# copyright length **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 5, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111 "2016-09-05T18:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/61 "2016-09-07T15:43:27Z")
There is a mechanism already in place to compensate copyright holders for public performances of their work. It’s called licensing and royalties and is a fairly common way copyright holders get income from their work. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/62 "2016-09-07T15:43:28Z")
Please note the distinction between “free as in beer” and “free as in speech”. I can go along to some degree with arguments that limit the control authors currently have over the ability of others to create derivative works, but that doesn’t mean you get to do so for free while that original author is still alive. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/63 "2016-09-07T16:18:36Z")
I get the frustration with stuff you want not being easily available. (Though I gotta think if the audience for some song is a couple hundred people they’re better off hunting it down used.) I spend all my days trying to research information from, say, 1923-1960 that all too often Google Books won’t show because it’s still under copyright. I’ve said here many times that I liked the old system of 28+28 years. But that system would still keep most work that anyone cared about under copyright. Everything from 1960 on would be if renewed. It’s not some panacea for magically making everything you want available. The logistics of it are difficult as well. The Library of Congress is terrible at registering electronic works. Every time you change a web page it creates a new work. The Copyright Office doesn’t want to deal with tens of billions of daily changes. And that’s just fixed pages; dynamic pages like a news page or the Dope are nightmarish bureaucratically. Getting people to register their works so that renewals are known is a nightmare of another kind. That was a major reason for going to an automatic copyright system, with registration only for greater legal protection. And what is the actual gain? All I’m hearing is that a few people can’t instantly put their hands on a few obscure things. We should change the entire copyright system for that? Even if we put 28+28 years in place tomorrow, it wouldn’t be retroactive. You’re out at 2044 before today’s creations could possibly go into the public domain. That’s not a reason not to make a worthwhile change if the system calls for it, but it won’t satisfy your personal greeds. I noticed I didn’t correct this earlier. drewder said “Now copyright lengths seem to be increasing every few yew years…” They haven’t been changed in decades. For all I know, they haven’t changed in his lifetime. See the chart I linked to. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/64 "2016-09-07T16:22:42Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Frankly, if people need to use previous works to make their own, they have no rights to call themselves “creators.” They’re copiers. They aren’t interesting in creating their own characters and plots because that’s evidently too hard, so they piggyback on the work of others instead. If you really were creative, you’d create something completely on your own instead of using shortcuts. I think I know what you mean and am sympathetic to it, but there’s a legitimate place for “piggybacking on the work of others”—this would include, for example, translators of works into other languages. It seems obvious to me that both the original author and the translator deserve some control over and compensation for their work. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/65 "2016-09-07T16:40:31Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I think I know what you mean and am sympathetic to it, but there’s a legitimate place for “piggybacking on the work of others”—this would include, for example, translators of works into other languages. It seems obvious to me that both the original author and the translator deserve some control over and compensation for their work. What rights do you think a translator should have that he or she currently doesn’t have? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/66 "2016-09-07T17:09:22Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I think I know what you mean and am sympathetic to it, but there’s a legitimate place for “piggybacking on the work of others”—this would include, for example, translators of works into other languages. It seems obvious to me that both the original author and the translator deserve some control over and compensation for their work. I had a book that was translated into five languages. Each of the translators had their work copyrighted in their names in their countries and I had no control over any of it. I did get paid by the publishers to allow them to gain the rights in their languages, but that is irrelevant to what the translators got. Copyright allows for numerous examples of licensing for rights. A publishing contract runs for pages and pages of clauses detailing what rights can be licensed and what the payment will be the author and the others involved. If you think translators aren’t compensated in the normal commercial publishing process, you are very wrong. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/67 "2016-09-08T00:13:40Z")
