[News] Lawsuit: Warner does NOT own "Happy Birthday to You"
- Thread starter DarkAudit
- Start date
YES.
I would amend that.
I'm not sure about the 7yrs thing, I could see it go for much longer BUT...the rights holder must demonstrate that the product has been continuously offered for sale for a period of no less than 30 days. Get rid of all this "Disney Vault" crap. You can't make a thing and then sit on it forever without doing anything with it. Also, hard maximum on whatever the maximum is. None of this "extend it every 10 years" hijinx..
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
Nope. No more shenanigans, no more loopholes. 7 years. Done.
I hope you mean 7 years after the death of the creator because 7 years is a ridiculously short amount of time that no country on earth currently subscribes to. At best it's 10 years for photographs.
GasBandit
Staff member
Nope. I mean 7 years, full stop. I know they don't use it now. It's been perverted into what it is by the 6 corporations that control everything you watch, read, or listen to. But originally it was 7 years (albeit, admittedly, with one possible 7 year extension).
As a content creator, that's just too short a time frame for me. Hell, some books take 7 years to write, let alone only being able to profit from them in any conceivable way for 7 years? Nope, no way, no how. What Disney's done with the Mouse copyrights is abominable for sure, but the solution isn't to go so far in the other direction to make creative work even more unprofitable for people than it is now.
GasBandit
Staff member
It's not 7 years from when you start writing it. Also bear in mind that 7 years was standardized at a time when printing and distribution was MUCH slower and more labor intensive than it is today, even not counting digital content distribution. That was 7 years to sell and distribute the books by movable type, sail, and horse-drawn cart.
Oh I know how it works
We have to allow content creators the opportunity to benefit financially from their work and keeping a timeline so short does not do that; quite the opposite. There is a lot of risk in being creative, and by reducing the reward, it just makes it that much more difficult to succeed. And then the only content creators that can survive financially are employed by the corporations, simply exacerbating the problem.
I'd see the advent of the internet and the ability to distribute content much quicker as a reason NOT to shorten the timeline, simply because 7 years out, it would be so easy for that content to be distributed for free public domain.
GasBandit
Staff member
I think we have a fundamental disagreement then, because I think internet distribution makes it easier to profit more quickly during those 7 years. It also lowers the barrier to entry/self publish.Oh I know how it works
We have to allow content creators the opportunity to benefit financially from their work and keeping a timeline so short does not do that; quite the opposite. There is a lot of risk in being creative, and by reducing the reward, it just makes it that much more difficult to succeed. And then the only content creators that can survive financially are employed by the corporations, simply exacerbating the problem.
I'd see the advent of the internet and the ability to distribute content much quicker as a reason NOT to shorten the timeline, simply because 7 years out, it would be so easy for that content to be distributed for free public domain.
I think it's easier for sure and makes it easier to profit, but it also coincides with the largest illegal distribution network of content ever conceived. A little bit of good, a little bit of bad.
I'm with Adam-ish. There needs to be a definite point where stuff you make becomes public domain (which I assume would be Xxx years or the death of the creator, whichever comes first). Creative works shouldn't be locked up due to generation after generation of heirs squabbling over the rights, or due to the immortality of corporations. Copyright, patents, whatever. The hard part is the determination of a just expiration period that balances the ability to make a living (for the creator) against the benefit of releasing work(s) into the public domain. Creators will always lobby for longer periods of exclusivity, and consumers will want the opposite.
In today's economy, with today's social pressures and stuff, I just don't want to standardize on "seven years" merely because someone 200 years ago thought it sounded like "a good number."
The same technological advances that make it easier to create also make it easier to share/disseminate, so you might be able to make more stuff faster, but the freeloaders have an equally easier opportunity to freeload.
--Patrick
Long copy rights should benefit the creator. But when the copy right passes to a corporation the shelf life should be closer to milk's.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'd thought of something similar to that myself, but how do you close the loopholes? As in, for whatever reason, an author enters a contractual agreement with a corporation that has him sending all "his" IP money their way, thus allowing the corporation to de facto own the IP while still keeping it for extended duration?
My problem with the 7 year time frame is that artist starve, and the corporations continue to profit for decades.
Could do something like "Copyright is for the life of the creator or 50 years, whichever is shorter. Derivative works do not extend the length of the original copyright. ". It puts a maximum cap on copy right length even assigned to corporations, but gives a creator significant enough time to benefit from their work without the ability for it to be passed down to their heirs.
It's currently life of the creator + 50 years. Life of the creator allows them to benefit from it for a manageable period and doesn't allow them to pass on the rights ad infinitum. 50 years helps keep corporations (who don't have a foreseeable lifespan) from the same.
So you're saying that Stephan Pastis should lose control of "Pearls Before Swine" right now because the first strip is over 7 years old?
But, Gas is advocating 7 years, no exceptions. That would mean, to me (and probably more so to lawyers), that someone could start producing their own Pearls strips.
I think it would mean clarification would be needed to determine whether each strip would be considered its own work, or whether the entirety of the strip would be considered a "work in progress."
And this doesn't even get into the required discussion over whether the books that are collections of subsets of the strip count as individual works unto themselves.
This is probably why I'm not a judge.
--Patrick
And this doesn't even get into the required discussion over whether the books that are collections of subsets of the strip count as individual works unto themselves.
This is probably why I'm not a judge.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
Is pearls before swine "completed?" Or is it still being written?
Define it. The strips as individuals are completed, published and even collected, the strip as a whole is still being created today, by the original creator.
Same with comic books, do you define it as a title that is still in production (even if the first comic was 45 years ago), or would it be a comic by comic issue? Should Spider-Man be public domain?
This could probably become like an auto paste in the text box setting. Just toss it in every thread to cover everything.
I don't want anyone else writing Dill unless I'm either long dead or Hollywood gives me a big bag of money.
And every bill in that big bag of money is folded like that.