Copyright in perpetuity

n/a OTM. Although I would love to see the descendants of Charles Perrault or the Brothers Grimm march on Disney and demand a cut of the profits from the films made from their ancestors' stories.

This line of reasoning has some validity when applied solely to books and their authors, but I suspect that under current circumstances few or no rewards would flow to an author's family in perpetuity, as Twain envisioned, but rather that perpetual copyrights would simply come under corporate control, since corporations are deathless.

FWIW, Robert Lowell was one of the wealthy Lowells of Boston (those who famously "spoke only to Cabots, while the Cabots spoke only to God"). I'm pretty sure that his father's poetry isn't the only stone in the foundation of the son's improvidence.

If not Disney, then try Scribner's. They published "The Great Gatsby" back in 1925. This book was on the virge of going into the Public Domain except for the Bono Bull, er Bill. Scribner's was out to make as much money on it as possible before it went to the PD, by offering booksellers like Barnes&Noble the license to make really cheap copies of it. But when they saw the possibilities the Bono Bull was bringing they pulled all offers off the table. Now they have the rights until at least 2020.

This book is required reading in a lot of high-school and College courses throughout the country, so I'd think they make a substantial sum out of it.

Culture secretray Andy Burnham recommends term extension: speech
2008-12-11

Good morning everyone.

It’s that time of year when newspapers are reviewing the year so I thought I’d start by giving you a review of my music highlights this year.

I’ve played Teenage Kicks on the guitar with Fergal Sharkey on a boat on the Thames.

I’ve said that Top of the Pops should be for life, not just for Christmas.

And, on the floor of the House of Commons, I spoke up for my talented constituent Laura White, to my knowledge the first person to play a musical instrument on X Factor, being unfairly voted off.

So it must be reassuring for you all to have an intellectual heavyweight intervening in the big music issues of the day at the heart of government.

But, the truth is, government intervention in the music business does not have a glorious history. To paraphrase one of our greats, mixing pop and politics is not a straightforward business and, indeed, can be a bit embarrassing for all concerned.

The British music business has been a major success story with government at arm’s length, or further¬ – in something of a state of mutual distrust.

Over the second half of the last century the industry grew into one of real economic and cultural significance – and its output for many defined us internationally - yet without significant government intervention or political help.

But I’m going to make the case this morning that necessity means that the old order of things needs to change.

The time has clearly arrived when pop needs a bit of political help, when we are all having more meetings and conversations than we’ve had in the past.

Music has been hit hard over the last ten years, and if we don’t do something there is a real danger that parts of the music industry will be washed away.

Developments in communications have changed the music world and I think we are now at a time that calls for partnership between Government and the music business as a whole: one with rewards for both of us; one with rewards for society as a whole.

Music has been a life’s passion for me. When I came into this job earlier this year, I made it a personal priority to focus on the music business – and, hopefully, identify solutions and new models to sustain this cultural strength throughout this century as it was in the second half of the last.

So, the Government signalled this change of gear in February with the publication of our Creative Britain strategy – the first proper programme of structural support from government for the creative industries: moving from the margins of government thinking to the mainstream. We said clearly that legislation would be brought forward to tackle illegal downloading if acceptable voluntary solutions did not emerge - and that remains our unequivocal position.

It’s more important than ever at this particular time when there’s pressure in the economy that we acknowledge and encourage the catalytic role that the creative industries can have in this country. Our traditional creative strength is an enormous competitive advantage in a changing and highly connected world.

International solutions are needed and that’s why one of the things that came out of the strategy was a commitment to establishing a new network to bring together internationally renowned talent from the creative industries – the Creativity and Business International Network. The aim, in time, is for this forum - c&binet - to become an annual event in Britain that’s seen as the equivalent of “Davos” for the creative industries.

But it’s not just on the government side that there has been a change of gear. The industry has clearly been getting its act together off the stage.

The formation of UK Music is a welcome step, as is the Featured Artists Coalition. I don’t think we could ever expect the music industry to speak with one voice – so two isn’t bad – but it does bring a lot more coherence and makes my job easier when representing you to the rest of Government. I recognise the progress made and welcome it.

This is needed now more than ever as it has been a tough few years for the music industry – and a particularly tough few weeks. This year particularly has seen a real acceleration in the breakdown of the traditional systems that fund creativity – the systems that have been in place for decades, particularly in TV and music.

The worldwide economic downturn is adding to the pressure. But it also creates the conditions to allow fresh thinking and help it to take root. Fresh thinking is needed to rework the old models where people handed over their money in the record shop and it found its way into various pockets throughout the industry.

The music industry did very well out of my generation, both the talent and the paying punters. Buying an album was a serious long-term strategic investment of pocket money after weeks of studying the NME and the indie music charts. It was such a commitment, even when you got it home and realised it wasn’t quite as good as you hoped, you had to defend it vigorously.

The online revolution has changed all the rules and ever since we’ve been struggling to catch up. For creative talent like you, it’s a genuinely double-edged sword – liberating and democratising on the one side, allowing people to bypass the traditional gatekeepers to the creative system.

But on the other side, what the online revolution has done is promote a prevailing sense with the online generation that creativity is free to enjoy.

We enjoy a whole lot more choice and opportunity – which is good. And a lot of people enjoy all that for free – which is good for them but not for everyone –and not good for the long term prospects for new music and new ideas, and fresh talent coming through.

So music has been hampered by a real sense of ambivalence towards the internet from the off. But some of its early ideology, in my view, was detrimental to its interests.

There was a powerful undercurrent at the start of the internet that was expressed in the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace written by John Perry Barlow in 1996.

‘Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement and context do not apply to us.’

