Copyright Reform Poll

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Simplicity is the reason that is why I proposed 100 full years from date of initial publication. A problem with basing on the life/birth/death of the author requires having to track down that information and track it to determine when a publication enters the Public Domain. Plus, it creates the current situation where publications released in the same year have a copyright that expires at different times, and you have to research to determine if a specific publication is still in copyright.

To me, using 100 full years from date of initial publication has the following advantages:

• It is based on an objective non-variable. When a publication is released in 1999 that is an objective date that won't vary.
• If it is not in the publication already, all you have to do is find out what year it was first published to determine if it is still in copyright.
• It is based on the date of publication, and it doesn't no matter how long the author has worked on the publication, the copyright begins when the publication is first released.
• It gives the author and his/her heirs adequate time to profit from the publication.
• It will eventually eliminate the issue of orphan works (where the information concerning the copyright cannot be determined), since it is likely that it can be determined when an orphan work was first released.
• It allows publications to predictably enter the Public Domain after a reasonable amount of time.

But all again ignoring the important benefit of copyright that is the right to NOT have your work published if you don't want it to be. Copyright is intended to give the creator CONTROL for it's duration. The negative right is important as well the positive right. It would be wrong to say "you get this right of control ONLY if you publish and capitalize on your work." No. When copyright expires, THEN society can publish and make money money off it as they see fit. Until then the whole point is the CREATOR gets to say how and if the work is used. That's part of the encouragement to create.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by ApK

But all again ignoring the important benefit of copyright that is the right to NOT have your work published if you don't want it to be. Copyright is intended to give the creator CONTROL for it's duration. The negative right is important as well the positive right. It would be wrong to say "you get this right of control ONLY if you publish and capitalize on your work." No. When copyright expires, THEN society can publish and make money money off it as they see fit. Until then the whole point is the CREATOR gets to say how and if the work is used. That's part of the encouragement to create.

And you're ignoring the fact that if you're still alive, and someone publishes something of yours against your will, you can have them arrested for theft. If you don't want it published after you die, you can put it into your will that it must be destroyed upon your death (or held in a locked box or something similar) until the copyright runs out. Although...if you create something that you are that adamant about never getting published, it may be a better idea to simply destroy it.

Shari

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

• It allows publications to predictably enter the Public Domain after a reasonable amount of time.

You and I have drastically different definitions of “reasonable.”

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by hildea

I prefer something related to the lifetime of the author because to me, it's more clear. Any biographical entry will have date of birth and death, while publication date can be more tricky to find out . . .

I agree. It may be that 80 years from now, it will be easy to check something like the Internet Archive and find the publication date on an old Amazon page. But for books that would be plausibly going out of the copyright in, oh, the next 50 years, it is typically easier to find the date of death. Even in the far-future case, I think there is much less likelihood of a date error in an obituary or (for Americans) on the public social security death master, than on an Amazon page, where a reprint date and original publication date can be confused or garbled.

However, the real reason I voted for Life + 50 is that it is still, by population under it, the most popular standard (yes, I know, Life + 70 is gaining ground). Books cross borders and I would like a uniform international marketplace, especially for eBooks.

Originally Posted by ApK

The negative right is important as well the positive right. . . . That's part of the encouragement to create.

I'm afraid I totally disagree. I can't think of any author I like to read who would want their work withheld from the public -- much less who wanted it at time of creation. Maybe there is some very rare example where the political views of the author changed. Or, maybe, the author's views didn't change, but the author is under government pressure to suppress his or her own work. Freedom to read is a much bigger value to me than the fact that an unfortunate author may wish to harm our freedom to read.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I'm afraid I totally disagree.

That's cool with me. And I'm interested in the reasons!

I can't think of any author I like to read who would want their work withheld from the public

and if you don't know them they must not exist?

Maybe there is some very rare example where the political views of the author changed.

Maybe not so rare. Maybe you haven't hear about some because, you know...copyright DOES give the author that control, and the work was never published...
And actually, the first example that popped into my mind when I mentioned the control aspect was when Springsteen refused to license "Born in the USA" to the Bush campaign.

Freedom to read is a much bigger value to me than the fact that an unfortunate author may wish to harm our freedom to read.

So your poll vote must, logically, therefore be to abolish copyright entirely? No other answer makes sense if you're not going to consider the other side's rights. Except possibly the fish one.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by shalym

And you're ignoring the fact that if you're still alive, and someone publishes something of yours against your will, you can have them arrested for theft.
Shari

Another one.
1. No, you can't.
2. Why have arson laws when you can charge destruction of property, why have rape laws when you can just charge assault and battery, why have laws about theft when you should lock all your stuff up, silly?! Why have trespassing laws when any one could just EASILY just build a wall if they want people out? Why have a power washer when you can clean your driveway just fine with a toothbrush.

[gmw]

Not just one toothbrush. They wear out quickly, so you need lots of toothbrushes.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I agree. It may be that 80 years from now, it will be easy to check something like the Internet Archive and find the publication date on an old Amazon page. But for books that would be plausibly going out of the copyright in, oh, the next 50 years, it is typically easier to find the date of death. Even in the far-future case, I think there is much less likelihood of a date error in an obituary or (for Americans) on the public social security death master, than on an Amazon page, where a reprint date and original publication date can be confused or garbled.

