# Recording Industry takes action against 12 year old girl, forces settlement **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 10, 2003, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697 "2003-09-10T05:40:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/381 "2003-09-28T02:19:15Z")
Good grief, UnuMondo, don’t you think that maybe I just have other things to do and just wanted to explain my possible future absence? Why the snide comments? But, oh shit, what the hell, I get sucked back in this time. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow \* > I’m surprised you would cite this, because to me this is a huge _advantage_ of shorter copyrights: it encourages the creation of derivative works, even if the original author would have disapproved. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some really great things can be “inspired” by original works, but a lot of shitty and wretched things can be produced too. Usually the shit outnumbers the good stuff, and if enough wretched examples of shit come to the surface, artists and writers will take notice and _not_ be exactly “encouraged” be the situation. > [@](#): > > I call bullshit. What kind of crystal ball does this mystical photographer have that allows her to see what photographs she has taken will be appreciated only 20 years hence? She’ll stick her finger in the air, see which way the wind blows, and try to promote the works that seem to have the most staying power for the next 20 years. Why bother to promote “niche market” works that _may_ pay off in the “long run” when she can devote her time to sticking her finger in the air, seeing which way the wind blows? Why waste web space (or portfolio space) “publishing” the oddball works, just to see them not generate much income in 20 years and then be thrown into the public domain? If she wants to make a living with only 20 years and younger works, she’ll be more apt to stick her finger in the air and see which way the wind blows. > [@](#): > > Oddly enough, I can walk into a bookstore right now and find books filled with public domain photographs – say, for example, collections of Civil War photographs. Oddly, publishers are willing to publish these works even though anyone can legally make a high resolution copy of those pictures. But are they willing to pay the original photographer a nice advance for the photos? No, because the original photographer is dead. They can save a lot of money when they publish these books because they have no pesky photographer expecting royalties. > [@](#): > > Why should you be able to sponge off the work of your father? Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t. But then again, I don’t physically trust his negatives out of my sight (I’ve had art “lost” when I farm it out) and it takes time to scan each slide (I have a pretty good scanner, but the scanning time and Photoshop editing time can add up) and web hosting fees (to show off his rather lovely photos) and maintenence—these are alll resources I will have to expend, and for what? Just so the pictures can be used for free? I can’t afford the time for that sort of charitable project, sorry. So I guess his slides stay in the boxes, and the public won’t get to see the photos. And this is preferable to you? > [@](#): > > Frankly, I think most people would permit the publishing of very old photographs by the long-deceased (watch Ken Burn’s _Civil War_ for examples – many of the photos used came from families who had held them as heirlooms). It is telling that you apparently would not. I don’t trust his slides to the US Post Office, no. And I don’t trust someone else to scan them and “lose” them. And he’s got a LOT of slides. I can’t afford to scan a whole slew of his slides, take a lot of time to edit them in Photoshop, just so that maybe, maybe, someone will pay me a “small fee” to use them. (And from them on, I might see coffee table books printed with his photos, or see them distributed on the web for free, etc. etc.) I don’t feel like donating my time for that, sorry, no. > [@](#): > > One wonders why, if these photos are really so great, why no one was willing to pay for them in the twenty years after they were taken. As I said before, a lot of times a photographer doesn’t decide to “go pro” seriously until years after the fact. So their earlier, still good work was not promoted or distributed seriously—it was just published casually on the web (which now means it’s “published” work and the clock is ticking). > [@](#): > > One also wonders why, if they’re so great, some publisher wouldn’t be willing to pay the relatively nominal costs (relative to publishing costs overall) of scanning the photos and perhaps giving you a bit of money for your trouble, in hopes of selling some nice photo books. And perhaps the photographer doesn’t feel like letting the negatives out of their site, just so they can be fed a “bit of money” for a photo book that will potentially profit the publisher for a long time to come. And also any other publisher, who can sell good quality prints of the photos—far nicer than anything the original photographer can afford to print up, or sell. And you think that the photographer should just jump at the chance to get a “bit of money” for their work, just so they can sit back and watch publishers and printmakers make money off of it? > [@](#): > > But note the shift in your argument now: you have ceased defending the rights of artists to be compensated for the act of creating, and started defending the rights of those lucky enough to inherit already-created works. I’m not “shifting,” I’m just saying that those who inherit works (like I’ve inherited my dad’s) will have no incentive (nor will be able to afford the time) to scan them and Photoshop them, if all that’s ultimately going to happen is that they’ll be put into the public domain. > [@](#): > > Of course, the parody fair use exception takes away much of this right straight from the get-go (\*see, e.g., [The Wind Done Gone\*](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0618219064/qid=1064705726/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-4232496-0689426?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)). > And again I note that copyright is not supposed to be about protecting artists from hurt feelings. It’s about encouraging the creative process. And seeing ones’ work shit on is also very discouraging. > [@](#): > > And an artist that elects not to publish because his work _might_ be used in an offensive way after twenty years of publication isn’t worthy of the name “artist.” Sez you. Why _wouldnt_ an artist “think ahead” and wonder what might happen to their work? Do you think if it were open season and artists saw dastardly things done right and left to their work or their peers’ work, that they wouldn’t notice and it wouldn’t make them think twice about what they release to the public? > [@](#): > > I find it _extremely_ implausible that any significant number of artists would actually decline to create and publsh artistic works based on the possibility that it might not be protected twenty years hence. _You_ don’t find it plausable, but if a person devotes their lives to the work, and sees the trends, then by the time they’re 35 or 40 (providing they started to seriously produce work in their late teens, the way I did) then you don’t think they’ll be thinking ahead? They’d already have work that is close to being put in the public domain, and they will see what is done to that work when it does go into public domain. You don’t think that seeing their own work in public domain while they are still relatively young (late 30s, 40s) won’t affect the way they distribute their current work (which will be in the public domain when they are in their late 50s, 60s)? Think again. > [@](#): > > If the work they are creating _today_ (or within the past twenty years) isn’t enough to generate a full-time income, then these folks should no longer be full-time artists. Period. Fine. Go tell folks like Primaflora that. (Though I can’t speak for her definitively and state that she _couldn’t_ make a living if she couldn’t collect royalties from older books. I do think I remember her stating that she’d take a not insignificant financial hit, though.) So, folks like Primaflora are just dried up losers because they have work that perhaps fits a smaller market and doesn’t pay a lot, is that it? > [@](#): > > It seems to me that you want to encourage guys like our erstwhile inventor to keep on inventing. Given that, you’d want to give him _more_ protection than artists get – we want to maximize entry into socially beneficial fields, right? Oh, that sounds fine—give him _more_ protection—and people drop like flies while he sits on an invention that may save their lives. But artists don’t save lives. So they don’t have the incentive to keep creating and working to save lives or possibly make the quality of life for humankind a little nicer. They are completely different types of creators. I’d be all for extending the inventors’ patent, if people wouldn’t drop like flies (possibly) as a result. That “dropping like flies” thing sort of negates the whole “encouraging them to create by extending patents” bit. > [@](#): > > I mean, really – apply your own logic here. According to your logic, this guy will decide not to be an inventor and instead run off to law school (the horror!) because there’s a chance his patent will expire before it becomes useful. You don’t think that there are potential inventors out there who do that very thing? Who decide that this whole invention biz is thankless and why bother with the grief? It sounds like it is quite thankless and tough sometimes. But at least many of these inventors get the satisfaction of knowing they contributed something profoundly helpful to society, and possibly life saving. > [@](#): > > Why do you think artists – who, as a rule, love to prattle on about how it’s “not about the money, it’s about the art” – will be materially disincentized by a shorter copyright term, but inventors will not? Why would artists abandon art if the term is shorter, but inventors won’t abandon inventing over the same term? Oh, a lot of artists will still do the art, but they won’t sell some of it, because (as I have heard myself say from time to time) “I wouldn’t sell it, I would never get what it was worth.” I hear artists say that _now_, and you think