The other side’s post make me want to bang my head against my laptop. Re Shakespeare Where is anybody arguing for eternal copyright? The Bard’s works are free to perform because the copyright has expired. Re ‘Our Shared Culture’ Bull shit. So, being popular and well known and huge success means we should take rights away from the holder? ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/68 "2016-09-08T00:45:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **iljitsch** , you’re annoyed when artists feel the need to use others’ works. Musicians and actors almost always use others’ works. Thus, it would follow, you’re annoyed by musicians and actors not being composers and playwrights. Seriously, that’s a silly argument. Composers and playwrights write their works with the intent that they be performed by other people. Composers and playwrights aren’t complaining when people perform their works (as long as they’re being paid their due). They’re complaining when people copy their works. These things are not remotely the same. > [@](#): > > And **fachervwirrt** , I’m aware that nobody is advocating copyright in perpetuity. But the same arguments apply at every scale. If a finite copyright term has advantages over a perpetual one, then a shorter term has the same advantages over a longer one. Of course, there are also advantages to longer terms, and there’s some point at which those advantages balance out. But it does no good to argue that any shortening is merely an attempt to steal artists’ hard work, and absolutely cannot be countenanced. OK, how about we go with the current system? Seems to work for almost everybody involved. Cultural institutions are still performing and presenting and displaying plenty of new stuff, so I’m not buying the argument that the need to pay royalties is somehow diminishing the cultural landscape. I wouldn’t object to tweaking the laws to deal with orphaned and permanently out-of-print stuff, but that is, on the whole, a fairly minor problem. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/69 "2016-09-08T00:59:26Z")
The way I see it though is that copyright is a limitation on my right of free speech. Therefore a copyright holder has a responsibility to prove that that copyright fulfills a compelling government interest, that it is narrowly tailored to achieve that goal and that it does so in the least restrictive way possible. I don’t view, ensuring a perpetual income for authors, to be a compelling government interest but I do view the promotion of creative works to be such an interest. However I don’t view the restriction for a century or longer to be the least restrictive way possible. I am convinced a number of years of protection to be reasonable but more than 50 years is stretching credulity. I don’t think many authors would refuse to write if they couldn’t live off their work for 50 years, or even 28 years. I do however find it interesting to think that Exapno Mapcase believes it likely that I was born after 1998. It’s interesting to note that Mary Bono, the sponsor of the bill, wanted copyright to last forever, which is unconstitutional. As a compromise solution she thought that Forever minus one day would make a fine length. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/70 "2016-09-08T01:35:37Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > I do however find it interesting to think that Exapno Mapcase believes it likely that I was born after 1998. It’s interesting to note that Mary Bono, the sponsor of the bill, wanted copyright to last forever, which is unconstitutional. As a compromise solution she thought that Forever minus one day would make a fine length. If your argument is that we shouldn’t ever do anything that a Republican in Congress thinks is right, then I march with you shoulder to shoulder. Copyright was extended to the life of the author plus in 1976. The 1998 Act did increase that. Hardly “every few years.” And the critical change was made a full 40 years ago, more than the median age of Americans. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/71 "2016-09-08T02:41:09Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > The way I see it though is that copyright is a limitation on my right of free speech. But it wouldn’t be your speech. It would be somebody else’s. I have vast freedoms to do things with my words and ideas. If I want to do things with somebody else’s copyrighted words and ideas, I have less freedom. > [@](#): > > I don’t view, ensuring a perpetual income for authors, to be a compelling government interest Strawman. Who is arguing for a PERPETUAL copyright in this debate? ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/72 "2016-09-08T03:32:22Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > But it wouldn’t be your speech. It would be somebody else’s. I have vast freedoms to do things with my words and ideas. If I want to do things with somebody else’s copyrighted words and ideas, I have less freedom. > > Strawman. Who is arguing for a PERPETUAL copyright in this debate? Mary Bono representative of the state of California… Like I said. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/73 "2016-09-08T03:43:20Z")
My speech is anything I say, or write, regardless of whoever said it before. I can accept that my speech is being limited to promote a public good, namely an environment conducive to creativity. I do not however support the idea that my speech should be perpetually limited or that it should be limited for such a long time as to prevent me from speech during my own lifetime, as a copyright length of 75+ years demands, which is as far as I’m concerned might as well be the end of time. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/74 "2016-09-08T05:52:04Z")