But the legal concept of copyright has underpinned our creative industries for decades, and is essential to rewarding talent and creativity.

We are now having to confront these notions – but we need to respond in a way that doesn’t criminalise a whole generation that has come to enjoy and explore creativity in a different way.

We need new rules and new norms and they have to be agreed on an international basis because that’s the way the online world operates.

My job – Government’s job – is to preserve the value in the system. Your challenge as an industry is to devise a system that is fair to the paying public and to the performer. Making it stick might mean industry and performers agreeing new rules and new models. But any long-term solution will have a greater chance of sticking in the long term if bodies like the FAC can recommend them unequivocally to their fan base.

It may not be the first thing on Barack Obama’s mind – but it is in there as part of his cultural and creative agenda and we do have a fresh opportunity to come to a common understanding with a new administration.

Illegal file sharing comes under that banner, and I personally think we are breaking new ground in this country.

The gap between how many tracks get paid for and how many don’t is just staggering – and I think the voluntary agreements to change that are going as well as could have been expected at this moment in time.

ISPs are talking to music companies about this. Something they weren’t doing a year ago. And they are writing letters to illegal downloaders – which they weren’t a year ago.

We’ll have some idea of how effective that has been early in the new year and it’s important that the Memorandum of Understanding that we’re working on with ISPs and music rights holders doesn’t slip.

The voluntary approach is obviously the best way forward, but we’re working on how legislation could underpin the voluntary process if necessary in a way that’s fair and proportionate. Having come this far, I’m determined that we bring this issue to a conclusion that works.

Copyright underpins the music business – and all our creative industries – and the right response when it’s put under pressure is not to abandon a system as outdated, but to make it work better.

There is a moral case for performers benefiting from their work throughout their entire lifetime.

That is why I have been working with John Denham, my opposite number in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, to consider the arguments for an extension of copyright term for performers from the current 50 years. An extension to match more closely a performer’s expected lifetime, perhaps something like 70 years, for example, given that most people make their best work in their 20s and 30s.

And we must ensure that any extension delivers maximum benefit to performers and musicians. That’s the test of any model as we go forward.

It’s only right that someone who created or contributed to something of real value gets to benefit for the full course of their life.

There’s another moral argument that says you should have a right not to have something you’ve created being associated with a cause or a brand you’re not comfortable with.

From a cultural point of view, it’s right that Government should be recognising and celebrating the role that performers and creators play in the cultural life of the country.

And from an economic point of view, the music business is one of our most significant creative industries – and the creative industries as a whole are the right direction to be pushing our economy at this moment in time.

Let me be absolutely clear so there are no misconceptions about where the Government is on this. I have been working closely with John Denham, and we both share a real support for artists and musicians.

We want the industry to come back with good, workable ideas as to how a proposal on copyright extension might be framed that directly and predominantly benefits performers – both session and featured musicians.

I’d like to congratulate Charlie McCreevy for initially instigating this discussion.

I think you have heard already from Charlie on his proposals at the European level and we’ll be working with him to find the right approach through copyright that rewards creators and performers, including session musicians.

But all of this is meaningless unless we lay down the foundations in creative education for young people, helping them to feel confident in their creativity.

Support for talent goes to the heart of the Department for Culture. It starts with helping more young people discover their creativity from an early age.

And it’s also important that industry invests back into the system to benefit the next generation - as we have seen with the Premier League do in football.

Here’s an example: we’ve worked with Fergal when he was heading the Live Music Forum, developing the idea of rehearsal spaces in deprived areas around the country – places where aspiring musicians or technicians can practice and gain experience. Places that can develop into music hubs for the community, with links to the live music scene, community radio and the music industry locally and nationally. The first of these should be starting up in the New Year in Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester.

We’re putting in £500,000 and we’ve got commitments of support from across the music industry – but it needs the support of musicians and performers as well to make it work.

Another example about how industry can put back in to the system: we’ve set a goal for 5,000 new apprenticeships in the creative industries every year to give young people a clear career path into jobs in the music business, TV, film and so on. Not everyone gets an equal chance to break into the music business, for one way or another.

Apprenticeships are a way of finding and nurturing talent that might not otherwise get discovered. Government can set the ambition, but we can’t offer the jobs – that’s down to industry, and I’m delighted with the interest that EMI and Universal have shown so far to host music industry apprenticeships.

Another example: we’ve launched a programme in schools called Find Your Talent, as part of the commitment to give every young person five hours a week of high-quality culture and art.

The idea rests on getting professional creative people much more involved with local schools and with cultural activities with young people outside school. Using the power and the glamour associated with proven creative talent to inspire an interest in culture and creativity – particularly in those that either haven’t had the chances in the past.

This is, of course Department for Children, Schools and Families’ territory as well. They are putting over £300 million into funding music in schools over the next three years including the priority for free musical tuition for all primary school pupils. Already, it’s amazing to hear that the number of children learning an instrument looks set to have doubled over the last three years, from 22% in September 2005 to some 50% in September 2008.

It’s through partnerships like these that we’ll bring on the next generation of talent, and which will start to change people’s perceptions of the value of creativity.

The online world has smashed the old models apart and opened up new opportunities for us to rebuild an industry that stands the test of time.

It has cut out the middle men. But we still need to think through all the consequences of that – what the new models are and how they work.

How do we replace the essential functions that the old middle men used to perform – the promotion, contract negotiations, the protection of rights, of ownership, paying taxes?

How do we help people lift themselves up above the noise? How do we help them to protect their rights?

We need to make sure we are not just discovering the new talent of the future, but also preparing that new talent for the world as it is now.

