1831: 28-year term with option to renew for another 14 years (musical compositions, prints, dramatic compositions, photographs, works of art and music added to list of protected works in 1800s)
1909 (a major act): 28-year term from date of publication, renewable for another 28 years (applied to "published" works only, with state laws governing unpublished works) (motion pictures added to list of protectible works)
1976 (another major act): newly published works (life of author plus 50 years); works copyrighted before 1978 (term increased from 28 to 47 years, for 75 years total with renewal) (applies to all works, whether or not published, once in a fixed medium of expression; state laws preempted and no longer valid; computer programs also protected by the 1980s)
1998 (Copyright Term Extension - "Sonny Bono Act"): works created after 1978 (life of author plus 70 years, with joint works tied to life of longest living author, and with works-for-hire, i.e., corporate authorship, getting the shorter of a 120-year term from date of creation or a 95-year term from date of publication); works created before 1978 (total term increased from 75 to 95 years)
The rough summary above is just that and many nuances exist. If this all makes your head spin, there is a nifty "public domain calculator" to assist you, found here: http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/calculator.html
The trend is pretty obvious: wildly long terms for copyright are in fact a relatively recent phenomenon, as are legislative efforts to go back to early works and give them ex post facto term extensions. It didn't always used to be this way. The focus seems to have moved away from protecting primarily an author's rights to a creative work during his lifetime to protecting a "franchise," often corporate, that lasts well beyond the lives of those around when a work is created. These are policy decisions, of course, albeit (and sadly) much influenced by lobbying today.
I thought this was worth putting into a chart. Assuming an average author life of 75 years, this is what the extension of maximum copyright terms looks like:
Basically, it's well approximated as an exponential curve, or maybe a logistic curve (aka S-curve). Unless there's a serious change in the accepted perspective of copyrights, it's not at all unreasonable to assume that within our lifetimes, copyrights may be extended to last effectively forever.
Mary Bono: "Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. ... As you know, there is also [then-MPAA president] Jack Valenti's proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress."
That's pretty unrealistic. You seem to be assuming authors who write as infants. Even the most precocious authors usually wait at least until they learn to speak and read before they start publishing.
One can ask the question: were any of those increases ever backed with evidence -- actual economic evidence that this deliberate restriction was sound? I do not know, but judging by the abject lack of evidence even now, the answer seems most likely no.
The degree to which there is a lack of evidence is the degree to which the whole thing is just a corrupt gravy-train.
What's sickening is that whenever you try to even question the copyright laws now, they turn against you like you just wanted to kill a puppy, with remarks such as "So now Eric Schmidt is above the law?"
Not many seem to sit down and question just how ridiculous these laws have become. Just because it's a law doesn't mean it's a good one, or it should exist in the first place. Just look at how they managed to extend for another 4 years the Patriot Act, even though they had much opposition from the public.
I also do think the Internet is different. There's no scarcity on the Internet, or at least it's insignificant compared to real world. Content can be copied and distributed almost for free. It has also become very cheap to create content, and it's becoming even cheaper. These are natural forces on the Internet that they can't simply shape with some laws.
And is it that ridiculous to wonder if maybe copyright really isn't suited for the Internet, and they need to rethink their business models for the new Internet age? It's not like it's the first time in history when large companies either were forced to dramatically change their business models, or became extinct because of disruption. Why would the Internet be any different?
Besides, it's not like it's a coincidence the Internet helped foster many more disruptive innovations to real world businesses. It's not just music and movies that get disrupted here, it's pretty much everything else, too. And a big part of this disruption is due to the fact that the disruptive businesses that are established on the Internet also tend to offer free services or very cheap ones. That's not a coincidence. It's a fundamental law of the Internet that drives the prices of the products down.
We welcome all the other disruptive innovations that come from the Internet, so what makes the music and movie industries so special? I don't even think the music and movie industries will be affected, it's just the large corporations that are part of it now that will be lose if they don't transform their business models.
Did the phone/smartphone industry die because iPhone and Android phones appeared, and are "killing" the old incumbent companies such as Nokia and RIM? Of course not. The phone industry is actually growing faster than ever. It's just the old companies that are dying or are severely threatened by Apple and Google.