Yes.
Also, publication date can be hard to figure out even in real time.

• Is the text I'm writing here published? If I remove it next week, is it still published? If I get it commercially published in a year (as a part of "hildea's brilliant thoughts on Life, The Universe, and Everything" ), it is definitively published, but is the publication year 2020 or 2021?
• If I make a painting, display it in a public exhibition for a while, and then take it home, is it published?
• If I make a piece of art and sell, give or loan it to you, is it published?

I took a look at the Norwegian copyright law, which is called "The law about the creator's rights to works of the mind" (Lov om opphavsrett til åndsverk). The basic principle is in the title: If you create a work of the mind (defined in the law), you have certain rights to it. Publication isn't necessary to trigger those rights, and shouldn't be.


As for the discussion about the right to not publish something, I have one real life example: One of my favourite authors used to write fan fiction. When she got her first deal for original fiction to be commercially published, she informed her fans that she would take down her fan fiction, made a PDF with all her fanworks available for a limited time, and then removed it all. It's very, very obvious that if I published any part of her fanworks anywhere, I'd be going against her wishes. The law should protect her wishes regarding her works.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by hildea

As for the discussion about the right to not publish something, I have one real life example:

I have a related example. It's not an exact parallel, I know, but it is all about the right to say "no", so not unrelated. : As someone whose favourite JRRT work is The Silmarillion, I praise Ea that that hideous Orc Peter Jackson has never been allowed to get his Melkor-motivated mitts on that book, because the rights holders were allowed to exercise the right to say no

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I have a related example. It's not an exact parallel, I know, but it is all about the right to say "no", so not unrelated. : As someone whose favourite JRRT work is The Silmarillion, I praise Ea that that hideous Orc Peter Jackson has never been allowed to get his Melkor-motivated mitts on that book, because the rights holders were allowed to exercise the right to say no

Oddly, my first print/first edition of The Silmarillion has the publisher listed as the copyright holder. The ebook has Tolkien Copyright Trust as the copyright holder. In either case, the copyright was never held by J.R.R. Tolkien.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

In either case, the copyright was never held by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Which, in a nice tie-in to the debate about when to start counting, may not be entirely unrelated to the fact that he had taken The Straight Road before it was published.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by ApK

Another one.
1. No, you can't.
2. Why have arson laws when you can charge destruction of property, why have rape laws when you can just charge assault and battery, why have laws about theft when you should lock all your stuff up, silly?! Why have trespassing laws when any one could just EASILY just build a wall if they want people out? Why have a power washer when you can clean your driveway just fine with a toothbrush.

Why can't you? If I have something, and someone takes it from me, that's theft. I'm assuming that if it isn't published, it's kept private somewhere...a drawer in my house, a safe, a safe deposit box at the bank...somewhere. If it's not published, then the *only* way someone could get at it would be to physically steal it from me.

As for the Bruce Springsteen example, the song had already been published. He was exerting his rights as the copyright holder.

Shari

[shalym]

Originally Posted by hildea

Yes.
Also, publication date can be hard to figure out even in real time.

• Is the text I'm writing here published? If I remove it next week, is it still published? If I get it commercially published in a year (as a part of "hildea's brilliant thoughts on Life, The Universe, and Everything" ), it is definitively published, but is the publication year 2020 or 2021?

• YES. You created it, and you published it on the internet, on this forum. If someone else copies this text at a later date and you don't want it copied, you can make them take it down.
  

  If I make a painting, display it in a public exhibition for a while, and then take it home, is it published?

  YES...of course.
  

  If I make a piece of art and sell, give or loan it to you, is it published?

  again...YES, of course.

I took a look at the Norwegian copyright law, which is called "The law about the creator's rights to works of the mind" (Lov om opphavsrett til åndsverk). The basic principle is in the title: If you create a work of the mind (defined in the law), you have certain rights to it. Publication isn't necessary to trigger those rights, and shouldn't be.


As for the discussion about the right to not publish something, I have one real life example: One of my favourite authors used to write fan fiction. When she got her first deal for original fiction to be commercially published, she informed her fans that she would take down her fan fiction, made a PDF with all her fanworks available for a limited time, and then removed it all. It's very, very obvious that if I published any part of her fanworks anywhere, I'd be going against her wishes. The law should protect her wishes regarding her works.

Of course the law would protect her wishes regarding her works...they'd already been published, on the internet. There is NO formal process needed to publish something. Just the act of posting it to the Internet constitutes publishing.

Shari

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by shalym

YES. You created it, and you published it on the internet, on this forum. If someone else copies this text at a later date and you don't want it copied, you can make them take it down.

But you can't force Mobileread to take it down. When you signed up, you agreed to grant Mobileread a "royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive permission to publish, use or edit your entry in any way deemed appropriate by us. You also grant us the right to translate your material into other languages."

[shalym]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

But you can't force Mobileread to take it down. When you signed up, you agreed to grant Mobileread a "royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive permission to publish, use or edit your entry in any way deemed appropriate by us. You also grant us the right to translate your material into other languages."

...which just reinforces my statement that it has been published, and I can still prevent other people from copying and pasting my words to another place.

Shari