New Paper Argues for Reasonable Reduction in Copyright

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If, when you die, the value of your estate exceeds a relatively modest value (currently £325,000 - about half a million dollars), then your heirs have to pay 40% tax on the entire value of the estate.

Not on the entire value, only on the amount above the inheritance tax limit.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Gratitude to the State for allowing creators to temporarily keep what they created? Maybe we should afford land owners this same wonderful right? Life + 70 and your land reverts back to the State.

How can a creator even temporarily keep the sole right to copy their work without the state-granted copyright? Yes, we should be grateful.

[petrucci]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The overwhelming majority of books cease to have value fairly quickly.

If they truly had no value then people would not be interested in them. However, people are interested in copying/saving them. Thus they have value.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Eternal copyright has the same effect as book burning: it makes books disappear.

I readily admit that copyright can negatively effect the availability of some works. It is my opinion that things which are out of print should not be copyright. In this day and age, it is trivial to publish things, so it would not be much of a burden on the copyright holder.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Capitalism existed for a very long time without such extensive periods of copyright, thus you cannot appeal to capitalism to justify eternal copyright: eternal copyright just isn't an inherent component of capitalism.

I am not exactly sure at this point how central it is to capitalism. I suspect that it is very central. I will add that it has never been easier to copy works than it is today. My understanding is that copyright/printing rights came into being in the sixteenth century, not long after the printing press changed the economy. With today's technologies that are capable of copying both electronic and some physical items very inexpensively, copyright is a very important part of capitalism.

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If eternal copyright is such a great idea, then eternal patent should be a great idea too, except that eternal patent would lead to stagnation.

There are arguments on both sides of this issue. If there were no patents then there would be no incentive to put work into creating something, when someone else can take it for nothing. This would also lead to stagnation. I think that it is very important that things which have value, also have a cost associated with them. Without such a cost, there would be little incentive to try to make something different. You would have to constantly make something that was not only better than the previous thing, but also something that was better by a large margin, as the old thing would be free.

Originally Posted by Ninja Lawyer

I think it's also important to understand that artists are also the beneficiary of shorter copyright periods. Art tends to be a little bit of creativity and a lot of remixing of expressions you're exposed to, particularly expressions in the same area of art. It's helpful to artists to have more rather than less expressions to reuse and transform, just like it's useful for a carpenter to have more than just a hammer.

It is also important for artists to be able to benefit financially from their efforts. Without copyrights of sufficient length, it simply does not pay to create works of art. This is especially true if those works are not immediately recognized, as has been the case with so many great artists.

Originally Posted by Ninja Lawyer

My comment is accurate as written, in that I don't think an author or other artist should have such a long monopoly on a particular expression. I want people to be able to create new stories in the Harry Potter universe if they want (or the Star Wars universe, Star Trek universe, etc.) after a reasonable period of time. How many interesting stories remix and retell (with a twist) a play from Shakespeare?

Nothing is stopping people from making such stories for personal edification, as it would probably fall under fair use. However, there is an issue if you wish to profit from the stories. In that instance you would need to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Unfortunately, it cannot work both ways. If the author wants to profit from their work, then copyright of sufficient length is needed. (the length is dependent on the demand and value) Granted that there is copyright, then we cannot just take large parts of other peoples' creations, even if we want to make something new from them.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by petrucci

If they truly had no value then people would not be interested in them. However, people are interested in copying/saving them. Thus they have value.

Not true. It is valueless to the publisher since it would cost more to publish than they would make in sales. But there would still be sales, because people still want it.

Publishers are trending more and more towards only publishing the latest and "greatest".

I readily admit that copyright can negatively effect the availability of some works. It is my opinion that things which are out of print should not be copyright. In this day and age, it is trivial to publish things, so it would not be much of a burden on the copyright holder.


I am not exactly sure at this point how central it is to capitalism. I suspect that it is very central. I will add that it has never been easier to copy works than it is today. My understanding is that copyright/printing rights came into being in the sixteenth century, not long after the printing press changed the economy. With today's technologies that are capable of copying both electronic and some physical items very inexpensively, copyright is a very important part of capitalism.

You still haven't proven anything, you have merely made a claim.

