Duration of copyright poll.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

And how, exactly, is it possible to own an idea?

It is not possible to own an idea but copyright and patent are about implementation not ideas. Copyright is about a particular manifestation of an idea generally regarded as art or expression of an idea. Patents are about an implementation of an idea.

Dale

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Precisely.


Yes, and while you can debate whether it is technically property, it can be treated as such while it exists, which is why I refer to it as property. As mentioned, property implies ownership and control, and copyright grants both to the rights holder for the duration of the copyright.

I think I'm going to tackle that from your own point of view, that is "property of physical objects is a purely social construct, and as such copyright is fundamentally identical".

Supposedly, laws in our modern world reflect what is considered acceptable behavior. An argument could be made against such a statement but I think most will agree that it at least applies to laws that have existed for a long time (and are still in use - let's forget leftovers that haven't been repelled but are considered crazy nowadays).

From the official definition (Webster online):
Copyright:
Pronunciation: \-ˌrīt\
Function: noun
Date: 1735
The exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something (as a literary, musical, or artistic work)

You'll note that neither "property" nor "ownership" are used. As for the control...
By the way, there's a reason why the original law makers didn't describe it as property

Property
Pronunciation: \ˈprä-pər-tē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural prop·er·ties
Etymology: Middle English proprete, from Anglo-French propreté, from Latin proprietat-, proprietas, from proprius own
Date: 14th century
The exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing

Notwithstanding the "thing" part (using it would be playing semantics), you'll especially pay attention to the "enjoy" part. If you keep that in mind, you'll have to conclude the only way for you to have an idea as your property is to keep it a secret, else anybody else can enjoy it.
Which is pretty much the point of books, I believe.
It's also the reason why patent and copyrights are two very different things, covered by very distinct laws. Please don't mix the up in the discussion, as patent are irrelevant here. The topic is already getting out of hand as is.

I'm in favor of a shorter rather than a longer term. I'd like Life+25 years. I can live with Life+50 years. I'm opposed to greater lengths.

The greater lengths being pushed for largely are for the benefit of "immortal corporations", and wind up affecting individuals as a side effect.

Honestly, if life+25 years is your idea of short term, I'm afraid I just can't understand your way of looking at things. I must be too young (and I'm well past my thirtieth birthday).

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Trenien

I think I'm going to tackle that from your own point of view, that is "property of physical objects is a purely social construct, and as such copyright is fundamentally identical".

That isn't my point of view.

My first postulate is that the concept of property rights is a social construct. Different societies may define it differently, and have different concepts of what may be considered individual property and what rights the property holder is granted over the use of the property.

The second is that copyright can largely be treated as property for the duration of the rights. Property implies ownership and control. Copyrights provide some measure of both over the work they protect for the duration of the copyright.

Supposedly, laws in our modern world reflect what is considered acceptable behavior. An argument could be made against such a statement but I think most will agree that it at least applies to laws that have existed for a long time (and are still in use - let's forget leftovers that haven't been repelled but are considered crazy nowadays).

As I mentioned elsewhere, any human society of necessity evolves rules governing what is acceptable behavior, to insure the smooth functioning of the society. The rules that get written down we call law.

The rules change as the society changes, and new rules get made to cover situations that didn't previously exist. Old rules do tend to stick around, but generally don't matter because they don't get enforced.

If it makes you happier, I'll drop the use of the word "property" from my comments. It's a loaded word and it's getting in the way.

Notwithstanding the "thing" part (using it would be playing semantics), you'll especially pay attention to the "enjoy" part. If you keep that in mind, you'll have to conclude the only way for you to have an idea as your property is to keep it a secret, else anybody else can enjoy it.
Which is pretty much the point of books, I believe.

<sigh> I don't believe it's possible to "own" an idea long term. (And I would be dismayed at any attempt to change the legal rules so it was.) RLauzon's point about an idea still being possessed by the original holder even when shared with someone else is correct. If I come up with an idea and tell it to you, I still have it afterward.

What's at issue is control. If I create a copyrighted work, the copyright assigns me control over the use of that work for a defined period.

Let's say I write a book.

I can attempt to place the book to a publisher, granting the publisher the right to produce and sell an edition of it, in exchange for an agreed upon advance and continuing royalties.

I can attempt to sell the book myself.

I can choose to make it freely available with restrictions on what the people who get it may do with it.

I can explicitly waive all rights and make it available to anyone to do with as they choose.

I can choose not to release the book at all.

The key is that I control it, and I can place legal restrictions on what you may do with it.

What is being debated here is how long that control should last.

Honestly, if life+25 years is your idea of short term, I'm afraid I just can't understand your way of looking at things. I must be too young (and I'm well past my thirtieth birthday).