The big creative challenge now is to come up with the new ideas that keep people listening and which set a true and realistic value on talent. In short, we need to create a new business model that is fairer to everyone – music-buying public, performers, and those who have built up the industry.

Thank you.

ENDS

I’ve played Teenage Kicks on the guitar with Fergal Sharkey on a boat on the Thames.

This is where he got nobbled.

Aargh, that is such a disingenuous, manipulative argument. What does fighting file-sharing (ie, the growing inability to enforce copyright) have to do with extending copyright?

It's not as bad as Cliff Richard's argument that records he made might be used in 'pornographic films'.

* The majority of performers could gain as little as 50 cents per year from sales related to the proposed extension, set against as much as €4m going to each major record label

* The Directive threatens to actually decrease the amount performers receive in airplay royalties in their lifetime, as payments are transferred from artists at the beginning of their careers to the estates of dead performers

* The proposal to set up a fund for session musicians (who otherwise would not benefit from the term extension at all, because of the contracts they originally signed with record labels) is low on detail. There’s a real risk that the small amount record labels are compelled to set aside for this fund will be swallowed by admin costs before it gets to musicians.

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/12/11/screw-the-evidence-says-burnham-lets-extend-copyright-term-anyway/

And then there was Cameron's "Cut out the sex and violence and we'll extend your copyrights" speech last year.

In a long-memory, contract based society, what's the serious argument for ever letting any kind of artistic copyright expire?

i'll turn it around and ask you: what's the argument for keeping it around forever and ever? isn't that sort of silly?

There's a good bit on this evening's Channel 4 News - skip to the 12:00 minute mark.

I don't get your point, Contenderizer. Copyright is an *exception* we make to the free flow of art and expression, so folks have an incentive to create (and fund creative types). Perpetual ownership undermines the whole rationale for copyright.

i'll turn it around and ask you: what's the argument for keeping it around forever and ever?

-- Mr. Que

We don't need one. That's what I meant about long memories (digital, etc.) and contracts. If I own something, say a house, then I own it, and can pass my property down to my descendents, and they can pass it down to theirs, etc., in perpetuity. Given this very basic precedent, why should artistic creations (a specific form of intellectual property and not intellectual property in general) be any different?

I don't get your point, Contenderizer. Copyright is an *exception* we make to the free flow of art and expression, so folks have an incentive to create (and fund creative types). Perpetual ownership undermines the whole rationale for copyright.

-- MVB

I don't get this at all. Copyright legally asserts ownership, and that's all it does. Therefore, in order for ownership (perpetual or otherwise) to exist in any legally meaningful sense, we require copyright. I don't see any conflict between this and "the free flow of art and expression."

I’ve played Teenage Kicks on the guitar with Fergal Sharkey on a boat on the Thames.

This sounds like one of those sentences that is the result of an anagram exercise.

If I own something, say a house, then I own it, and can pass my property down to my descendents, and they can pass it down to theirs, etc., in perpetuity. Given this very basic precedent, why should artistic creations (a specific form of intellectual property and not intellectual property in general) be any different?

because houses are not novels. and because if we free up things so that they are in the public domain, artists can innovate from them. also, if everything has copyright forever, we're going to spend a lot of time (and money and people's time) worrying about whether or not something infringes.

"Copyright legally asserts ownership, and that's all it does."

Not exactly. Copyright grants ownership in certain exclusive, limited rights with regard to a work. You "own" the right to copy a work (or to make derivative works, etc.) with certain important restriction placed on those rights (fair use, etc.)

Also, perpetual copyright in the U.S. would require a constitutional amendment.

I don't get this at all. Copyright legally asserts ownership, and that's all it does. Therefore, in order for ownership (perpetual or otherwise) to exist in any legally meaningful sense, we require copyright. I don't see any conflict between this and "the free flow of art and expression."

― Suggest Ban Permalink (contenderizer), Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:21 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

This is a circular argument (copyright is property, therefore copyright is property), and displays complete ignorance of the history of copyright and even of contemporary copyright law.

I hate to use the cliched free culture net dude quote, but here's Thomas Jefferson:

"Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

see also the Constitution

houses are not novels. and because if we free up things so that they are in the public domain, artists can innovate from them. also, if everything has copyright forever, we're going to spend a lot of time (and money and people's time) worrying about whether or not something infringes.

Artists can innovate no matter what, and broad fair use provisions could (SHOULD) be granted to artists regardless of when or if copyright expires, especially when millions aren't being made from that use. As long as the rules are spelled out clearly, it's not terribly hard to differentiate copyright infringement from non-infringement. Usually...

Not exactly. Copyright grants ownership in certain exclusive, limited rights with regard to a work. ...perpetual copyright in the U.S. would require a constitutional amendment.

-- MVB

True. I was oversimplifying things in order to make a point -- which still stands. Copyright (as I think we're discussing it here) is simply a creator's exclusive-but-transferrable intellectual property right to that which he/she creates. Yr point about Constitutional amendments is a good one though: on a purely pragmatic level, it would be massive hassle to create the legal groundwork for perpetual copyrights.

This is a circular argument (copyright is property, therefore copyright is property), and displays complete ignorance of the history of copyright and even of contemporary copyright law.

-- IA

Yeah, but that's not what I was saying. I'm saying that copyright grants legal ownership, therefore legal ownership doesn't exist without copyright (or something like it). The rest is just a lame insult, so fuck you too.

Agree completely with the Jefferson quote. But I don't think it's the final word on the subject -- at least not to the extent that it renders all further inquiry moot.

The fact that copyright is a form of "ownership" does not automatically analogous to all other forms of ownership. Intellectual property =/= real property. Real property is a special category for very good reasons. Even the strongest advocates of copyright don't take your position.

