Old news: The Economist has again repeated its proposal that copyright terms be restored to the original Statute of Anne term: 14 + 14. Way too radical (but on the right track!) (Thanks, Matthias!)
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Meta
I don’t know… 28 years seems plenty long enough to me. Of course, given that these giants want 100 years, I’m sure their view is that 28 is incredibly low.
I agree with it being radical but only because the current period is insanely inflated. IMHO 28 years is ample time, if there has to be such limits.
Why is too radical? 14 years (and another 14) are more than enough time to get all thge economic benefits that can be obtained from most of intellectual productions in the current market.
Also, 28 years for a book has not the same effects that for software. where 7 years is already a very long time. Or a movie, where costs are recouped in a couple of years (or in few days for blockbusters).
They don’t want 100 years, they want royalty-free copyright for 100 years after the author dies.
One thing about the 14-year/28-year timeframe is that it encapsulates something like a “generation” of creative work. As a composer / musician now, a lot of others’ music that I’d like to quote in my own is from my childhood and pre-adulthood, e.g., a little more than 28 and 14 years ago respectively.
Some of this music from 14-28 years ago is “dying out” in the sense that its first-hand context can no longer be experienced–and it’s wanting for creative re-expression at this point. Otherwise, it’s often left for the slow deaths of nostalgia or caricature or enslaved to advertisement.
I don’t see 14+14 as being too radical, especially in today’s rapidly changing environment. Why would you say this is too radical?
I’m more inclined to go with 5 years.
I have to agree: what’s so radical about 14+14? It’s plenty for music, and ho wmuch 28 year old software are you going ot use? MAME would be legal now and able to ship with dozens or hundreds of games – that alone would likely give us a whole selection of handheld game devices. Stanley Kubrick and Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones all freely sample-able and available at the 99 cent rack at wal-mart.
Radical? Seems to me this is what copyright was meant to be about.
Macintosh Plus firmware was delivered in 1986, and a 128K version was already ount in 1984. With a 14+5 law, virtually all the movile phone devices could have a MacOS interface freely. With a 14+14 law, most games used in movile phones should be in the public domain by now.
The Economist is just a hypocrite. If they
really believe in 14-plus-14 term, they ought
disclaim all copyrights in their works that
are more than 14 or 28 years old. But, they
will not do that and nobody will do that and
the Congress will not do that because nobody
does that.
Their hypocrisy make their words very hollow
to the lay people. It is a very classic
example of “not walking the talk”.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this
comment in the public domain.
Larry, I too am curious: how is 14 + 14 always radical? What is the justification for more than 28 years copyright?
To Branko,
I will answer your second question leaving the
first question to Professor Lessig. The answer
is simply the myth that the authors and artists
have the natural right in their works. This
implies that the copyright should not end
anytime before the death of authors and artists.
Moreover, the myth also implies that the authors
and artists have what is known as moral rights
in their works that last beyond their lifetime.
Therefore, that is the justification for very
long, long, long copyright term.
You also should keep in mind that people use
different meanings when they talk about copyright.
When they want the copyright to be shortened,
they very often refer to the economic and
reproduction rights and rarely to the moral
rights. Take Professor Lessig’s position as
an example. He thinks that the author’s right
of integrity and right of attribution are
distinct from copyright. See
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002449.shtml
and http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001260.shtml.
When people want copyright term to be shorter,
they very often do not want the term of their
rights of attribution and integrity to be
anything shorter.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this
comment in the public domain.
I disagree. I haven’t ever noticed anyone making a distinction between copyright and so-called ‘moral rights,’ with regards to the term length question. Given that we really don’t have such things in the US, I would imagine that few people here, if any, care about them. Certainly given that a work is not really in the public domain so long as it is encumbered by such awful rights as those, it seems at odds with what people do want.
Personally, aside from completely abhoring the very concept of moral rights, I think that it’s foolish to concentrate merely on term length. Rather, we should approach the issue holistically, and consider modifications to term length, vesting, formalities, exclusive rights, and exceptions all as one big system. Even if we reduced copyright terms to 14+14, and left everything else alone, I wouldn’t be happy.
To Josh,
Our U.S. copyright law has moral right only for
authors of some visual art works (see the
definition of “work of visual art” in Section
101 and the moral rights in Section 106A).
The requirement to have attribution is found
in many open licenses and is one one of the
several choices for Creative Commons licenses.
Why is that so? It is because people know that
the U.S. copyright law does not have moral
rights for the majority of authors and artists
and they want to “fix” the shortcoming by
adding the requirement to have attribution
to their licenses. This demonstrates the
common knowledge that people know the
different between the usual exclusive rights
in copyright and moral rights. They usually
don’t mind that the term for the usual
exclusive rights can be shortened but they
certainly do not want to give up the rights
of integrity and attribution anytime sooner.