it would be _better_ if the copyright terms were _shorter_? Artists have no incentive like, “Well, this invention could really help make people’s lives easier, or even _save their lives_.” > [@](#): > > It’s just that, if this old guy’s stuff from the past twenty years isn’t good enough to keep him fed, I don’t think society ought to continue subsidizing his poor later work just because he did some good work as a younger person. Who says “society” is “subsidizing” him? His selected clients are paying him a modest fee for _his own work._ No one is twisting _your_ arm or _my_ to pay him anything for his older work. What? I’ll ask again: Would you rather have him go on unemployment while he retrains for a new job? Or stop taking any photographs (or barely take any) while he struggles to scrape out a living somewhere else? Is it _so terrible_ the a few select clients _who want to use his work_ are actually _paying_ him for his older works? Why is it apparently so preferable to you that this old guy get out of the business instead of being allowed to have clients willingly pay him for his older works? > [@](#): > > And to answer the question: if this guy’s current work doesn’t make enough to cover the costs of doing that work (i.e., if it doesn’t cover his travel costs, etc), then he’s making an economically irrational choice by staying in that line of work. He needs to find something else to occupy his time. Ah. I see. So even though he was making a reasonable living selling _his own work_ (and continuing to make _new work_) to people who were perfectly willng to pay him a modest fee for _his own work_, well, he’s got a lot of nerve being in that business, so let’s tell he old guy the party’s over and he needs to get a “real job.” > [@](#): > > Please define the “Big Bucks.” I never said anything about anyone being rich. I’m not either. I don’t think that all that many artists or writers are “rich.” > [@](#): > > I said if you can’t pay your basic living expenses doing a particular activity, then you need to find something else to do. If your current creative efforts can’t pay your rent and grocery bill, then you may not be cut out for creative work (or you may be past your prime). Tell that to folks like Primaflora, then. Look, maybe it’s hard for you to grasp, but some people make a _decent living_ selling new works and older works simultaneously, and because of that, they are _encouraged_ to keep in the business, and therefore _encouraged_ to produce more works. But since they are unfortunate enough to be in a line of work that is notorious for being fickle and having a “feast and famine” element to it (even _if_ the artist is capable and more than competent) then _you_ want to tell them that they have “no business” being in that line of work. Well, screw that. Very likely a _whole lot_ of people whose work you probably already enjoy are in the “wrong business,” according to your definition. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/382 "2003-09-28T02:41:13Z")
Since the art I’m involved with is pretty much money free, I’m amused when people claim that fewer people would be doing it if they couldn’t make money at it. Julie ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/383 "2003-09-28T03:54:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yosemitebabe \* > **Yeah, yeah, yeah, some really great things can be “inspired” by original works, but a lot of shitty and wretched things can be produced too. Usually the shit outnumbers the good stuff, and if enough wretched examples of shit come to the surface, artists and writers will take notice and _not_ be exactly “encouraged” be the situation.** Spare me. Works of parody are already permitted under existing copyright law, and that doesn’t seem to be working a terrible disincentive to creative efforts. I have a hard time believing that any artist would decline to publish a work because somebody somewhere over twenty years down the road might make a derivative work – even a shitty derivative work – that he or she dislikes. And if such an artist actually exists, he or she needs to grow a thicker skin. I see no need for the law to coddle that kind of simpering, whining nebbishness. \*\* > [@](#): > > She’ll stick her finger in the air, see which way the wind blows, and try to promote the works that seem to have the most staying power for the next 20 years. Why bother to promote “niche market” works that _may_ pay off in the “long run” when she can devote her time to sticking her finger in the air, seeing which way the wind blows? Why waste web space (or portfolio space) “publishing” the oddball works, just to see them not generate much income in 20 years and then be thrown into the public domain? If she wants to make a living with only 20 years and younger works, she’ll be more apt to stick her finger in the air and see which way the wind blows. \*\* If you think you can predict with any measure of certainty what will or will not be popular over a \>20 year time horizon, you are in the wrong business. You should be picking stocks on Wall Street. Artists who are willing to take risks do so on the gamble that their work will be unique enough to gain attention in the here and now, not in several decade’s time. This is nothing but a rationalization that does not reflect the way the real world works. \*\* > [@](#): > > But are they willing to pay the original photographer a nice advance for the photos? No, because the original photographer is dead. They can save a lot of money when they publish these books because they have no pesky photographer expecting royalties.\*\* But they do have owners of the actual photos who, I’m fairly certain, do not just hand them over for free. \*\* > [@](#): > > I don’t trust his slides to the US Post Office, no. And I don’t trust someone else to scan them and “lose” them. And he’s got a LOT of slides. I can’t afford to scan a whole slew of his slides, take a lot of time to edit them in Photoshop, just so that maybe, maybe, someone will pay me a “small fee” to use them. (And from them on, I might see coffee table books printed with his photos, or see them distributed on the web for free, etc. etc.) I don’t feel like donating my time for that, sorry, no. \*\* Your inability to let others handle those photographs is your own little personal hangup; public policy should not be made over an individual’s particular idiosyncracies. And I daresay that if a publisher was interested in using those photos, they’d pay for the processing required to translate the slides to a printable medium. You, of course, are free to negotiate for a higher fee for the use of the originals, or for some kind of personal supervision over the scanning process, or even the right to scan the originals yourself. If you and the publisher can reach a mutually agreeable arrangement, then they’ll get published; if not, they won’t. This is no different than if it was your great-grandfather, rather than your father, who had been a photographer. \*\* > [@](#): > > As I said before, a lot of times a photographer doesn’t decide to “go pro” seriously until years after the fact. So their earlier, still good work was not promoted or distributed seriously – it was just published casually on the web (which now means it’s “published” work and the clock is ticking). \*\* Well, them’s the breaks. Failure to recognize the value of what is in one’s hands at a critical time is a common occurrence. Bill Gates bought what became the DOS operating system for around $50,000; the fact that the seller didn’t understand its value is just his own tough luck. Same for a young photographer who doesn’t recognize his own talent within 20 years or so. This is not a point I make lightly. On my web page, I maintain several course outlines I produced as a law student, outlines for which I could assert a copyright if I so desired. It’s theoretically possible that at a later date I could wish to professionally produce study materials. And yet I can see no reason why I should be able to assert copyrights in my old outlines twenty years after I wrote them. \*\* > [@](#): > > And seeing ones’ work shit on is also very discouraging.\*\* Well, good God, let’s get rid of that pesky fair use exception for parody. :rolleyes: \*\* > [@](#): > > Sez you. Why _wouldnt_ an artist “think ahead” and wonder what might happen to their work? Do you think if it were open season and artists saw dastardly things done right and left to their work or their peers’ work, that they wouldn’t notice and it wouldn’t make them think twice about what they release to the public? \*\* I hardly think it would be “open season.” People would still have to wait twenty years before they could freely create derivative works from copyrighted items. That’s a long time, long enough for most works to have passed from the public’s memory (including the creators of derivative works). Indeed, the only works that end up having derivatives made of them are those that have stood the test of time – today we see derivative works based on Shakespeare and Jane Austen, and not on the crappy novel published by Edna Snodgrass in 1898. \*\* > [@](#): > > They are completely different types of creators. I’d be all for extending the inventors’ patent, if people wouldn’t drop like flies (possibly) as a result. That “dropping like flies” thing sort of negates the whole “encouraging them to create by extending patents” bit. \*\* Again, use your own logic: long IP terms are needed lest people forego creating intellectual property. That is as true in the patent world as it is in the copyright world. How many people will “drop like flies” because some genius inventor elected to go to law school rather than create some new watchamacalit because he thought twenty years was too short a term? \*\* > [@](#): > > But at least many of these inventors get the satisfaction of knowing they contributed something profoundly helpful to society, and possibly life saving.