There are arguments on both sides of this issue. If there were no patents then there would be no incentive to put work into creating something, when someone else can take it for nothing. This would also lead to stagnation. I think that it is very important that things which have value, also have a cost associated with them. Without such a cost, there would be little incentive to try to make something different. You would have to constantly make something that was not only better than the previous thing, but also something that was better by a large margin, as the old thing would be free.

No one has said abolish copyright/patent altogether, we are debating the eternal copyright/patent.

It is also important for artists to be able to benefit financially from their efforts. Without copyrights of sufficient length, it simply does not pay to create works of art. This is especially true if those works are not immediately recognized, as has been the case with so many great artists.

Thus we are debating what that sufficient length is...

Go on... say something meaningful...

Nothing is stopping people from making such stories for personal edification, as it would probably fall under fair use. However, there is an issue if you wish to profit from the stories. In that instance you would need to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Unfortunately, it cannot work both ways. If the author wants to profit from their work, then copyright of sufficient length is needed. (the length is dependent on the demand and value) Granted that there is copyright, then we cannot just take large parts of other peoples' creations, even if we want to make something new from them.

Then isn't it fortunate that Ninjalawyer was merely arguing for shorter copyrights giving people the legal right to do so...

Why do you keep trying to confuse the issue? No one is arguing for NO copyright. Everyone is arguing about HOW LONG copyright should be.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by petrucci

...

It is also important for artists to be able to benefit financially from their efforts. Without copyrights of sufficient length, it simply does not pay to create works of art. This is especially true if those works are not immediately recognized, as has been the case with so many great artists.


Nothing is stopping people from making such stories for personal edification, as it would probably fall under fair use. However, there is an issue if you wish to profit from the stories. In that instance you would need to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Unfortunately, it cannot work both ways. If the author wants to profit from their work, then copyright of sufficient length is needed. (the length is dependent on the demand and value) Granted that there is copyright, then we cannot just take large parts of other peoples' creations, even if we want to make something new from them.

I'll just respond to the comments that were addressed to me.

The first comment is a strawman. No one in this thread is arguing for no copyright. Artists can benefit financially from a reasonable copyright period.

The second comment seems to be arguing a point I never intended to make, although I'm actually not sure what's being argued. My point was simply that a lower copyright period is useful for artists who want to create a new work in an existing setting (for profit even!).

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

What's wrong with that? The works belong to the creators and they should have the right to control them as they see fit; and forever.

But Tubemonkey, we aready have eternal copyright. All you have to do is live forever...(Life +...)

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

But Tubemonkey, we aready have eternal copyright. All you have to do is live forever...(Life +...)

...

[petrucci]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Not true. It is valueless to the publisher since it would cost more to publish than they would make in sales. But there would still be sales, because people still want it.

It is possible to publish an electronic version of a book at a very minimal cost. If the publishers do not already have an electronic version of the book they can simply scan and publish. It may not be a good edition, but it would cost almost nothing to publish.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

You still haven't proven anything, you have merely made a claim.

This is true. However, I believe that it is fairly convincing. Quite simply you cannot have capitalism if people can steal things that they want. Copyright is the legal basis to prosecute such theft.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

No one has said abolish copyright/patent altogether, we are debating the eternal copyright/patent.

Thus we are debating what that sufficient length is...

Go on... say something meaningful...

I already have. I stated that in many instances the value of works is not immediately recognized. Thus long periods of copyright are important.

I also argued that if works that have value are freely available (not copyright), they compete with the sales of newly created works. This is detrimental to the creation of new works. Thus, I believe that works that have value should be in copyright.

[petrucci]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I'll just respond to the comments that were addressed to me.

The first comment is a strawman. No one in this thread is arguing for no copyright. Artists can benefit financially from a reasonable copyright period.

The second comment seems to be arguing a point I never intended to make, although I'm actually not sure what's being argued. My point was simply that a lower copyright period is useful for artists who want to create a new work in an existing setting (for profit even!).

It may be that we agree, but I doubt it. I believe that works that have value should be copyright. I also believe that a reasonable period extends, at the very minimum, until the artist dies. The basis of this was given in the argument that you called a straw man. Many great works of art were not recognized as such until after the death of the artist.