Yeah what makes all of this so hairy is probably that Ownership is seen as some kind of basic axiom which may work well in thing-based* communities (lol tempted to semitroll re evolutionary psychology), but collapses as an idea somewhat when dealing with copyable stuff, ie when another can have same without degradation of original.

*) natural resources, objects made from them, living space etc

I mean, this is TJ:

Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

The first part is undoubtedly true, but misses the point where copyrights are concerned. It isn't abstract ideas that copyrights seek to legally regulate, but the rather the commercial trafficking in concretized instances of ideas -- objects, essentially (even if they are thoughtlike digital objects).

Second part is noble, but hardly squares with most subsequent legal precedent/thinking regarding "inventions" (patents, copyrights).

***

The fact that copyright is a form of "ownership" does not [make it] automatically analogous to all other forms of ownership. Intellectual property =/= real property. Real property is a special category for very good reasons. Even the strongest advocates of copyright don't take your position.

― IA

Agree 100 with all that. What I'm asking here is "why?" And, to be honest, I'm suggesting that whys that are usually stacked up in order to justify time-limited copyrights don't really hold water.

I mean, how is the time-limited part anything but an arbitrary distinction made in order to avoid actually coming to terms with the questions involved?

As long as the rules are spelled out clearly, it's not terribly hard to differentiate copyright infringement from non-infringement. Usually...

this isn't true, at least in the case of U.S. law, where fair use determinations are contextual (based on how closely the use measures up against a handful of grey-area principles), dictated by case law, patchy state law before 1972, even more confused by things like the DMCA, etc. because publishers are so litigious these days, people who have fallen under the fair use umbrella in the past like libraries are more worried than ever about "saving" things by copying them or making them digital. it's a risk game and copyright isn't about the law but about who has money to gut you.

OTM. But that only makes clear that when the rules aren't spelled out clearly, it does become hard to make the distinctions involved. Which is the logical corollary to my point.

Agree that badly-written, poorly thought-out, haphazardly applied intellectual copyright laws suck. But that doesn't give me any reason to believe that arbitrarily time-limited copyrights make any sense or accomplish any significant social good.

Agree 100 with all that. What I'm asking here is "why?" And, to be honest, I'm suggesting that whys that are usually stacked up in order to justify time-limited copyrights don't really hold water.

― Suggest Ban Permalink (contenderizer), Thursday, 11 December 2008 22:09 (15 minutes ago)

The "why" is that it's a compromise recognizing the need to balance profit incentive to innovate with the very un-property-like nature of ideas.

And allowing the child or grandchild of an inventor or artist, or the child of the purchaser of those rights,(or a corporation 100 years later) adds no incentive.

sorry, i didn't read enough of the thread to catch your main argument. time-limited copyrights are great imo, they're just owned to a large extent by the wrong people, or at least they last so long (longer and longer) that they outlive the recorded object. i can't remember the exact figures, but aren't a lot of major music interests now under copyright for something like 120+ years? once publishers don't care about something, it just disappears because they aren't gonna profit from republishing and other people with "social good" interests (like libraries and archives lol) aren't going to risk digitally preserving it.

Two or three hundred years ago the idea that ideas might be property-like was probably surprising. It makes sense, then, that a couple hundred years ago the laws governing intellectual property were a bit tenative and provisional. But at this point in our social evolution, the property-ness of ideas is firmly established and entirely un-special.

At this point, when we grant an author the copyright to his own work, we are not doing something extraordinary to create an incentive. Rather, we are simply legally recognizing what we seem see as a basic human right. The idea that authors would not automatically be granted such rights seems far more "unnatural" than that they would. It is the opposed idea, that no one (or the world at large) owns a book or song as soon as it is created, that now seems strange and unnatural.

Given this state of affairs, and given that the pure ideas involved may still float as freely as they wish through the ideosphere regardless of who controls the copyrights involved, what good reason is there to arbitrary limit the lifespan of thse automatically, naturally created copyrights? That's what I'm asking. What real good is accomplished when we do this?

Also, "ideal" copyright laws still have to take into account the particular economic power dynamic in which we live. "Broad fair use" sounds nice, but the creators who would most need to invoke it are the least likely/able to defend themselves through litigation. So perpetual copyright + broad fair use, in the real world, equals Disney issue C&Ds to small artists eternally. So instead, limited copyright gives us the wiggle room we need.

And "we just need clearer laws" begs the question. Laws don't get clearer, they just don't. Copyright is a practical solution for a far-from-ideal economic/legal regime.

. Best argument for damage so far is Matt's point about big companies using lawsuits and threat of lawsuits to crush fair use, limiting creativity and artistic expression. Good point, but I'm not sure that time-limited copyrights do a superior job of protecting against this.

They do. No copyright=no litigation. No litigation=people can innovate and repurpose materials and create new things with them.

First of all, "names" are NOT treated as intellectual property unless they are trademarks, brands etc. There is no property right to the name Sarah Francis Walker or even Chinua Achebe or Brittany Spears.

Second, "reputations" are not a form of intellectual property at all.

Third, "trademarks" represent another compromise...

-- hurting

Disagree with the overly technical approach you're taking here. I do "own" my name in a very real sense, even if I don't have a complete legal right to control its use. The ownership of names becomes much more cut-and-dried when money and commercial identities are involved (see "Donna Summer" vs. Jason Forrest).

Reputations, too, are "owned" and legally protected, though we don't use the language and mechanisms of intellectual property in this case. And trademarks and commercial identites are tied in with this. We recognize that individuals and other entities are entitled to ownership of their own social/commercial identies. A business may be diminished by a competitor's use of its name and trademarks -- but only in the sense that I am diminished by someone else's use of my songs. I can't see any difference there.