\*\* And artists get the satisfaction of knowing they have added some beauty or insight into the world. That “intangible benefits make up the difference” argument cuts both ways. \*\* > [@](#): > > Oh, a lot of artists will still do the art, but they won’t sell some of it, because (as I have heard myself say from time to time) “I wouldn’t sell it, I would never get what it was worth.” \*\* Brief economic note: a thing is only worth what a willing buyer and seller agree to exchange for it. More to the point, (1) such an artist is protected under my scheme if he hasn’t published his work yet, and (2) if he has, what value is there in letting him hide his work from the world? By putting a time limit on his copyright, the artist is incentivized to share his work with the world sooner rather than later. \*\* > [@](#): > > Who says “society” is “subsidizing” him? \*\* The government is giving the artist a monopoly on reproducing his rights. That is a subsidy, just as surely as the government granting a monopoly to a company to produce a certain service is a subsidy. A longer copyright term is a larger subsidy than a shorter term. \*\* > [@](#): > > Why is it apparently so preferable to you that this old guy get out of the business instead of being allowed to have clients willingly pay him for his older works? \*\* If his new works can sustain him, then I have no objection to him staying in the business. I do, however, object to his riding on past successes for over twenty years. At some point, society needs to ask “what have you done for us lately?” Really, it’s just absurd. I can think of no other human endeavor where something one did in one’s twenties can form the basis for a substantial part of one’s income in one’s eighties. \*\* > [@](#): > > Look, maybe it’s hard for you to grasp, but some people make a _decent living_ selling new works and older works simultaneously, and because of that, they are _encouraged_ to keep in the business, and therefore _encouraged_ to produce more works.\*\* Why should we encourage people to continue to produce work if that work is inferior? The artist’s work over the past twenty years cannot sustain her. Clearly, that artist is no longer producing quality work. She is past her prime. Perhaps her talents would be better applied elsewhere. Look, I think it’s sad when Olympic athletes can no longer perform, too, but that doesn’t mean we should encourage them to keep competing athletically based on their past successes. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/384 "2003-09-28T06:53:47Z")
Yosemitebabe, am I a “leach” for enjoying the public domain works at [gutenberg.org](http://gutenberg.org)? Does it piss you off that I’m not paying royalties to Charles Dickens Great Great Grandchildren? Because this is the vibe I’m picking up from you. I know you keep bringing up the examples of how an artistic work MIGHT be popular in 30 or 40 years. But what about the 99% of works that ARENT tremendously profitable after all this time? Doesn’t the societal interest in having access to these works outweigh the hypothetical artists interests in this case? ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/385 "2003-09-28T07:09:56Z")
Oh good heavens, I get sucked in again. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow \* > Spare me. Works of parody are already permitted under existing copyright law, and that doesn’t seem to be working a terrible disincentive to creative efforts. There are a lot of ways to shit on someone else’s work other than parody. They tried to find a balance in “fair use” and apparently it wasn’t “use it for anything you want at all.” > [@](#): > > I have a hard time believing that any artist would decline to publish a work because somebody somewhere over twenty years down the road might make a derivative work – even a shitty derivative work – that he or she dislikes. Like I said—they may not think this way right away, but after they see something (or a lot of somethings) done to their peers, they may change their tune. > [@](#): > > If you think you can predict with any measure of certainty what will or will not be popular over a \>20 year time horizon, you are in the wrong business. So you mean that the person who does oil portraits of local businessmen can’t figure that this area of work (if he’s a good portrait artist) will give him more of a chance of income then say—paintings of ceiling tiles and eggplants? There are no guarantees with any kind of art, but you mean that artists and photographers can’t see what might be more of a “safe bet” and stick with that, rather than risking more time and effort into “experimental” works that might take a _lot_ longer to find their core audience? > [@](#): > > But they do have owners of the actual photos who, I’m fairly certain, do not just hand them over for free. And they also may have found the photos in a digital archive, where they were made into high res scans from the sole person who paid the owners of the photos a “small fee” for the use of the photos. And there’s absolutely no reason to not also put such high res photos on the Internet for anyone to use, since they _are_ in the public domain, after all. > [@](#): > > Your inability to let others handle those photographs is your own little personal hangup; public policy should not be made over an individual’s particular idiosyncracies. So what do you want me to do? Hand over his boxes and boxes of slides to someone else had have them sift through it in hopes they find something they like? > [@](#): > > You, of course, are free to negotiate for a higher fee for the use of the originals, or for some kind of personal supervision over the scanning process, or even the right to scan the originals yourself. And they can tell me that they simply want to use it for this “one project” and therefore I only should require a “small fee” for my trouble. But why should I trust them? Once they have the high res scans, they can sell access to the scans to other clients, print many different publications of the photos, do whatever they want. And there’s nothing wrong with that, because it’s in the public domain. I don’t feel like dealing with all of that hassle, just to allow them to distribute my dad’s photos and possibly make a lot of money off of it, thank you. But maybe again, maybe they really do only want it for “one project” and therefore they really can’t afford to pay me too much for the photos. But how will I know? Why bother with any of it. > [@](#): > > Same for a young photographer who doesn’t recognize his own talent within 20 years or so. Right. So, what do you think art schools and art teachers are going to tell fledgling artist students to do if copyright law were only 20 years? You don’t think they’d drum into their heads certain cautions and guidelines to try to withhold and protect their works as much as possible? I was certainly educated on “artist’s rights” when I went to school. (For instance, the evillness of work for hire was thoroughly drummed into my head.) > [@](#): > > And yet I can see no reason why I should be able to assert copyrights in my old outlines twenty years after I wrote them. And because _you_ don’t think you want to keep rights to your old articles, no one else should be able to keep rights to their old works either? > [@](#): > > People would still have to wait twenty years before they could freely create derivative works from copyrighted items. That’s a long time, long enough for most works to have passed from the public’s memory (including the creators of derivative works). Tell that to a 40 year old person who is seeing their early works go to public domain. I doubt that they’ll be so quick to forget or not mind if they see someone doing something wretched with their work, or to one of their friends’ works. > [@](#): > > Again, use your own logic: long IP terms are needed lest people forego creating intellectual property. That is as true in the patent world as it is in the copyright world. How many people will “drop like flies” because some genius inventor elected to go to law school rather than create some new watchamacalit because he thought twenty years was too short a term? How do you know that they aren’t? How do you know that some genius who could have found the cure for cancer ended up representing OJ instead? > [@](#): > > And artists get the satisfaction of knowing they have added some beauty or insight into the world. And they’ll see leeches using their work in unpleasant ways, and so forth. Art ain’t the cure for cancer, baby. It’s not even as important as football, according to some people. (And a lot of high schools.) . > [@](#): > > By putting a time limit on his copyright, the artist is incentivized to share his work with the world sooner rather than later. Not if he’s worried that the world is “not ready” for it yet. He’ll wait and see if it’s in fashion before he’ll release it. There’s no percentage in releasing it before its time, just to watch it die on the vine. And you don’t thnk that art teachers won’t hammer that point into students’ heads at art school, and write articles about it in art magazines? > [@](#): > > That is a subsidy, just as surely as the government granting a monopoly to a company to produce a certain service is a subsidy. And how much money, dollars and cents, are you paying to the old photographer who is selling his photos? How much out of pocket are you because he’s still working fulltime? > [@](#): > > At some point, society needs to ask “what have you done for us lately?” :shrug: He’s still doing stuff, and it’s still good, and people are still enjoying his new work. And he’s in a business that pays kind of crappy. > [@](#): > > Why should we encourage people to continue to produce work if that work is inferior? How in the earth do _you_ know that it’s “inferior”? Do you think that Primaflora’s work is “inferior”? This is the thing that gets me—you automatically assume that lack of a significant income means “crappy, untalented hack.” But that’s often not how it works at all in the art world. There are a lot of “overnight successes” that took years to get noticed. So were they crappy and untalented all those years before they got their big break? Or were they actually _good_ all those years that they struggled to make ends meet? Or, do you believe that they suddenly transformed from a poor, talentless loser to an amazingly talented genius the minute their first big paycheck came in? How do you think this works, exactly? Is it like some light switch, where one minute they’re a loser, the next minute they’re great, all dependent on their bank balance? > [@](#): > > Perhaps her talents would be better applied elsewhere. You don’t know what her talents _are_. You assume that just because someone isn’t getting paid a lot that they are losers or failures. The fact is, a lot of creative areas are thankless, fickle and low-paying. Doesn’t mean that the artists are losers, it’s just part of the business. A lot of really capable artists and writers don’t automatically make a great income. But income from their older work (that people still enjoy) sometimes _can_ help them make ends meet, and you want to begrude them that? Unless you think that the true testament to an artist’s excellence is a healthy bank account and popularity, in which case, Britney is a freakin’ genius. > [@](#): > > Blaron wrote: > > Does it piss you off that I’m not paying royalties to Charles Dickens Great Great Grandchildren? Because this is the vibe I’m picking up from you. No, I’ve repeated, Life + 35 years (or 50 years) is fine with me. But while you’re here, I’d like to ask you—do you think that all artists or anyone who take money for their creative work are “whores”? That’s something you your clearly stated previously in this thread. So, are we all “ **whores** ” to you, Blalron? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/386 "2003-09-28T13:23:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yosemitebabe \* > \*\*Like I said – they may not think this way right away, but after they see something (or a lot of somethings) done to their peers, they may change their tune. \*\* I’d really like to meet one of these thin-skinned artists that give up on creating art entirely because someone does something they don’t like with their work 20 years after creation. I think this person is entirely fictional, or if they do exist, they make up an immaterial portion of the creative community. \*\* > [@](#): > > So you mean that the person who does oil portraits of local businessmen can’t figure that this area of work (if he’s a good portrait artist) will give him more of a chance of income then say – paintings of ceiling tiles and eggplants? There are no guarantees with any kind of art, but you mean that artists and photographers can’t see what might be more of a “safe bet” and stick with that, rather than risking more time and effort into “experimental” works that might take a _lot_ longer to find their core audience? \*\* Enough of this bullshit. Show me an artist – any artist – who expected, at the time of creation, to not see any money from his creation until over 20 years after he created it. Even the most daring and cutting-edge photographers – the Robert Mapplethorpes of the world, let’s say – expected to get paid in a few years’ time. Again, I believe this hypothetical person you’re positing simply does not exist. \*\* > [@](#): > > And they also may have found the photos in a digital archive, where they were made into high res scans from the sole person who paid the owners of the photos a “small fee” for the use of the photos. \*\* Yes. So what? If the owners feel they didn’t get a high enough fee, they have only themselves to blame. They should have held out for a higher price from the first purchaser. \*\* > [@](#): > > So what do you want me to do? Hand over his boxes and boxes of slides to someone else had have them sift through it in hopes they find something they like? \*\* That’s up to you. If you want to require viewers of your slides to pay for the privilege of looking at them to see if there are any they want to use, you can do that. If you want to only let them review the slides under your supervision, you can also do that. (Of course, the publisher is free to go find some other person with photos who isn’t quite so anal about their handling). \*\* > [@](#): > > And they can tell me that they simply want to use it for this “one project” and therefore I only should require a “small fee” for my trouble. But why should I trust them? \*\* You don’t have to trust them. No one forces you to take that “small fee.” You are free to negotiate a higher fee, and if the publisher thinks the cost is worth it (perhaps the photos are just that good), then you’ll get it. In fact, you can negotiate with the publisher for limitations on what he can do with the photos. This won’t limit other third parties, of course, but it will give you contract rights against the publisher. \*\* > [@](#): > > So, what do you think art schools and art teachers are going to tell fledgling artist students to do if copyright law were only 20 years? You don’t think they’d drum into their heads certain cautions and guidelines to try to withhold and protect their works as much as possible? I was certainly educated on “artist’s rights” when I went to school. (For instance, the evillness of work for hire was thoroughly drummed into my head.) \*\* Dare I say that, while a good teacher will certainly explain the nuances of copyright to a student, encouraging them to withhold their work would be bad teaching. It would deny them a meal today over a fear of what might be done 20 years hence. \*\* > [@](#): > > And because _you_ don’t think you want to keep rights to your old articles, no one else should be able to keep rights to their old works either? \*\* No, I hold my view because I think copyright terms are too long generally – I think a reduction in copyright terms to a time similar to patent terms would not materially discourage the creation of art, and would benefit the public by having more creative work enter the public domain sooner. \*\* > [@](#): > > How do you know that they aren’t? How do you know that some genius who could have found the cure for cancer ended up representing OJ instead? \*\* According to your logic, this is exactly what is happening. Quick! Extend patent terms! I doubt that is the case. The pace of innovation in this country is staggering, even with only a twenty-year patent term. I fail utterly to see how a reduction in copyright length to a similar term would slow the pace of production of creative works, given that the incentive created by patents and copyrights are the same – a monopoly on the use of a person’s intellectual work in order to allow them to profit from that work. \*\* > [@](#): > > And they’ll see leeches using their work in unpleasant ways, and so forth. \*\* I love how you consider the creators of derivative works “leeches.” Are the creators of _West Side Story_ “leeches?” \*\* > [@](#): > > Art ain’t the cure for cancer, baby. It’s not even as important as football, according to some people. (And a lot of high schools.) \*\* You miss my point. You were asserting that inventors get intangible satisfaction from their work (helping the world, etc). But of course, artists get similar satisfactions. You can’t have it both ways – if you get to count such things for one group, you have to count them for the other as well. \*\* > [@](#): > > And how much money, dollars and cents, are you paying to the old photographer who is selling his photos? \*\* Not every subsidy is a direct expenditure. When cable companies are granted a monopoly to sell their service in a particular area, that is also a subsidy, even though tax dollars are not given to the company directly. A government-granted monopoly is a subsidy. \*\* > [@](#): > > :shrug: He’s still doing stuff, and it’s still good, and people are still enjoying his new work. And he’s in a business that pays kind of crappy. \*\* If his new stuff is still “good” why is it paying “kind of crappy”? How did this guy live when all he had was “new stuff”? If you can’t eke out a decent living off of your current work, then perhaps it’s time to move on to something else. \*\* > [@](#): > > This is the thing that gets me – you automatically assume that lack of a significant income means “crappy, untalented hack.” \*\* That’s not what I’ve said at all. A lawyer might well be a great lawyer, but if he finds himself (for whatever reason) in a position where he can’t sell his legal services in such a way as to sustain himself, he may need to consider changing fields. That’s the way a capitalist economy works. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/387 "2003-09-28T20:35:54Z")
> [@](#): > > But while you’re here, I’d like to ask you—do you think that all artists or anyone who take money for their creative work are “whores”? That’s something you your clearly stated previously in this thread. So, are we all “whores” to you, Blalron? If you overcharge, and act like a frigid ice queen in regards to your work, yes, you are a whore. The attitude you have with regards to your work is how I distinguish artists from art whores, same way I distinguish sex workers from sex whores. If I give someone 200 dollars for a blowjob, they shouldn’t act disgusted and begrudging every second of their service. If I give you 200 dollars to paint for me, you shouldn’t act disgusted that I’m not giving you more, and demand that you have control over making copies of the painting until 70 years after you are dead. > [@](#): > > And when I get my negatives processed at the photo lab—how will that work? Hell, a whole lab full of people see the negatives. They can do a high quality drum scan of my pictures, and have them made into prints, before I even get my pictures back. In regards to my whores versus artists analogy, you are the Aileen Wournos of artists. Just like Aileen was an ugly middle aged prostitute who was paranoid that every man was out to rape her and severely overreacted to her mostly unfounded fears, you are paranoid that everyone wants to “leech” from your art. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/388 "2003-09-28T20:40:48Z")
The saddest thing about you, yosemitebabe, is that you would rather hoarde your fathers old photographs and let them rot in the attic than share them. The leeches of the world might enjoy it without paying YOU substantial sums of money. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/389 "2003-09-28T20:48:52Z")
