Copyright

[Hawkmoon]

1. Shakespeare predated Queen Victoria by centuries.  "Elizabethan" is more accurate.

Ratz.

You're right, of course. I realized my mistake and was hoping to make it back into the thread before anyone caught me but ... no such luck.

[KD5NRH]

I advocate lowering the copyright term to some lower, saner time period. As I said, the founders (in 1790) passed copyright law as granting 14 years with a renewal available for another 14 years. I think that should be plenty. Life + 70 years is far too long and strangles, rather than promotes, creativity.

Compromise; the longer of 28 years from publication or the life of the creator.  Discuss.

[KD5NRH]

Wouldn't the thought that if you somehow turned an idea into a timeless hit that would guarantee your family's solvency for eternity a pretty good incentive to try and be creative?

You can do that with any form of income generation; generate enough that they can live off the interest and leave the principal alone.

[KD5NRH]

What about family heirlooms? Passed down from generation to generation, generating value over time.

They may accrue value over time, but unless you're charging admission to view them, you can only convert that value into a liquid asset once; then it's the buyer's heirloom.

[roo_ster]

Ratz.

You're right, of course. I realized my mistake and was hoping to make it back into the thread before anyone caught me but ... no such luck.

Elizabeth may have been Queen of England, but I am King of Pedants!

Would textbook copyright violators be Pirates of Pedants?

[280plus]

KD, none of that answers why I should be forced to give up the rights to my creation after a .gov imposed limit expires. See how there are two sides to this coin? But again it boils down to having the courtesy to WANT to continue to compensate the family of someone who has provided you with a means to make money rather than their coattails for free. The orphanage story is an extreme example of what this can lead to. Put yourself in their shoes. If Hoagy's old song makes me a grunch of money why shouldn't I toss his family a few bucks? I'm too greedy?

[De Selby]

KD, none of that answers why I should be forced to give up the rights to my creation after a .gov imposed limit expires. See how there are two sides to this coin? But again it boils down to having the courtesy to WANT to continue to compensate the family of someone who has provided you with a means to make money rather than their coattails for free. The orphanage story is an extreme example of what this can lead to. Put yourself in their shoes. If Hoagy's old song makes me a grunch of money why shouldn't I toss his family a few bucks? I'm too greedy?

Because them having the right to demand a few bucks includes them having the right to shut down your use of the song at all. 

That stifles creativity, it does not promote it. 

[roo_ster]

KD, none of that answers why I should be forced to give up the rights to my creation after a .gov imposed limit expires.

Because your right to solely exploit an intellectual abstraction exists only because the COTUS says it does and for the purpose the COTUS says does.  RevDisk quoted the appropriate passage.  You may not like the passage, but there you are.

The other option is to keep your intellectual abstraction (for sole use over any period of time) a secret.  We see that route taken in some cases (KFC seasoning blend, etc.). 

Intellectual abstractions have not traditionally had any such protection and those who created them had to scramble to exploit them before others could figure out how to do so.  I am glad the COTUS provides for some time for the creator, but I am a strict constructionist in this (as in other matters) and think Congress ought to hew to the written COTUS's time limits.

Perpetual sole right to exploit is contraindicated in the COTUS (by an explicit time limit and purpose statement) and has a practical problem that physical property does not in that if a gov't dissolves, a person can still maintain sole control over their physical property by, say, force of arms.  OTOH, if the gov't set up by the COTUS dissolved, all means to exert sole control over one's intellectual abstraction dissolve with it.

Since no gov't is perpetual, any such claims to sole perpetual right to exploit are analogous to a flea claiming it is "king of this dog, now and forever!"  Well, maybe the flea can defeat all challengers, but one day the dog is going to die and soon all the flea has claimed will decay into base components.

[280plus]

Ok fine, Perpetual or until the USA collapses. Which could be any day now anyways. 

Because them having the right to demand a few bucks includes them having the right to shut down your use of the song at all. 

That stifles creativity, it does not promote it. 