No copyright=no litigation. No litigation=people can innovate and repurpose materials and create new things with them.

― Mr. Que

Well, yes, but this is the first time that anyone here has rebutted me by suggesting that copyrights simply should not exist. The rest of the post you're quoting clarified my position, re: the idea that real (artistic) harm is done by longer -- even perpetual -- copyrights.

i did not suggest that copyrights should not exist, what i meant was copyrights should have an expiration date. you should try reading a book or two on the subject i suggest starting here

http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/

"control" != "ownership"

This material will still be protected (and its uncleared use legally actionable) regardless of whether or not copyrights are time-limited.

So you seem to be saying that copyrights do harm even when they're time-limited. So why then extend that harm to perpetuity? We balance the harm against the benefits of copyright, which is why the shorter the term the better. xposts

or here: http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/download/

how to you propose tracking heirs of authors in order to ensure copyright stays with the family

― Mr. Que

Computers. Seriously speaking, I don't see how it's any harder to keep track of who owns a copyright than it is to track who own a deed or stock certificate. The better our record-keeping, the more easily these sorts of questions are answered.

what about when all the heirs die? who gets the copyright?

control != ownership

"This material will still be protected (and its uncleared use legally actionable) regardless of whether or not copyrights are time-limited." [quoting me]

So you seem to be saying that copyrights do harm even when they're time-limited. So why then extend that harm to perpetuity? We balance the harm against the benefits of copyright, which is why the shorter the term the better.

― stet

I think that copyrights do harm only in the sense that the idea of ownership does harm. Which is to say, yeah, sorta, but not really. I do not accept that copyrights are some kind of harmful, "unnatural" intrusion of sadly necessarly expediency. Again, I think they're a reasonable way of legally asserting a basic human right.

what about when all the heirs die? who gets the copyright?

― Mr. Que

Same as for anything else. Why should it be?

Davis Guggenheim is a film director. He has produced a range of movies, some commercial, some not. His passion, like his father’s before, is documentaries, and his most recent, and perhaps best, film, The First Year, is about public school teachers in their first year of teaching–a Hoop Dreams for public education.

In the process of making a film, a director must “clear rights.” A film based on a copyrighted novel must get the permission of the copyright holder. A song in the opening credits requires the rights of the artist performing the song. These are ordinary and reasonable limits on the creative process, made necessary by a system of copyright law. Without such a system, we would not have anything close to the creativity that directors such as Guggenheim have produced.

But what about the stuff that appears in the film incidentally? Posters on a wall in a dorm room, a can of Coke held by the “smoking man,” an advertisement on a truck driving by in the background? These too are creative works. Does a director need permission to have these in his or her film?

“Ten years ago,” Guggenheim explains, “if incidental artwork . . . was recognized by a common person,” then you would have to clear its copyright. Today, things are very different. Now “if any piece of artwork is recognizable by anybody . . . then you have to clear the rights of that and pay” to use the work. “(A)lmost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it.”

Okay, so picture just what this means: As Guggenheim describes it, “Before you shoot, you have this set of people on the payroll who are submitting everything you’re using to the lawyers.” The lawyers check the list and then say what can be used and what cannot. “If you cannot find the original of a piece of artwork . . . you cannot use it.” Even if you can find it, often permission will be denied. The lawyers thus decide what’s allowed in the film. They decide what can be in the story.

xpost:

be different, I mean. Why would our means of dealing with "real" property in similar circumstances be insuffient to the task here? And if it is, why should we not create a new model to deal with the circumstances. Perhaps, at such times, copyright should expire.

Ten years ago,” Guggenheim explains, “if incidental artwork . . . was recognized by a common person,” then you would have to clear its copyright. Today, things are very different. Now “if any piece of artwork is recognizable by anybody . . . then you have to clear the rights of that and pay” to use the work. “(A)lmost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it.”

― Mr. Que

OTM. The broken part of the system is not the durability of copyrights, but the protection of fair use.

If we had sensible fair use laws, perpetual copyright would not be a problem. Absent sensible fair use laws, limiting the duration of copyrights doesn't help much.

Define "fair use".

Why would our means of dealing with "real" property in similar circumstances be insuffient to the task here? And if it is, why should we not create a new model to deal with the circumstance
Because the analogy is a really, really poor fit. You building a house with three bedrooms doesn't stop me building myself one with three bedrooms for a kick-off. And a new model is exactly what term-limited copyright was. You want to end that model and make it more like "real" property.

If we had sensible fair use laws, perpetual copyright would not be a problem. Absent sensible fair use laws, limiting the duration of copyrights doesn't help much.
Except that perpetual copyright completely breaks the incentive model. No longer is the incentive to create new content before the term of your existing stuff expires, the incentive is to create a great horde of pre-existing content and squeeze the economic life out of it, while simultaneously setting every lawyer you can get your hands on to destroy "fair use" as much as is possible. That's a recipe for grinding investment in culture to a halt. Why take the risk on new things? Resell the old -- forever!

I haven't really read all of this thread, so sorry if I'm repeating someone else. I feel like copyrights should extend for a reasonable, set amount of time, maybe the 28 years set forth in the original US copyright laws, and then for as long as the owner of the copyright is willing to pay the government to renew it. That way Disney can have their Mickey Mouse, etc., and all the thousands of older works no one is profiting from can go into the public domain.

Copyright starts with the idea that ideas and intellectual creations are NOT property. That if we were to picture a utopia, it would be a place where anyone could hear any piece of music, see any piece of art, etc, for free. Indeed, being a utopia, money would have no meaning (and therefore, artists could feel free to create - or not - without any financial considerations). However, since we are NOT in a utopia, and we do use money, copyright has been created to encourage people to create works.

