Public Domain

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

It sounds like you are arguing with my post when you and I seem to agree.

You could stand to use some better examples though. Star Wars did borrow from The Hidden Fortress (and Dune), and Fistful of Dollars was copyright infringement. So public domain had nothing to do with either.

The Magnificent Seven was a remake of The Seven Samurai, so again, not public domain. Oh, and fun fact: a less... official remake of The Seven Samurai was done by Roger Corman. Check out Battle Beyond the Stars some time.

No, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm pointing out famous movies that borrow from other famous movies, not the use of public domain. I use a Fistful of Dollars where the movie producer did all the things that Lee suggests as ways to get around copyright and yet lost the court case. I also pointed to the Star Wars/Battlestar Galactic case as an example where the copyright holder made some pretty far ranging copyright violations claims including the idea that Skiler is too close to Skywalker.

Yes, I've seen Battle Beyond the Stars, though I suspect that it borrowed from The Magnificent Seven rather than the Seven Samurai. Heck they even used Robert Vaughn basically playing the same character that he played in the Magnificent Seven. I liked that movie. It was a fun six pack movie.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Very few people would agree that growing corn for your own conception is interstate commerce, yet that's what the Supreme Court decided so they wouldn't have to overturn FDR's regulations.

I didn't know that was possible. How is the time travel paradox solved and what does corn have to do with conception?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Very few people would agree that growing corn for your own conception is interstate commerce, yet that's what the Supreme Court decided so they wouldn't have to overturn FDR's regulations.

A distinction without consequence for the ones growing the corn in their backyard for their own--what I can only assume you meant--consumption. And even that situation is not nearly so simple as you've tried to make it sound in order to further your penchant for pretending your self-guided legal "research" somehow lends your notions more credence than any other Not A Lawyer hack on the internet.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

A distinction without consequence for the ones growing the corn in their backyard for their own--what I can only assume you meant--consumption. And even that situation is not nearly so simple as you've tried to make it sound in order to further your penchant for pretending your self-guided legal "research" somehow lends your notions more credence than any other Not A Lawyer hack on the internet.

Ah yes, the old sneer defense. You can't disagree with the idea that judges don't always decide according to the the common sense reading of the law, so you simply sneer. The consequences to Filburn, the farmer in question, was that he had to pay a fine for producing more wheat than the Federal government said he could. It was one of the most famous Commerce cases.

One does not need to be a lawyer to read about law and express an opinion, anyone than one has to be an author to have an opinion on books. Facts are facts, you don't have to have a special degree in order to discuss those facts.

Of course your argument is also hypocritical. Unless you have a law degree and are an expert on copyright law, then you seem to think it's ok for you to assert your opinion, but if anyone should disagree with that opinion, then it's not allowed and dismissed out of hand.

[ekbell]

If copyright was perpetual from before Shakespeare's time, he wouldn't have been able to write a number of his plays (for example Hamlet).

This is an example of the derivative works having been determined to be of greater societal value then the original works.

Besides taking a story and rewriting/telling it in a different media, from a different point of view, with more detail, set in a different time or place or just done better can be described as a vital cultural tradition which should not be forbidden without serious need (see the history of the stories of King Arthur, Robin Hood, Merlin .... all the way back to Gilgamesh).

Walt Disney can stick to trademarking Mickey and keeping him pristine that way (it's likely to be more effective).

[hildea]

Can we agree that the purpose of copyright is to give creators a reasonable amount of artistic and commercial control over their works, and to give humanity a reasonable amount of access to our cultural heritage?

The difficulty, of course, is in agreeing on what's reasonable.

I'd give creators rights to their works for their lifetime + enough time to provide for their children, if any. So, life + somewhere between 30 and 50 years. (When the kids are grown up, they should be able to provide for themselves, especially if they are inheriting wealth from successful parents.)

If the creator is a company or other organization (which I assume is reasonable if a groups of employees create a work together at work), I suggest the company owns the right for 50 years or so after the creation of the work. I'm pretty sure any company today expects to get back the value of their investments long before that time.

My great grandfather wrote some books, including one, now that I think of it, which might make a pretty good movie, with lots of heroism and drama, and in-story reasons to let beautiful actors show a lot of skin. I see no reason why I and my cousins should have any moral right to a windfall of money if someone decided to do all the work and investments making that film, and it turned out to be a success. And if someone did find that book, and needed to ask all his descendants for permission before creating a film based on it, they would look at the number of children he had, and give up before starting.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Of course your argument is also hypocritical. Unless you have a law degree and are an expert on copyright law, then you seem to think it's ok for you to assert your opinion, but if anyone should disagree with that opinion, then it's not allowed and dismissed out of hand.

I was not excluding myself from the ranks of Not A Lawyer Internet Hack. But I was most recently questioning your armchair interstate commerce law degree being misused to further your copyright interpretations. And ultimately ... yes. I DO believe my own opinions of how judges might rule in these situations to be more accurate than yours. Much like you believe yours is more accurate than everybody's. The difference being: I have no delusions about being a legal expert.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by hildea

Can we agree that the purpose of copyright is to give creators a reasonable amount of artistic and commercial control over their works, and to give humanity a reasonable amount of access to our cultural heritage?

Umm... no. At least, not in those words. Copyright is not designed to give us access to our cultural heritage at all. All the following paragraph is just my opinion, of course.

The purpose of copyright is encourage creators to create. Any extension of copyright beyond the minimum required for that purpose costs the public far more than is gained by the creator, and so is a net loss for society.