So am I. Well past.

Is life+25 years my idea of "short term"? No. I never said it was. I said "shorter term" as in "shorter than the one used now". Is it something I can live with? Yes.

How long do you feel it should be, and why? What is the negative effect on you because it isn't the way you would prefer?
______
Dennis

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

That isn't my point of view.

My first postulate is that the concept of property rights is a social construct. Different societies may define it differently, and have different concepts of what may be considered individual property and what rights the property holder is granted over the use of the property.

The second is that copyright can largely be treated as property for the duration of the rights. Property implies ownership and control. Copyrights provide some measure of both over the work they protect for the duration of the copyright.


As I mentioned elsewhere, any human society of necessity evolves rules governing what is acceptable behavior, to insure the smooth functioning of the society. The rules that get written down we call law.

The rules change as the society changes, and new rules get made to cover situations that didn't previously exist. Old rules do tend to stick around, but generally don't matter because they don't get enforced.

If it makes you happier, I'll drop the use of the word "property" from my comments. It's a loaded word and it's getting in the way.

It does. And I feel it's getting in the way much more than you appear to believe. For once, if you confuse both words, you tend to react to changes (or the idea of changes) to one the way you would to changes to the other.

<sigh> I don't believe it's possible to "own" an idea long term. (And I would be dismayed at any attempt to change the legal rules so it was.) RLauzon's point about an idea still being possessed by the original holder even when shared with someone else is correct. If I come up with an idea and tell it to you, I still have it afterward.

What's at issue is control. If I create a copyrighted work, the copyright assigns me control over the use of that work for a defined period.
[...]

Some control. Because if you had complete control, you'd need a thought police ("Hey you! It's the latest Sting song you've sung under the shower this morning. Fork the money over if you don't want to go to jail!"). We're not there, yet.

What is being debated here is how long that control should last.

Why, thank you. As I'm the one who started the thread, I'm aware of that.

Is life+25 years my idea of "short term"? No. I never said it was. I said "shorter term" as in "shorter than the one used now". Is it something I can live with? Yes.

How long do you feel it should be, and why? What is the negative effect on you because it isn't the way you would prefer?

I already answered the first question: I've become an anti-copyright proponent, but in the spirit of compromise, I'd settle for a hard 15-20 years period, or until the death of the author, whichever comes first.

As to the second question. That one will take a bit longer to answer to.

On a personnal level, I'm very offended at the way privacy rights are being slowly destroyed to satisfy the greed of a few copyrights owners. As a linux user, I'm pissed to have to periodically jump through hoops to access content simply because the same bastards want to get a level of control over copyrighted works that has never been intended when the laws were written in the first place ("We'll decide when, where, how, how long and how many time you'll be able to access whatever").
On a more general level, I recognise that no intellectual creation emerges in a vacuum: it always is the result of a bit of creativity mixed with a lot of tinkering of things the author(s) have been exposed to. What the copyright laws as they are have done is to attack the public domain - when the laws were created, a middle age guy such as myself could expect works contemporary to him become public domain before his death. As it is, I'm not even sure anything written in the last 20 years will become public domain before my yet to be born kids death - and that's with current durations!
Ideas - especially when you're talking about stories - are meant to be shared. This is a natural occurence in human society, from the ghost stories told around a campfire to the tape of a movie I handed to someone I knew because I thought it was cool. I could live with long term copyright duration if they officially were of a Creative Common nature; i.e. if they recognized the inherently social nature of sharing. I'm not only talking of p2p here. As it is written, if you have a few friends over to watch a DVD, you're violating copyright as written in the preliminary disclaimer (they're not members of your family).

Right now, these laws are used to slowly rob us of the public domain as it was meant and everything it implies. That is something I'm very vocal against.

[axel77]

About the duraton... Does more than 20 years make any real sense *if* we are looking on the individuals instead of "protecting" companies like Disney.

I mean 20 years are more than enough to normally make money out of a creation. If in 20 years you havent sold anything worthwhile it is very likely your stuff isnt so worthwhile afterall. If 20 years it sells well, then well you already got quite some summ for it. I mean take Harry Potter books, Rowling made hundrets of millions in a few years. Now she needs to make this til hear death and then her kids for yet another 70 years?