Anyway. You seem to have a pretty strong opinion about this. Unfortunately, many people (including the Supreme Court of the US) disagree. I have seen many reasons for why we would not want perpetual copyright on this thread (Works disappearing, having to clear "rights" for extremely incidental uses, the inability to re-purpose works, and the basic unpleasant idea of people having to pay money for something that costs nothing to reproduce). You, however, continue to ask "why not treat intellectual property just like real property?" I think your question has been answered.

Define "fair use".

― HI DERE

No matter how we define the durability of copyrights, that's the real task here. For the most part, artist want to be able to reflect, comment on and incorportate contemporary culture, including trademarked/copyrighted material.

I think your question has been answered.

― schwantz

Fair enough. I'm not quite satisfied with the answers given, but I suppose that's more my problem than yours.

perpetual copyright completely breaks the incentive model. No longer is the incentive to create new content before the term of your existing stuff expires, the incentive is to create a great horde of pre-existing content and squeeze the economic life out of it, while simultaneously setting every lawyer you can get your hands on to destroy "fair use" as much as is possible.

-- stet

I disagree. 28 years (the OG American copyright term) is a fair definition of the human artistic lifespan, give or take a couple decades. I do not believe that the threat of copyright expiration has been a great artistic motivator in this sense. I mean, unless you can point to some historical tendency on the part of 50-70 year old artists to enter great periods of creative activity, and also to the diminishment of this tendency as copyrights have lengthened.

And consumers will always be interested in novel material. I do not believe that companies would stop cultivating new talent if they could simply rely on their back catalogues for sufficient revenue. I mean, they more-or-less can now, but they don't.

28 years (the OG American copyright term) is a fair definition of the human artistic lifespan, give or take a couple decades. I do not believe that the threat of copyright expiration has been a great artistic motivator in this sense
You don't think earn as much as you can while you can and save the earnings for retirement is any sort of motivator? Hay, shining suns etc?

unless you can point to some historical tendency on the part of 50-70 year old artists to enter great periods of creative activity
Even granting yr thesis, which I don't: Leonard Cohen loses all his savings last year. Suddenly out of monastery, into world tour. If he also lost his income from copyright, want to bet what would happen next? Since copyright has extended in line as the modern media industries age, I'm not likely to get more concrete stuff except by drawing shaky parallels with writers.

I do not believe that companies would stop cultivating new talent if they could simply rely on their back catalogues for sufficient revenue.
How much was made out of the LP->CD boom? Seems likely that if they weren't getting all that money for old rope they'd have been putting more effort into new ropes, no?

schwantz otm anyway

Even granting yr thesis, which I don't: Leonard Cohen loses all his savings last year. Suddenly out of monastery, into world tour. If he also lost his income from copyright, want to bet what would happen next?

-- stet This seems more like an example of society legislatively abrogating Leonard Cohen's basic human right of ownership in order to goad him into satisfying society's desire for new artistic product. I don't disagree that it might be effective (especially in cases where older artists suddenly find themselves poor and without income), but I think it's self-evidently wrong. And again, I'm not aware of any historical evidence that things ever really worked this way to the great artistic benefit of mankind.

That said, I get the feeling that we've reached a standstill here (all of us). You've heard me, and seem quite strongly to disagree. I hear you and still have my doubts. So be it, and thanks for taking time to hash things out.

his seems more like an example of society legislatively abrogating Leonard Cohen's basic human right of ownership in order to goad him into satisfying society's desire for new artistic product.
Again, "control" doesn't equal "ownership". They're not the same thing. And the reason the setup is acceptable is because giving him ownership costs society something. It damages it. So he gets it for a limited amount of time, in the hopes that this will encourage him to create things that benefit society. Are you going to say that anti-monopoly laws legislatively abrogate corporations' basic rights to act like capitalists?

You've heard me, and seem quite strongly to disagree
I don't think anybody's heard you. You're continually asked to make a case for perpetual copyright and don't, except based on a notion of property which fits with no-one else's anywhere and appears to come from yr hunches. Anyway.

Are you going to say that anti-monopoly laws legislatively abrogate corporations' basic rights to act like capitalists?

Absolutely. And I think the abrogation is fine in that case, absolutely necessary in the name of the greater good.

Again, "control" doesn't equal "ownership". They're not the same thing.

Yeah, I know. But they're closely related ideas, as I pointed out earlier. Ownership is essentially a societally-granted right to control. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at in making this distinction, anyway. Again, as I see it, the creator has a basic human right of both ownership AND control from the moment of creation onward. Society may fairly decide to abrogate this right if necessary, but I'm not convinced that there is any serious social harm created by this basic right -- at least no grevious harm of the sort that necessitates antitrust legislation.

I don't think anybody's heard you. You're continually asked to make a case for perpetual copyright and don't, except based on a notion of property which fits with no-one else's anywhere and appears to come from yr hunches.

That seems a deliberately unkind phrasing. I do not believe that my notions of property and creator's rights are so wildly outrageous to conventional thinking. And one of my main points all along has been that the supposed harms created by longer (even perpetual) copyrights are either exaggerations or products of poorly designed fair use statutes.

"I do "own" my name in a very real sense, even if I don't have a complete legal right to control its use. The ownership of names becomes much more cut-and-dried when money and commercial identities are involved (see "Donna Summer" vs. Jason Forrest)."

In what "very real" sense do you "own" your name? Can I not name my kid the same name, no matter how unusual your name is? Can I not write a fictional character that happens to have your name (provided there's no appearance of defamation)? If anything is a basic human right, it's the COMMON right to names, language, basic ideas, etc., not the individual or corporate right.