My point in the second paragraph is that long periods of copyright are in many cases necessary to generate a reasonable amount of profit from a work. I do not believe that the reduction in the length of copyright so that you can create works derived from other works, will not help the economic situation of the author. As the newly created work will have a shorter copyright, and it is likely that the author will not be able to have a reasonable profit from it.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

Even if you don't agree with the conclusions of the paper, it does provide a very succinct history of copyright in the U.S., and it's definitely worth reading for that alone.

One of the most influential books on shaping my ideas on Intellectual Property is called "Against Intellectual Monopoly" by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine.

Spoiler:

You can grab the PDFs for free off of their site (or feel free to purchase a physical copy from your favorite store): http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/genera...ainstfinal.htm

It covers a bunch of different arguments/points, mostly tackling the IP question from a Utilitarian framework... with a ton of historical data to back their arguments up. Mostly covering the "big boys" of Patent and Copyright, although they do venture a little into Trademark + Trade Secret.

Quick Summary:

On Patents, one of the overarching themes of the book is "Simultaneous Discovery" in the norm, and NOT the "genius inventor" (while most people assume it is the exact opposite). Simultaneous Discovery means that multiple people come up with the same idea at the same time (Boldrin/Levine give a ton of examples, although their favorite seems to be the Steam Engine, but they also cover the "Airplane", Radio, Telegraph, Telephone, ...).

They also cover a massive amount of Pro/Con arguments for "Industry X" (Drugs, etc. etc.).

And they also look at interesting historical examples where there was NO IP in certain sectors (while other countries DID recognize it). (Medicine, Chemicals, Airplanes, ...).

They also look at periods where IP was deliberately suspended (the US suspended airplane patents, England suspending textile coloring products, ...).

On Copyrights, they also look at many historical examples..... One such time period was in the Nineteenth century, when the US did not recognize copyrights granted outside the US (aka, there were a ton of "pirate" publishers).

I highly recommend checking out this book. It is a FANTASTIC resource.

Originally Posted by TechniSol

Imagine this same problem with music, patents, worse yet software patents... ugh. Couple it with the proliferation of 3D printers and associated technologies. It's going to get very complicated as technology places great capability in nearly anyone's hands... OTOH, increased access to technology will allow a far greater number of people to participate in innovation than ever before.

This already has been occurring throughout time (as productivity rises, the marginal cost of creating the goods drops closer and closer to zero).

In the past, most "Intellectual Property" was forced to be tied into some tangible/physical form (music sung/played by a performer, music on a CD/vinyl, text printed in a book, actors performing at the theater, movie on a DVD/BluRay).

(Very Side Note: One of the most influential lectures to me, was one given by Jeffrey Tucker, called "The Evils of Intellectual Property". He covered this idea from Books (had to be copied by scribes, EXTREMELY expensive, took forever to make books, barely any books) -> Movable Type (MUCH cheaper, can now make many copies at a fraction of the time) -> better and better printing methods (pushing the price of books lower and lower) -> digital (costs nearly zero to create a document now). Plus a ton of other stuff: http://library.mises.org/media/Indiv...A%20Tucker.mp3)

But now, since the age of computers/Internet, it has become even easier to see how this "tangible medium" can be tossed out the window (so now you don't even have to pay a few cents or whatever the price of a CD/DVD has been pushed down to nowadays).

Since computers/Internet, now the intellectual ideas can exist purely in digital form, and be replicated infinitely, at almost zero cost.

Since you cannot rely on selling the "tangible"/physical form of the idea, you must begin competing by rebundling it together with OTHER goods/services which the consumer values.

So what has to occur is you have to come up with new methods to compete, and new/different methods to satisfy customers. THIS IS COMPETITION, and this is what you have to do naturally when marginal costs drop (or to push them down yourself (coming up with faster/cheaper ways to do the same stuff)).

Just because the cost of replicating certain ideas has dropped down to near zero, doesn't mean you can't compete elsewhere.