Again I counter is there not MORE incentive to create if the creator knows his creation will generate an income for his family until the USA collapses? Taking my material and reproducing it for sale is not creativity. I think it's capitalism. You're capitalizing on my work, why can't you share a little of your profit? 

See how nice I smile when I ask for $. 

[280plus]

I mean, getting back to patents vs copyrights, my thinking would (or could) be gee, for a patent I am rewarded for only 20 years. For a copyright I am rewarded life + 70 years. Maybe I should direct whatever time, money energy and talents I might have available for creating things towards copyrights rather than patents because that's the better deal.  Suddenly, the potential for creatvity on the patent end of the spectrum has suffered because of the longer lasting rules covering copyrights. Maybe a great invention of mine will never be realized, the world population might suffer for it and never even know that they are. 

 

[De Selby]

Ok fine, Perpetual or until the USA collapses. Which could be any day now anyways.  Again I counter is there not MORE incentive to create if the creator knows his creation will generate an income for his family until the USA collapses? Taking my material and reproducing it for sale is not creativity. I think it's capitalism. You're capitalizing on my work, why can't you share a little of your profit? 

See how nice I smile when I ask for $. 

No, not in the real world there isn't more incentive - the only real value of that copyright is to a corporate entity, and usually they'll just shelve it until someone else figures out how to make money off it, and then sue that guy for the profits of his efforts.  Again, that disincentives new ways to use the old thoughts.  There are many more examples of how this can happen.  Perpetual copyright does not improve development.

[280plus]

I am not a corporate entity yet I see more value in a  life + 70 years copyright on a product that survives time and continues to sell than in a patent that expires in 20 years. Where is the incentive? How does you throwing me 10 cents on the dollar from your profit on my work thwart creativity?

And of course I see even more value when you toss the word perpetual in there.

I think that statement in the Constitution is a double edged sword myself. The founding fathers were good at those. 

[280plus]

You have to wonder if they were at all envisioning an entity such as Disney coming into existence. Might they be rolling in their graves as we speak?

[makattak]

I am not a corporate entity yet I see more value in a  life + 70 years copyright on a product that survives time and continues to sell than in a patent that expires in 20 years. Where is the incentive? How does you throwing me 10 cents on the dollar from your profit on my work thwart creativity?

And of course I see even more value when you toss the word perpetual in there.

I think that statement in the Constitution is a double edged sword myself. The founding fathers were good at those.  

You are arguing that the disparity in patent vs. copyright law places comparative importance on copyright. That is true. However, that does not mean that a greater incentive towards copyrights or patents is better. All it means is it is a greater incentive.

As DeSelby just pointed out, the costs continue to increase as the duration of the copyright/patent increase. For every work that is encouraged, others are discouraged from using ideas. Should they have an idea inspired by a copyrighted work ("derivative of") and pursue that idea, they will be punished.

Creativity need not be totally novel. Stargate would have problems seeing as they are taking characters and ideas from mythology. The new movie "Thor" would have problems (as would the comic book of the same name.)

A person should get a time to profit from their idea. They should not control that idea and anything derivative of it in perpetuity. (Nor for life+70.)

[280plus]

Nope, I disagree. Your great GGGG grandaddy opens a hamburger stand in east BF, New jersey. It becomes reknown as the best burger joint in all of East BF, many other stands have come and gone but yours is still there 200 years later (just an arbitrary number don't panic), the family still owns the business and you are now running it. Suddenly, by gov decree, your rights to the name of the stand are stripped from you and all over East BF other people are opening stands with the same name but a cheaper product / final price. Next thing you know, you're out of business. How is a copyright or patent any different other than it's not bricks and mortar? You can open a hamburger stand and sell hamburgers, I don't have a patent on hamburgers, you just can't copy mine and put my name on it unless you follow my guidelines and share a small portion of your profits with me. And with copyrights anyways, these are very loose guidelines, you can rearrange, rerecord and release any copyrighted song you like and as long as you don't significantly restructure the lyrics or chord structure there is nothing anyone can do about it. The only say the artist has is approval or dissaproval of any significant changes that ARE proposed. Again I mention Wierd Al as an example. He significantly changes the lyricsso he must submit them and ask permission to use them, which he apparently receives quite often. The only condition for using the work is that you pay the original creator(s) royalties and again, I personally have no problem with that.