BTW what is the Donna Summer thing? Was there a lawsuit against Jason Forrest for using the Donna Summer name? In any case, the distinction is clear -- a commercial use makes the name more like a business name than a personal name. And the reasons for protecting those commercial names are practical concerns of business that have to do with a lot more than just traditional property rights.

I don't see this as "overly technical" at all. Recognizing how intellectual property descends from but al so diverges from traditional property is crucial to understanding the relevant laws and their purpose. I could say that

sorry, meant to delete last unfinished paragraph

The ownership of names is complex, subtle, and not precisely analogous to other forms of ownership. But I do, nonetheless own my name, at least in a certain sense. I may not own the precise combination of letters/words that compose my name, but I do own that combination as a specific designator of me -- my specific human self. This extends from our unstated recognition that human beings own themselves and to some extent, their public identities (hence my earlier talk of reputations). We own ourselves not just in the flesh, or in the actions we perform, or as citizens, consumers, or containers of thoughts and feelings, but in ALL those senses all at once. If only partially, on very limited terms, we own the sum totality of what we are as human beings. To be a self is to own that self, or to put it more simply, to be is to own. The totem power we attach to signatures attests to this.

Since my name is fairly common, I know I am not the only Suggest B. Permalink alive in the world. I know that others are free to share the same name, to make use of it as a nonspecific example of "a name" (as a name for a fictional character, for example), or even in order to discuss my public identity. But since I do own my name as a specific designator and verbal avatar of the unique, human me, the ability of others to use it in that very specific sense is limited by law. We are not free to use the identities of other human beings in any way we see fit, and names are part of how we designate identity. If my neighbor posts scandalous lies about me on his electronic web log and calls my by name, he will be liable for defamation, for libel, for being a big fat jerk. Our sense that the neighbor has done wrong in this instance derives in part from the undeniable fact that reputations are important and diminishable in a very real sense, but also from our recognition that in using my identity this way, the neighbor has, in a sense, trespassed upon my life and my person -- his crime is his trespassing on the idea and name of me.

Moving on you speak of the "practical concerns of business" as though they have no overlap with the practical concerns of non-business entities. I disagree. I think that when Jason Forrest used 'Donna Summer' as an artistic alias, he was simply trespassing on an owned name. Yes, the legal presumption is that by selling records under that name, he might confuse and dupe fans of the "real" Donna Summer and also endanger her livelihood by diluting her brand, and thus the legal concerns are largely pragmatic. But they nonetheless depend on the idea that entities (all entities) own their names. I cannot misrepresent myself as a person I am not any more than I can as a business I am not. This issue is therefore not a special instance dependent on the practical concerns of business, but an instance of our recognition that entities own their identities, and by extension and inclusion, their names.

This talk of business does bring up another question for me: why are business identities durable in ways that copyrights are not? A business has no fixed, concrete identity. It may own buildings and resources, employ individuals, be owned by other individuals, conduct transactions and be described in legal documents, but its essence is not contained in any one of those things. In essence, a business is an idea. That idea was held in mind by those who brought the business into being, and it is described in the contractual and other documents that verify its existence, but we cannot point to it and say, "that is the business". Very much like a song or a poem, which may be represented on a page or recording but is not wholly contained there, the business is an idea that has been concretized by human action. One could run a business without legal contracts, just as one could create a song without copyrighting it. All the legal "paperwork" does in this case is give the existing idea-thing a fixed legal identity, which is helpful should questions or disputes ever arise.

But why should the business endure, privately owned, in perpetuity? How is the ownership of this sort of concretized idea more "natural" than the ownership of an artistic creation? How does perpetual ownership in this case not deprive the public of something valuable? How does it not stifle the entreprenurial spirit of those who created the business in the first place? Why should the ownership of a business be any less difficult to sort out over time than the ownership of a copyright? If one, why not the other?

That said, I do recognize that business are far more powerful (legally and politically speaking) than artistic creations or even artists, and that the natural right of power to exert itself tends to settle a lot of debates before they even get off the ground. Furthermore, businesses do have an undeniable component of "real" reality that, say, poems lack: businesses own, they employ, they decide, etc. They have selfness, and thus the ability to self-determine, much as governments or families do. Even if they're just concretized ideas, their concretization is very thorough. Those are the reasons that businesses are seen as more real, ownable and durable than artistic creations -- even than creations that bring in a lot of money. Still, in terms of the philosophy of rights and ownership, I don't think the questions involved are so easily settled.

dear contenderizer,

please stop masturbating on the Internet.

love,

everyone else

Your whole argument basically consists of taking very historically and culturally specific constructs and reimagining them as natural law.

I think that when Jason Forrest used 'Donna Summer' as an artistic alias, he was simply trespassing on an owned name. Yes, the legal presumption is that by selling records under that name, he might confuse and dupe fans of the "real" Donna Summer and also endanger her livelihood by diluting her brand, and thus the legal concerns are largely pragmatic. But they nonetheless depend on the idea that entities (all entities) own their names. I cannot misrepresent myself as a person I am not any more than I can as a business I am not. This issue is therefore not a special instance dependent on the practical concerns of business, but an instance of our recognition that entities own their identities, and by extension and inclusion, their names.

Sorry, but this is bullshit. If Jason Forrest used the name "DJ Friedrich Nietzsche," there would be nothing to raise a fuss about. Jason Forrest was not "misrepresenting himself" as Donna Summer, he was using the name. Suggesting that people have rights stemming from their unique identities is not the same thing as ownership of names.

Your whole argument basically consists of taking very historically and culturally specific constructs and reimagining them as natural law.