I think artists will do just fine in the Internet age, with or without the labels. The Internet is about empowering the individual and like we're seeing in the book industry, the authors are starting to skip the middle man and self-publish their own books, and give them at a lower price, while still making more money than they did before when they only got 20% at most from the publishers.
Bottomline is copyright is not compatible with the Internet. Rather than try to change the Internet, which is about a lot more than just the music and movie industries, and a lot bigger than any one Government, they should try to change their own business models and adapt like every other business that has moved to the Internet.
And for God's sake, stop trying to protect the past. Have we learned nothing from GM? Trying to "save jobs" in the face of a huge paradigm shift is a dumb thing to do. But like I said, I'm sure those industries and the artists themselves will do fine. It's the current companies that won't.
The Mckinsey report itself at eG8 said that the Internet is actually killing jobs. Yes, the Internet is killing jobs!! But the next part also said it's creating 2.6 jobs in return for every job lost. I remember reading that the Industrial Revolution also killed 25 million jobs. But it created 44 million new ones. What we're experiencing now is the Internet Revolution. The labels should get used to it. This is much bigger than them.
That's the first time I hear such a thing and it sounds very strange to me. Are you just referring to France? Or maybe UK, too? There are over 40 countries in Europe, and most of them have a lot more relaxed copyright laws than USA.
I'm referring to all significant countries in Europe, since they all have the same copyright term, as part of implementing the appropriate EU directives on this matter. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_2006/116/EC
One of the main arguments for the Copyright Term Extension Act in the US was to better align US copyright law with that.
I've argued before that "intellectual property" should pay for its state protection like real estate does - i.e. be subject to property taxes, just for being there.
Fiddling with the numbers, one can make a reasonable tax equivalent to a few decades of (tax-free) protection, with the property reverting to the state/public domain in the end. The current time-span figures (closing on to a century) make the tax risible.
At one time I thought about something similar but the thing that tripped me up was what would the tax rate be based on? How do you propose to handle that?
Usually some assessed value of the property that has some relation to the market value of the property. But how would that work with copyrights that are not sold for which there is no market? How would you assess the value of a copyright in that scenario?
Far be it from me to defend the copyright industry but I do like to point out that in the early 1800's 36 years was actually the average lifetime of an individual (at least here in Europe).
Only if you insist on using bad statistical methods. Averaging high infant mortality into the rest of the population leads to misleading claims like that. Do you really think most people dropped dead at 36?
"For example, a Roman Life Expectancy table at the University of Texas shows that at birth the life expectancy was 25 but if one lived to the age of 5 one's life expectancy jumped to 48."
No, 36 was the average life expectancy including child deaths (which disproportionately skewed the figures downwards, since a large number of babies died at or soon after birth, another good chunk didn't make it through their first year, and many more died of childhood diseases before they became adults).
If you made it past 25 as a white male you were quite likely to live to your 60s and beyond. That has been true since antiquity.
I understand the argument about reforming patents in an accelerated age, but how exactly do copyrights stifle creativity?
How would the public benefit if all of a sudden Mickey Mouse was in the public domain? I can see a bunch of toy companies salivating, but how will it improve the public good?
How has Mark Twain's work been remixed or creatively remained since it entered the public domain?
Would publishers not have released "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" if "The Scarlett Letter" was still protected?
Again, patent reform makes some sense since increased access to core tech has proven to spark innovation in unforseen places, but I can't think of many examples where copyrighted material entered the public domain to the benefit of us all.
Also, copyright law seems to be pretty flexible with fair use provisions, limitations on what can be copyrighted (e.g. no recipes), etc.
As a case in point consider Avatar. It was widely mocked as being "Dances with Wolves with Aliens" and it is the highest grossing movie ever. How is that possible when the IP world is as muddled as the author suggests?
I can see a bunch of toy companies salivating, but how will it improve the public good?
Unfortunately, IP companies are devising ever draconian laws that impact liberties, legal due process and privacy. IP companies have made themselves into one of the great enemy of civil liberties; if that is the logical consequence of having to enforce IP, perhaps the whole system has to be scrapped.
Still, framing everything in the context of 'public good' is a slippery slope. Some things are right or wrong without utilitarian calculus.
