Europe votes on anti-piracy laws

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Ramen

The problem I and probably many others have, is that "death" is simply to vague. The result is death + X which is simply too conservative (in the mathematical sense).

Date of publication + X is far more concise. The only instance where a family wouldn't inherit copyright would be for an old work. This is fine by me for the reasons others have stated above (encouragement, etc).

I have two issues against long copyrights.

1. Long copyrights are fine as long as it's the author who benefits most from the copyrights - but we all know that the real case is that some publishing corporation is reaping most of the rewards. And these days, they do their best to secure every single possible venue - book, movie, play, ebook, reprint...

2. Long copyrights also tend to allow a one-book (what I call "lazy") authors to bask in the "glory" without producing other works. I hate it when an author gets bored and leaves me hanging in the middle of the series. (I admit this is a much less viable argument than the publishers/authors argument. )

Derek

[slayda]

I would like to propose a question of moral (not necessarily legal) ownership of intellectual property through an example.

Suppose:

1. I design and build a totally unique house.
2. Photographer Joe takes a picture (without my permission) of my house and sells it to Time magazine.
3. Time publishes an article on houses and includes this picture.
4. I buy a copy of Time magazine and copy the picture to use in my Builders News Letter which is distributed for free to other designers and builders.
5. I send out the News Letter to my subscribers.

Who "morally" owns what intellectual property? Me, Joe, Times magazine?

Although US copyright laws would say that Joe owned the copyright of the picture and could legally sell it to Times magazine, it all started with my creative design and therefore "my" IP (IMHO). However under the current laws, I could be prosecuted for violation of copyright. TANJ!

[slayda]

Some years ago I worked for a year for a chemical company. My entire work consisted of trying to find a formula that would be enough like a patented formula to achieve the same results but would be enough different to "not violate" their patent.

The question here is could the same be done with copyright & if so how different? E.g. the person who published a Harry Potter glossary did not in fact copy any of the original stories but was still accused of copyright violation.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by slayda

I would like to propose a question of moral (not necessarily legal) ownership of intellectual property through an example.

Suppose:

1. I design and build a totally unique house.
2. Photographer Joe takes a picture (without my permission) of my house and sells it to Time magazine.
3. Time publishes an article on houses and includes this picture.
4. I buy a copy of Time magazine and copy the picture to use in my Builders News Letter which is distributed for free to other designers and builders.
5. I send out the News Letter to my subscribers.

Who "morally" owns what intellectual property? Me, Joe, Times magazine?

Although US copyright laws would say that Joe owned the copyright of the picture and could legally sell it to Times magazine, it all started with my creative design and therefore "my" IP (IMHO). However under the current laws, I could be prosecuted for violation of copyright. TANJ!

Ummm... Sorry, but Joe owns the copyright to the image. While, yes, *you* creatively expressed yourself in designing and building the house, *he* creatively expressed himself in making (and I use the term quite properly as he did not just 'happen' upon the angle of view, the lighting, the season - rather he chose to combine those elements) the image of your house. Now once he sold certain rights to use to Times magazine, *they* now own those rights.

Claiming that your creative expression is valid, yet his creative expression is not defies logic.

So you *can* use the image, but if you do so, you must clearly state that the image is copyrighted to Joe and Time magazine. The house, of course, still remains yours.

Derek

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Ummm... Sorry, but Joe owns the copyright to the image. While, yes, *you* creatively expressed yourself in designing and building the house, *he* creatively expressed himself in making .... the image of your house. Now once he sold certain rights to use to Times magazine, *they* now own those rights.

I wonder if Joe will photograph the contents of a book next.

Morally, I think he was wrong to photograph the house without permission. Subsequent use of the image would therefore be morally wrong imho.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I wonder if Joe will photograph the contents of a book next.

Morally, I think he was wrong to photograph the house without permission. Subsequent use of the image would therefore be morally wrong imho.

Sorry, but no, he's got the right to take an 'editorial' image of just about anything. Now if he's going to use that image to advertise the product, that's going to require permission. It is *NOT* morally wrong. To make it otherwise is to limit creative expression. One would soon find oneself incapable of creating any art.