If Jason Forrest used the name "DJ Friedrich Nietzsche," there would be nothing to raise a fuss about. Jason Forrest was not "misrepresenting himself" as Donna Summer, he was using the name. Suggesting that people have rights stemming from their unique identities is not the same thing as ownership of names.

I am not suggesting only that people have rights stemming from their unique identities, but that they have exclusive rights to their unique identities. And that those rights include, to some degree, the ownership of names. This is all kinda tangential to the mail thread tho...

I mean, if impersonation and identity-dilution aren't the issues here, there's no reason for companies to have any right to their names at all.

please stop masturbating on the Internet

― Mr. Que

It is beside the main point of the thread. So to get back on track:

1) Eternal copyright is impractical. It's simply too difficult to continue to split up the royalties/fees for generations upon generations of descendants of copyright holders and to keep track of who is owed what, especially where there are multiple copyright holders on a work to begin with

2) Eternal copyright seems arbitrary and unfair -- why should the great-grandchildren of a songwriter continue to collect unlimited royalties for something they had nothing to do with (note that this is different from an inheritance of physical property or liquid assets, because it is limitless)

3) We want to preserve some sense of a common culture.

4) "Originality" is a questionable philosophical idea, so we don't want to go too far in making an "idea" the exclusive property of its "originator."

5) "Better Fair Use Laws" simply wouldn't solve the problem. As was sort of said upthread, when you keep copyright in perpetuity and leave things to "fair use" laws, your placing the burden on the "fair user" who often doesn't have access to a good attorney and is at the mercy of the copyright holder who does. Letting a copyright expire is an imperfect way of mitigating this.

1) Agreed. It would be difficult. But this is not an unresolveable problem. It may be that a copyright should become public domain when a work has lain dormant (failed to produce significant income) for a time, or when ownership disputes threaten to render it inaccessible to the public. It is possible to resolve this issue without asserting that people do not really own their creations but are merely granted the right to use them for a time.

2) I see no difference at all. Property and liquid assets are similarly limitless in that they can appreciate in value, earn interest, etc. And they are similarly unfair in that they confer an advantage (potentially a world-ruling advantage) to descendants who have not earned it. Furthermore, abstractions with limitless learning power (such as companies) can be inherited. So why not copyrights?

3) Common culture can be preserved without, again, asserting that creators do not really own their creations. I can play a copyrighted song on my guitar if I want, for my own amusement. I can pass a copyrighted book along to my children or give it to my friend. I can take a photograph of a famous building, sculpture or painting and hang a print in my home -- all without paying anyone a dime. What we're really talking about here is not "a common culture" but the right to make commercial use of things -- the right to economically exploit.

4) Agreed.

5) As far as I'm concerned, "better fair use laws" would severely limit the ability of powerful entities to bully artists.

5) How exactly? Any copyright legal system is going to depend entirely on either private legal action or a regulatory scheme. Better "fair use" laws don't offer any protection if you can't enforce them. Copyright holders can use legal action to zealously overprotect their copyrights, and "fair users" have no protection.

Laws could force those who who attempt to bring suit for unfair use to first demonstrate that certain conditions have been met or thresholds exceeded, or could limit the right to this sort of legal recourse for companies who abuse it. If we wished to create stronger protections for artists, I believe that we very easily could. The reason \we have not done this is not that it would be so terribly difficult, but rather that it has not been a cultural priority.

FWIW, I know that I'm arguing an absurdity. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest incremental changes to existing laws and social institutions in order to achieve a moderately greater good (such as your suggestion that copyright limits should be enforced and even strengthened). It is totally unreasonable to suggest, as I have done, that the whole legal & social architecture of idea-ownership should be upended in order to achieve some brave new world of moral/philosophical purity. So this all goes down as a Modest Proposal...

a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing

http://www.allgreatquotes.com/Images/shakesskull.gif

is Shakespeare sayin "mom's ham" there?

maybe the ham was dry

I never thought cotenderizer was an idiot. But contederizer; you are an idiot, and as such you can yell in your idiotic vacuum for as long as you like - and we'd be better off if we didn't keep repeating the same obvious arguments against his position.

"Laws could force those who who attempt to bring suit for unfair use to first demonstrate that certain conditions have been met or thresholds exceeded, or could limit the right to this sort of legal recourse for companies who abuse it."

No, they couldn't. And it wouldn't matter, because copyright holders already take all kinds of abusive action that falls short of filing a lawsuit (threats, cease-and-desist letters, etc.)

Fuck you, dowd. I'm not yelling. I haven't bitched anyone out or condescended to anyone's position. I've suggested some ideas (maybe some lame ideas, but I don't think so) and attempted to think them through -- both for the sake of exploration and because the concepts interest me. If you don't like what I'm saying or the whole discussion in general, that's fine, but coming in here and rubbing your shit on the walls only makes you look like an asshole. Same goes for you, Que.

Okay, sorry I didn't mean to insult you so much. Just had a bad evening. I think the idea is stupid, not you. Sorry again.

No, they couldn't. And it wouldn't matter, because copyright holders already take all kinds of abusive action that falls short of filing a lawsuit (threats, cease-and-desist letters, etc.)

― Indiespace Administratester (Hurting 2)

Dowd: it's cool. I went overboard, too. And I know I have a tendency to talk the world to death. It may be time to let this one go...

The Music-Copyright Enforcers.

The firm is a P.R.O., or performing rights organization; P.R.O.’s license the music of the songwriters and music publishers they represent, collecting royalties whenever that music is played in a public setting.

Nice job catching that apostrophe, editor.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/29/err_act_landgrab/

The Register is always alarmist, but this is quite alarming . . .