For all of those that are against filesharing, explain the following to me. I am book worm, a library rat, a geek, a nerd, use your favourite term, I just LOVE reading. I have hundreds of books of all kind. Lately and in a large part due to the SDMB, I’ve started reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy, two genres that I neglected till a couple o years ago. My problem is that in Argentina (see my location) book of those genres have the same prestige as pornography… and are not as easy to get. Result? The only way I can read even the “classics” is downloading them. So I use filesharing programs only to download e-books. Yes, it is not the same, it is really disgusting to read great books in crappy computers but as I said it is the only way I can read them. Last wednesday I was on a holiday ( on the 24 of September we conmemorate the Battle of Tucuman), so I went to the library. To my surprise they were selling “A canticle for Leibwonitz”, Instantly I took out my wallet and bought it. Now Estilicon is one of the select millions who owns that great book (with wich I was first introduced in Cafe Society). Conclussion, people that download something that they like will usually buy it, also if it weren’t for filesharing I would never, not in a million years, heard about that book, it’s author, etc. If it weren’t for filesharing I wouldn’t have invested my hard earned pesos in that magnificent piece of literature. So all those of you that are against filesharing: blow me. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/390 "2003-09-28T21:14:39Z")
Wow, Estilicon, you mean that you actually BOUGHT one book? I’m stunned! I’m sure the respective publishers and authors are delighted that you’ve read dozens of their works and actually paid for ONE. If you don’t mind my asking, was the library selling any OTHER books that you had already read online? You know, ones that you maybe didn’t think were ‘magnificent’? Would you have bought one of those? Yeah, I can see it now, Estilicon sees a book he’s read already, one he thought was decidedly average and decides to buy a fresh copy, just because it’s the right thing to do. That guy trying to eek out a living, writing average material, isn’t going to get a penny from you, you’ll read his book online and pass it up if you see it in a store. ---
**Author:** ![Nightime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nightime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightime)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/391 "2003-09-28T21:43:29Z")
I can’t believe I’m doing this, since I am a big supporter of file sharing, but I have to argue against Dewey’s copyright ideas. > [@](#): > > I’d really like to meet one of these thin-skinned artists that give up on creating art entirely because someone does something they don’t like with their work 20 years after creation. I think this person is entirely fictional, or if they do exist, they make up an immaterial portion of the creative community. The correct word would be “hypothetical”, not “fictional”. You are proposing a hypothetical change in the copyright laws, and then you ask for an example of an artist who has stopped releasing art because of your hypothetical changes? I’m sure you realise that is not logical. > [@](#): > > Show me an artist – any artist – who expected, at the time of creation, to not see any money from his creation until over 20 years after he created it. You are ignoring several possibilities: 1. The artist expected to recieve a steady income from their work (such as a songwriter who is payed every time his song is used in a movie or commercial). If that possibility was denied, it would likely be unrealistic to make a living as a songwriter - especially since with your plan, anyone wishing to use a song could just use, say, a Beatles song for no charge. 2. Many artforms increase in value over time as the artist becomes more popular or well known. An artist may accept that fact, and accept the fact that it may take them many years to gain high status, but if you tell them that even if they _do_ finally gain recognition, their reward will be the delight in seeing their work used for free in bad movies and commercials… well, that is pretty discouraging, no? > [@](#): > > I love how you consider the creators of derivative works “leeches.” Are the creators of West Side Story “leeches?” Surely you agree that there is a difference between a derivative work like West Side Story, and simply taking someone else’s creative work straight out and selling it. I will be the first to agree with you that works like West Side Story should be allowed. Copyright laws should be changed to allow such works. But that is completely different than allowing someone to just take someone else’s book, word for word, slap a new title on it and sell it. You see the difference, right? > [@](#): > > Yes. So what? If the owners feel they didn’t get a high enough fee, they have only themselves to blame. They should have held out for a higher price from the first purchaser. This is not even realistic. How high a fee can they possibly get if everyone knows that the scans can be used for free by anyone? And about the scans - do they get another 20 years of copyright protection? If someone scans their own work, would you give them another 20 years every time they did so? Otherwise you must admit, there is no incentive to pay for scans, when they can immediately be used for free by anyone. Oh, and as for holding out for a higher price - that is exactly the point, isn’t it? If artists are forced to hold out for a higher price, knowing that is their only chance to get _anything_, then how many will just not release their works at all? Under the current system, they might release their work for cheap prices, in the hopes that they become popular or gain recognition, thus increasing the value. But under your plan, it is a one time chance - and under that plan, chances are that much will never be released at all. > [@](#): > > I think a reduction in copyright terms to a time similar to patent terms would not materially discourage the creation of art, and would benefit the public by having more creative work enter the public domain sooner. I agree there needs to be reductions and changes in the copyright laws. But 20 years is too low, and would in fact materially discourage the creation and release of art. By your own reasoning, artists would be forced to hold out for a high price in order to make a living - well, doesn’t that alone ensure that much will never be released? Especially since it goes against reality - art sells more _after_ the artist is well known, popular, or gains distinction. However, by your logic an artist must hold out for getting all the money upfront! You are just not being realistic. > [@](#): > > But of course, artists get similar satisfactions. You can’t have it both ways – if you get to count such things for one group, you have to count them for the other as well. I agree with you here, and was quite surprised that Yosemitebabe seems to deny any such satisfaction. However, there is still a big difference. A copyright should allow more leeway for other people to use it than a patent. For example, someone can patent a part of their invention. However, even if you copyright a song, someone else can use the same chord progression. At least I believe they can… if they can’t, then they should be able to. The point being, patents are more strict, and thus should have shorter terms, while copyrights are (or should be) less strict, and thus longer terms are not as much of a problem. In fact, I would say that you are dealing with the copyright problem in the wrong way: The main solution is to deal with how _strict_ copyright laws are, rather than how _long_ they are. Although I agree they are currently too long also. All of your complaints (West Side Story, etc) are actually about the strictness of copyrights, not the length. If we gave people more leeway to use copyrighted works, added to fair use, and made it harder to copyright common things, then that would solve most of the problems. We don’t have to actually allow people to take a work straight out, and sell it as is while the artist is still using it to survive! That is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/392 "2003-09-28T22:49:36Z")
Wow, Nightime, you covered everything I wanted to say (well, _should_ have said) so articulately. Well done. And you’re right about copyright being too _strict_—I hate to hear about someone suing someone else over some tenuous, hard-to-detect similarity between two works. And I know for my own self—if someone “borrows” one of my photos to use in a collage, but it’s changed enough that I don’t even recognize it (or felt somewhat uncertain it was mine) then hell—let 'em take it. I don’t care. But I am getting the impression that even using a _fraction_ of someone else’s copyrighted image is “forbidden” by some purists, and that’s going way too far for me. And actually, you’re also right about me feeling some “gratification” off of my artistic work. (But I don’t pretend that it’s even _remotely_ related to the feeling of accomplishment a great inventor feels when they save lives, for instance.) In fact, “I give away” substantial bits of my work (tutorials, for instance) and feel gratification from that. But I grate at the idea that I _must_ give it away. And since **I** am giving these things away (but on my own terms), I wouldn’t like to find out that someone was selling them somewhere for a profit. Well, anyway, I think you’ve covered most of the points I wanted to cover, and obviously did it far better than I was doing. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blalron \* > If you overcharge, and act like a frigid ice queen in regards to your work, yes, you are a whore. That’s not the question. Are _all_ artists whores? They sell their work for money. Are they whores? Yes or no? Remember—we all see what you wrote previously. > [@](#): > > The attitude you have with regards to your work is how I distinguish artists from art whores, same way I distinguish sex workers from sex whores. You mean because I know that I have rights as an artist? That makes me a “whore”? > [@](#): > > If I give someone 200 dollars for a blowjob, they shouldn’t act disgusted and begrudging every second of their service. I don’t think that I’ve indicated that I “begrudge” giving a service, I just don’t want it _taken_ from me without my permission, or “leeched” off of me. Surely you see the difference? > [@](#): > > If I give you 200 dollars to paint for me, you shouldn’t act disgusted that I’m not giving you more, and demand that you have control over making copies of the painting until 70 years after you are dead. Honey, it’s the _law_, and I know my rights. I am sorry that you are ignorant of the law or artists’ rights, but that doesn’t make _me_ a whore. In the case of me doing a portrait for commission, I don’t think I’d sell “all rights” for $200. But I also would probably see no need to publish your portrait anywhere, other than in my portfolio. If you want someone to sell you “all rights” then you have to pay them for all rights. If you wanted to use your portrait for a high-proile ad campaign, for instance, you’d have to pay me, not just for the portrait (if you wanted to physically keep it, and not just use it for publication) but you’d also have to pay me for publication rights. And if we agreed on a price, I would very happily do your portrait _and_ sell you the rights to put it on the ad campaign, _and_ you’d get the painting to display on your wall. And I wouldn’t be begrudging about it. If, however, you thought my prices were “too high” (if you think $200 is sufficient to pay for the actual portrait _and_ “all rights,” I think you would think my prices were too high) then that’s fine. Don’t commission me to do a portrait. No problem. > [@](#): > > The saddest thing about you, yosemitebabe, is that you would rather hoarde your fathers old photographs and let them rot in the attic than share them. The leeches of the world might enjoy it without paying YOU substantial sums of money. I think Nightime covered this pretty well. Look—I have to scan them, and Photoshop them. There are, literally, _thousands_ of them. They all have that magenta cast in them that comes from old Kodachrome slides, and it takes time to get that stuff out. I’m not going to let someone else paw through them and pick over them. I’m not going to trust them to FedEx, when I know I can do a reasonably sufficient job of scanning them and preparing them myself. Maybe _you_ wouldn’t feel uncomfortable shipping something really precious and irreplacable off to someone else, but I would. Do _you_ want to donate hundreds of hours color correcting slides, just so that they can be “donated”? If you do, bully for you, but I don’t. I can justify the scanning time and the Photoshop time if I can get some income out of it, but if that were not the case, well, I’ve got other projects that can get me income. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/393 "2003-09-28T23:00:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cheesesteak \* > \*\*That guy trying to eek out a living, writing average material, isn’t going to get a penny from you, you’ll read his book online and pass it up if you see it in a store. \*\* Um, I rarely buy books. I get them from the library. That guy trying to eke out a living isn’t getting a penny from me, either. Should I be ashamed? Julie ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/394 "2003-09-28T23:18:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nightime \* > \*\*The correct word would be “hypothetical”, not “fictional”. You are proposing a hypothetical change in the copyright laws, and then you ask for an example of an artist who has stopped releasing art because of your hypothetical changes? \*\* You’re dinging me for what amounts to a typographical error. I should have included the word “would” in the quoted sentence, as in “I’d really like to meet one of these thin-skinned artists that _would_ give up on creating art entirely because someone does something they don’t like with their work 20 years after creation.” Yes, if you read my original Talmudically, it’s technically incorrect. But I think the point I was making was clear: I don’t think there are any artists out there, or at least any material number of artists out there, that would shy away from creating a work because somebody might create a derivative work they find offensive twenty years down the road. \*\* > [@](#): > > You are ignoring several possibilities: > > 1. The artist expected to recieve a steady income from their work (such as a songwriter who is payed every time his song is used in a movie or commercial). If that possibility was denied, it would likely be unrealistic to make a living as a songwriter - especially since with your plan, anyone wishing to use a song could just use, say, a Beatles song for no charge. \*\* I think twenty years of steady income is enough incentive to encourage songwriters to write their music. I’m not suggesting that copyright be done away with, I’m only suggesting that the term be limited. True, older, public domain works would be freely available. But that’s true even today. Although the number of such works are older (naturally), there is a large reservoir of public domain music for musical artists to draw from. Oddly, the public still demands new music, and demands it every year. Songwriters would still write music, and would still have twenty years to profit from it. You do raise an important point, however: the artists’ expectations for existing works. Those artists expected a term of a certain length when they created their works. There is thus a fifth amendment problem with retroactively reducing the term of copyrights; it could be plausibly argued that such reduction is a governmental taking of private property. Retroactive reductions may therefore not be constitutionally feasible. However, there is nothing to prevent the reduction of copyright term for new works. \*\* > [@](#): > > Many artforms increase in value over time as the artist becomes more popular or well known. An artist may accept that fact, and accept the fact that it may take them many years to gain high status, but if you tell them that even if they _do_ finally gain recognition, their reward will be the delight in seeing their work used for free in bad movies and commercials… well, that is pretty discouraging, no?\*\* I don’t think so. I don’t think any artist creates with a view to what might happen twenty years hence. That’s an awfully long time. At any rate, such an artist will still be able to profit from his newly created works, as well as the works he created within the past twenty years. Presumably it is these more recent works that have brought him his recent fame and fortune. And sometimes, public domain can help the public rediscover a lost work that would have been lost had it remained under copyright. A good example is Frank Capra’s classic _It’s a Wonderful Life_, which due to a clerical error found its copyright not renewed in the early 1970’s (copyrights at the time had to be renewed periodically). The film was a bomb when it was in theatres, but decades later, after the copyright lapsed, TV stations started playing it around Christmastime – it was a basically no-cost source of programming. It caught on, and became a Christmas classic. Had the film remained under copyright, that would never have happened. (In the early '90s, the owners of the lapsed copyright successfully claimed that while the film itself was no longer under copyright, the soundtrack’s copyright remained valid and in force, which is why today you only see NBC showing the film at Christmas, and why there’s only one DVD of the film available.) \*\* > [@](#): > > Surely you agree that there is a difference between a derivative work like West Side Story, and simply taking someone else’s creative work straight out and selling it. \*\* It’s **yosimitebabe** that claimed the creators of derivative works were “leeches;” the point you are responding to was written in response to her complaint about an artist’s work being used in “unpleasant ways,” i.e., derivative works that the original artist finds offensive.\*\* > [@](#): > > This is not even realistic. How high a fee can they possibly get if everyone knows that the scans can be used for free by anyone? \*\* If the photos are rare and unreleased, potentially quite a high fee, actually. Imagine if someone found a lost work of Shakespeare. Don’t you think a publishing company would pay that person a fair sum of money to be the first to print the text, in spite of the fact that the text would be out of copyright? \*\* > [@](#): > > And about the scans - do they get another 20 years of copyright protection? If someone scans their own work, would you give them another 20 years every time they did so? Otherwise you must admit, there is no incentive to pay for scans, when they can immediately be used for free by anyone. \*\* This is actually an interesting question, and I admit I do not know the answer even under existing copyright law. I know you get a fresh copyright when transferring a work from one medium to another (e.g., when a photographer takes a picture of a painting). Is a scan of a photo such a transfer? Does transferring the photo from film to digital medium allow for a fresh copyright? Dunno. Good question. It’s one the law will have to deal with, even under the present scheme. \*\* > [@](#): > > Oh, and as for holding out for a higher price - that is exactly the point, isn’t it? If artists are forced to hold out for a higher price, knowing that is their only chance to get _anything_, then how many will just not release their works at all? \*\* If they hold out forever, then they’re cutting off their nose to spite their face. A fair price is what a willing buyer and seller agree on. If they can’t find a buyer at their asking price, then their price is too high. This is no different than any other article in the stream of commerce. \*\* > [@](#): > > All of your complaints (West Side Story, etc) are actually about the strictness of copyrights, not the length. \*\* Not so. If you expand fair use to the point that West Side Story could be created even while Romeo & Juliet were under copyright, you’ve just evicerated most of copyright law. The only thing that would remain forbidden is actual 1:1 reproduction of a protected work. It means that a person could use a protected work so long as he changed it just enough to successfully claim it as a derivative work. Puff Daddy is licking his chops at that prospect: he can sample to his heart’s content under the scheme you propose. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/395 "2003-09-28T23:28:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jsgoddess \* > \*\*Um, I rarely buy books. I get them from the library. That guy trying to eke out a living isn’t getting a penny from me, either. Should I be ashamed? > > Julie \*\* No worries, goddess, check this out, handily posted by Necros in page 2 of this thread > [@](#): > > The vast majority of copyrighted works in library collections were purchased or were acquired through license agreements. Often libraries pay more for copyrighted works than would an individual. This is especially true of subscriptions to periodicals, to ongoing reference works, and to electronic information. These higher rates are presumably to account for multiple uses in libraries. From this [site](http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Copyright_Articles&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=23450). Libraries are completely legal and negotiate with the publishers to ensure a fair deal. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/396 "2003-09-28T23:33:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cheesesteak \* > \*\*No worries, goddess, check this out, handily posted by Necros in page 2 of this thread > From this [site](http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Copyright_Articles&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=23450). Libraries are completely legal and negotiate with the publishers to ensure a fair deal. \*\* And yet, I don’t pay the struggling writer for reading his books. I pay a tiny amount to fund the library, but I’ve taken some books out two or three times. As a child, I took _The Wolves of Willoughby Chase_ out of the library about once every other month for two years. (I really liked that book.) Are libraries paying twelve times more for the books? Twenty? Two-hundred? I’m on a waiting list for “Buffy, Season Three” at the library. I’m 35th on the list. Did they pay 35 times the retail price for the DVD? If **Estilicon** could have taken these books out of the library, don’t you think he would have? It would have been much simpler for him. His monetary obligation would have been the same. Yet one is terrible and the other fine? Julie ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/397 "2003-09-28T23:54:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jsgoddess \* > \*\*If **Estilicon** could have taken these books out of the library, don’t you think he would have? It would have been much simpler for him. His monetary obligation would have been the same. Yet one is terrible and the other fine? > > Julie \*\* Sex with consent is sex. Sex without consent is rape. One is perfectly acceptable, the other is a crime. The publishers willingly sell to the library knowing exactly what the deal is. Publishers do not allow their works to be distributed for free over file sharing programs. The library has the full consent of the copyright owner, Kazaa does not. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2003, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/398 "2003-09-29T00:59:20Z")
Well, I doubt I’ll be able to respond to these as well as Nightime will, but a few things I want to touch upon: > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow \* > I don’t think there are any artists out there, or at least any material number of artists out there, that would shy away from creating a work because somebody might create a derivative work they find offensive twenty years down the road. I don’t see how you can know that. What, do you have some sort of psychic ability to tap into every artist’s heart or something? I don’t have any psychic ability myself, but I do know how I feel, and I have a pretty good clue about how some of my peers feel. I think a lot of people would keep certain works closer to their vest if they knew that the work would be free for the taking (and possibly screwed up) in their lifetime. (And note: I never meant to say that artists would “stop” creating, only that they’d not release certain works, or focus on other areas of creativity instead.) For instance, if I thought that my Life Drawing nudes could be used in something pornography-related during my lifetime, I wouldn’t publish them. I’d still draw them, but I wouldn’t publish them. I’m 100% serious. I don’t have some freak-out moral thing about others doing pornography-related work, but I never intend to have my work used in such a way, and truly—it wouldn’t be a grievous sacrifice for me to not release my nudes, since I do various other kinds of work as well. :shrug: > [@](#): > > I don’t think so. I don’t think any artist creates with a view to what might happen twenty years hence. I’ll take it you’re not an artist? I’m just telling you this. We were taught in art school to think ahead. True, a lot of really young artists might think that 20 years is _waaaaay_ in the future and it wouldn’t really compute, but when someone has been working for 15-20 years, it would start to sink in. I don’t know what else to say, other than since I doubt you are an artist, maybe you don’t know how it feels. You simply say that you don’t _think_ that _any_ artists would think this way, but I’m one artist who would, and does. I don’t presume that _every_ artist feels the way I do, but considering that I was not the only one attending those classes on artists’ rights in college, I doubt I’m the only one. > [@](#): > > It’s **yosimitebabe** that claimed the creators of derivative works were “leeches;” Well, actually, the people who want something for nothing are the “leeches.” I wouldn’t call my fan writer friends “leeches,” not at all. Of course, their work isn’t 100% dependent on the work of someone else. They are capable of creating original work (adapting their “fan” work to be marketable). > [@](#): > > the point you are responding to was written in response to her complaint about an artist’s work being used in “unpleasant ways,” i.e., derivative works that the original artist finds offensive. You do realize that artists are legally entitled to have [“moral rights”](http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property/library/moralprimer.html) to their work, right? This is pretty common in Europe and some support for it exists in the US as well (mostly for visual art). Artists don’t want “horrible things” done to their work. (Granted, some of these laws—especially in France—go too far for my tastes, but the fact remains: a lot of countries, including the US, at least partially acknowledge an artist’s “moral right” to the “integrity” of their work.) > [@](#): > > If the photos are rare and unreleased, potentially quite a high fee, actually. I love my dad’s work, but it ain’t Shakespeare. While you might think I could negotiate a high price for his work, I don’t. I’d much prefer to charge smaller fees to individuals for a specific use, and leave it at that. Trying to negotiate a one-time price to cover all that it possibly could be worth sounds like folly. Unless you think I should just settle on a “modest fee” and figure that if the publisher makes a bundle, well, that’s OK, because I got my “modest fee.” But I don’t. > [@](#): > > If they can’t find a buyer at their asking price, then their price is too high. This is no different than any other article in the stream of commerce. But their asking price _has_ to include all possible uses for it, not a “pay for what you _use_ and nothing more” kind of deal. It’s like buying it out completely. A lot of people have been taught to balk from this, including me. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/399 "2003-09-29T02:33:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yosemitebabe \* > \*\*I don’t know what else to say, other than since I doubt you are an artist, maybe you don’t know how it feels. \*\* Feelings don’t enter into the equation. I don’t doubt that many artists would be annoyed by their work being used in ways they dislike 20 years down the road, just as I’m sure they would be annoyed by offensive parodies of their work today. But I seriously doubt that a material number of artists would refuse to release his or her work on those grounds. I think 99.999% of the artists out there would just recognize such things as a risk inherent to creation, and keep on producing. \*\* > [@](#): > > You do realize that artists are legally entitled to have [“moral rights”](http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property/library/moralprimer.html) to their work, right? \*\* This is a relatively new area of the law. It is comprised of two things: a right of attribution ( the right to claim and disclaim authorship) and the right of integrity (the right to require that art remain unmolested). I have no problem with the former: a person should be given credit for their work even after the passing of copyright protection. The latter is bullshit. If I buy a copy of your print, including the payment of your royalty, I should have the right to do with it what I will, even if you personally don’t like it. At any rate, moral rights are irrelevant to the topic at hand. We’re dealing with copyrights here – the right of the creator to enjoin the uncompensated duplication of all or part of a work. Moral rights are unrelated to the unauthorized duplication of a work of art. \*\* > [@](#): > > I love my dad’s work, but it ain’t Shakespeare. While you might think I could negotiate a high price for his work, I don’t.\*\* Oh, I don’t doubt that a lost work of Shakespeare would garner a larger bid than, well, pretty much any other heretofore unknown work in the public domain. But that’s beside the point. If the work is work has value, people will be willing to pay money to publish it, even if it is in the public domain. You might have to hone your negotiation skills a bit, but sitting on such an untapped reservoir of literary value could certainly garner a good chunk of cash. Maybe not enough to retire to the Caymans, but a good chunk nevertheless. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2003, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recording-industry-takes-action-against-12-year-old-girl-forces-settlement/200697/400 "2003-09-29T02:34:33Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Princhester_ > **Let me get this straight: your whole concern is accidental infringement of copyright by artists happening to independantly come up with original work that co-incidentally reproduces other people’s existing work?** No, I don’t know where you pulled that from. I never said anything about accidental infringement vs. deliberate infringement. Whether it’s accidental or deliberate, the end result is that I’m prohibited from sharing certain information just because someone else has already done it. > [@](#): > > \*\*Say I happen to know what the cost price of several items that I need for my home is. I go into the hardware store and steal them without getting caught. But I leave enough cash on the counter to cover the cost price to the hardware of the items. > > Moral or immoral?