For example, many people pirate video games, but then there are things like the Humble Bundle (pay anything you want for the video games, if you pay above the average, you get extra games X, Y, and Z)... They compete by making it extremely easy to download, no DRM (can use the games anywhere), and YOU CAN PAY WHATEVER YOU WANT (even a penny if you wanted). It is also coming from a reputable/trusted source (why would I even pirate the game if I can buy the game legitimately for $1).

Or things like Steam, while they do lock the games down with Steam DRM, but they are constantly putting games on SUPER sale (sometimes 50%-90% off, six months after the game is released). Steam makes it so dang easy to purchase/patch/update your games (and chat to all your friends, and play with all of them). Tying you into their ecosystem, and providing a SERVICE along with the games.

With music/movies, perhaps you release higher quality than the competition (selling FLAC versions for a slightly higher price than the MP3, selling higher bitrate/resolution for slightly more money), perhaps you make it very easy and tie them into your ecosystem (iTunes, Amazon), perhaps you lower the quality but stream it to people (Netflix), perhaps you just go completely free for the consumer, but play some ads (streaming radio), perhaps you have a yearly fee, and give them all the customers all these other bonuses (Amazon Prime), perhaps you tie the soundtrack in with something else (many games are doing this).

Perhaps as an author, you can give away SIGNED copies of your book (can't sign a digital file). Perhaps you can come up with a way to do a "kickstarter" type thing, and you can say "I have Book #3 of my trilogy written. If all the fans can pledge enough collectively to get me $50,000, I will release the book".

In order to compete, these companies have to come up with new/innovative Business Models to re"bundle" the intangible goods with services. You are not selling JUST the song, JUST the book, you are selling an experience alongside it.

Perhaps you can see what the Fashion industry has done by "reinventing itself" every season (can't copyright fashion... although the fashion market IS skewed by IP, by plastering trademarks all over their designs). I came up with this hideous boot the Ugg, by the end of the year, WalMart starts selling their copycat/knockoff Uggs, but by the time comes around next year, the Ugg fashion trend is out, and new fashion trend is IN. They get an extremely large benefit by being the First Mover.

Extremely interesting video on Fashion and the "free culture": http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_bla...s_free_culture

I recommend watching this FANTASTIC speech by Michael Masnick called "The Trent Reznor case study":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njuo1puB1lg

(You have to CwF + RtB)

This is what competition IS!

Originally Posted by pwalker8

There are some points in the paper that I had not considered, such as the issue of sheet music. I play guitar and had noticed that it's almost impossible to get sheet music for popular songs. Most people simply play by ear by listening to the recordings.

Boldrin/Levine covered some Sheet Music as well in "Against Intellectual Monopoly":

How New is Napster?
It is tempting to think that everything under the sun is new. For example, the Napster phenomenon is surely new, and cries out for new laws and regulation; surely the music industry can not survive the advent of widespread copying. Or can it? At the turn of nineteenth century, the music industry was different from the one we are familiar with today. No CDs, no mass concerts, and no radio and TV. The core source of revenue was the sale of printed sheet music, which was carried out worldwide and on a very large scale. We learn, for example, that in Britain alone about twenty million copies were printed annually. The firms carrying out this business were not large multinationals as today, but family owned companies, such as Ricordi in Milano, which, nevertheless, managed to reach also foreign countries. Apparently these “majors” managed to collude quite efficiently among themselves. The records show that the average script sold in the U.K. for about a fourteen pence. Then piracy arrived, as a consequence of two changes: the development of photolithography, and the spread of “piano mania”, which increased the demand for musical scripts by orders of magnitude. Pirated copies were sold at two pence each.

Naturally the “authorized publishers” had a hard time defending their monopoly power against the pirates, enforcement costs were high and the demand for cheap music books was large and hard to monitor. Music publishers reacted by organizing raids on pirate houses aimed at seizing and destroying the pirated copies. This started a systematic and illegal “hit and destroy” private war, which lead, in 1902, to the approval of a new copyright law. The latter made violation of copyrights a matter for the penal code, putting the police in charge of enforcing what, until then, was protected only by the civil code.

[...]

At least in the case of sheet music, the police campaign did not work. After a few months, police stations were filled with tons of paper on which various musical pieces were printed. Being unable to bring to court what was a de-facto army of “illegal” music reproducers, the police itself stopped enforcing the copyright law.

