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

[Irlo]

And I simply don't agree with that premise or that it's "provably false", and I'll leave it at that.

American Visionary Art Museum

Welcome to the nation's museum for self-taught, intuitive artistry.

www.avam.org

 

[doctorbadwolf]

American Visionary Art Museum

Welcome to the nation's museum for self-taught, intuitive artistry.

www.avam.org

Pfft no one makes art as an end in itself.

Anyway, limiting copyright more won’t dramatically diminish the appeal of custom commissioned art, and limiting it to the life of the author +10 to 20 years, with transfers of IP shortening the term to, say, 50 years, wouldn’t harm any creative industry. It’d employ fewer lawyers and accountants, perhaps, but I think there is likely plenty of work out there for both of those jobs.

I’d still also prefer to have copyright only protect against unlicensed commercial use, but whatever, as long as IPs aren’t held hostage by people who weren’t alive when they were made, up to 75 years or more after the creator’s passing, I’m fine.

 

[Bohandas]

Any sold or forcibly-transferred* copyright should have a hard expiry date of x-years after the date of sale or transfer from the original creator regardless of anything else.

* - by this I mean for example copyrights that transfer to corporations due to those awful employment contracts that stipulate that anything you create related to the company's business while employed becomes the property of the company even if you do it on your own time.

Although ideally those clauses should be banned as well. (And really most other things that go into employment contracts as well. Unless the person signing it is part of the upper eschelons of society I can't really see any way that an employment contract could ever not be unconscionable)

 

[Bohandas]

You'd be wrong. Objectively.

Further, it absolutely unravels your attempt to argue that without copyright no one has any reason to create anything new. It's an entirely absurd argument with no basis in reality.

Furthermore, any people who would stop as a result of copyright disapearing I don't want to support anyway

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Furthermore, any people who would stop as a result of copyright disapearing I don't want to support anyway

Eeeeeh capitalism demands work, if someone has the talent to make money via art, go for it. I get the sentiment, but, yeah…not much stays sacred in the face of a social order where most of us are one bad month away from camping in an alley.

 

[MoonSong]

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.

You are forgetting trademarks. Trademarks are completey independent from copyright. Thanks to trademarks, the big corps still stand to make a profit out of creative work.

Remove copyright and then we have the big companies outright stealing stories and characters through trademark law. In this hypothetical, Disney still gets to profit and then can use trademark law to prevent everybody from using the novels ever again. They don't even need to mention the original author ever again.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You are forgetting trademarks. Trademarks are completey independent from copyright. Thanks to trademarks, the big corps still stand to make a profit out of creative work.

Remove copyright and then we have the big companies outright stealing stories and characters through trademark law. In this hypothetical, Disney still gets to profit and then can use trademark law to prevent everybody from using the novels ever again. They don't even need to mention the original author ever again.

It's always wild to me, and I don't mean this as a dis or anything, that folks respond to criticism of a thing as if we would have to keep everything around that thing exactly the same in the process.

It should be obvious that if copyright were significantly rewritten, so too would be trademark, and possibly even patent law, and probably other stuff that only IP law experts even realize the connection to copyright of.

Also, it's not like that rewrite couldn't include a provision that attribution is legally mandatory.

Finally, IIRC trademark law wouldn't really allow what you describe in any but quite rare cases, because other people would be using that property regularly, which would undercut any attempt of any one party to claim the right to that trademark. I'm open to being corrected on this, though. The rest stands regardless.

 

[MoonSong]

Sorry for stuff being out of order. On the phone and have no idea how to reorder.

Also, it's not like that rewrite couldn't include a provision that attribution is legally mandatory.

Attribution is a moral right, which is part of copyright. Remove copyright and you remove attribution. Keep attribution and you are preserving some form of copyright.

It's always wild to me, and I don't mean this as a dis or anything, that folks respond to criticism of a thing as if we would have to keep everything around that thing exactly the same in the process.

Trademark is very hard to remove. Not only because of the high economic value it provides, but also because it serves an accountability purpose. Cars, food, medicine, medical equipment, even something as simple as a lightbulb that could turn potentially dangerous if made incorrectly need trademarks to be able to locate the people responsible for it if things go wrong due to failing to comply with regulations. If everybody could bottle their own soda and call it coca cola it would be harder to locate who produced a bad batch. Trademark is a necessary evil.

Finally, IIRC trademark law wouldn't really allow what you describe in any but quite rare cases, because other people would be using that property regularly, which would undercut any attempt of any one party to claim the right to that trademark. I'm open to being corrected on this, though. The rest stands regardless.

Conan stories are public domain. Yet while anybody can republish and adapt them, they can't include Conan in the name because the trademarks are still living. Which is the same reason Detective Conan is known as Case Closed in the West by the way.

And with trademarks, the one with the most money has the best chance of establishing one. Right now, little people can and has won trademarks by being there noticeable before, but with a creative work there just isn't enough headstart.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry for stuff being out of order. On the phone and have no idea how to reorder.

Attribution is a moral right, which is part of copyright. Remove copyright and you remove attribution. Keep attribution and you are preserving some form of copyright.

Trademark is very hard to remove. Not only because of the high economic value it provides, but also because it serves an accountability purpose. Cars, food, medicine, medical equipment, even something as simple as a lightbulb that could turn potentially dangerous if made incorrectly need trademarks to be able to locate the people responsible for it if things go wrong due to failing to comply with regulations. If everybody could bottle their own soda and call it coca cola it would be harder to locate who produced a bad batch. Trademark is a necessary evil.

Conan stories are public domain. Yet while anybody can republish and adapt them, they can't include Conan in the name because the trademarks are still living. Which is the same reason Detective Conan is known as Case Closed in the West by the way.

And with trademarks, the one with the most money has the best chance of establishing one. Right now, little people can and has won trademarks by being there noticeable before, but with a creative work there just isn't enough headstart.

hmm. I’ll try again.

1. I don’t care about pedantry. Consider attribution a form of copyright or don’t, I don’t care. The point is that removing exclusive rights to use an IP does not actually necessitate removing attribution.

2. I don’t know why you’re trying to explain trademark, while providing no information I haven’t already demonstrated knowledge of. You also replied to me as if I were advocating for the removal of trademark, which is odd.

 

[Bohandas]

You are forgetting trademarks. Trademarks are completey independent from copyright. Thanks to trademarks, the big corps still stand to make a profit out of creative work.

Remove copyright and then we have the big companies outright stealing stories and characters through trademark law. In this hypothetical, Disney still gets to profit and then can use trademark law to prevent everybody from using the novels ever again. They don't even need to mention the original author ever again.

Remove trademark law too then. That's simple and obvious enough.

EDIT:
also, the government should start breaking up some of these big companies. Especially Disney.