\*\* Immoral, because you’re depriving the store owner of his right to exclusive use of those items - a moral right that doesn’t apply to intellectual property. Even if you leave him enough cash to replace the items you took, he’ll still have to spend his own time replacing them, and he won’t be able to use the items for the time being. Now, if you want an analogy that makes sense, suppose you sneak into the hardware store, take a hammer and some paint, and leave an identical hammer and paint bucket on the shelves. Moral? Yes. (Except for breaking into the store.) > [@](#): > > **But I take it that you don’t believe that a free bus line would put out of service a fee charging bus line on the same route? I think it is up to you to prove that laughable proposition.** Of course it would, unless the passengers had another reason to support the fee-charging bus line. Why would someone think he could make money charging for access to a bus, when another bus gives free identical rides on the same route? He’d have to improve the quality of his own buses to justify the price, or find another way to fund the bus line. > [@](#): > > **First you list a number of things that artists and their record companies might accidentally or due to lack of talent might do to themselves to damage their own sales, and then you use that to justify something that someone else does to them.** Artists don’t write their own bad reviews, and you can’t please everyone. A band could put out the Best Album Ever, and there would still be some critics who don’t like it, who may be influential enough to harm their sales. > [@](#): > > **You are aware that this is a total straw man, aren’t you? Yes it’s non commercial copying. In just the same way my stealing from the hardware store to fit out my house but leaving the cost price on the counter example is non commercial theft. I just want the stuff for myself, and I don’t want to have to pay what the hardware owner is legally and morally entitled to.** Oh please. First you claim that copyright law only makes commercial copying illegal, now you’re trying to claim… what? That noncommercial copying is really equivalent to commercial copying? That there’s some parallel between taking something from a hardware store, thus denying the owner the use of his property and making him go out of his way to replace it, and duplicating a song without putting anyone out? > [@](#): > > **And it makes intuitive and intellectual sense that it is immoral to steal someone’s opportunity by taking their intellectual property.** Just the other day I “stole” someone’s opportunity to drink the last cup of water in the cooler at work. Is that immoral? BTW, you ought to know by now that it’s impossible to “take” someone’s intellectual property. > [@](#): > > **The investors make no money out of their concerts because too few of those attending actually paid for their tickets for the investors to make a profit. The rest of the attendees are (unbeknown to the investors) using fake tickets. This of course is not immoral, because the band were going to play anyway, and they haven’t lost anything physically.** Incorrect. The owners of the concert venue are entitled to decide who can be in the arena and who cannot. Seating (and oxygen) in a venue is a scarce resource; the music played at the concert is not. (Of course, the venue owners shouldn’t be selling tickets that are easy to counterfeit. There are many cost-effective ways to detect counterfeit tickets; in fact, document security is my line of work. With a laser printer and a $500 machine, you can be sure the ticket you accept at the gate is one of the same tickets you sold earlier.) Now, would it be moral for people to stand on the sidewalk and hear the band play, without buying tickets or entering the venue? I say yes. > [@](#): > > **They make no money out of merchandising, because pirate merchandisers copy all their designs and undercut their prices because the pirates have spent nothing on designers or advertising campaigns and have less overhead. This is of course moral, because the pirates did not physically take any of the investors’ merchandise.** Is that commercial copying? Why yes, I think it is. Better luck next time. > [@](#): > > **They fail to sell their music to advertisers and commercial users, because the advertisers and commercial users just download their tunes off the internet and use them. I need hardly set out for you your own arguments as to why this is perfectly moral, and as to why your investors have not lost anything, because nothing has been physically taken from them.** Commercial copying again? Hmm. > [@](#): > > **The investors make no money out of commissioned songwriting, because when they send demo tapes, the recipients just copy the demos, say “thanks very much” and send the tapes back. They then use the songs but don’t pay. This is of course perfectly moral according to you because the investors got their tapes back.** Why was there no contract or NDA preventing the recipients from doing just that? You’d think a band would think ahead. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by yosemitebabe_ > **So, yes or no—you wouldn’t mind at all if new creative works were limited, the artists “held back,” and in some cases, decided that they couldn’t afford to continue creating stuff? You’d prefer this? Yes, or no?** I’ve already answered. Artists have the right to choose whether to release their works or not. If noncommercial copying became legal, and some artists chose not to release their works, the benefits of a looser copyright law would outweigh that loss. > [@](#): > > **So what do you see happening? Would the next Disney film that features Mickey Mouse (with the newer, shorter copyright limits in place) mean that Mickey would become Public Domain after a certain amount of years? Because you know what would happen—no new Mickey Mouse cartoons. Just keep recycling the old.** Well, as you know, Mickey Mouse goes back a long time, and some of the old Mickey cartoons would immediately enter the public domain (since they only remain copyrighted today because of retroactive extensions). > [@](#): > > [Dastar v. Fox: Public Domain Wins in the US Supreme Court](http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew112.php) > [This case] also reaffirms something the Supreme Court has been trying to convey to the federal courts for several years now – trademark law cannot be used as a subterfuge to extend the limited exclusivity enjoyed by copyrights and patents. > […] > In general, unless an intellectual property right such as a patent or copyright protects an item, it will be subject to copying, regardless of the availability of clever trademark legal theories. Trademark law cannot and does not create a cause of action for what is effectively a claim of plagiarism. That is, anyone would be able to copy the old cartoons, even though Disney has a trademark on Mickey Mouse. I suppose trademark law would still apply to the packaging and marketing of the cartoons; someone couldn’t pass the copy off as an authentic Disney product. > [@](#): > > **So, if I take my artwork or a photo to the Kinko’s to have a copy made for myself, and the clerk likes it, they can on the sly scan a copy, and then sell it or distribute it, right?** Distribute it, yes; sell it, no. You would, of course, be free to get the clerk to agree to a contract preventing him from making unauthorized copies or allowing others to do so, and holding Kinko’s liable for any loss of profits due to their negligence. The same applies to photo labs and frame shops. A shop that refused to make such agreements would go out of business pretty quickly. > [@](#): > > **Yeah, I know you see no difference between a local store and someone’s personal work. And I suppose you don’t care if someone’s religious music were “adapted” to be portray hardcore anti-religious message, (and all the while, the public associated the anti-religious work with the original artist). And if, say, someone makes a movie and gives it a happy ending, but someone else comes along and edits it so that everyone dies (and now the public gets confused about which version “belongs” to which filmmaker, and associates the unpopular “unhappy” ending with the original filmmaker, thus damaging the filmmaker’s reputation with the public), well, that doesn’t matter either.** I may be wrong, but I believe it’s already illegal to misattribute a work to an artist who didn’t create it. Good point, though: if it’s not illegal, it should be. > [@](#): > > **And if they can’t make any money off of it in a few decades, then maybe it’s SHIT and no one will EVER want it. In which case, why are you so eager to wrest this useless, hopeless, worthless, non-money-generating BOMB piece of SHIT away from the original artist? Because if it’s SHIT, then no one will want it, even if it’s in the public domain.** Perhaps his terms for selling it are unreasonable. Just because no one wants to buy a painting of dogs playing poker for $500 doesn’t mean no one would buy it for $10, and if the artist refused to lower his price for decades, he could certainly go that long without making a sale. Or maybe you’re right, and it really is shit. Why should it be held out of the public domain just because it’s shit? Some people like the ironic ludicrousness of collecting a lot of shit. “All your base are belong to us” and “1920’s style death ray” were shit and just look at how popular they were. 😉 > [@](#): > > **But if instead he’s just ahead of his time, and the work needs some years to “find its audience,” well, tough shit. That’ll teach that artist to stop doing things that are “ahead of their time.” Better to do something pithy and trendy and possibly shallow, rather than “ahead of its time.” So let’s punish artists who are ahead of their time.** How can one tell the difference between artists who are “ahead of their time” and artists who are just no good at making and/or selling art? > [@](#): > > **So Romeo and Juliet are no longer “relevant”? Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is no longer “relevant”?** Like I said, some works remain relevant longer than others. But of the hundreds or thousands of plays contemporary with Shakespeare, how many are really relevant anymore? How much music from Beethoven’s time was crap that may have been interesting at the time, but has fallen through the cracks of history? Hell, when was the last time you listened to the Super Bowl Shuffle? 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