Those dastardly music pirates of the nineteenth century!!!!

Originally Posted by pwalker8

When I look at the Billboard top 10, I only recognize one artist. Each generation has their own favorites. Do you really think that people are going to stop buying Justin Timberlake music just because they can get the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for free? While free copies of the Beatles and Rolling Stones music, may introduce a whole new generation to their music and keep their music alive, it's not going to take away from the current generation of musicians.

Indeed. You are free to currently grab all the Public Domain greats (Shakespeare, Aristotle, Plato, etc. etc.)... but there is STILL a market for new books, there are still advancements in how to look at things (for example, new methods in History allow you to look back at older facts with completely different insights).

Perhaps entire new genres have arrived (Rap)... or books that are written to fit all the current popular trends (Sparkly Vampires?).

Speaking of Public Domain books, even if you start with the SAME EXACT base, there are also completely different ways to piece together/present ideas. (There are a bunch of publishers who compete on font, margins, page sizes, legibility, quality of paper stock, hardcover/softcover, numbered/symboled footnotes, ease of availability, etc. etc.).

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Then why are the vast majority of titles from the 1930's through 1950's, including National Book Award winners like Personal History, out of print?

Indeed, orphan works are a HUGE problem.

Where I do most of my digitizing work (non-fiction economics website), there are HUNDREDS of books that are out of print and locked up in copyright, which we would LOVE to get out there as PDFs + publish new editions.... currently, these books are currently locked away in some crypts somewhere gathering dust, probably being read by a handful of people a year MAYBE (if they even know such a book EXISTS). And/or if the books are available somewhere Used, they are being sold for hundreds of dollars. (I mean, I love economics, but I wouldn't go out of my way to spend HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS on a book... no thanks... I will put that money towards digitizing other books ).

If you CAN hunt down the copyright holder (costs a large sum of money to pay a bunch of attorneys just to MAYBE have a CHANCE of tracking them down), the copyright holder will most likely demand high fees (which is just preposterous, because the book has been out of print for so long, they are probably making $0 in royalties).

Or if you are lucky enough to get a publisher that IS willing to reprint (they say something preposterous, like "we will only print this book again if you purchase at least X thousand physical copies at Y fee"), OR "we want Y thousand dollars to give you the rights to reprint"... This this would just make it unprofitable to print these books, keeping it in its locked away status.

So much information is getting lost down the memory hole. Imagine if it were available as free scans + new digital editions, all the indirect benefits that would occur, and all of the people you would influence! (all the new citations, knowledge gained by reading the ideas, insights not handled elsewhere (this is the purpose of writing non-fiction, correct? You have insights/ways of piecing together that you can't find elsewhere?), adding more hits to Search Engines, etc. etc.). Instead, many of these books are STILL going to be locked away for 50+ more years, being read by 50 people MAYBE (instead of the entire population on the Internet ).

This Orphan Works problem also reminds me of this fantastic articles on Jazz Music. The medium the music is recorded on is currently ROTTING (because copyright is much too long):

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/a..._but_you_cant/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/ar...agewanted=all&

There are also a bunch of articles discussing Archiving of some of the oldest movie recordings (I really wish I could find the article I am thinking of, it was an incredible read discussing archiving in the Library of Congress... armed guards, and they search you so that you can't even TRY to bring in recording equipment and salvage some of this media). But again, copyright is locking these movies away, and by the time the copyright expires, the film/vinyl will have rotted away. Even a bunch of TV/Movies recorded in the 70s/80s/90s on garbage/low quality film stock is rotting (or extremely crappy/arcane digital forms)... and those won't be in the Public Domain until LOOOONG after they are gone.

This reminds me of a Side Note I placed in the topic discussing digitizing scanned math books:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Side Note: I watched a documentary called "Side by Side": http://sidebysidethemovie.com/

Film has been around for about a century, and even the oldest films can still be viewed using any film projectors (think print books).... while the digital movies have gone through so many different formats/storage mediums, and many of the devices used to read these movies have gone the way of the dodo! Thus, causing many of the purely digital movies/tv shows/culture to be lost down the drain as well! (think ebooks).