Certainly, the copyright has many facets.
However, of all these facets, term remains
the best limit on the scope of copyright.
This is similar to statute limitation on many
laws and it is a very ancient way to prevent
laws from overreaching. Term also is the
cleanest way to fix problem with copyright
while the other facets will only complicate
it more (i.e. adding more exceptions or expanding
exceptions). As the result, term gets almost
all attention.
Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>
Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions in this
comment in the public domain.
Joseph,
I meant to ask Larry why he thinks 14+14 is radical, not why you think he thinks 14+14 is radical. Sorry if I phrased my question ambiguously.
the Economist’s modest proposal came at the end of a poorly written and remarkably confused article about the unanimous defeat of P2P (pirate to pirate) engines grokster and morpheus at the hands of the SCOTUS.
(you may have expected a spanking from scalia and thomas, professor, but the sting of a unanimous decision should wake you up to how radically out of touch you and the defenders of P2P are with reality.)
getting back to the Economist, they wrote:
Moreover, they struck what looks like the best available balance under current laws between the claims of media firms, which are battling massive infringements of their copyrights, and tech firms, which are keen to keep the doors to innovation wide open. … It was struggling to apply a copyright law which has grown worse than anachronistic in the digital age. That’s something Congress needs to remedy… A first, useful step would be a drastic reduction of copyright back to its original terms 14 years, renewable once.
suggesting that a reduction of the term of copyright is a solution overlooks the fundamental issue that authors and artists must be able to enjoy the benefits of copyright in the digital age.
whether the copyright term is 14 years or 14 hundred years technologies that induce infringement are not beneficial to society. indeed such innovations are as harmful to society as innovations in drug smuggling or methods of terrorism.
this is the clear undeniable message of the SCOTUS decision and what the Economist failed to recognize. fortunately, all nine judges (who apparently have been following our arguments in this blog) refused to be fooled by the shibboleth of “substantal non-infringing uses” and recognized that inducement to infringe copyright is inducement to infringe copyright.
along with the constitutional authority vested in the US congress to provide copyright protection comes the responsibility to see that that protection is meaningful. any reform of copyright law that focuses on the term and not on enhancing the strength and enforceablility of copyright protection would be at best a half-measure.
the SCOTUS decision making P2P operators resposible for encouraging copyright infringement is a small step in the right direction.
giant leaps remain to be made.
regarding the three blind mice’s posting:
It is hard to see how a technology such as Grokster can ‘induce’ infringement, aside from it injecting cocaine or spider venom into you involuntarily as you make either the “right” or “wrong” choices according to the perversions of the software’s author. What? Ridiculous? Yes that is ridiculous. And Grokster doesn’t inject spider venom or cocaine? NO it doesn’t. So it doesn’t reward its users in any way at all if they misuse the program? You are right! It does not.
The court noted in its decision that developing a technology (like a computer program) alone cannot be the basis of a contributary infringement, if that program also has substantial legal uses (essentially a reaffirmation of the Sony decision). Grokster falls into that category, as it has substantial non-infringing use.
The court went on in some bizarre, off-the-cuff, but worrisome (for me) reasoning, that Grokster might have shown bad faith in not allowing the RIAA or MPAA or MGM (or The CIA or the International Comintern or whatever vigilante group) to rewrite its program to somehow actively monitor the program’s users to ensure that infringing activity were minimized, or to ensure that past infringers couldn’t use it.
But this off the cuff reasoning by the judges thankfully didn’t seem to factor much into the tests the court later gave (which is why one can call this specious section earlier in the ruling ‘off the cuff’). It is also easy to refute, and too dangerous for any judge to take literally, that a p2p program’s design (which, in this case, allowed anyone to sharing anything at all) can be taken as a factor in contributory infringement.
So one must take into account other actions and motives. For example, the court seemingly found some importance in Grokster’s marketing, and its website design, and the fact that it had forums where people were told, in plain language how to search and download the latest hollywood crap.
Now, that all this could be seen by an truthful, thoughtful citizen to possibly cause or influence a person to infringe implies that everyone must be assumed to have the moral consciousness of a cockroach. I wrote somewhere else that people who infringe willingly dug a grave 5 feet 11 inches deep and buried their own morals. Grokster, no matter how egregious the court found its advertizing and its forums, etc, can only be said to have removed a thimbleful of dust from the top of that grave.
The ideas in the ruling suffer from a laughable urban-myth that have developed around p2p issues: that websites and programs are the same thing: that you have to go to a website to appreciate or use a program. Bunkus. I bet 10% of grokster’s users ever visited the site. It is, after all, a complete waste of time and irrelevant to using the program. This is notwithstanding the fact that if you disagree with me on the above, I’d ask you to consider that if one actually visited the website with the notion of browsing it in anyway other than a cursory, fleeting and irrelevant manner, they would have to be of a deceitful, wilfully ignorant mind to NOT find or understand the many references to the notions of copyright and the fact that the program could be misused to download copyright material illegally, or at least, that there is some controversy about this (Gee who knew??) .
