roman emperors.

My larger point, though, is that property in land is not any more "natural" than owning a copyright is "natural." In both cases the nature of the property is defined by law, not by nature. The fact that someone can use force to defend a piece of land he is farming is no different from the fact that he can also use force to defend his intellectual property. It's not the force that defines the property.

That is a whole different philosophical question. The very nature of "real" and tangible property makes it easier to define, easier to hold and easier to defend. Intellectual property and ideas are more difficult to control, even before going digital c.f. the various samizdat campaigns. The digital world just compounds this, as the Arab spring and the current conflict in Syria show, not to mention The Pirate Bay. So practically speaking I think defending intellectual property or controlling the proliferation of knowledge is very different both in nature and defense. And that's without going anywhere near the arguments as to what properly constitutes defensible intellectual property, what constitutes originality that would qualify for ownership, what should not be included because of prior existence and what term, if any, should be attached to the expression of an idea as property.

Re: Indians - Interestingly, the abstract of title for my house begins: "All of the land in Indiana originally belonged to the Miami Indians;" it then follows the land as it is ceded to the US by some treaty around 1820, sold by the US to someone in 1821; then sold and subdivided until I purchased it.

I'm not familiar with the Miami Indians, however a quick sidetrip to Wikipedia seems to say that they were in Indiana in the first place because they were forced to move there due to invasion by the Iroquois nation and that the treaty of 1818 followed destruction of their towns, villages and population during several years of conflict with US forces. Both of which, to my mind, reinforce the idea that the subsequent ownership of their land is indubitably due to the application of superior force. They were unable to defend their land and they lost it. You now own it, under the "rule of law", as a result of the actions of the US army.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Your analogy doesn't work. The correct analogy would be if the company being granted the drilling lease actually put the oil there in the first place. The author created the resource, not nature or society. Without the author the book wouldn't exist, and even under copyright a book still benefits society. So the least society can do is protect the author's interests.

There are no good analogies, the type of "property" as so different. Does society benefit from copyright? Yes it does. That is why society granted it in the first place. And society did grant it, it doesn't exist with society. (Whereas society can exist without copyright).

The benefit to society of copyright is not creation. But dead people don't create!. That's the failure of Life + definitions, people who don't create are getting a free ride off of the purpose of copyright. I prefer fixed term. I'd say 70 years is about right. Very few would outlive it, keeps bookkeeping simple and protect the offspring of those who die young...

But 70, not life + 70...

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Do you have a perpetual right to something you lease? That is the correct analogy. Because the law grants you a lease on all the rights to exploit a particular copyright.

Not really. The government provides you with protection over something you created.

If you write a book, the government does not sieze ownership and then give you back rights. Rather, when you put something into a fixed form, they protect your work for a finite duration. When that protection expires, your work goes into public domain.

Originally Posted by RSE

Copyright holders are lucky. They don't have to pay a percentage of their gross to the government for the right to have their lease.

Actually, they do. It's called "taxes."

Governments can charge additional fees afaik, but Berne specifies that as soon as content is in a "fixed form," it is considered protected by copyright. You do not need to fill out any forms or pay any fees. This is actually highly beneficial to content creators, especially small scale artists like photographers.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Not really. The government provides you with protection over something you created.

If you write a book, the government does not sieze ownership and then give you back rights. Rather, when you put something into a fixed form, they protect your work for a finite duration. When that protection expires, your work goes into public domain.

What the government does is basically to give the author a lease. The government doesn't "seize ownership" because without copyright, it is meaningless to say the author owns it. The property isn't really the book itself, but the right to copy it.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

There are no good analogies, the type of "property" as so different. Does society benefit from copyright? Yes it does. That is why society granted it in the first place. And society did grant it, it doesn't exist with society. (Whereas society can exist without copyright).

The benefit to society of copyright is not creation. But dead people don't create!. That's the failure of Life + definitions, people who don't create are getting a free ride off of the purpose of copyright. I prefer fixed term. I'd say 70 years is about right. Very few would outlive it, keeps bookkeeping simple and protect the offspring of those who die young...

But 70, not life + 70...

Let us examine the benefits for society. Let us say an author dies and at the time of his death the book is still selling really well.

1.)If the copyright expired what would be the be benefits for society? People could download it for free, and they could make a movie out of it without paying any royalties. (Fair use for educational purposes, parodies, etc are covered already).

2.)If the copyright continues after the author's death the book will generate real income for the author, jobs for the people who work at his publishers and at retailers selling the books. All those people will pay taxes on their incomes.

Which scenario is better for society?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

2.)If the copyright continues after the author's death the book will generate real income for the author, jobs for the people who work at his publishers and at retailers selling the books. All those people will pay taxes on their incomes.

Which scenario is better for society?

The famous response to this argument is that the same holds true for people going around smashing windows and generating business for glaziers. You're not factoring in the cost to the others.