Yeah, Disney, Shakespeare and Tolkien were hacks…
No, actually, it’s NOT life - right now, only me and the people I formally authorize can legally make money on my stuff.
Again, you fail to grasp that publishing and writing are two different skill sets. As is marketing. Which is why highly successful authors get agents to handle the marketing/business end of things so the authors can spend their time and energy on being creative. Actors do that, too. Hell, even most unsuccessful actor-wannabes have agents!
Just because someone is a good author doesn’t mean they’ll be any good at publishing, and vice versa. While a very few people have been successful with self-publishing most of them have not (probably Sturgeon’s Law at work).
I don’t want to be a publisher, I want to be a writer and artist. I suck at the business end of things and I’ve enjoyed my greatest success when employing people who are actually good at those things to do them for me. Rather like I hire an accountant for complex tax matters, a plumber to fix the plumbing, an electrician to fix the wiring in my house, a lawyer for legal matters, and a mechanic to fix my car. If I tried to learn to do all of the above myself I’d have no time left to be creative.
It’s like asking doctors to not only be a doctors but also to handle all the billing and scrub the toilets in the hospital rather than hiring a cleaning crew and billing clerks. It matters because doing things other than writing takes time away from writing, rinse and repeat for any other creative endeavor. It’s why starring movie actors have personal assistants, to take care of all the mundane shit that otherwise wouldn’t get done when they’re spending 12-16 hour days working.
The vast majority of the work I do leaves my control long before my death, and yet I’m still pleased to do it.
I am happy for you.
Actually, that’s true of most of what I do for money, too, but my creative works are an exception to that rule. Why is that a problem?
Compared to today’s insanity, sure. But I still think 10 with the possibility of renewal to 15 and 20 for works kept in continuous print (no “Disney vault” bullshit) would be better.
Most works will make most of their money in the first few years anyway.
I’m still waiting to hear some real answers to this question.
OK - here’s one thing. There are works that are still in copyright that there could be a market for, but are out of print. This is particularly true in the music business - the big record companies aren’t interested in licensing recordings that might sell a couple of hundred copies. It’s too small potatoes. They will, however, threaten legal action against someone who reissues any of these recordings without permission. So these recordings sit in their vaults, and the public doesn’t get to hear them.
Another question may be, what is just.
We don’t generally revoke other property rights after an arbitrary period of time.
That is not clear to me at all.
My point was simply that if money is still made from a creative work many years after its creation, then it would be ridiculous if none of that money finds its way to the original creator.
As pointed out earlier, your arguments make sense for patents where the patent holder gets to block everyone else from using the patented process. But with copyright the only thing you don’t get to do is copying an original work or creating derivative works. You are still entirely free to come up with your own original work. And no, no matter how many monkeys you have banging on typewriters, they’re never going to independently come up with something identical to an existing work. (Of non-trivial length, of course. Maybe after a long, long time one will hit on “just do it”.)
That said, I do think there are problems with derivative works, orphaned works and excessive restrictions from rights holders. For instance, I feel that the original Star Wars movies are a part of our culture and it’s not right that George Lucas gets to purge their existence in favor of the special editions. However, that doesn’t mean people get to copy those original versions without paying Lucas (or Disney now as he sold the rights). So I’m in favor of taking away some control from the original creator after some time, but not their right to be compensated.
It also wouldn’t be unreasonable to require authors to renew their copyright periodically rather than put the burden of proof on the people who want to use an orphaned work. 25 years after death would probably also be sufficient, that means that when an author dies their kids still get the royalties until they’re out of school. But if someone doesn’t bother to show they’re still alive every 25 years then the copyright expires earlier.
…but to be absolutely fair to George Lucas and Lucasfilms they have been absolutely brilliant with the fan film community. So I’d give him a pass for the special editions.
This, and out-of-distribution movies are excellent examples of why I think copyright terms should be shorter - and I work in a creative industry.
Even more relevantly, I think copyright terms for entertainment software should be a hell of a lot shorter - 20 years or so, I would suggest, with an automatic “public domain” clause for any game which becomes essentially abandonware (ie the original publisher goes out of business and there’s no straightforward answer to who holds the copyright anymore).
There are a lot of classic games out there calling for remakes which aren’t happening because of issues with whoever owns the copyright - for example, the game was released by a small studio which collapsed and now the publishing rights passed to another company which got bought by a larger one which doesn’t want to put the resources into making an updated version of a 20 year old game; that sort of thing.
The copyrights to games developed by Bullfrog Studios (things like Theme Hospital, Syndicate, Populous and other things which were enormous at the time) are now owned by EA, as I understand it. Those games aren’t current franchises - there hasn’t been a Populous game since 1991, for smeg’s sake - so I really don’t see an issue with saying “Alright, it’s been 25 years, the Populous games are in the public domain now - anyone who wants to make Populous III is welcome to do so. Have fun.”
And in response to the “Why can’t you just create your own IP???” question - given the increasingly litigious would we live in, I don’t think an indie studio of 10 mates from uni who want to make a game that’s derived from an existing classic game (but doesn’t share a name with the classic, which is long out of print, and their game has some new/different elements) should have to fear potentially getting sued for copyright infringement by whichever large company has acquired the classic game’s IP if they decide it’s similar enough.
Missed the edit window; I realised after posting there was a Populous game released in 1999. So while wanting to correct the facts, it doesn’t change my point; it’s been a very long time since anyone did a Populous game so I really don’t see an issue with the IP falling into the public domain.
There’s ideas and then there’s physical objects. Physical objects cannot be trivially copied, replaced etc. Taking something physical is a different kind of loss than making an unauthorized copy. The law deals with differences all the time. E.g., it’s not okay for someone to pound the crap out of you. Unless you’re in a boxing match, for example. It’s not okay to slice someone up, unless you’re a surgeon (who doesn’t even need permission in a serious emergency). And on and on.
The Founding Fathers really argued about allowing IP protection at all. The British system of awarding certain patent and other rights in perpetuity was seen as really bad by them. Having modest limits was viewed as a reasonable alternative.
Note that there a lot of situations where an expired copyright enables new works that may not have been doable with copyright intact. E.g., you want to write a biography of someone based on their diaries. You want to quote extensively, beyond any reasonable definition of fair use (which to the lawyers of many copyright holders means "no quoting whatsoever for any reason). Out of copyright means no problem. The new book proceeds, etc.
It’s not all about merely republishing something.
Remember: all IP property rights will expire. If you refuse to write a book because of this, you won’t get anything. Doesn’t seem like a win to me. Refusing to write a book because the copyright might expire in 100 or more years is getting more than a bit carried away.
Another case where works going public domain can encourage creativity is in the performing arts. Nobody expects every singer to be a composer, nor every actor to be a playwright. If a piece of music or a play is in the public domain, then anyone who wants to can create a performance of that piece, adding their own creative input to it. The world would be a much poorer place, culturally speaking, if every performance of Shakespeare or Beethoven had to pay royalties to Shakespeare’s or Beethoven’s heirs.
I don’t think anyone here is arguing for copyright in perpetuity for someone’s heirs. Most are arguing for the life of the author, plus may the first generation of heirs but mostly even for less than that.
It really annoys me how some people feel entitled to use other people’s work. Come up with your own stuff already.
So, iljitsch, you do think that all singers should be composers and all actors should be playwrights?
I don’t understand the question.
As Broomstick notes, that’s a strawman, as no one is advocating copyright in perpetuity.
The world would also be a poorer place, culturally speaking, if composers and playwrights weren’t payed sufficiently for their work, as they wouldn’t be able (or inclined) to create new works.
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.
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.