Any judge hearing any renewal of the MGM-GrokSter case is going to be hard pressed to see it differently, if Grokster’s lawyers learn their bloody lessons from this supreme court case.
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This decison in Grokster has really absolutely nothing to do with arguments limiting the copyright to X number of years. But, notwithstanding the Economist’s equally odd segue, I found your comments to be too strange to go without a refutation.
Radical lies in the eyes of the beholder, . . . . or something like that, maybe.
The Digital Age empowers the individual, in the sense that history tells us the Gutenberg Press empowers the People. If we use that as a premise for investigating the options for providing support for creators and innovators, I suppose there is less of a need for copyright to exist as a body of legislation, period. Now, that’s radical!
Suppose one could use repositories such as http://www.archive.org to record their works. Once recorded, it is now possible, worldwide to identify the original creator or innovator of a particular work. If I like the item, I can easily request the original, rather than some “copy”.
In the future, we just might see there is one individual who has arranged to have exclusive rights to sell “originals” of everything that exists in the world, creatively, or innovatively. Beyond that, you and I can “copy” to our hearts’ delights, and if folks want to purchase those copies, so-be-it. Now, that’s radical!
In the meantime, creators and innovators can compete in a global market on equal footing with the “big guys”, and that’s not a radical idea any more!
Tom
suggesting that a reduction of the term of copyright is a solution overlooks the fundamental issue that authors and artists must be able to enjoy the benefits of copyright in the digital age.
As usual you conflate the “rights” of authors with the greedy and unprecedented desires of media companies, and ignore the fact that the producers of culture are also consumers.
Was it authors who brought this lawsuit? No. Will it be authors who benefit most from a lack of alternative distribution methods, methods less amenable to creative accounting and contractual abuse? No. Will it be authors who benefit most from not being able to draw on the culture around them? No.
It’s the media companies. Those well known defenders of artists rights through exploitative contracts and creative accounting.
whether the copyright term is 14 years or 14 hundred years technologies that induce infringement are not beneficial to society. indeed such innovations are as harmful to society as innovations in drug smuggling or methods of terrorism.
That is ridiculous hyperbole. If you’d really rather be robbed by a junkie or blown up by a fanatic than have an MP3 copied across your hard drive then I’d say it is you who is out of touch with reality.
fortunately, all nine judges (who apparently have been following our arguments in this blog) refused to be fooled by the shibboleth of “substantal non-infringing uses”
You clearly have not read the opinions.
giant leaps remain to be made.
It is a shame that this decision ensures that they will not happen.
Oh, you mean great leaps in preventing the creation of culture. Yes, great leaps do remain to be made on that front. Let’s see if we can tie some shoe laces together.
“the sting of a unanimous decision should wake you up to how radically out of touch you and the defenders of P2P are with reality“
All of the broadband connected world uses P2P. I would like to suggest it is the entire SCOTUS who are out of touch with reality.
As usual you conflate the “rights” of authors with the greedy and unprecedented desires of media companies, and ignore the fact that the producers of culture are also consumers.
as usual rob meyers, you ignore the fact that it is copyright that forms the essential relationship between artists and authors and the corporate boogeyman. unless strong and enforceable copyright is assignable to “media companies,” artists and authors have no market power and will never be properly compensated for their efforts. there is no utopia.
copyright, rob meyers, is based on reality of the market economy.
we understand your desire to portray your opponent as a nameless, faceless, and greedy corporate giant, but ignoring the little person at the other end who will be also be destroyed by your cultural revolution reminds us of the tired rhetoric of the last century.
as mao observed, “idealism is the easiest thing in the world, because people can talk as much nonsense as they like without basing it on objective reality or having it tested against reality.”
copyright, rob meyers, is based on reality of the market economy.
A regime that creates property rights without property owners, as over-long copyright does, is based neither in the market economy nor in reality.
I am a published author, and I make my living by creating “intellectual property.” three blind mice does not speak for me, even though I am a “little person” and an “artist.” I find his postings offensive. Person-to-person is a wonderful technology that will not be bottled up. I believe copyright limits have grown far beyond the orginal intent, and represent a giant land grab by multi-national corporations, who are basically the only ones who benefit by decades of locked-up art long after the artist is dead.
Does the P2P world mean I have to change how I operate? Yes. That’s the nature of technology. Always has been, always will be. You adapt or die. I’m having fun adapting. I do NOT want to hold back technology just so I can personally benefit a little more under the old model.
