The inspiration and raw material to create something new
January 1, 2023 10:51 AM Subscribe
Today is Public Domain Day in the United States. This year, US copyright protection expires on works created in the year 1927, including the final Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, the silent film sci-fi epic Metropolis, and compositions by Irving Berlin, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin. While the laws governing exactly how long copyright protection lasts for any given work are byzantine and inconsistent, most works created in 1927 were protected (retroactively) for 95 years after creation.
US copyright protections have been extended multiple times for the benefit of a small number of large rights-holders (most notably Disney), leading to copyright terms that many experts agree are overly long and have a negative impact on cultural preservation, as well as denying creators access to older works as raw materials for their new creations. Despite this, Canada has recently extended its copyright protection term by another 20 years, motivated not by an assessment of what is best for rights holders and the public, but to meet compliance with international trade deals.
US copyright protections have been extended multiple times for the benefit of a small number of large rights-holders (most notably Disney), leading to copyright terms that many experts agree are overly long and have a negative impact on cultural preservation, as well as denying creators access to older works as raw materials for their new creations. Despite this, Canada has recently extended its copyright protection term by another 20 years, motivated not by an assessment of what is best for rights holders and the public, but to meet compliance with international trade deals.
I hate that copyright "harmonization" always seems to result in the country with the shorter term increasing to match the longer term, instead of the other way around.
posted by fings at 12:04 PM on January 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by fings at 12:04 PM on January 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
The copyright political shitfight this year is going to be one for the ages. Lobbyists must be salivating at how much money the mouse is going to drown them in.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:26 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:26 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
I generally think long copyrights are bad, but on the other hand, copyright at all is likely what will strangle AI art in its crib, which is good.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:35 PM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:35 PM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
instead of the other way around
But why should it be the other way around? Why should copyright terms be shorter, rather than longer? Why should they have limits? If I create a physical thing, like a building, it is mine to own and to enjoy any benefits from it (such as renting it out) until I sell it. And if bequeathed to succeeding generations, those owners continue to have the benefits of it, forever, unless they sell it. But if I create a copyrighted work, like a book or movie, its financial benefits to me and my successors are limited to 95 years. Why should it be less? Why not 995 years?
posted by beagle at 12:36 PM on January 1, 2023
But why should it be the other way around? Why should copyright terms be shorter, rather than longer? Why should they have limits? If I create a physical thing, like a building, it is mine to own and to enjoy any benefits from it (such as renting it out) until I sell it. And if bequeathed to succeeding generations, those owners continue to have the benefits of it, forever, unless they sell it. But if I create a copyrighted work, like a book or movie, its financial benefits to me and my successors are limited to 95 years. Why should it be less? Why not 995 years?
posted by beagle at 12:36 PM on January 1, 2023
Why should copyright terms be shorter, rather than longer?
Because we see further when we stand on the shoulders of giants.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [29 favorites]
Because we see further when we stand on the shoulders of giants.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [29 favorites]
I don't think anybody's arguing a no-copyright stance, and for sure Twain would be on the same side as contemporary maximalists like Disney.
The thing is, before the Act of 1891 introduced international enforcement reciprocity, US copyright law didn't cover foreign authors either, just like the other countries that were "victimizing" Mr. Twain! Furthermore, to the degree that he ever blamed copyright for his financial woes, certainly it was to cover for his terrible investment instincts. For instance, he spent the equivalent of millions of dollars on the Betamax of printing press technology and lost almost all of his money.
Harmonization is a good thing done badly, and really the problem is Mickey. But as long as people are afraid of being labeled communists who hate when people are able to live off their own "studies" (in the parlance of Twain's time), Disney will likely continue the project of perpetual copyright, implemented piecemeal.
posted by rhizome at 12:39 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
The thing is, before the Act of 1891 introduced international enforcement reciprocity, US copyright law didn't cover foreign authors either, just like the other countries that were "victimizing" Mr. Twain! Furthermore, to the degree that he ever blamed copyright for his financial woes, certainly it was to cover for his terrible investment instincts. For instance, he spent the equivalent of millions of dollars on the Betamax of printing press technology and lost almost all of his money.
Harmonization is a good thing done badly, and really the problem is Mickey. But as long as people are afraid of being labeled communists who hate when people are able to live off their own "studies" (in the parlance of Twain's time), Disney will likely continue the project of perpetual copyright, implemented piecemeal.
posted by rhizome at 12:39 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Everything we do on this site is literally because everyone who came before us invented a whole heap of stuff we never would have thought of in our lives. We don't just stop the world every so often and upgrade it. Our world is built upon continual improvement. If people couldn't take previous inventions and make them better due to jealously guarded perpetual IP rights then half of us wouldn't even be alive right now because we'd still be dying of communicable diseases before adulthood.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:41 PM on January 1, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:41 PM on January 1, 2023 [18 favorites]
HAPPY PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY!
posted by Going To Maine at 12:48 PM on January 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 12:48 PM on January 1, 2023 [8 favorites]
If people couldn't take previous inventions and make them better
Indeed, and inventions are therefore copied by patents of quite short duration, 20 years. But a work of art is not the same as a machine, medicine or other patentable invention. It's an immutable thing. You would not want to free it up after 20 years (or any other period) so others can "make them better."