I also already know hamburger stands etc are not exactly comparable in some respects but I'm using them hypothetically to say one family put their efforts in the direction of hamburgers 200 years ago and they are still making $ on it. This other family put their efforts into a copyrighted work that still paid for them but suddenly it is taken away from them at some point down the road. Why should they be the ones to lose out after some arbitrarily chosen number of years?

[280plus]

An example of Disney's copyright on Mickey not thwarting creativity at all because there ain't a thing they can do about it.

http://www.tvacres.com/rodents_rats_ricky.htm

[makattak]

An example of Disney's copyright on Mickey not thwarting creativity at all because there ain't a thing they can do about it.

http://www.tvacres.com/rodents_rats_ricky.htm

Parody is a fair use exemption to copyright. (Or rather, it can be. There is no set rule on that.)

Weird Al doesn't need permission, he gets it nonetheless.

[280plus]

According to what I read at the mechanical rights people's pages he does in fact need the publisher's permission to take, for example, the song "Bad"  turn it into "Fat". I don't have a problem with that either, I can see someone coming up with parodies that might offend which is certainly a reason to refuse permission. Fine line though, if the parody makes $ do you really want to restrict its use? Which is how Al plays the game. "You want to take my song, put some ridiculous lyrices to it, sell a crapload and then pay me royalties? SURE!!" Again, where is creativity being thwarted?

[makattak]

According to what I read at the mechanical rights people's pages he does in fact need the publisher's permission to take, for example, the song "Bad"  turn it into "Fat". I don't have a problem with that either, I can see someone coming up with parodies that might offend which is certainly a reason to refuse permission. Fine line though, if the parody makes $ do you really want to restrict its use? Which is how Al plays the game. "You want to take my song, put some ridiculous lyrices to it, sell a crapload and then pay me royalties? SURE!!" Again, where is creativity being thwarted?

In the same way that if you give someone a greater reward you incentivize them, if you raise the price of being creative and using someone else's ideas as the basis for yours, you lower the incentives for being creative in that way.

Incentive versus disincentive.

That is, if a "10 cents out of a dollar" is enough for you to be creative, why isn't LOSING "10 cents out of a dollar" enough of an incentive for other people not to put in the effort?

[280plus]

90% of the profit is not enough of an incentive for you? 

[makattak]

90% of the profit is not enough of an incentive for you?  

10% of the profit is enough of an incentive for you?

It's a matter of margins. If you make something cheaper, people that wouldn't buy it before will buy it. If you make something more expensive, people who used to buy it will buy it.

We get less creativity when we raise the cost of creativity, just as we get more creativity when we raise the reward. (And you're ignoring the "creative control" many copyright holders will insist upon.)

Copyright and patent should be about finding a balance. I think patent does that pretty well (for anything except drugs given the insane regulation by the FDA). I think copyright is FAR out of balance.

[280plus]

10% of the profit is enough of an incentive for you?

For eternity with little further effort on my part? Sure! This is why I would be incentified (I pretty much made that word up unless it's in the dictionary already  ) Incetified to produce more. If I produce 10 such items that each provide 10% for eternity I'm doing better than if I only did one, don't you think. And, as a matter of fact, I AM in the middle of producing my second CD for JUST THAT REASON! Well, except for the eternity part of course, I guess I have to settle for life + 70.   

I just feel bad for the great grandkids, if there are ever any, that get caught in the lurch when it runs out. 

Anyhoo the REAL reason I'm back is to present yet another case of a copyright not infringing on creativity, "Screw you guys, I'm going fishing"

yep. that's mine. Put it on a bumper sticker and sell it at fishing derbys and see if you make a buck or two with it. I'll let you all have that one. 

sidenote, I bought a new Loomis ultralite rod and accompanying shimano almost top of the line reel over the winter that I haven't used yet, its a warm sunny calm day and,,,see ya!! 

