Inspired by a Pit thread about, of all things the Boy Scouts of America, I’m wondering how you would change copyright laws. I’m not an expert on copyrights but the biggest thing I would change is how long they last. Is 20 years long enough for at artist to make a living off his work? 50? At some point a successful work of art transcends the context of its work and becomes a part of the culture. Superman and Micky Mouse are examples.
How would you change copyright laws?
Marc
If it’s owned by a person, lifetime plus 20 is enough. If it’s owned by a corporation, 50 is enough. That’ll never happen though. They’ll keep extending copyrights perpetually, I’ll bet.
Why should a corporation get longer than a natural person? And wouldn’t that just make writers, etc., incorporate to get the longer term? (It would be very easy to do: Bill Shakespeare forms the corporation Bill Shakespeare, Incorporated, with himself having 99% of the shares, and himself as the only employee – hired by the corporation to write books.)
The term of copyright shhould be long enough to motivate authors and corporations with the future profits available, and no longer. I think that 20 years should be enough in most cases.
(There might be other issues when corporations trade mark characters, so that others can’t use them, but that’s another matter.)
I meant that corporations should get 50 years, period. People should get life plus 20 years. Or perhaps both should get 50 years, period. The only problem with that is that I can see situations where a young artist lives a long time and needs income in their later years (or their surviving children do.)
But if the copyright is transferred to a corporation or another person the maximum age should be 50 years from the release of the artwork. Of course you can retain a trademark on the items by continuing to defend it legally and reusing the mileau in other works of art but after so long there shouldn’t be protections on reproducing the actual art.
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
I meant that corporations should get 50 years, period. People should get life plus 20 years. Or perhaps both should get 50 years, period. The only problem with that is that I can see situations where a young artist lives a long time and needs income in their later years (or their surviving children do.)
[/QUOTE]
Right, that makes more sense. Though I’m not convinced that there are many young writers who will get sustained by royalties in theirold age.
Copyrights should expire eventually, just like patents, which are protected for only 20 years from the date of application. There is no reason intellectual property in the form of a book or song should be protected longer than intellectual property in the form of a widget, except that a person who invented a widget is probably better able to otherwise support himself than an author or songwriter.
I would give a guaranteed copyright on all new works for 20 years, no registration just like today. After that, the works need to be registered for a “non-trivial” fee. I don’t know what that fee is, but it will certainly be higher for a movie than a photograph, and higher for a novel than a short story, etc. Registration will give you an additional 20 years coverage, you may re-register 3 times, for a total of 100 years.
I would also like a provision for copyright to be broken, after the initial 20 years, if the copyright holder is being obstructionist. For instance, a company registers some old book, and fails to print, or otherwise make available, any copies of the book for sale. Another publishing company can petition the Copyright Board (funded by registrations) to release the work entirely, or designate nominal compensation to the copyright holder so the work can be published.
You get the copyright so that you can earn money off of the work, you don’t get copyright to prevent everyone else from earning money off of the work.
[QUOTE=Giles]
Right, that makes more sense. Though I’m not convinced that there are many young writers who will get sustained by royalties in theirold age.
[/QUOTE]
Whether because of technology or cultural swings of popularity, we had many examples of copyright being popular after the artist died.
Anyway, what people, in general, seem to forget is that the main purpose of copyright is to promote creative works. Whether extending copyright protection is seen as corporate welfare or as securing the opportunity for investment (I favor the investment argument, since it seems less whiny) is and will be always up for debate.
If there are any changes that should be made, it should be changes that encompass the current thoughts and expectations of the public, particularly in regard to the level of technological achievement currently in place.
I think the mechanical licenses for music is a good start. There should be a statutory minimum which a copyright holder must accept if someone is going to make a work of their product. This can be expanded further to statutorily require an automatic royalty (as an alternative) if the derivative work is used for commercial purposes.
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
I would also like a provision for copyright to be broken, after the initial 20 years, if the copyright holder is being obstructionist. For instance, a company registers some old book, and fails to print, or otherwise make available, any copies of the book for sale.
[/QUOTE]
I like this idea. It would really open up the field for wider availability of abandonware.
I woud like to see copyright amended so that people can use elements of artwork and music in collage. For example, if you want to put Mickey Mouse in a collage of other cartoon superheroes, you should be able to do so, without having Disney Corp. breathing down your back. This seems fair and simple, but an amazing number of people have problems with it.