Derek

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

Sorry, but no, he's got the right to take an 'editorial' image of just about anything. Now if he's going to use that image to advertise the product, that's going to require permission. It is *NOT* morally wrong. To make it otherwise is to limit creative expression. One would soon find oneself incapable of creating any art.

I take a different view because I see it as an invasion of privacy (and just plain rude!).

[Krystian Galaj]

As far as I can understand the original Macaulay speech, when a person writes a book, the property is the manuscript - but not the text. Text cannot be anyone's property, no idea can.

Copyright is a privilege given to the author of the book by the state, to have control over making copies of the text, which become the property of copies' owners, except for the right to copy them further. If they want to copy them further, they still have to have the permission of the original author, or break the state law.

Intellectual property is a misleading term, because it implies that author has some right to the text itself.

I don't know of any studies of the influence of the length of given copyright on the value of works created under it - I doubt it would be possible to extract any hard knowledge about such complicated process as creating books in a big area, across many years.

Personally I'm for copyright no longer than until author's death, because the society would not benefit at all from making it longer. Below that limit, if it's shorter, some authors might consider the returns not worth the effort, some others would create anyway until their death and for those the shorter copyright would mean less time until their ideas can be shared freely in the society, so I don't see a way to find an optimal period.

To stay on topic, I consider the matter of the state not gaining more control over peoples' affairs than it already has more important for the society than copyright law. Without copyright people would still, many works of art are already in existence - and I know the life under USSR well enough not to want to make any steps in that direction.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Will the surviving spouse continue to produce new work by the deceased author? Will the surviving spouse continue to do so for 70 years after the death of the author?

This is the point of copyright, to encourage a creator to make more. A dead creator cannot make more and thus does not need copyright protection.

VC Andrews is the most active dead author in the history of dead authors. Lots of books written after death.

[6charlong]

Hummm… An odd proposal--going back to the original post I mean. It seems like artists have hardly ever found it conductive to the creative process having government rifle through their private correspondence.

Surely Mr. Sarkozy’s proposed search for weapons of mass cultural destruction will reveal something. These searches always do. Reveal something I mean.

Still. It seems an odd way to promote the arts, searching through everyone's correspondance. Don’t you think?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by slayda

I would like to propose a question of moral (not necessarily legal) ownership of intellectual property through an example.

Suppose:

1. I design and build a totally unique house.
2. Photographer Joe takes a picture (without my permission) of my house and sells it to Time magazine.
3. Time publishes an article on houses and includes this picture.
4. I buy a copy of Time magazine and copy the picture to use in my Builders News Letter which is distributed for free to other designers and builders.
5. I send out the News Letter to my subscribers.

Who "morally" owns what intellectual property? Me, Joe, Times magazine?

Although US copyright laws would say that Joe owned the copyright of the picture and could legally sell it to Times magazine, it all started with my creative design and therefore "my" IP (IMHO). However under the current laws, I could be prosecuted for violation of copyright. TANJ!

If you use Joe's picture, yes you could be prosecuted. Of course, you could take your own picture, from the same angle, lighting, ect., and then it's your picture to do with what you will....

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

If you use Joe's picture, yes you could be prosecuted. Of course, you could take your own picture, from the same angle, lighting, ect., and then it's your picture to do with what you will....

But Joe just made a copy, albeit in a different medium, of my IP. So based on your (aptly legal opinion) I should therefore logically be able to make a copy of a pbook in an electronic medium and even sell it for profit as Joe sold his picture. (Of course I admit that logic and legality don't necessarily have any thing in common and legality often defies logic.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Trenien

It appears relevant so I've decided to post a poll on what people consider would be a reasonable term for copyright.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26277

I've voted for death + 30 because I feel that death + 50 is too long a time. But 30 years after gives the remaining family enough of a chance to get any rewards from the work(s).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I wonder if Joe will photograph the contents of a book next.

Morally, I think he was wrong to photograph the house without permission. Subsequent use of the image would therefore be morally wrong imho.

The owner of the house owns the rights to the photo regardless of who took it. You cannot photograph my place of residence and then make money from it without my permission.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The owner of the house owns the rights to the photo regardless of who took it. You cannot photograph my place of residence and then make money from it without my permission.

No, actually. The person who takes the photo owns the rights to the photo. At some point in the past, this issue came up in relation to Harry's avatar.