An entirely hypothetical calculation is possible, in the same way that when you smoke a little doob, you hypothesize that the universe is just one big giant atom, and every atom in it is a little teeny-tiny universe.

And I’ll be the judge of what I have business discussing, not you.

We’re talking two separate languages.

I’m glad you’re not in charge of drug approvals; you’d be happy for the few pregnant women who had their morning sickness relieved, and ignore not only those who didn’t, but also the thalidomide babies.

frankly, I have no clue what you�ve been talking about, because it seems to change moment by moment.

If you can’t figure out that this is the basic question of copyright term — how much is enough for authors, how much is too much for the public interest — then you really have no business discussing copyright term questions at all.

The only point of yours I�ve ever responded to is the claim that there is some sort of definitional problem with realizing royalties that won�t be earned until after you�re dead. There�s not. It has nothing to do with what the revenue averaged out over all authors is,

Yes, it does. This is the only way you can figure out whether a copyright term extension is a net benefit to the economy.

I’d love to see your personal finances. Would you take out a $100,000 loan at 8%, to invest in an investment at 5%? Under the RT math, that’s a sound way of proceeding; you’re getting 5%; ignore the cost!

and it�s bizarre that you keep insisting on that point.

No, what is bizarre is that you posit a hypothetical benefit, and ignore all costs.

It�s simply a question of whether copyrights have a calculable present value that includes the portion of the term after the author dies. I�ve always said yes; and as near as I can decipher, at times you�ve said no.

I’ve said that calculable present value is (a) negligible at best, and (b) that there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that it actually can, or does, accrue to living authors.

But your very own calculations above, even if accurate for the author closest to the mean (which I find doubtful, and which in any event includes many thousands who never even published their works)

Erm, NO.

That’s based on PUBLISHED works. Unpublished works are even more ephemeral, have even more $0 commercial values, and are even less likely to generate $ for anyone — author, non-author owner, third party — at any point during their life cycle.

show a nonzero additional sum that can be calculated.

A negligible non-zero additional sum that can be POSITED. Not calculated.

Again, WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE that the term extension has ACTUALLY resulted in an additional accrual to the living author, whether the 4/10 of one percent that my method would predict, or the 40% that yours would?

So I have no idea why you�re asking me how that sum can be paid. It�s easy. You determine the amount and write a check. I don�t see why you needed me to walk that last step with you.

Unless that HYPOTHETICAL amount ACTUALLY IS BEING PAID, then the amount is not 40%, it’s not 4/10 of one percent, it’s ZERO.

Again, I ask, where is your evidence that the term extension in those countries which have extended term has ACTUALLY, in the real world, resulted in higher incomes for living authors?

Unless you have it, your hypothesis is, like most 50 year old copyrights, without value.

As for (b), it�s irrelevant. The whole question is whether it�s possible to calculate such royalties and pay them today. You�ve already shown that it is. End of story.

Not end of story.

You say the value that can be calculated is 7/5. I say it is, if it exists, at most 4/10 of one percent. That alone makes the story open-ended, since there are two conflicting endings dangling.

Second, you still have to show that any hypothetical value is actually being accrued. If it is NOT being accrued, the value is ZERO. That too, conflicts with your ending of the story.

So, for the umpteenth + y time, WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE?

But your very own calculations above, even if accurate for the author closest to the mean (which I find doubtful, and which in any event includes many thousands who never even published their works), show a nonzero additional sum that can be calculated. So I have no idea why you’re asking me how that sum can be paid. It’s easy. You determine the amount and write a check. I don’t see why you needed me to walk that last step with you.

As for (b), it’s irrelevant. The whole question is whether it’s possible to calculate such royalties and pay them today. You’ve already shown that it is. End of story.

So far, so good.

I�ve challenged this argument repeatedly as based on the false (hidden) premise that no one can now calculate the present value of future royalties.

No one can, because no one is psychic. No one can predict, with certainty, that a given work will still HAVE value X years from now, LET ALONE, that the value of that work will be V, as you seem to believe — WITH NO EVIDENCE — is possible.

If it WERE possible to do this, then there would already be compelling evidence of this. Namely, works that were out of print (as authorized by copyright owners) and on the cusp of falling into the public domain, should have instead been kept in print, in those countries that made the change.

Authors in countries that have made the change should also be earning 40% more (70/50 vs. 50/50) relative BOTH to their own country pre-change, and other countries that have not followed suit.