P.S. Mickey Mouse is a Disney trademark, which makes it theirs in perpetuity. Arguably, trademarks are the weakest and least intrusive category of IP.
> Arguably, trademarks are the weakest and least intrusive category of IP.
They aren't really IP; they're consumer protection. Trademarks are meant to allow people to know who makes what they're buying by giving companies a way to definitively mark their wares without having to worry that someone else is going to rip off that mark in a confusing fashion. 'Confusing' works out to meaning a given trademark only applies to a specific field of endeavor; look at United Airlines vs United Van Lines, the moving company, or Cisco the networking hardware maker vs Sysco the restaurant supply company.
I think it's fairly clear that whatever 'property' interpretation you can put on those laws, it's subservient to the consumer protection aspects.
Mickey Mouse is a red herring. There are tens of thousands of works that could be preserved and redistributed on the Internet right now, if only they were in the public domain. Characters that could be household names like Sherlock Holmes or Frankenstein are languishing in obscurity, because even finding who owns the copyright isn't feasible.
Copyright laws should definitely be reformed. Does Disney want to keep Mickey forever? Fine, just make them renew the copyright every ten years or so. Wouldn't this be a better solution for everybody?
I don't think Sherlock Holmes is languishing in obscurity - in the last couple of years there's been a new movie adaptation and a (far superior) TV series. The original books are old enough now that they would be public domain, even in the US?
Sorry for not being clear. I was citing Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein as examples of famous characters that are in the public domain. (Holmes's situation is in fact a bit murky in the US)
Here's an example of how lack of copyright can foster innovation and it's for the greater good of the society to not restrict access to "designs", or charge a lot of money to license them.
Yes, it has. Notably Big River, which won quite a few Tonys (think Oscars for musical theatre), a huge number of movies (including at least one by Disney), a Japanese anime, and probably a few Family Guy shout-outs.
It has never occurred to me before how odd it is for Disney to take public-domain stories, rework them into blockbusters, then lock them up with copyright indefinitely. What a strange combination of ideas.
Yes, but anyone else who is interested could make their own version of Rapunzel now to, provided they didn't call it "Tangled" or directly take dialog, visual designs, etc.
Well, but doesn't Disney's copyright just apply to Disney's own instance? They can't claim copyright on other adaptations of Rapunzel, just their own and the specific style of character drawings and so on, right?
I believe you're correct. The accusation of hypocrisy is based on the fact that Disney has vigorously lobbied to keep characters like Mickey Mouse out of the public domain, while happily plundering the fairy tales and characters of earlier centuries.
while happily plundering the fairy tales and characters of earlier centuries.
It's even more striking if you consider that those fairy tales and characters are the products of many, many retellings and adaptations throughout history. The Grimm brothers didn't write them; they just wrote down one version of a lot of them. In a real sense, Disney's modern retellings are just the latest iteration on this process.
That would be odd, if it happened. But it does not happen.
You are free to take the same public domain stories, and rework them into blockbusters, as long as you don't copy the changes Disney makes to the stories.
I think what we've actually seen is the simple realization that government can provide perpetual monopoly with the smallest of bribes (err campaign contributions). Once the idea that the government would step in give you a monopoly became understood, functionally infinite limits on it were all but guaranteed. In 100 years, Micky Mouse will still be just as copyrighted as he is today.
"It freezes the first release as the only release for up to several generations."
This article is rather lackluster.
First, I don't see a problem with this (there is rightfully only one definite version of Casablanca or Gone with the Wind) and second I would deny that this is really an adequate description of popculture of 100 media industry: Superman was restarted/remade many times. Want to adapt/change is story? Invent your own Superhero. Can't get a license for James Bond? Get a different name for your super agent.
The movie rights for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit were a few generations unavailable (which is a good thing because Tolkien feared a disneyfication of his books), but nothing stopped someone from dreaming up his own fantasy world/story with Orcs.
Why not simply let people decide for themselves what they want to do or redo? What is the sense in having one person tell everyone else what is best for them?
How does imposing some artificial restriction add anything? If someone wants to redo something old, let them decide and let others choose.