In an era where software blurs the line between what is or should be copyrightable or patentable (and may not be the last thing to do so), I think the same standards should apply to both. If a patent is good for only 20 years, then the same should be true of a copyright.
Besides, it makes no sense that one can only make money off the exclusive ownership of a useful idea for 20 years, but one can make money off the exclusive ownership of an artistic idea for life, and one’s heirs can do the same for essentially another lifetime after that.
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
I meant that corporations should get 50 years, period. People should get life plus 20 years. Or perhaps both should get 50 years, period. The only problem with that is that I can see situations where a young artist lives a long time and needs income in their later years (or their surviving children do.)
But if the copyright is transferred to a corporation or another person the maximum age should be 50 years from the release of the artwork. Of course you can retain a trademark on the items by continuing to defend it legally and reusing the mileau in other works of art but after so long there shouldn’t be protections on reproducing the actual art.
[/QUOTE]
How would this work on things like company logos and such? Should the Widget Corporation lost the rights to the logo of its most sucessful product even if they are still producing and marketing it? Or is that a trademark issue?
I’d like to ssecond my support for this idea.
[QUOTE=Sweet Mercury]
How would this work on things like company logos and such? Should the Widget Corporation lost the rights to the logo of its most sucessful product even if they are still producing and marketing it? Or is that a trademark issue?
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm. From my understanding it would certainly be a trademark issue if you were to use it in marketing. It might also be a copyright issue if you used it in collages/movies/songs (for jingles), etc. So after 50 years others might be able to reproduce it as long as it was not used in advertising per se. So you could do all the fake Coke ad posters as art as you wanted as long as you weren’t selling anything with them and were using old designs.
Unless I’m totally misunderstanding trademark.
I agree that the time should be shortened, and I like the idea of a paid registration to get an extension, which would free up lots of protected work that no one really cares about protecting.
I’m in favor of some kind of mandatory licensing for derivative use for all content, the way that covering songs or broadcasting music is already handled. It is unnecessarily restricting to always have to have people on TV watching public domain movies because it takes lawyers and buckets of money and luck to get clearance to show 3 seconds of The Simpsons in the background somewhere, or to have to hire your own band to reproduce 4 seconds of a hit song you wanted to mix in to a compilation.
But my biggest change would be that whatever copyright laws are in effect at the time of first publication are the only laws that will apply to a particular work. As the stated purpose of copyright is to “promote the useful arts,” it makes no sense to lengthen (or shorten) the term of copyright after a work has been published.
Keeping Mickey Mouse cartoons copyrighted longer will not somehow inspire Walt to have retroactively made more of them from beyond the grave. If it is determined that people aren’t making enough content because protections aren’t strong enough, then extend the protections moving forward. Anything else is nothing but a blatant money grab.
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
I would also like a provision for copyright to be broken, after the initial 20 years, if the copyright holder is being obstructionist. For instance, a company registers some old book, and fails to print, or otherwise make available, any copies of the book for sale. Another publishing company can petition the Copyright Board (funded by registrations) to release the work entirely, or designate nominal compensation to the copyright holder so the work can be published.
You get the copyright so that you can earn money off of the work, you don’t get copyright to prevent everyone else from earning money off of the work.
[/QUOTE]
Hah; I opened this thread to say just that; copyright should be a use it or lose it affair. I’d make the period more like 5 years, before you have to show that you’re doing something with the technology/book/whatever besides sitting on it.
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
Hmmm. From my understanding it would certainly be a trademark issue if you were to use it in marketing. It might also be a copyright issue if you used it in collages/movies/songs (for jingles), etc. So after 50 years others might be able to reproduce it as long as it was not used in advertising per se. So you could do all the fake Coke ad posters as art as you wanted as long as you weren’t selling anything with them and were using old designs.
Unless I’m totally misunderstanding trademark.
[/QUOTE]
You are, I’m afraid. Trademarks are valid until either relinquished/abandoned, successful legal action is brougth invalidating the trademark (which can happen on a variety of grounds) or (and this is much rarer) they become generic. The most famous “becoming generic” examples are Thermos and Xerox - it’s when the trademark term becomes interchangeable with the product being advertised and/or sold. This has only happened a few times - and as it invalidates the trademark, companies with recognizable trademarks are vigilant about making sure it doesn’t happen to them. This is what’s behind a bunch of the fairly asinine “X-brand product” you see (i.e. Frisbee brand flying disc).