Your speech isn’t limited. You can say anything you want. Now, selling it for profit, that’s limited. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/75 "2016-09-08T08:11:30Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > It really annoys me how some people feel entitled to use other people’s work. Come up with your own stuff already. Did you not see the part of my post where I addressed this exact issue - ie, people can be stifled coming up with their own stuff because it might be too similar to something which already exists but isn’t in wide circulation. I don’t think anyone’s arguing that anyone who wants to should be able to write a Harry Potter novel. But I suggest you’d have a challenging time coming up with a non-parody “British Boy Wizard” novel that didn’t end up involving a conversation with JK Rowling’s legal representatives at some point. I’d further say there’s a point where, if something isn’t being made widely available, that it’s not in the public interest to let someone keep the copyright on an item so it can be locked in a vault - basically, a “use it or lose it” clause. If a copyrighted work (to which the copyright is owned by an entity which isn’t the author) isn’t republished (properly; not a vanity press or a print run of five, but actually commercially published) after 25 years, then it becomes public domain. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/76 "2016-09-08T12:43:32Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I don’t think anyone’s arguing that anyone who wants to should be able to write a Harry Potter novel. I kinda thought that’s what the OP was suggesting. > [@](#): > > But I suggest you’d have a challenging time coming up with a non-parody “British Boy Wizard” novel that didn’t end up involving a conversation with JK Rowling’s legal representatives at some point. I’m not so sure. There have been plenty of other “Boy Wizard” and/or “School for Magic” fantasies, before and since Harry Potter. As long as you didn’t copy any of the specifics too closely, I don’t think you could be accused of copyright violation. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/77 "2016-09-08T13:21:56Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > If a copyrighted work (to which the copyright is owned by an entity which isn’t the author) isn’t republished (properly; not a vanity press or a print run of five, but actually commercially published) after 25 years, then it becomes public domain. So… no self-publishing allowed? Gee, that sucks for the people who have done well with that route. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/78 "2016-09-08T14:48:24Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I don’t think anyone’s arguing that anyone who wants to should be able to write a Harry Potter novel. But I suggest you’d have a challenging time coming up with a non-parody “British Boy Wizard” novel that didn’t end up involving a conversation with JK Rowling’s legal representatives at some point. Didn’t you read this from earlier? > [@Acsenray](#): > > Fifty Shades of Gray, for example, exists precisely because the creator couldn’t just swipe the settings and characters from Twilight. > > This kind of protection also promotes creativity. Actually, she did swipe it originally as fan fiction. She changed it just enough to get it commercially published. But everybody commenting on it called it a \*Twilight \*clone. The entire modern fantasy publishing industry was founded on people copying Tolkien, BTW. You can do this because ideas are not copyright, nor are _scenes a faire_. Leon Arden wrote a novel, _One Fine Day_, about a man forced to relive one day of his life in 1981. He sold it to Disney. When _Groundhog Day_ appeared he sued the creators. He lost. > [@](#): > > The judge took the case, Arden v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., very seriously. He summarized both works at great length, and went through a long history of copyright cases. He found that the ideas at the core of the book and movie are the same. But that’s not enough. > ​It is well settled that copyright law only protects plaintiff’s particular expression of his ideas, not the ideas themselves. 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) (“In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea … [or] concept … regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.”) > ​ > What about all the similar incidents in the two works? Copyright law has an answer for that as well. > > _Scenes a faire_ are those elements of a work “that necessarily result from the choice of a setting or situation,” Walker, 784 F.2d at 50, or “‘sequences of events which necessarily follow from a common theme.’” > > ​In the end, the judge ruled he had no choice but to dismiss the lawsuit, however sympathetic he might be. > > In reading Mr. Arden’s affidavit in opposition to the summary judgment motion, I can appreciate his frustration at seeing his idea of a man trapped in a repeating day used, without his consent, in a movie that has grossed more than $70 million, not one cent of which he has received. Again, however, ideas are not copyrightable, and the law has sought to strike a balance between protecting original works and promoting further creativity, a balance that has resulted in—even assuming defendants did copy Mr. Arden’s idea—a creative, entertaining work that is substantially different from his expression of his idea. Nobody - well, hardly anybody - is stopping fan fiction. Or fan movies. Or fan drawings. Or fan any other type of media. The only prohibition is commercial use. As it damn well should be. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/79 "2016-09-09T08:29:12Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > So… no self-publishing allowed? Gee, that sucks for the people who have done well with that route. There’s a difference between self-publishing and vanity press. And my point is I believe copyright should be for authors/creators to protect their rights for things with commercial value - if it’s locked in a vault (physically or metaphorically) and not being used, then too bad. Keep it properly published or lose it. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111/80 "2016-09-09T09:42:26Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > There’s a difference between self-publishing and vanity press. Then you will have no problem elucidating those differences, will you - because to many, if not most people, they are nearly the exact same thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copyright-length/765111.md?page=5)