If there are other versions of Casablanca or LoTR, do the originals disappear? No. They are just as they were. Except people would then have a choice of which they thought better. Would other versions 'crowd-out' the originals? To claim that sounds rather close to admitting that lifting restrictions would increase creative output.
If there is a problem with abundance here, it is one of how the public can be best enabled to make a choice -- it is not properly solved by imposing the 'choice' by means of restrictions. It is no business of the creator to decide for the public what they choose.
How do you "plunder" the public domain? Is there not an army of pedants out there eager to tell me that copyright infringement isn't stealing because it doesn't deprive anybody of anything? Is it not the point of the public domain that anybody can use it?
I think the idea is that they use it as much as possible, but haven't contributed a single thing back, given that copyright has always been extended long enough to keep Mickey under copyright. Not to mention the trademark issues.
Plunder doesn't seem like the right word for that, though.
See what? You just used the same word in the same context, and it makes just as little sense as it did before. Using the public domain isn't "plundering", nor does it magically become "plundering" when a hypocrite, corporation, or hypocritical corporation does it. It's a completely normal and desirable aspect of having a public domain.
I think you have this impression that "plundering the public domain" is somehow a bad thing - maybe that's where the misunderstanding comes from. I don't think anyone who's using the term thinks plundering the public domain is a bad thing - we all wish the public domain was even larger, so there would be more plundering going on.
I think you have this impression that "plundering the public domain" is somehow a bad thing
I think using the public domain is a good thing. I think that describing it as "raiding" and "plundering" when someone you don't like does it is bullshit.
I don't think anyone who's using the term thinks plundering the public domain is a bad thing
Then why would you use the word plundering to describe it? That's like saying rape is part of a normal and healthy marriage. If you don't mean rape, don't call it rape.
I only wish that this point was intelligible to those in charge of writing the laws. Unfortunately, I think we are light-years away from this (valid) viewpoint being considered anything other than a lunatic fringe. It's a shame.
The Welcome to Las Vegas sign is great example of the benefits that come from something not having copyright. Instead it becomes ubiquitous and justly famous because people can include it in an infinite variety of interpretations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Fabulous_Las_Vegas_s...
It's the money. Without the money, we never would have gotten to this state.
So, in that regard, it's an artificial, state-enforced monopoly. A limited monopoly affords the producer the opportunity to make a living in return for significant contributions. However, we've... "regressed" to essentially unlimited monopoly, the boundaries of which we continue to expand (e.g. DMCA).
We've exchanged physical fiefdoms for "intellectual" fiefdoms, to similar effect.
Here is a rough summary of how the terms have evolved under U.S. law (the details of which are nicely summarized here: http://ipwatchdog.com/2011/05/27/copyrights-last-for-a-limit...):
1790: maps, charts, and books - 14-year term
1831: 28-year term with option to renew for another 14 years (musical compositions, prints, dramatic compositions, photographs, works of art and music added to list of protected works in 1800s)
1909 (a major act): 28-year term from date of publication, renewable for another 28 years (applied to "published" works only, with state laws governing unpublished works) (motion pictures added to list of protectible works)
1976 (another major act): newly published works (life of author plus 50 years); works copyrighted before 1978 (term increased from 28 to 47 years, for 75 years total with renewal) (applies to all works, whether or not published, once in a fixed medium of expression; state laws preempted and no longer valid; computer programs also protected by the 1980s)
1998 (Copyright Term Extension - "Sonny Bono Act"): works created after 1978 (life of author plus 70 years, with joint works tied to life of longest living author, and with works-for-hire, i.e., corporate authorship, getting the shorter of a 120-year term from date of creation or a 95-year term from date of publication); works created before 1978 (total term increased from 75 to 95 years)
The rough summary above is just that and many nuances exist. If this all makes your head spin, there is a nifty "public domain calculator" to assist you, found here: http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/calculator.html
The trend is pretty obvious: wildly long terms for copyright are in fact a relatively recent phenomenon, as are legislative efforts to go back to early works and give them ex post facto term extensions. It didn't always used to be this way. The focus seems to have moved away from protecting primarily an author's rights to a creative work during his lifetime to protecting a "franchise," often corporate, that lasts well beyond the lives of those around when a work is created. These are policy decisions, of course, albeit (and sadly) much influenced by lobbying today.