The primary distinguishing characteristic of a trademark is a mark (which can be symbols, a short phrase, a name, etc) used to distinguish goods or services. Hence something like the Coca-Cola symbol is a trademark (the most recognizable one in the world) and therefore is entitled to protection until the Coca-Cola Corp. decides to quit using it as such - which means you can’t actually do the fake Coke posters even as art without permission from Coca-Cola. Again, companies with recognizable trademarks tend to be very hardnosed about monitoring the useage of their trademark even in works of art.
This would be because the gold standard for trademark litigation is the “confused customer”. The principle behind a trademark is to allow a customer to identify a specific organization’s products - so that if you want to buy a Coke, and you buy something with a Coke symbol on it, you can be certain it’s really a Coke product. Any use of a mark that might induce a customer to believe they are purchasing a product from Coke that is not actually a Coke product is therefore verboten. Also, the strength of a trademark is a very real market asset for a company - Coke’s trademark strength is a serious economic advantage for their corporation. Unauthorized use represents a dilution of the strength of any trademark - reducing its value to the owner and also reducing its value to the customer.
In a lot of ways, trademarks are the most powerful of the intellectual property protections. Their scope is very, very limited - but within that scope, the rightful owner of a trademark has exceptional ability to prevent unauthorized use of their trademark, and extraordinary remedies in the case of infringement.
For example, if one is able to prove that a trademark has been infringed upon, the owner of that trademark is entitled to some really harsh remedies under 15 USC including the following: the defendant’s profits, any damages suffered by the owner (including intanginble damages such as loss of reputation and market share as a result of infringement), court fees and costs including (in some cases) attorney’s fees. In some cases, if the trademark was willfully infringed upon, the owner is entitled to treble damages. If it’s a case of a counterfeit mark, the rightful owner is entitled to a statutory damage award of between $500 and $100,000 dollars per counterfeit mark per type of good or service involved. (Which means between $500 and $100,000 per t-shirt (for example) bearing the counterfeit mark.) Also, if the trademark was willfully infringed upon, the owner is entitled to seizure of all items bearing the infringing mark and all items used to make items bearing the infringing mark and subsequent destruction of such items.
Before the institution of the US trademark protections, there were a number of cases of unscrupulous businesses releasing substandard goods bearing their competitors’ trademarks in order to increase their own market share. The stringent protections of the US trademark law was designed to put a stop to that practice, among other things. Hence, the exceptional rights and remedies granted to the rightful owner of a trademark.
For more information, you can visit the US Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov) or peruse Title 15, Chapter 22 of the United States Code.
Be nice to me, I’m scared of all you guys here in GD.
[QUOTE=Aangelica]
Be nice to me, I’m scared of all you guys here in GD.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t see why you should be scared: you certainly seem to know your stuff. (And lots of people confuse the various kinds in intellectual property, including copyright, trade marks and patents, so a cogent explanation is very useful).
[QUOTE=Giles]
I don’t see why you should be scared: you certainly seem to know your stuff. (And lots of people confuse the various kinds in intellectual property, including copyright, trade marks and patents, so a cogent explanation is very useful).
[/QUOTE]
Heh. You guys are scary.
I always knew the Patent Bar would come in handy one of these days.
I agree, though. The various types of intellectual property and the various protections afforded each one are fairly tangled. In large part because there’s a certain amount of overlap between the four basic types - but also because people tend to use the various identifying terms either interchangably or incorrectly.
I’m sort of an intellectual properties dork, though. It was my favorite part of law school.
In which case I’d also change trademark law so that as long as you are not trying to use the trademark to directly sell goods you are not challenging it.
I understand why companies so vigorously defend their trademarks, but not the extent to which it comes down to resources, i.e. the ones with the money can control the trademarks.
Of course there are grey areas such as the case where Disney characters were on a daycare mural - it’s conceivable that they could have some affiliation with Disney.
But I think that pure art should be trademark-neutral, i.e. by using representations of it you are neither in violation of nor in challenge to the trademark. This of course will not stop lawyers, but if they learn they have little or no chance versus pure art, much like their chances in a libel case, the litigation will be reduced.
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
Of course there are grey areas such as the case where Disney characters were on a daycare mural - it’s conceivable that they could have some affiliation with Disney.
[/QUOTE]
Unless the mural was painted for no payment, it’s not a grey asrea at all. It means someone isin business creating mural(s), for profit, using a Disney trademark.