I am a published author, and I make my living by creating “intellectual property.” three blind mice does not speak for me, even though I am a “little person” and an “artist.” I find his postings offensive.
Just an author, our comments are meant to challenge, not to offend. (and btw the proper pronoun is “their” – our online identity is plural.)
this thread is so far off topic that we hesitate to stray further from the wainscotting, but since the original post was a non seqitur about reducing the copyright term contained in an article about the unanimous defeat of grokster, et al. by the Economist, non seqituring we will go.
you say you “make your living creating intellectual property.” this is an interesting statement. most authors (and artists) make their living by, ahem, selling “intellectual property.” as frank zappa observed, the music industry is about creating something from nothing and selling it.
it is not P2P technology per se that is the problem, it is the irresponsible use of such technology. it is grokster and morpheus creating networks that encourage and induce the theft of intellectual property. it is the people on this board who spend more time defending pirates and piracy than promoting the responsible use of technology and searching for ways that P2P can be used to ENFORCE copyright instead of subverting it.
it seems to us that – except for pornography – the internet is largely devoid of legal copyrighted material. the rich content of movies, music, books, photographs and articles that the consuming public obviously wants are not being made available legally, because the downloading generation does not respect copyright, they do not respect that artists and authors and photographers should be paid when they enjoy the fruits of their labours. these greedy, amoral “consumers” are aided and abetted by a technology culture that does not either respect copyright, nor the artists that create the content they so desperately want.
until the people on this board arrive at the inescapable conclusion that copyright is sine qua non to the digital age and until they support measures that will provide effective protection and enforcement of copyright, the internet will never achieve its potential.
you, our dear friends and not the evil media corporations are the ones responsible for stifling innovation and creating a culture of greed and irresponsibility. you are the ones who are killing P2P – not the RIAA, not the MPAA, not the US congress. the RIAA does not want to kill technology – the only antiquated business model they want to preserve is making money. if they could make money from distributing their content over P2P, they would become its biggest promoter.
if the pursuit of profit is offensive to you, then of course, no agreement can ever be reached and you will eventually be crushed under the wheels of market economy.
sorry if we offend you, but the three blind mice are down with seeing people get paid for their work. pity we seem to be the only ones who are.
“too radical” — as in economically unsound? No, perfectly economically sound. “Too radical” as in won’t advance the chance that something reasonable would become law. Strategically too radical; substantively just fine.
sorry if we offend you, but the three blind mice are down with seeing people get paid for their work
So am I, multiple-personally-dissociative-rodent.
What I am NOT down with is people getting paid over and over and over and over again for the same transaction.
Or people getting paid for work they didn’t do, where collective copyright regimes exist.
Or people’s great-grandchildren getting paid for work they didn’t do, where overlong copyright exists.
Or the public paying, again, for work that was created for reasons other than those which copyright supposedly protects, where government copyright exists.
We need sound copyright, not more copyright. The two are not the same.
Pay creators. But don’t overpay them. And don’t reward sloth or genetics with copyright law.
until the people on this board arrive at the inescapable conclusion that copyright is sine qua non to the digital age and until they support measures that will provide effective protection and enforcement of copyright, the internet will never achieve its potential.
i think that three blind mice makes a solid point. For the Internet to truly flourish, we need reasonable protection for copyrighted works, this is why the copyright was created in the first place: to allow people to profit from their works. However, the current copyright regime is very unreasonable. And, in response, many frustrated internet users have responded in like fashion: unreasonably downloading many copyrighted works paying absolutely nothing.
Neither side is completely in the right here. Artists should expect to be paid aptly for their works. And people should expect that the monopoly power congress gives out should strike a balance that fulfills its mission “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”. I believe the point of the Economists article was that until Congress strikes a more accurate balance, neither side is going to act reasonably.
I think that it’s foolish to concentrate merely on term length. Rather, we should approach the issue holistically, and consider modifications to term length, vesting, formalities, exclusive rights, and flag exceptions all as one big system. Even if we reduced copyright terms to 14+14, and left everything else alone, I wouldn’t be happy.
To radical? If the media companies wont even let the PDEA past, why bother with non-radical legislation. Do you think the average person would think that 14+14 is radical or a good idea? Frankly, PDEA, good idea as it is, can’t even get the eldred.cc people excited enough to update there web page with the new bill number (H.R. 2408). If 14+14, plus some other features of the Statue of Anne and/or the original US copyright can get people excited about it, then I think it might have a better chance at getting passed than a weak compromise like PDEA. We should concentrate on as radical a law as an average person could be convinced is a good idea, since the media companies don’t seem to give a #$% about reasonable compromises. We should start a wiki and start a real discussion about what a good copyright bill would be including term and formalities and all the other jazz and then convince ordinary people that the law is a good idea, and then get it passed with the momentum.