@Trenien, even normal property often isn't "complete" control. Altough sometimes it goes as far as allowing me to brattyly destroy it. Its often enough regulated what you may not do with some things, if you own an animal, it doesn't give you complete control over it. Same about things of cultural value (paintings). Or ground (especially e.g. wood where you may not disallow other trespassing). Or houses. Or owning a company. etc

And as said death of the author is IMHO always a rather stupid condition. No other "right" I know of is that way based on death. Like the example from above, it should not make a difference if the author is near-death, and his heirs getting all the revenues to the situation somebody turns of the machines to let him die...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Trenien

It does. And I feel it's getting in the way much more than you appear to believe. For once, if you confuse both words, you tend to react to changes (or the idea of changes) to one the way you would to changes to the other.

Understood. Dropping the use of property won't alter my arguments or the points I'm trying to make.

Some control. Because if you had complete control, you'd need a thought police ("Hey you! It's the latest Sting song you've sung under the shower this morning. Fork the money over if you don't want to go to jail!"). We're not there, yet.

Yes. Some control. But control nonetheless. And applicable laws are likely to impose some limitations on my control, regardless of what I have control over.

I already answered the first question: I've become an anti-copyright proponent, but in the spirit of compromise, I'd settle for a hard 15-20 years period, or until the death of the author, whichever comes first.

As to the second question. That one will take a bit longer to answer to.

<...>

I don't blame you, and I agree.

But I see two things of significance in your reasons for objecting to copyright. Please tell me if I take your meaning correctly.

The first is that your objection doesn't seem to be to copyright per se: it's to the efforts of corporate entities to extend and manipulate copyright to insure exclusive access to and control over creations protected by copyright. Your solution seems to be "abolish copyright"

The second seems to be that the current laws prevent your access to works, because they are still under copyright, whereas they wouldn't be if the laws remained as they had been written originally.

Do I correctly understand you?
______
Dennis

[Trenien]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Yes. Some control. But control nonetheless. And applicable laws are likely to impose some limitations on my control, regardless of what I have control over.

Essentially, the control given by copyright was supposed to cover distribution for money. It's a monopoly given by the state over it and goes no further.

But I see two things of significance in your reasons for objecting to copyright. Please tell me if I take your meaning correctly.

The first is that your objection doesn't seem to be to copyright per se: it's to the efforts of corporate entities to extend and manipulate copyright to insure exclusive access to and control over creations protected by copyright. Your solution seems to be "abolish copyright"

Although I tend to be a proponent to the ending of copyright, I don't think that as a solution to that problem. The problem itself has made me reconsider what copyright implies, and pointed the way toward works that convincingly demonstrate its vaunted benefits may not be as real as we've been taught they are. Meanwhile, the problems it raises (which were recognised as such by its creators) keep getting bigger with time.

The second seems to be that the current laws prevent your access to works, because they are still under copyright, whereas they wouldn't be if the laws remained as they had been written originally.

Do I correctly understand you?

Actually, if I want to access copyrighted work, I'm sufficiently computer savy to be able to do so with such a level of anonymity for the risks to be negligible. That's not my point.
My point is that since our computers are under linux, my wife and I have to jump through hoops if we want to buy ebooks for our readers - to the point that it's a chore we delay as long as we may before getting to it.
My point is that we, as a society, are being robbed of our collective heritage for the benefit of a few - and that's true even for folktales (just try to make a big SnowWhite or Beauty and the Beast movie. You'd better be reaaally careful in the way you make it).

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Trenien

Essentially, the control given by copyright was supposed to cover distribution for money. It's a monopoly given by the state over it and goes no further.

Sure. It's still a level of ownership and control.

Although I tend to be a proponent to the ending of copyright, I don't think that as a solution to that problem. The problem itself has made me reconsider what copyright implies, and pointed the way toward works that convincingly demonstrate its vaunted benefits may not be as real as we've been taught they are. Meanwhile, the problems it raises (which were recognised as such by its creators) keep getting bigger with time.

The next question becomes "If copyright goes away, how do you insure creators can get paid for the work?"

I don't think the model proposed by some of the open source advocates, which works out to "programmers should be paid for writing code, but not for having written it" is applicable to books.

Actually, if I want to access copyrighted work, I'm sufficiently computer savy to be able to do so with such a level of anonymity for the risks to be negligible. That's not my point.

So am I, and it wasn't my point either.

My point is that since our computers are under linux, my wife and I have to jump through hoops if we want to buy ebooks for our readers - to the point that it's a chore we delay as long as we may before getting to it.

That's not a problem caused by copyright: it's a problem caused by poor support for Linux by folks selling ebooks. I'd rail at them.

(I'd also be tempted to keep a minimal Widows install around and run it under something like VMWare to handle such cases. Poor support for stuff like this under Linux is a reason I don't run it, even though I'm a *nix admin, and can. Too much of what I do is a PITA to do under Linux, if it's doable at all.)