I am very much in agreement with McCauley on this, so I'll quote a few bits from his speech to the House of Commons that was made over 150 years ago. I think his words are still true, and the references in them to books and reading clearly apply also to music, film, etc.

"It is desirable that we should have a supply of good books; we cannot have such a supply unless men of letters are liberally remunerated: and the least objectionable way of remunerating them is by means of copyright."

"an advantage that is to be enjoyed more than half a century after we are dead, by somebody, we know not by whom, perhaps by somebody unborn, by somebody utterly unconnected with us, is really no motive at all to action"

[When discussing the extra cost to the public, estimated at £20,000, had Dr Johnson's dictionary had a life+50 years copyright]

"I think it but fair that we should pay twenty thousand pounds in consideration of twenty thousand pounds’ worth of pleasure and encouragement received by Dr. Johnson. But I think it very hard that we should pay twenty thousand pounds for what he would not have valued at five shillings."


In short, my opinion that copyright is necessary, but that it is currently far too long. Unfortunately, I can see no prospect of that changing.

[hildea]

pdurrant: I see your point, and agree. Let me rephrase to "Copyright laws should give..." and so on.

[leebase]

“Net loss for society” is where I believe copyright term limits for fiction are not needed. There is no limit to imagination. Disney is more than able to make Mickey Mouse a societal good BECAUSE only Disney can make Mickey Mouse.

Meanwhile, Mighty Mouse can be created by someone else. Ratatouille is still created about a talking Mouse. Fivel is still created. There is no limit to Mouse story making just because only Disney gets to make Mickey Mouse.

Nobody gets to own “boy meets girl” or “feuding families have kids that fall in love” such that Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story both get to exist.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by leebase

“Net loss for society” is where I believe copyright term limits for fiction are not needed. There is no limit to imagination. Disney is more than able to make Mickey Mouse a societal good BECAUSE only Disney can make Mickey Mouse.

No, no, no, no, no!

It's not just the lack of derivative works. Although that is also a loss to society.

With perpetual copyright, the entire societal contract about copyright is broken.

The whole of society works to protect copyright, including the courts and the legislature. People have to pay more for the creations because their production is a monopoly during their copyright period. This is an enormous amount of effort and money spent solely to ensure that creators get a reward for their creations.

So why does society do this? Spend all this money and effort for the benefit of a small number of creators?

So that society can be enriched by the creations. And that means that once the creator has been 'sufficiently' rewarded, the creation is allowed to be used by anyone - the monopoly ceases.

[leebase]

Society is rewarded by having fiction. This is not like medical patents where after 20 years, everyone can make aspirin. Something I favor. There are not an infinite number of ways to do what aspirin does. Society never needs to own someone else's fiction work

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

No, no, no, no, no!

It's not just the lack of derivative works. Although that is also a loss to society.

With perpetual copyright, the entire societal contract about copyright is broken.

The whole of society works to protect copyright, including the courts and the legislature. People have to pay more for the creations because their production is a monopoly during their copyright period. This is an enormous amount of effort and money spent solely to ensure that creators get a reward for their creations.

So why does society do this? Spend all this money and effort for the benefit of a small number of creators?

So that society can be enriched by the creations. And that means that once the creator has been 'sufficiently' rewarded, the creation is allowed to be used by anyone - the monopoly ceases.

We know how things work without copyright. Copyright hasn't existed through most of history. We also can see a bit of the dynamic since up until fairly recently, the US didn't recognize foreign copyrights (thus the unauthorized edition of Lord of the Rings back in the 60's). For that matter, in the US, we saw that copyright worked perfectly well for time periods much shorter than life plus 70 (28 years plus the option of a 28 year extension).

It helps to know the history, both of copyright in English law and copyright in US law. I think that it's fair to speculate that without copyright, we wouldn't have nearly the number of books that we have. The flip side is that I think it's also fair to speculate that extending the copyright term from 28+28 to life+70 hasn't made much of a difference. It doesn't really help to have more writers writing books if they can't sell those books, so I would say that increased wealth, increased population and increased access to bookstores has had a much bigger impact on authors getting paid.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

Society is rewarded by having fiction. This is not like medical patents where after 20 years, everyone can make aspirin. Something I favor. There are not an infinite number of ways to do what aspirin does. Society never needs to own someone else's fiction work

By that logic, society shouldn't be paying to protect someone else's fiction either. It either has value or it doesn't. If it doesn't have value, then society shouldn't be protecting it, if it does have value, then it should go into public domain after a time to pay society for protecting it.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

By that logic, society shouldn't be paying to protect someone else's fiction either. It either has value or it doesn't. If it doesn't have value, then society shouldn't be protecting it, if it does have value, then it should go into public domain after a time to pay society for protecting it.

Fiction has value, that's the whole point. If it wasn't protected by copyright, then it would not have any value.

There is just not "for the good of society" point to be made to transfer the rights of a fictional story to "society" from "the creator".

There is no limit to fiction, no limit to creativity. Giving Disney the monopoly on Mickey Mouse does not prevent Mighty Mouse. Rather it encourages Mighty mouse verses "Yet another Mickey Mouse story brought to you by .... anyone".

It wouldn't take long to completely disperse the value of Mickey Mouse if anybody and everyone could make Mickey Mouse stories and movies

I see no reason whatsoever in supporting those copycat manufacturers who have no creativity of their own, but could pump out Mickey Mouse hats by the millions as they drain the value away from Disney.