IS THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING? If so, where, and can you point me to some resources on this fascinating phenomenon?

Your response to this challenge, twice now, has been to deny that you�ve made that very argument, but to insist you�ve only made a completely different argument, namely that �the VAST MAJORITY of works cease to be of economic value not only well within the term of copyright, but even well within the life of the author, IF THEY EVER HAD ECONOMIC VALUE AT ALL.� I.e., spread out over all works,

It’s the same argument. “Spread out over all works” is the only way that this can be measured, because the term extension itself is spread out over all works.

Similarly, if you witness an X percent drop in smoking rates, and a Y percent increase in life expectancy, you don’t analyse this phenomenon by studying your uncle Harold, who smokes, and your Aunt Gemma, who doesn’t. You have to look at aggregate data. That’s where you’ll find the compelling evidence of cause-and-effect (or its absence).

If you accept that “y+n >y”, then that equation should float all boats equally. Yet it hasn’t, at least not that I’ve yet been able to discover after entering thousands of data points. The proportion of works that are still being economically used in Canada (a 50-year jurisdiction), first published in 1934, is statistically indisinguishable from the proportion in the United Kingdom (a 70-year jurisdiction) or the United States (a 70-to-God-Knows-How-Long jurisdiction).

you claim (in odd-numbered hours) that the increased benefit to the few is nominal and not justifiable as public policy.

I claim that IF the benefit to the few is even quantifiable — and evidently it is not, as someone of your obivously superior intellect would have quantified it by now — that benefit would have to be somewhere above 99 times, and possibly 999 times or more, the economic burden created by the worsening of the absentee copyright owner problem alone over time… let alone the burden to the public in respect of the works still being economically used.

That has nothing to do with the first argument, which does not have anything to do with public policy, but makes a claim that additional revenue from copyright extension is theoretically impossible due to the death of the author before the extended term begins.

Unless you, OR ANYONE, demonstrates — not a frigging hypothetical equation, actual bloody evidence — that AUTHORS, living AUTHORS, are actually accruing additional benefit from the term extension, fifty and more years before the extend term even begins, then, yes, that additional revenue is, ON THE EVIDENCE, non-existent.

I’m not from the Show-Me state, but I’m at least as skeptical. Show me.

Your web page may or may not support the second argument, but it certainly doesn�t support the first, which in even-numbered hours appears to be your position.

You are fond of theoretical equations. Here’s one.

If you have an asset that, in year 1, is worth $100, over which you have a monopoly of the economic use, and it depreciates in value by just 5% annually, that asset at year 50 has, over its lifetime, accrued to you 95% of what will have accrued at year 70.

Now, the asset in question is the economic value of ALL copyrighted works. Why? Because the copyright term extension doesn’t discriminate. It extends Mickey Mouse as well as a pulp romance from the 1930s that is deservedly forgotten as well as an outdated scientific treatise as well as Mein Kampf.

The average work has a value of V. After 50 years, no more than 1% of all works have any economic value to the copyright owner at all. Under copyright theory, if they did, they would still be in print, as the owner would still be making use of that monopoly. (In fact, there’s an incentive for the owner to do so late in the monopoly, before it expires.)

Total value of the asset now? V*0.01 AT MOST.

In other words, a much more severe depreciation than even the 5% model.

Term extension cannot take a useless work and make it useful, cannot make an unproductive work and make it productive. You like math? Here’s some math: 140% of 0 is 0!

Punch it in on your calculator.

So, take a generous estimate of 1% of 50-year old works — old, no direct connection to the term of copyright — still having economic value. Assume, arguendo, that that figure, again a high estimate, persists to 50 years after the death of the author, which is a longer period than 50 years after publication alone. And assume, as you seem to do, that a 70-year copyright is 40% more valuable than a 50-year one.

A 50-year copyright is worth V*0.01 at the end of term (0.01*initial value of all works, the other .99/1 of all works having a value of 0.)

A 70-year copyright is, AT BEST, worth V*0.14:

0.99*0*1.4 = 0
0.01*V*1.4 = V*0.014

Total additional value added to V, the original value of copyright at the time the work was published? 4/10 of one percent.

Explain to all of us reading this, in small words that we can all understand, (a) how this value is realized by the author WHILE STILL ALIVE, and (b) what evidence you have that this is actually happening in 70-year jursidictions, as opposed to those same jurisdictions pre-extension, or other jurisdictions which have not made the term longer?