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

HarryT, this depends upon your definition of nowhere close to longest. The US keep extending existing copyrights, including those that would have fallen into the public domain in almost every other country. So a work released in 1923 in the US may well be in copyright until 2018, even if the author died in the same year. In Mexico it would go PD in 2024. I don't consider 6 years to be "nowhere near close to the longest".

There is also this murky period in US Copyright Law: http://collections.stanford.edu/copy...e?forward=home

The period from 1923-1963 is of special interest for US copyrights, as works published after January 1, 1964 had their copyrights automatically renewed by statute, and works published before 1923 have generally fallen into the public domain. Between those dates, a renewal registration was required to prevent the expiration of copyright, however determining whether a work's registration has been renewed is a challenge. Renewals received by the Copyright Office after 1977 are searchable in an online database, but renewals received between 1950 and 1977 were announced and distributed only in a semi-annual print publication. The Copyright Office does not have a machine-searchable source for this renewal information, and the only public access is through the card catalog in their DC offices.

Perhaps other countries have such oddities too?

This period is where a massive amount of the "Orphan Work"s come from... where no one is completely sure they are renewed/still under copyright, so many publishers just err on the side of caution and DO NOT PUBLISH the book.

Originally Posted by petrucci

@Quantum Iguana. With regards to the symphony orchestras, their economy has changed based on works being freely available. They cannot justify spending money on a work, when other works cost nothing.

Interesting read:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...c-domain.shtml

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

If eternal copyright is such a great idea, then eternal patent should be a great idea too, except that eternal patent would lead to stagnation.

There are actually people who argue for perpetual copyright/patents... watch out!

Descendants of "Ugh" (caveman who invented wheel) demands his royalties!

Andrew Joseph Galambos is the common name I have run across as one of those people who believe in perpetual copyright. Here is one of the many Stephan Kinsella articles pushing Galambos's ideas to their inevitable conclusions:

I've noted before this nutty purported idea of hyper-IPer Andrew Galambos (see Galambos and Other Nuts; Against Intellectual Property, p. 27): Galambos

Now, this seems quite sensible. Galambos is right: every time you use "liberty," you should drop a nickel in the Thomas Paine Descendant Royalty box.

But I realized this the other day that since this nickel-depositing was Galambos's idea, then when you drop your nickel, you now must compensate Galambos himself. 15% seems like a reasonable commission; so in addition to the nickel for Paine, you better drop 2.25 cents in a box for Galambos's heirs.

But there's one more snag. The idea of recognizing that Galambos should be rewarded for his idea of rewarding word-coiners is my idea. So in addition to the 17.25 cents above, you need to send me an extra 0.3375 cents each time you pay Galambos's heirs their 2.25 cents.

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I disagree that books in the public domain are simply turned into "porno novel" by new authors (really?), [...]

LOL... Yes yes, I love the porno "argument"... How many pornos of Shakespeare do we see? That must be some classy stuff! Although "Rule 34" exists for a reason...

I put this argument in the same bucket as the "plagarist 'argument'" (You mean, I can just TAKE your book right now and put my name on it and sell it?!?!??)

You are free to take Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (or any of Shakespeare's works, or ANY other Public Domain Work), and do that right now.... how many "Tex2002ans's Nichomachean Ethics" do we see?

Originally Posted by pdurrant

But what minimum length of copyright is necessary for this good effect? Certainly not life+70!

This falls into a similar argument to the "Laffer Curve". Pro-IP proponents believe zero IP is "too little innovation" and infinite IP is "too little innovation", so they believe the optimal SHOULD exist somewhere in the middle.

Originally Posted by petrucci

There are arguments on both sides of this issue. If there were no patents then there would be no incentive to put work into creating something, when someone else can take it for nothing. This would also lead to stagnation.

This is a wrong assumption. See: Periods/Industries where there are/was no Patents/Copyrights. (Feel free to look at the book I linked to above, "Against Intellectual Monopoly" where they compare many such periods).

Originally Posted by petrucci

You would have to constantly make something that was not only better than the previous thing, but also something that was better by a large margin, as the old thing would be free.

