“Worth” in terms of commercial value to the copyright owner, and “worth” in terms of enrichment of the public domain, are quite different.

There are countless books, images, audio recordings, movies, and even software that are no longer worthwhile exploiting for direct commercial gain for the original copyright holder; in most cases, the original copyright holder is a defunct corporation or they simply have no intention of ever offering the material again, in any form.

These same works are valued by the public enough to breach existing copyright law by sharing them, modifying them and basing new works on them. These activities are natural and beneficial. If the existing copyright owner has no use for them — not even enough to pay one dollar — why should the public not be allowed to use these already-distributed works in these natural and beneficial ways?

To recognise the value of the public domain, and decriminalise current practise where it does good without harm, seems a big gain to me.

Maybe someone can point me to copyrighted works that aren’t worth $1 to the owner but would be a great boon in the public domain. Assuming some such works exist, is there any reason to believe that I couldn’t just license the workk for a very small fee? Are transaction costs the problem?

Please email any responses to [email protected].

Copyrights are a very new thing. Obviously having some sort of limited rights for creative works is an improvement over the past where there were no protections what-so-ever; but it is just as obvious to me that the current rights are imbalanced and need further refinement. There is plenty of room for discussion as to changes and alternatives, but what I hope most creative types can do (and I count myself as one), is not cling to the components of the current laws as if they were God given rights. Government both grant, and take away rights, on an ongoing basis. The government could decide to lower the speed limit back to 55 mph tomorrow if they wanted to. I would be upset, and complain about it; but my argument would not be that “it used to be 75!”, it would be that the higher speed limit was more appropriate and balanced the safety and throughput needs of the general driving population better, etc etc.

Ultimately, the commercial value and economic benefit we receive from creative works is fleeting. When we are gone, it only what we contributed toward society that will live on. I very much doubt that my designs, images, or the contributions I make towards technology will be of any interest to someone 500 years from now, but perhaps if I make some contribution of ideas that helps free others to more easily build upon what was done before, they’ll make the world a better place, and I’ll have been a part of that.

It seems I misrepresented your case (“You assume the only reason to retain copyright is to milk commercial value, when I see and feel value to my images that does not translate to dollars, and often has as much to do with context”); this reveals that I did indeed assume your concerns were purely commercial. I’m glad to see that’s not the case.

However, you’ve compounded the fallacy of confusing physical objects and intellectual objects: “You don�t think a house and a photograph are the same kind of �property,� but I invite you to try and take either physical object from my hands.”

The house and the photograph are physical objects. Anyone who tries to *take* them from you without your consent is robbing you of physical property. But that’s not what copyright is about: it covers *copying* of the information in the physical photograph, without affecting your physical property at all.

Your physical property remains yours, and I have no designs on changing that. Copyright *extends* your privilege over the physical object of the photograph, to the abstract idea of the image contained in it. By copying the photograph, *nobody is taking your physical property*, and you have no claim of theft when it happens.

It’s especially arrogant to expect that, when you yourself have allowed others to take copies of the photograph (by selling them, or handing them to a publisher, or any other means of distribution) that you then have complete monopoly, in perpetuity, over those physical objects now possessed by other people.

If I have a copy of a photograph which happens to show an image you created 50 years ago, are you saying that — for all time — I cannot give it away? Destroy it? Show it to others? Sell it? Modify it, then sell it? Make more copies of it and sell those? The law currently grants you *some* control, for a limited time, over some of these actions. But that is not inherent in the attributes of the physical object — it is an arbitrary privilege, extended as the “carrot” you refer to, to motivate you to create and distribute them in the first place.

Once again: The intellectual object of the “image” embodied in a photograph, and all its copies, has quite separate attributes from the physical objects of the photographs themselves. The physical photograph is yours, and you can do with it as you will. Kindly allow me the same courtesy over objects that have legally come into *my* possession, even if they embody images you worked to create 50 years ago.

You don’t even want me to have that. 50 years, it’s over.

If you strip artists of too much of their ability to provide for their own security, you, too, will cause damage to the public domain. Because those artists won’t be as able to create, produce, publish, and profit. Yes, I’ve read most of the arguments about this Utopia in which artists who create good works and share them will have not trouble making a living. Unfortunately, it’s usually stated by someone who collects a full time paycheck, often on tenure, not someone who lives in the freelance trenches daily like me.

Oddly, you don’t care about the images that I haven’t “published,” and you give me no incentive to do anything with them. There’s some lovely shots that have only graced my walls. Every photographer has thousands of quality unpublished images (plus variations and outtakes of specific published images) that would be of value to the public domain.

Don’t you want them, too? Your $1 tax won’t get them … they weren’t published. A $1 credit would get them.

While your comment tries to engage me in some kind of wide area battle, you seem to have lost track of my suggestion on this specific issue. I strongly endorse efforts at enlarging the public domain, especially given its current frozen state. I’d just like to try and find a method that doesn’t so much screw me. I’ve simply suggested we try to find a carrot rather than a stick.

Nathaniel, I’m certainly no tax expert, and your concerns are valid. That’s why I’d suggest a cap of some type. But there are also legal concerns about the $1 fee, as expressed here: “I think that the forfeiture for nonpayment of the registration fee may constitute a taking of property, and may thus put the federal government on the hook for compensation…”

Of course, this isn’t the point of the proposal; somehow it should only apply to “real” works. But I don’t see any clear test to determine which works should count; I don’t even see a prospect for a fuzzy test.

Is it possible to make this work in practice?

I have several objections to this.

One, if you must “sort[…] through hundreds of images published 50 years before”, how can you claim that those images are still of commercial value to you? If the number of images worth renewing are few, then they must still be prominent enough to you that you don’t have to “sort through” to find them. If the number of commercially-worthy images is large, why not renew the lot?

Two, I don’t believe you have any particular right to expect continual revenue from work done 50 years ago. You are granted a limited-term monopoly on the copying rights of the work, in order that the public may get the work in a reasonable amount of time.

Three, the complaint that “other 76 years olds aren�t having their property transferred to public ownership” belies the fallacy of copyright as “property”. You are granted a *limited-term* monopoly on certain activities associated with that work; that is *not* the same as “owning” the work. It was never your “property” the moment you distributed it to others.

The current state of the copyright system removes the incentive to provide value to others in order to receive revenue. All the “other 76 year olds” you speak of must continue to provide value in order to receive revenue, or they must have built up enough capital that they do not need to.

You seem to be seeking some kind of exemption to this law that all of us are bound by; the fact that the current copyright system has granted it to you does not mean that should continue.

For example, I’ve published over 1300 images in the past 2.5 years … just on my website. While I do sell prints online, and would want to retain the copyright to many of those images, a tax credit incentive would likely motivate me to move perhaps half of those images into the public domain.

Should I do so today, without any incentive? Perhaps so, and that’s where Creative Commons comes in. But I’m not the problem, and I think a tax incentive might work better in the corporate world than some kind of extension fee. Plus, in today’s political environment, how much easier will it be to sell a tax credit than an added fee?

There’d have to be some caps of some type, or else I could move 650 images into the public domain, and at $50 a pop, that’s 30 grand plus. $30,000 might be a significant incentive for a corporation, but it would be tax larceny for an individual. And again, that points out the difficulty in crafting a proposal that will equally affect my measly online photo collection, Microsoft Word XP, pong for bar tables (circa 1982), the Playboy centerfold spread, off Broadway plays, and online music.

But that’s another debate. In this case, I hope you’ll consider modifying your approach towards reaching the same goals. A $1 carrot rather than a $1 stick.