What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?

[Ninjalawyer]

Physical property degrades over time, so its not a practical issue. Also, no one is particularly worried about paying royalties to the descendants of the old coffee maker that they'd like to sell.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I'm very serious. Copyright should exist to protect property rights in perpetuity; not to grant them for a limited period of time.

Let me fully flesh out your statement.

In perpetuity can only have meaning if it is retroactiovely applied to the first writing. Otherwise, it's just a self-serving statement - I get free stuff, you don't.

So for anything that has been written, in order to reproduce it, you have to provide a clear, unbroken line of ownership. If you can't, you can't contract the rights to make a copy, or use it in a variant of the work.

Anything without a clear ownership chain cannot be copied and is therefore lost whenever the last legal physical copy degrades.

Any unauthorized copy or use should be suppressed, at least until legal rights to copy it have been obtained, if they can be. Otherwise, they should be permanently suppressed.

So what should we suppress?
All historical information, and literature from the fall of Rome on back.
All Disney productions using current Public Domain until the copyrights are cleared, if possible. Otherwise, suppressed.
Any dead author without a clear inheretance chain, or a chain that has played out, just like a title of Nobility.
Any subsidiary worked based on uncleared pre-existing work.
All performances of material without clear copyright.
All folk songs.
All oral tradition stories.

Shall I go on?

This is the clear implications of your viewpoint. If you think I am overstating the case, please point out the overstatement and I'll show you my logic chain.

RSE

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Physical property degrades over time, so its not a practical issue. Also, no one is particularly worried about paying royalties to the descendants of the old coffee maker that they'd like to sell.

Yep, land gets cheaper by the year.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

In perpetuity can only have meaning if it is retroactiovely applied to the first writing. Otherwise, it's just a self-serving statement - I get free stuff, you don't.

So increases in traffic fines can only have meaning if they're retroactively applied to all previous traffic violations?

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Yep, land gets cheaper by the year.

I really can't tell if I'm being trolled or if you are in fact insane.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

So increases in traffic fines can only have meaning if they're retroactively applied to all previous traffic violations?

Perpetuity means no Statue of Limitations...Just like there is no Statue of Limitations for murder in most jursidictions...

We're not talking about fines being increased, Tubemonkey, but the artists' ability to control their works, correct? With no Staue of Limitations.

I'm quite serious about this....

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I really can't tell if I'm being trolled or if you are in fact insane.

It's both, obviously, since the latter is inextricably entwined with the former.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

So for anything that has been written, in order to reproduce it, you have to provide a clear, unbroken line of ownership. If you can't, you can't contract the rights to make a copy, or use it in a variant of the work.

No, an orphan clause solves that. Copyright holders will register the works they hold every x number of years in a federal register. Failure to do so will place the works in question in the public domain.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Perpetuity means no Statue of Limitations...Just like there is no Statue of Limitations for murder in most jursidictions...

We're not talking about fines being increased, Tubemonkey, but the artists' ability to control their works, correct? With no Staue of Limitations.

I'm quite serious about this....

The law would apply to all works currently under copyright.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I really can't tell if I'm being trolled or if you are in fact insane.

I'm a monkey; what do you expect?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The law would apply to all works currently under copyright.

Then you're just saying "Screw you buddy, I got mine. I can steal from all the dead people, but you never can from me!"

I have no respect for that viewpoint at all.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

No, an orphan clause solves that. Copyright holders will register the works they hold every x number of years in a federal register. Failure to do so will place the works in question in the public domain.

There is no orphan clause, in reality or in your viewpoint.

In the end, you are now expounding an infinitely renewable copyright, not a copyright in perpetuity. Different animal... And if the copyright is not renewed it fall into the public domain...Similar to what we had in 1909...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I have no respect for that viewpoint at all.

Neither do I.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Or better yet, when England made it against the law for starving peasants to hunt in the King's forest Robin Hood was born. Maybe, just maybe, it's time for a modern day Robin Hood who steals intellectual property from the governments and corporations and gives it back to the people. <-- Sorry, I was on roll and may have taken it a little too far.

I believe you've just described Demonoid.

Doctorow's recent speech about "The coming war on general computing" points out that part of the reason copyright law is so tangled and and messed-up, especially internationally agreements, is that copyright is just not important to a large sector of the world.

When countries choose delegates to send to the United Nations, the choose water experts. Agriculture experts. Health experts. Not copyright experts... because "pay the registered creator of the patent for the stop-valve in your hydroelectric pumps" is just not a big concern when you're trying to stop a flood from destroying next year's food for the entire region. Because "track down who wrote the original version of the children's book that eight schools have photocopied to use to teach kids to read," again, doesn't matter as much as spreading literacy in low-income districts.

Copyright is a first-world problem. It's a contract made among people of means, with the premise that everyone involved can afford monopolies on information. And inasmuch as it's being used to stall progress in developing areas and support oppression of the poor, the "Robin Hood" approach is very reasonable.

Where the Robin Hood approaches are being used to evade payment by those who can afford it... I'm still not convinced that it does any measurable harm. If the "starving student who always borrowed books from friends" has become the "starving student who downloads books from torrent sites"... what have we lost, as a society?

The loss is if people who formerly paid, have now stopped. And we're not seeing any signs of that.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

There is no orphan clause, in reality or in your viewpoint.

My viewpoint hasn't gone into the minute details any law would have.