How Long Should Copyright Last?

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by pietrocrazy

I wonder, does anyone agree with the current law regarding copyright term - author's life + 70 years?

I voted 10-20 years with renewal, but I can see the other options being valid, up to and including the author's life or the author's life and surviving spouse's life. But life + 70 is outrageous in my opinion.

Life + 70 might be defendable, if and only if, the book keeps in print. Plenty of books out there that are still in copyright but not for sale. And that is the worst part.

[BuddyBoy]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Life + 70 might be defendable, if and only if, the book keeps in print. Plenty of books out there that are still in copyright but not for sale. And that is the worst part.

I agree. It would almost be sensible to take the trademark approach in that respect.

Trademarks are renewable, in perpetuity, but they have to be used and defended. Failing to make attempts to defend it can cause a firm to lose it's trademark. I remember, back in my journalist days, we'd often receive notices or find advertisements in trade journals warning us that Styrofoam(R) was a trademark and if we didn't treat it as such they would defend it to the full extent of the law.

[Kevin2960]

Forever !

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Life + 70 might be defendable, if and only if, the book keeps in print. Plenty of books out there that are still in copyright but not for sale. And that is the worst part.

Don't forget that this is not necessarily the fault of the author, sometimes it is simply that there has not been enough demand for a publisher to do another print run - or these days to convert to ebook. It may be that the issue of books being unavailable will gradually diminish. I don't think it is fair to force someone to start giving away their books just because they have been (so far) unable to make it available.

[pietrocrazy]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

I agree. It would almost be sensible to take the trademark approach in that respect.

Trademarks are renewable, in perpetuity, but they have to be used and defended. Failing to make attempts to defend it can cause a firm to lose it's trademark. I remember, back in my journalist days, we'd often receive notices or find advertisements in trade journals warning us that Styrofoam(R) was a trademark and if we didn't treat it as such they would defend it to the full extent of the law.

Honestly, I think trademark needs to be significantly weakened. Look at Monster Cable, which has trademarked the word "monster", and sues every company that dares to use the perfectly valid English word "monster", even if they have nothing to do with cables whatsoever (Monster Mini-Golf, Monster Energy Drinks, Monsters, Inc. ).

[The Terminator]

I really don't agree with the one right now that is life+70 or 120 years after it's published....Thats insane

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by THE TERMINATOR

I really don't agree with the one right now that is life+70 or 120 years after it's published....Thats insane

Yeah it seems crazy, especially since it was basically done at the behest of Disney INC. and Walt wasn't around to voice his opinion.

Maybe we need another poll about whether or not we should go back to having to file a copyright claim for anything you want copyrighted, a process for registering a claim at no cost would have to be developed, but I think streamlining the current process and making use of the crowd as well as a few tax dollars might work, we are talking about the public good here, and the advancement of the arts.

I don't think copyright should ever be tied to life, it's too easy for orphan works to be created that way. The burden of reregistering copyright should be on the rights holder.

[rogue_librarian]

I doesn't need to be much of a burden; it a book is still in print, that could count as an automatic renewal. If there is a new edition, a renewal for the initial copyright, something like that. What about this: a ten year span, renewable indefinitely by the author but only once by his heirs?

[gmw]

As far as I can tell the thing that everyone is actually complaining about is that certain books are not available. This is not, in and of itself about copyright law, copyright law is simply the thing that prevents you from making your own copy, it is not the thing that is preventing the book from being made available in the first place. ... If you see what I mean. As more and more books make it into electronic format so it should be easier for publishers to keep books available, and so you wont have anything much to complain about. Neat and simple, no law changes required, it just means some patience while things catch up.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by pietrocrazy

This is probably the single biggest problem with copyright as it stands. Something like 95% of all books are out-of-print. Only the most popular or most recent books are available to buy print editions of (not including used books, of course). In the future, with most books being released in ebook format as well as print, this will change. But what about the gigantic back catalog of books that are out of print but won't be in the public domain for another 50-100 years? Society is really losing out by not having access to these books!