This is also wrong, even though the underlying idea is free, you can compete in other ways besides just by making the good better... you TIE IT INTO other goods/services (give them a "RtB" (take a look at the Youtube link I posted above: "The Trent Reznor case study")).

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Not true. It is valueless to the publisher since it would cost more to publish than they would make in sales. But there would still be sales, because people still want it.

Publishers are trending more and more towards only publishing the latest and "greatest".

Definitely. Many publishers would rather not have their "old backlog" compete with their "latest and 'greatest' books".

I also brought this up in the discussion of digitizing scanned math books:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=228413

Luckily, more and more companies are beginning to digitize their backlogs, and it is getting cheaper and cheaper to do so (so HOPEFULLY, more and more of the books stuck as physical only become digitized).

Sadly, this change isn't happening fast enough, and there will STILL be books that will never be digitized by the publishers. (And we will have to wait forever for someone like Archive.org to get around to archiving it legally... the copyrights won't expire until we are all long dead ).

Originally Posted by petrucci

My point in the second paragraph is that long periods of copyright are in many cases necessary to generate a reasonable amount of profit from a work.

Many of these Pro-IP arguments boil down to their Mercantilist roots of granting MONOPOLIES, because they want some guarantee of revenue. (Nearly all of the same arguments against Mercantilism apply to many Pro-IP arguments... feel free to look up those arguments. Also, feel free to look up arguments against monopolies... that would require entire economics courses... I won't replicate this on MobileRead ).

It costs a lot to run a shoe factory, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only shoe factory in town/province/country for X years?

It costs a lot to run a pizza parlor, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only pizza parlor in town/province/country for X years?

It costs a lot to run a fast food restaurant, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only fast food restaurant in town/province/country for X years?

It costs a lot to run a playing card factory, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only playing card factory in town/province/country for X years?

It costs a lot to run a drug factory, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only drug factory in town/province/country for X years?

It costs a lot to run a XYZ factory, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only XYZ factory in town/province/country for X years?

It costs a medium amount to make XYZ, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only XYZ in town/province/country for X years?

It costs a little to make XYZ, should you be able to get a monopoly from the government so you can be the only XYZ in town/province/country for X years?

What is the arbitrary (and I emphasize ARBITRARY) point at which petrucci believes monopolies should/should not be given?

Originally Posted by petrucci

I do not believe that the reduction in the length of copyright so that you can create works derived from other works, will not help the economic situation of the author.

Look at an area where Copyright is not applied (parody).... There are a ton of parody music videos out there... And people sell the songs for $.99 a pop (or whatever price).

Sure, they might "suck away customers" from the original videos (think of all those dastardly people who pay $.99 for the parody, but $0 on the original!! or HORROR, the people who pay $0 to BOTH!)... but the original video gets all these indirect benefits from the parody as well... the derivative works actually bring MORE popularity to the original than there otherwise would have been. (*insert example for the latest parody music videos*, I am not hip to that culture, "Friday" and "Gangnam Style"?)

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by petrucci

It may be that we agree, but I doubt it. I believe that works that have value should be copyright. I also believe that a reasonable period extends, at the very minimum, until the artist dies. The basis of this was given in the argument that you called a straw man. Many great works of art were not recognized as such until after the death of the artist.

My point in the second paragraph is that long periods of copyright are in many cases necessary to generate a reasonable amount of profit from a work. I do not believe that the reduction in the length of copyright so that you can create works derived from other works, will not help the economic situation of the author. As the newly created work will have a shorter copyright, and it is likely that the author will not be able to have a reasonable profit from it.

I'm going to be honest here, I'm having a little trouble following what your arguments are, and this isn't my first time to the rodeo.

There's a double-negative (and maybe a misplaced comma?) in your second sentence that makes the whole thing difficult to parse, and the last sentence seems to be repeating what you said earlier, in the same mess-of-a-sentence way. I'm really trying here petrucci, and I want to argue with you, but I just don't think I'm getting what you're trying to say.

Maybe this would be easier - What do you think would be a reasonable copyright period?

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by petrucci

This is true. However, I believe that it is fairly convincing. Quite simply you cannot have capitalism if people can steal things that they want. Copyright is the legal basis to prosecute such theft.