So, I ask again, what evidence do you have that would tend to support the acceptance of your hypothesis as theory?

WJM: “Second, copyright term extensions NEVER affect the author�s economic rights. The author�s death is the triggering event for copyright to start running down. The author is already dead, very dead, really really really dead, an ex-author, defunct, when the soon-to-expire term, well, is soon to expire. Try to outlive your copyrights. I dare you. You big wuss, cm�on, outlive �em. Just by a few minutes.

“See. Can�t be done.“

WJM, unless you have an odd relationship with the English language, this is an argument, which you’ve made before, that extended copyrights cannot produce additional value for any author because the extension is at the end of a period that is already after the author has died. I’ve challenged this argument repeatedly as based on the false (hidden) premise that no one can now calculate the present value of future royalties.

Your response to this challenge, twice now, has been to deny that you’ve made that very argument, but to insist you’ve only made a completely different argument, namely that “the VAST MAJORITY of works cease to be of economic value not only well within the term of copyright, but even well within the life of the author, IF THEY EVER HAD ECONOMIC VALUE AT ALL.” I.e., spread out over all works, you claim (in odd-numbered hours) that the increased benefit to the few is nominal and not justifiable as public policy. That has nothing to do with the first argument, which does not have anything to do with public policy, but makes a claim that additional revenue from copyright extension is theoretically impossible due to the death of the author before the extended term begins. Your web page may or may not support the second argument, but it certainly doesn’t support the first, which in even-numbered hours appears to be your position.

Choose an argument and go with it.

You have turned the word “theft” into an amoeba
word that no one is able to escape from the reach
of amoeba. By your definition, every one including
yourselves is guilty of theft.

But, don’t worry at all. Some dictionaries are
on your side. So is Department of Justice (see
the recent press release at:
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/August/04_ag_578.htm).

Your goal is to vilify the infringers with the
emotion-laden words such as theft, stealing, and
so on. This is why you are even more dishonest
and misleading than Judge Posner, Professor Lessig,
and others who refuse to lump infringers and real
thieves under one amoeba word called “theft”.

You missed the point in my alternate scenario.
By lending a copy to Mary, that other Joseph Pietro
Riolo actually deprives Emma of the potential market
value of one person. Every time the original copy
is passed from one person to other person, Emma
loses market value of one person. When the original
copy is passed to the 1,000th person, Emma loses
the market value of 1,000 people.

Tell that to the sick child in your story.

To see how big your amoeba is, allow me to ask
questions:

If I make a parody of Emma’s story and sells parody
to the public and it becomes more popular than Emma’s
story, am I a thief?

If I read Emma’s story and collect some basic ideas
from the story and build a different story based on
the basic ideas and sell my story to the public and
it becomes more popular than Emma, am I a thief?

When the copyright in Emma’s story expires and I sell
copies of the story to the public and keep all money
from the sale for myself without giving money to the
sick child, am I a thief?

Allow me to quote from the U.S. copyright law:

[Start of quotation]
Section 121. Limitations on exclusive rights:
reproduction for blind or other people with
disabilities

(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of
sections 106 and 710, it is not an
infringement of copyright for an authorized
entity to reproduce or to distribute copies
or phonorecords of a previously published,
nondramatic literary work if such copies or
phonorecords are reproduced or distributed
in specialized formats exclusively for use
by blind or other persons with disabilities.
[End of quotation]

Are these blind people and people with disabilities
thieves? Just imagine that Emma and her sick child
will never get a penny from these legalized theft.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.

if we are guilty “argumentum ad misericordiam” it is only to balance the “argumentum ad RIAA” where an evil corporation becomes the object of derision instead of the artists and individuals they represent.

What if that Joseph Pietro Riolo never makes any copy? What if he tells his son to wait for his daughter to finish reading the book? What if he lends the original CD-ROM to Mary for her daughter?

then joseph pietro riolo is acting as a responsible citizen of the world.

