I can live with that compromise if it was the only one offered. My main gripe in this fight is to allow updates to old games that are abandoned and the rights are murky. I like the fact that copyright owners must actively renew their rights, because owning the rights to an object is different when it’s abandoned.
I don’t like how even with these abandonware games, nobody can really make an update to it for fear of litigation. A mandatory deposit of some fixed amount would allow these old games to see the light of day again. I think with that knowledge, even if the rights were nebulous, a company like Activision can take a game, let’s say STAR FUCKING CONTROL 3, and remake it and still profit, while the original owner Accolade or something, gets their cut for doing nothing
We must look at software in a different way. Copyright laws were created at a time when people still read books that were hundreds of years old, and nobody thought the printed media was going to be obsolete. Now who would buy a new game with 8-bit graphics? Very few, so publishers don’t see the worth in investing in it. But a lot of us have nostalgic memories and want those games, and properly emulated, people could play the old classics as they intended. The market is small, but it’s there. Plus, that doesn’t take into account updates and remakes. Nobody would rewrite Moby Dick, but many people, like myself, would buy a PS3 version of something like Blaster Master
The Framers’ goal with respect to patent and copyright:
The means they provided:
Here’s the problems: (1) diminishing returns of promotion, as the ‘limited Times’ get increasingly lengthy, and (2) stifling of new works based on the old works.
Let’s consider, as an alternative, that the term of copyright was, say, a flat 30 years. Who thinks that ‘progress in the useful arts’ would be promoted any less than if the term of copyright was any of the ‘life-plus’ terms being bandied about in this thread? That people wouldn’t write that book, wouldn’t create that computer game, write and record that song, or whatever, because they or their heirs and assigns wouldn’t be seeing any revenue in year 31 or afterwards?
It might happen, but c’mon, it would be a rarity.
Meanwhile, you have to remember that the limitation itself promotes the progress of the useful arts. Once the term of copyright expires, others can freely use that same character, that same musical riff, incorporate that same software, into their own works. The likelihood is that you’re stifling a lot more creation than you’re promoting by having the term of copyright being longer than 30 years.
That would seem to go against the underlying Constitutional purpose of copyright. I can’t see how that’s defensible.
I may be a rarity, but if I can reasonable expect in 31 years to see my character in bondage porn (or almost as bad, put in the hands of the guy who made the third X-Men movie), then I ain’t publishing.
(Heck, fair use kind of scares me already.)
But my plan only allows people to hold lifetime copyright, and even then only if they never sell it/keep selling it, so I don’t see that it’s going to make much of a difference in practical terms. Most stuff that’s made for sale belongs to companies and companies would only get the limited-length copyright. The lifetime extension for persons would do more conceptually to grant official protection to people’s diaries than it would do to anything on the actual market.
Nothing against it regarding other characters or people (and um, 'nuff said on that), but I want neither myself or my characters to be dragged into it against my will. Did I mention that my characters are quite literally extensions of myself? It’s true; some of them are cleverly disguised but they’re all Mary Sues.
(There may be other reasons I’m not published as well besides my own reluctance.)
Well, you probably shouldn’t publish then; even as fanfiction, much less professionally. If what you write becomes remotely well known you can expect the fetishes to start at bondage porn and go on from there, copyright or not.
Well, like I said, I am scared of fair use. I’m not clear on what it covers, but I think that bondage porn might be included!
That said, one has to ask what precisely the goal of limiting copyrights is, before we seriously talk about how we’re going to implement our solution. I was under the impression that the main serious complaint against copyright (as opposed to patents or trademarks) was that copyrighted material has a tendency to vanish entirely from the primary market due to seller disinterest, removing it from the market. That problem can be addressed solely by putting in something that allows others to publish the work if the primary seller stops selling it.
The second, less-serious complaint is that people don’t wanna pay for stuff - they wish copyrights would just vanish so they wouldn’t have to pay, and so that they can make and sell bootlegs and print money. I don’t care about such people, frankly - I think it’s perfectly fair to allow the creator to charge some kind of reasonable royalties from anyone who creates the product forever. If you don’t want to pay royalties, then create your own content to sell.
The third complaint is that companies are panicking due to rampant piracy and using copyright law to take potshots at pirates at pretty much random. Other than eliminating copyright completely, no solution proposed will fix this because most of the content in question isn’t abandoned or ancient.
So, what’s your goal here? Why do you want to end the copyright after 20 years? What’s the gain you hope to get when you cost a creator the right to make some (potentially small) royalties off of their early work, and the ability to go after people who make unsanctioned edits?
First, most of the time then “creator” is besides the point in the cases we are discussing; the actual creator is almost certainly not involved, and probably never saw a dime of royalties or ever had any say in how his/her/their work was used. And the people who happen to own the legal rights may not even be legally defined, much less willing to part with the work. And second, what I want is for the work in question to actually be disseminated instead of just sitting somewhere or only being available illegally.
They are the “lawful owners” only because we collectively say they are. Change that and they aren’t the “lawful owners” anymore. Nor by definition are they losing anything; we aren’t talking about something like land.
