New Bill to Limit Copyright to 56 Years, Would be Retroactive

[Bohandas]

I strongly suspect that few would be satisfied with the results.

Then you, I presume, must be too young to remember the golden age of Newgrounds

 

[Bohandas]

And in any case, it doesn't matter, we're a decade or two away from AI being able to replace the professionals, at least in the realms of writing and still art, with no loss in quality. And if copyright is still in place when we get there it'll be the worst of both worlds.

 

[Ryujin]

Then you, I presume, must be too young to remember the golden age of Newgrounds

Hardly. I'm pushing 60. That you state it had a "golden age" implies that it had a finite lifespan.

 

[Bohandas]

I suppose you're right, Newgrounds, at least, did survive the efflux of developers into the shovelware mobile game racket, and they eventually find a workaround after they and the other flash sites were sabotaged by Adobe and the mainstream web browsers. But they were diminished by it. And many smaller similar sites were destroyed or rendered unusable.

(as an aside, can someone point me to a link to the latest version of Opera Portable (not opera mobile, opera portable, the self-contained version of the desktop one that can be run without an installer) that won't automatically disable flash if I enable it? As I said, while Newgrounds has a built-in workaround, a lot of these other old sites don't)

EDIT:
Also, people talk about golden ages for plenty of things that aren't over yet

 

[Bohandas]

Then consider this: A completely open model for IP only really benefits those with the money to capitalize upon an IP. If, for example, Doc Smith's Lensmen series was suddenly available to all, who would stand to make more profit from it; the Smith family, or Disney? Who would essentially have the credit for it, given that the majority of movie goers wouldn't have read the seminal work?

The Smith family, obviously. How on Earth would Disney profit from it in this scenario. It would br free on the internet the day after it opened. There wouldn't be any profit for Disney to withhold from the Smiths. And the Smiths would thus make the greater profit by vitue of not having lost millions of dollars.

This whole scanario relies on the outdated 20th centruy assumptions that things can't be copied and distributed essentially for free.

And since this outdated argument is and aleays has been the main argument for copyright protections it follows that copyright protections are an outdated concept too.

 

[Ryujin]

The Smith family, obviously. How on Earth would Disney profit from it in this scenario. It would br free on the internet the day after it opened. There wouldn't be any profit for Disney to withhold from the Smiths. And the Smiths would thus make the greater profit by vitue of not having lost millions of dollars.

This whole scanario relies on the outdated 20th centruy assumptions that things can't be copied and distributed essentially for free.

And since this outdated argument is and aleays has been the main argument for copyright protections it follows that copyright protections are an outdated concept too.

Except that the moment that the Smith family published it, it would be "free on the internet." That was the whole point that I wanted someone to get around to, when I posted that. Thanks to @Cadence for the assist there. This. This is why that model is simply unsupportable.

Give me that Star Trek post scarcity economy and we can have people who do creative work, for no recompense. Hell, even make it UBI and there are some who would, I'm sure. As long as people have to work for food and lodging, that's not going to happen.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I want to emphasize that this would be work your father did. Not you. The question comes up - how much or even why should you be able to profit from his work at all?

I don't necessarily disagree. So if my father had bought a house, or had kept working for the last twenty years, that's his work not mine and I shouldn't inherit? Why is creative work not working the same?

 

[Ryujin]

I don't necessarily disagree. So if my father had bought a house, or had kept working for the last twenty years, that's his work not mine and I shouldn't inherit? Why is creative work not working the same?

I agree (now ). Property is property, be it intellectual or physical.

 

[billd91]

I don't necessarily disagree. So if my father had bought a house, or had kept working for the last twenty years, that's his work not mine and I shouldn't inherit? Why is creative work not working the same?

The nature of owning a creative work is very different. You may own a physical copy of his notes or a specific copy of a book he wrote, but owning the copyright to a work isn't like owning something physical that cannot be infinitely duplicated, is at risk of being destroyed/stolen or otherwise taken from your possession, and doesn't not degrade in condition if you fail to physically maintain it. As long as the work is in demand, a copyright holder can distribute the work (in some form) again, and again, and again, and never reduce his capacity to continue to do so.
So, yeah, why should they work the same?

 

[TheAlkaizer]

The nature of owning a creative work is very different. You may own a physical copy of his notes or a specific copy of a book he wrote, but owning the copyright to a work isn't like owning something physical that cannot be infinitely duplicated, is at risk of being destroyed/stolen or otherwise taken from your possession, and doesn't not degrade in condition if you fail to physically maintain it. As long as the work is in demand, a copyright holder can distribute the work (in some form) again, and again, and again, and never reduce his capacity to continue to do so.
So, yeah, why should they work the same?

So as a creative, if I want to leave something from what I build to my children, I am very much encouraged to sell the rights to it in my waning years and turn it into something physical. Actually, I'm encouraged to not pursue creative careers. Not only are they often not as paying as others, success is rare, but I can hardly ensure that my children might have better opportunities in life than me.

Then yeah, I'd consider myself pro-copyright. I much prefer someone to be able to profit from his own work, and decide who gets to profit from it for a number of years after then to push into public domain because someone else is apparently so creative that they really need to use the very content of a preestablished IP to produce something and make their living.

It is so easy to pull inspiration and navigate the different IPs and use their success by exploring similar worlds, characters, settings and themes. I don't see why having access to a specifically version of it required.