No. Copyright creates intellectual property. Without copyright, there can be no intellectual property, and therefore, without copyright there is no theft. The public domain is not theft. Copyright is property in the sense that it can be bought and sold. That it doesn't last forever doesn't make it theft. It's quite different than physical property, because with physical property, because even without government, you have power to protect your property, you can lock your door, for example. Property law merely provides additional support for the power you already have. It's different with intellectual property, because without government, you have no means to protect what you have created.

If we can't have capitalism without eternal copyright, or at least copyright terms that are longer today, and copyrights were significantly shorter in the past, it logically follows that capitalism has never existed. When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, copyright was only 14 years, with an option to extend an additional 14 years.

I already have. I stated that in many instances the value of works is not immediately recognized. Thus long periods of copyright are important.

False. It's extremely rare for a book to only have it's value recognized after many years. Has there EVER been a book that only had it's value recognized 70 years after the death of the author?

I also argued that if works that have value are freely available (not copyright), they compete with the sales of newly created works. This is detrimental to the creation of new works. Thus, I believe that works that have value should be in copyright.

A hack author, blaming lack of sales on the public domain might argue that. Write better books, and people will buy them. Putting Jane Austen back under copyright wouldn't result in more people buying new books. English teachers would love it if their students were flocking to public domain classics, but they aren't.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I disagree that books in the public domain are simply turned into "porno novel" by new authors (really?), but I am also concerned about the availability of new books. And that's another benefit of shorter copyrights.

Copyright has a tendency to make books disappear that might otherwise be available if they were available in the public domain. The Atlantic has a good article on the issue here, but here's a succinct summary:



There's a tendency to think that the public domain is just a trough where pigs can rub their disgusting snouts all over other authors' works, and I disagree with that. But leaving that aside, too long copyright still has negative consequences for book availability.

I actually used that example because it's a favored example, we must protect Micky, because otherwise we end up with porno films with Micky Mouse. Obviously, given all the Harry Potter Fan fic out there, many people would love to play in their favorite author's universe. And yes, there is all sorts of derivative works that are available. I just don't think that's the main value of public domain.

Music is a different matter. A lot of singers and musicians use riffs, ideas, whatever from PD works. Johnny Cash said that "Don't take you gun to town" was inspired in part by a PD work.

Movies borrows more from PD than any other medium, and has the problem of lost works more than any other medium. A lot of old movies are now lost, never to be recovered because of copyright laws and the fragile medium that movies were stored on.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

It's quite different than physical property, because with physical property, because even without government, you have power to protect your property, you can lock your door, for example. Property law merely provides additional support for the power you already have. It's different with intellectual property, because without government, you have no means to protect what you have created.

Keep in mind that the power you have to protect your physical property exists only because government grants it. Without government, property of any kind doesn't exist.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I actually used that example because it's a favored example, we must protect Micky, because otherwise we end up with porno films with Micky Mouse. Obviously, given all the Harry Potter Fan fic out there, many people would love to play in their favorite author's universe. And yes, there is all sorts of derivative works that are available. I just don't think that's the main value of public domain.

Music is a different matter. A lot of singers and musicians use riffs, ideas, whatever from PD works. Johnny Cash said that "Don't take you gun to town" was inspired in part by a PD work.

Movies borrows more from PD than any other medium, and has the problem of lost works more than any other medium. A lot of old movies are now lost, never to be recovered because of copyright laws and the fragile medium that movies were stored on.

I'm not going to lie to you and say that novels like Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine don't exist, but I disagree that writers use "literary riffs" less often than artists in other mediums. I've read a number of books that use the basic structure of the Wizard of Oz, and have enjoyed a number of works (movies, videogames and books) that were set in Wonderland. There's a great value in new artists being able to set works in classic story settings.

My above argument feels a bit pointless since: (i) we both agree on the basic point (copyright is too long); and (ii) copyright in the U.S. probably won't get any shorter, and could easily get longer.

I'm Canadian, and I find the fact that nothing will enter the U.S. public domain for years to be depressing, partly because I like a lot of U.S. artists and think they could do great things with old works.