Being legally protected from other people copying something just because you happen to have a title to it isn’t a natural law or a moral imperative; it’s an arbitrary law that was set up to benefit society; if it isn’t benefiting society it should be changed.
OK. I suspect from your posts in other forums that you probably have a great book collection. I want it. Let’s just change your “lawful owner” status, and give the books to me. I’d really like to have them, and your “rights” to them should be taken away because I say so.
Yes, they are. They are losing the right to control the distribution of their intellectual property.
You can’t decide all by yourself what the rules of ownership are any more than you can decide all by yourself what a particular word means, or what constitutes legal currency. However, as a society we can certainly COLLECTIVELY decide on those things. We can decide that “glory” means “that’s a knockdown argument” or giant stone wheels can be used to buy beer, or all books must be shared communally, if that’s what we collectively want.
False analogy; those are physical objects. If you have them, I don’t and visa versa. If they were electronic copies and could be disseminated without me losing them I wouldn’t care in the slightest if you wanted a copy.
A “right” that is more of a privilege, and a highly arbitrary one. Taking it away from them is no more immoral than giving it to them, perhaps less. The only person or persons who has anything like a moral right to that work are the actual creators; who as said with software virtually never are the actual holders of copyright.
We are basically talking about people whose sole claim to fame is that they happen to have a large amount of money, and had nothing whatsoever to do with creating the work in question. In fact, you are quite possibly not even talking about any person or group that has actually been defined. That’s much of the problem here.
And under existing statute, it’s going to stay that way until 2067. If it’s not profitable enough to stay in print, sharing it around (even for free) is basically a crime.
The irony should be obvious. If it isn’t, consider this: this music may only be worth something to the owner after it’s stolen. Only about twenty people in the whole country would buy a CD of 1934 Bluebird 78s by Joe Blow and his Kokomo Hotel Orchestra. But if the record business becomes any more untenable, Sony Music could conceivably generate revenue by suing me into a state of penury because I’ve burnt the 78s to disc or traded files of them around.
Isn’t it great when money gets to control history?
How is it less arbitrary than, say, the right to free expression?
As a practical matter, if it is that difficult to identify the rightful owner, the risk of litigation is probably pretty low if the “update” remains essentially a niche market item. If somebody happened to hit the jackpot, they’d be more likely to get sued.
In my perfect world, once somebody sells a creative work to a single person, Its my opinion that they should lose any control of how its distributed or altered. All they are entitled to is money for their work. If they sell program X for $50, and I bundle that in with some other software in a package I sell, Then i owe them $50. They can’t tell me to stop it, they can’t legally prevent me from doing it with encryption or anything else, prevent me from modifying and reselling so long as the modifications are clearly labeled.
Basically I’d change copyright to profitright. You don’t get to control your work once it has left your hands, but you do get to profit from it.
Oh, and to enjoy profitright protection, you need to release all your source code and art assets in standard unencrypted formats.
Wouldn’t that make it pretty much impossible for anyone to make a living writing books? I mean, why bother investing several years in the production of a creative work if anyone who felt like it could make a copy it for free?
Here’s the thing: The idea of updating and releasing a “Classic” game would be to “hit the jackpot”. Say, for example, in the year 2027 someone wants to do a new Widget Master game. But no-one still has any idea who owns the rights and there are also several people who may equally have some claim to them at the same time- and the issue’s only become even more complicated in the 17 years since the last time someone thought it might be a good idea.
So, an independent game company decides to just go ahead and make the game, on the theory that it’s been 27 years since the last one, and really, who’s going to remember a four decade old game franchise from the era when computers still had external keyboards and mice?
If the game is a sleeper hit then you’re right, probably nothing will happen. The large company who actually owns the rights will probably not be aware of their ownership, or may not consider a 40 year old defunct franchise worth suing over. The fact no-one’s entirely sure who owns the rights may mean that inertia prevents anything from happening, and as long as the independent games company doesn’t try and create several new Widget Master franchise games, then
Now, let’s pretend that our new Widget Master game is a runaway success. It gets rave reviews, single-handedly revives genre gaming, and becomes an instant and beloved classic. You know what’s going to happen? Everyone with even a tangential connection to the copyright of the franchise is going to sue the makers of the new game into oblivion. Remember how, in the earlier example, the company that made one game ended up becoming a component of lots and lots of other companies? Imagine those lots and lots of other companies now hiring lawyers and filing lawsuits against the makers of the new game.
How does that last scenario encourage the development of the arts? Who is it protecting? There’s a difference between an active decision to withhold something from public consumption and simply not being aware that you even have it, or neglecting it, or just forgetting about it because it’s one of a billion obsolete titles your company theoretically owns the rights to due to two decades of mergers, acquisitions, and agreements.
Look at it this way: In many places, if you find an abandoned house, and move in, and treat it as your own (fix it up, paint it, etc) you can, after a certain period of time (many years) invoke “Squatter’s Rights” (also known as Adverse Possession) and apply to have the property legally transferred to you.
If it can be done with long-abandoned/neglected real estate, I fail to see why entertainment software should be any different. If the game has gone 20-odd years without a reissue or any active interest on the part of the copyright holder, then I honestly feel that the copyright on it should lapse and it should enter the public domain.
o:o