[RevDisk]

Because your right to solely exploit an intellectual abstraction exists only because the COTUS says it does and for the purpose the COTUS says does.  RevDisk quoted the appropriate passage.  You may not like the passage, but there you are.

The other option is to keep your intellectual abstraction (for sole use over any period of time) a secret.  We see that route taken in some cases (KFC seasoning blend, etc.). 

Intellectual abstractions have not traditionally had any such protection and those who created them had to scramble to exploit them before others could figure out how to do so.  I am glad the COTUS provides for some time for the creator, but I am a strict constructionist in this (as in other matters) and think Congress ought to hew to the written COTUS's time limits.

Perpetual sole right to exploit is contraindicated in the COTUS (by an explicit time limit and purpose statement) and has a practical problem that physical property does not in that if a gov't dissolves, a person can still maintain sole control over their physical property by, say, force of arms.  OTOH, if the gov't set up by the COTUS dissolved, all means to exert sole control over one's intellectual abstraction dissolve with it.

Since no gov't is perpetual, any such claims to sole perpetual right to exploit are analogous to a flea claiming it is "king of this dog, now and forever!"  Well, maybe the flea can defeat all challengers, but one day the dog is going to die and soon all the flea has claimed will decay into base components.

This.

Nope, I disagree. Your great GGGG grandaddy opens a hamburger stand in east BF, New jersey. It becomes reknown as the best burger joint in all of East BF, many other stands have come and gone but yours is still there 200 years later (just an arbitrary number don't panic), the family still owns the business and you are now running it. Suddenly, by gov decree, your rights to the name of the stand are stripped from you and all over East BF other people are opening stands with the same name but a cheaper product / final price. Next thing you know, you're out of business. How is a copyright or patent any different other than it's not bricks and mortar? You can open a hamburger stand and sell hamburgers, I don't have a patent on hamburgers, you just can't copy mine and put my name on it unless you follow my guidelines and share a small portion of your profits with me. And with copyrights anyways, these are very loose guidelines, you can rearrange, rerecord and release any copyrighted song you like and as long as you don't significantly restructure the lyrics or chord structure there is nothing anyone can do about it. The only say the artist has is approval or dissaproval of any significant changes that ARE proposed. Again I mention Wierd Al as an example. He significantly changes the lyricsso he must submit them and ask permission to use them, which he apparently receives quite often. The only condition for using the work is that you pay the original creator(s) royalties and again, I personally have no problem with that.

I also already know hamburger stands etc are not exactly comparable in some respects but I'm using them hypothetically to say one family put their efforts in the direction of hamburgers 200 years ago and they are still making $ on it. This other family put their efforts into a copyrighted work that still paid for them but suddenly it is taken away from them at some point down the road. Why should they be the ones to lose out after some arbitrarily chosen number of years?

Sigh.  Your example?  That's trademark, as it is brand identification.   Trademark != copyright != patent.   All are considered subsets of intellectual property law, under most circumstances.  For your specific example, you must file for a registered trademark and submit maintenance documents after the 6th year.  Or use an unregistered trademark. 

Any special blends, techniques or equipment by said company would be patented, for 20 years.  Any copyright video, audio or literature by said company would be for 120 years.  Each and every single aspect is a separate legal and discreet concept, with real meanings.

Respectfully speaking, I'm noticing a large number of the folks who strongly disagree with the Constitutional limitations of IP tend not to have the firmest grasp of the legal implications of their argument.  Next we'll have folks claiming that intellectual property infringement is "theft", which means they have likely never opened a legal dictionary.   I have a feeling trying to explain derivatives and fair use would risk exploding heads.


 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Next we'll have folks claiming that intellectual property infringement is "theft", which means they have likely never opened a legal dictionary.   I have a feeling trying to explain derivatives and fair use would risk exploding heads.

Aye, and those folks would be right to call it theft.  

As we've covered in previous threads, the legal dictionaries aren't a singular and definitive arbiter of language.  It's asinine to claim that IP infringement isn't theft merely because the legal dictionaries don't define it as such.

[makattak]

http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/03/26/orphan-works/

More on the harm of copyright.