My point is that we, as a society, are being robbed of our collective heritage for the benefit of a few - and that's true even for folktales (just try to make a big SnowWhite or Beauty and the Beast movie. You'd better be reaaally careful in the way you make it).

Whenever something is perceived as having a large potential monetary value, this will happen. There will be interested parties who will want to stake a claim, and having staked it, hold it. I don't realistically see that going away.
______
Dennis

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by axel77 View Post
Eitherway if the ancestor author makes money with copyrighted work during his life, they heirs sure have a right to claim that money. Now where to draw the line, just because he is dead? I mean how about the ancestor author being in deep comatose for years? Does he still get the money for his book and can bequeath it to his heirs until they turn of the machines?

Wouldn't this be an extremely paradox situation created by law?

Originally Posted by axel77

Format C: please elaborate on this question.

There is no paradox in it.
An author makes money during his life just like any other worker do.
His heirs have the right to keep that money (if the author didn't spend all of it), just like every other heir in the western world.
So, they will have the author's money.

In the situation of a comatose kept alive by machines: when those are turned off, the heirs lose the author's disability pension and the old-age one, if any.
In the same way they have to lose the Intellectual property rights. Their intellect has nothing to do with the dead author's work.

In my dreams, the copyright ends at the very moment a doctor signs a death certificate.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Passing along copyright doesn't make son the author. It simply passes along the rights to any earnings from the book while the rights last.

Whether or not son becomes an author is up to son. But you agree son can inherit the bank account. With copyright inherited, he gets income earned by Dad's books that go into the bank account.

If Dad has currently selling titles generating royalties when he dies, what happens to the money? If copyright ends upon the author's death, son doesn't get it. The publisher keeps it. Is that what you prefer?
______
Dennis

With copyright inherited, it's not at all daddy's money to be passed by: it's the money daddy would earn in the future if he wasn't dead.
(I hope I said it correctly... Sorry if not...)

About selling titles: of course the publisher still sells them and earn from them, but from that unfortunate day on, every other publisher can reprint the book and give it away for a lower price.
Even in Mobipocket for free.

The book and the file are from now on sold as physical goods, at any price. But everybody in the world can do it.

If the publisher still keeps the same cover price, as long as people agree to pay it, he gets more money.

What happens now at the time of death + 70?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by axel77

As all of the "abolish supporters" (or whatever this position is called, (rlauzon, Format C) are just ignoring posts that don't fit into their concept, I'm withdrawing with this from this discussion, this way it makes no sense this way...

I'm sorry if I did.
I swear I never tried to ignore posts, and I'm sure I have quoted at least one of yours.
Maybe I've answered to other people expressing ideas similar to yours, if not your posts directly.
I'll be very happy if you reconsider your intention and stay here.

Will you please point out the post you thing I'm ignoring?
Thank you.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I'm in favor of a shorter rather than a longer term. I'd like Life+25 years. I can live with Life+50 years. I'm opposed to greater lengths.

The greater lengths being pushed for largely are for the benefit of "immortal corporations", and wind up affecting individuals as a side effect.
______
Dennis

So, at the end, we're agreeing...
I can live with a Life+1 term...

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by axel77

How exactly is it possible to own a cow? Property is an socially enforced exclusion of options of acting. When I "own" a cow, your option to milk it is excluded. When I own an apartment, everyone else is exculded to enter it, except at my allowness.

So whats so different to copyright? Of course you can copy texts just as you can milk that cow that I used to cater for. However there are social rules that exclude you to do so. Therefor in principle it are the same principles at work. I know, that "ideas" are not "used up" like a cow, that can only be milked once in a day, and yes this makes a subtle difference, but it does not change the principle idea at work as it is.

Copyright is not a "new" idea, in fact its just that the ideas of property rights used by say a few thousand years (aprox. beginning with the neolithic age) were extended to intangible things. If this was a good idea or not, can be discussed at least it is compatible to the way the rest of our society works, and at least so far it can be said, *in principle* copyright is the "extension" of the idea of property.

Right.
But I think there is a huge difference between putting somebody in charge and complete ownership of an apartment (mankind can live without entering my house), and to put him in charge and ownership of an idea (mankind wouldn't be the same if Homer had copyright and prevented everybody from reading the Odyssey....).So the Odyssey is Homer's complete property until he's living, and it's mankind's property at his death.

That's fair enough to make Homer live from his work, and the whole mankind to develop civilization and education.

[Format C:]

Once I asked a good friend (a thriller writer):

Will you be happier if millions buy your books without reading them or if hundreds buy those books and millions read them?

Guess the answer....

[nekokami]

I personally would take option B, but then, I have a day job that pays my bills and that I like well enough.

But if thousands would buy my books and read them, that would be just dandy.