In that scenario, Emma still does not get any additional money. Are you going to tell the sick child that those who share original copies without buying additional copies from Emma are also thieves?

emma has no right to the original copy once you buy it. you own it. you can share it, burn it, trade it, give it to a library and emma never gets anything other than the original purchase price.

you see, you are speaking about a single copy for which emma has been paid. you cannot share it without surrendering it. if each child wants their own copy, you cannot satisfy this need without buying more – or making your own copies illegally.

and this, joseph, is the key difference between tangible and intangible property.

what you bought from emma was not her story, but a printed book containing the story. you don’t own the story, you own the book. similarly, people who buy CDs do not own the songs on the CD, they own the CD. this is the difference.

you did not buy from emma right to produce and distribute multiple copies of her story as you apparently claim.

our position is that once you start making your own books and giving these away, you are stealing from emma.

taking something of value without the permission of the owner is theft.

it is misleading and dishonest to portray copyright infringement as anything other than stealing as judge posner, professor lessig, and many other people in this forum continue to do.

Woof. I�m not the only one without footnotes here. Since you�re the one arguing that copyrights differ from every other investment known to humanity, in that they magically stop producing revenue when the initial investor dies

Huh?

Where the hell have I said this? Do you have reading comprehension problems?

All I have said is that the VAST MAJORITY of works cease to be of economic value not only well within the term of copyright, but even well within the life of the author, IF THEY EVER HAD ECONOMIC VALUE AT ALL. Which most “works”, within the meaning of the Copyright Act, dont’.

Yes, SOME works still have economic value to the owner of copyright — IF THERE IS ONE — on the day that the copyright expires. However, this is the case in an absolutely negligible number of works, and a minute proportion of works.

So, works don’t “magically stop producing revenue when the initial investor dies”. Why not? Because most never produced revenue in the first place, and most of those that did, didn’t do so for very long and have long since stopped doing so.

Let me ask: Does your evidence on copyright term, and its impact on revenues, show that a work that is worthless 50 years after publication, or 50 years after the death of the author, is now worth, I dunno, $20 because of term extension?

“y+n > y”, right?

I rather think the onus is on you to produce some evidence of this somewhat amazing hypothesis. Until you do, I remain unconvinced, as should everyone else.

I don’t have to prove an “amazing hypothesis” that I don’t hold. You are either an idiot, or you are being disengenuous, in presenting my argument this way.

Here’s some pretty compelling evidence, from the preliminary results of my research:

How many 50 year old books are in print today?

The only thing that is changing as I add data is that the curve on the lower part of the graph, say, from 1957 to today, is smoothing out somewhat.

Further to this, and this graph doesn’t show it, the majority of books, first published in Canada in 1954, that have been in print since 1990, have not in print by mere motion of the copyright owner… they have been in print because either the CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind), some other similar organization, or a research library, have created new versions (talking books, braille, microform) for the use of the disabled or researchers, making use of exemptions to infringment in the existing Copyright Act.

That is, the percentage of works, fifty years after PUBLICATION — let alone the death of the author — that are still in print because the author or copyright owner are still making economic use of them, is absolutely minute.

How can term extension change that? (Hint: it can’t, and doesn’t.)

AND, the data for this graph is somewhat deliberatly skewed: I only included works with personal authors; “works” like government publications, anonymous ephemeral publications, corporate reports, etc., which have even shorter shelf-lives, are excluded. A comparable graph for ALL works comprehended by the Copyright Act would be even more dismal.

So, I ask for the umpteenth time: Where is your evidence that a longer copyright term results in more revenue to the author while he’s living?

You used the fallacy called “argumentum ad misericordiam”
(also known as “appeal to pity”) to get people to agree
to your position on the meaning of theft. I would do
the same to show how authors and artists are thieves
by forcing people to pay higher price than reasonable
price but I am not going to do that.

Does it ever occur to you that by your definition,
99% or more of the U.S. population are already thieves
and are put in same category as real thieves? That’s
absurd, isn’t it?

Does it ever occur to you that you are also a thief?
I mean, you infringed authors’ and artists’ rights
once in a while during your lifetime. Nobody on
earth never infringes authors’ and artists’ rights.

You should know that I don’t like people doing
infringement habitually or regularly but unlike you,
I could not put them in same category as the bank
robbers or any kind of thief.

About your story, it is interesting to note that you
left out one possible scenario. What if that Joseph Pietro
Riolo never makes any copy? What if he tells his son
to wait for his daughter to finish reading the book?
What if he lends the original CD-ROM to Mary for her
daughter? In that scenario, Emma still does not get
any additional money. Are you going to tell the
sick child that those who share original copies without
buying additional copies from Emma are also thieves?

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.