This is why I think the copyright should be based on a set number of years (say 70 years) from the date the publication was originally released with no renewal option is the best way to go. The reason I think 70 years is a reasonable number of years is that it's essentially the life of the author but removes the variable of the life of the author. As an example, the copyright on a book would expire when the author reaches 90 years of age if he/she originally released the book at the age of 20. This should give the author time to fully benefit from their work.

This would give each book a firm date when it would enter the public domain, and make it easy to determine if a book is in the public domain. It would also deal with the issue of orphan works, if it were applied to all previously existing orphaned works.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by gmw

As far as I can tell the thing that everyone is actually complaining about is that certain books are not available. This is not, in and of itself about copyright law ...

It is, actually. It's usually not that the work is lost as such, there are copies available in a library or somewhere. You just can't buy new ones, because nobody can be bothered to make any, or, as is frequently the case, nobody knows who the heirs are or who really owns the rights. So nobody dares touch this work for fear of suddenly being sued after all. This does't help anybody.

The EU has a new project underway, named "Arrow" that tries to deal with such rights' ownership issues and orphaned works. It's early days yet, though.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

It is, actually. It's usually not that the work is lost as such, there are copies available in a library or somewhere. You just can't buy new ones, because nobody can be bothered to make any, or, as is frequently the case, nobody knows who the heirs are or who really owns the rights. So nobody dares touch this work for fear of suddenly being sued after all. This does't help anybody.

The EU has a new project underway, named "Arrow" that tries to deal with such rights' ownership issues and orphaned works. It's early days yet, though.

Production of ebooks is a possible availability solution where the copyright owner is known, but yes, orphaned items - having no known owner - are more of a problem, but not necessarily one that requires changes to copyright timing. It would only require provisions to deal with that situation. My point was that the complaints being made here are about the length of time of copyright, but that seems misdirected, the real problem is the work not being available even for purchase. So something like the Arrow project (thanks for that link) - something that tackles the actual problem - is the sort of sort of thing that needs to be studied.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

if a book is still in print, that could count as an automatic renewal. If there is a new edition, a renewal for the initial copyright, something like that. What about this: a ten year span, renewable indefinitely by the author but only once by his heirs?

But who will keep track of whether or not a book is in print?

For books, possibly movies, most likely music, filing copyrights should be theoretically as simple as sending your file to a computer for analysis, you will also have to provide a proper email address, one that you intend to keep for the length of time that your copyright will be.

Then X number of years down the line, Copyrighter5000 will send you an email asking if you would like to have your copyright extended for another X number of years.

If you have a physical good that needs copyright, well that will cost extra of course.



Some news from that Arrow Project,

"In her opening speech Commissioner Kroes commended ARROW as a unique collaboration of 29 organisations representing all stakeholders. She said that her vision is that One search in ARROW should be all that it is needed to determine the copyright status of cultural works in Europe. If it were embedded in the forthcoming Directive on orphan works, ARROW could become the official portal in Europe where you can find essential rights information and do automated searches of rightholders and copyrights. She concluded that ARROW’s potential was huge and that it was leading the way to show how stakeholders can work together towards the digital future."

http://www.arrow-net.eu/sites/defaul...%20Results.pdf

It sounds like a simple full text search with copyright metadata?

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

But who will keep track of whether or not a book is in print?

I understand there are directories for that.

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Well, it isn't in the same sense of other stuff. It isn't tangible, it isn't limited to size or number.

Companies die for good intelectual property in the form of new optimized algorithms, like compression formats for audio/video. It's a highly valued Intelectual Property and is not something your average crackhead copycat can come up with: it takes years of research from highly bright individuals for something new and valueable to come up to replace the old methods. It is very tangible in the sense of how much effort and time it takes to create and how much valuable it is from companies willing to patent it.

ironically enough, said compression methods are also highly valued by the Crackhead Copy Joe, who can now rip blurays and create a small torrent with almost same quality...

Works of art are not much different in the value put in by appreciators, aside from no real practical use.