By the way it appears that the Disney Corporation is not likely to push for new protections after 95 years. They have taken a number of steps to make sure that even Steamboat Willie, who enters the public domain a year from now, is still strongly trademarked. And trademarks (surprise) are in fact perpetual, so long as you keep filing the right forms with the trademark office.
posted by beagle at 12:56 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Indeed, and inventions are therefore copied by patents of quite short duration, 20 years. But a work of art is not the same as a machine, medicine or other patentable invention. It's an immutable thing. You would not want to free it up after 20 years (or any other period) so others can "make them better."
By the way it appears that the Disney Corporation is not likely to push for new protections after 95 years. They have taken a number of steps to make sure that even Steamboat Willie, who enters the public domain a year from now, is still strongly trademarked. And trademarks (surprise) are in fact perpetual, so long as you keep filing the right forms with the trademark office.
posted by beagle at 12:56 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you build a building then you typically have to pay property taxes on it, and if you don't the government can take possession of the building. Would you be fine with a similar setup for copyrights, where taxes are levied on intellectual properties in proportion to their assessed worth, regardless of whether they are generating income?
posted by Pyry at 12:58 PM on January 1, 2023 [25 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 12:58 PM on January 1, 2023 [25 favorites]
You would not want to free it up after 20 years (or any other period) so others can "make them better."
Disney's business model is literally taking PD works and turning them into spectacles greater than the sum of its parts.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:59 PM on January 1, 2023 [30 favorites]
Disney's business model is literally taking PD works and turning them into spectacles greater than the sum of its parts.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:59 PM on January 1, 2023 [30 favorites]
It seems Twain's main arguments were twofold:
1. There simply weren't enough authors who wrote books that lasted.
posted by achrise at 1:18 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
1. There simply weren't enough authors who wrote books that lasted.
One author per year produces a book which can outlive the forty-two year limit, and that is all. This nation can not produce two authors per year who can create a book that will outlast forty-two years. The thing is demonstrably impossible. It can not be done.And B. There just weren't that many good books (bolding mine)
I made an estimate once when I was to be called before the copyright committee of the House of Lords, as to the output of books, and by my estimate we had issued and published in this country since the Declaration of Independence 220.000 books. What was the use of protecting those books by coypright? They are all gone. They had all perished before they were 10 years old. There is only about one book in a thousand that can outlive forty-two years of copyright.Apparently his thought was that most stuff was shit and didn't need protecting, so society could afford to grant forever rights to the very few works that survived time.
posted by achrise at 1:18 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
where taxes are levied on intellectual properties in proportion to their assessed worth, regardless of whether they are generating income?
(a) A commercial property that has zero income generally has a far lower assessment than one that is.
(b) Real estate property taxes are levied to pay for various government services from which the owner benefits, like keeping the roads to the building in good repair; intellectual property doesn't require such services
(c) Taxes are certainly levied on the actual income derived from copyrights. So actually a longer copyright period results in a longer tax period for the government.
posted by beagle at 1:24 PM on January 1, 2023
(a) A commercial property that has zero income generally has a far lower assessment than one that is.
(b) Real estate property taxes are levied to pay for various government services from which the owner benefits, like keeping the roads to the building in good repair; intellectual property doesn't require such services
(c) Taxes are certainly levied on the actual income derived from copyrights. So actually a longer copyright period results in a longer tax period for the government.
posted by beagle at 1:24 PM on January 1, 2023
Apparently his thought was that most stuff was shit and didn't need protecting, so society could afford to grant forever rights to the very few works that survived time.
That's twisting his logic a bit. His point is that those few authors with long-lasting works don't deserve to have their copyright expire after 42 years and then have their books be republished by "pirates ... and they get the profit that properly should have gone to wife and children." So he argued for copyrights lasting the life of the author plus 50 years (knowing full well that perpetuity was never going to fly). He didn't prevail, but in fact, in 1978 Congress finally did exactly that.
posted by beagle at 1:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
That's twisting his logic a bit. His point is that those few authors with long-lasting works don't deserve to have their copyright expire after 42 years and then have their books be republished by "pirates ... and they get the profit that properly should have gone to wife and children." So he argued for copyrights lasting the life of the author plus 50 years (knowing full well that perpetuity was never going to fly). He didn't prevail, but in fact, in 1978 Congress finally did exactly that.
posted by beagle at 1:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Let's not forget to backdrop Mark Twain's self interest with financial difficulties resulting from his uncritical investment.
posted by grokus at 1:46 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by grokus at 1:46 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Real estate property taxes are levied to pay for various government services from which the owner benefits, like keeping the roads to the building in good repair; intellectual property doesn't require such services
Intellectual property owners rely on government services, too. Like the courts in which they enforce their intellectual property rights.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:47 PM on January 1, 2023 [15 favorites]
Intellectual property owners rely on government services, too. Like the courts in which they enforce their intellectual property rights.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:47 PM on January 1, 2023 [15 favorites]
>That's twisting his logic a bit. His point is that those few authors with long-lasting works don't deserve to have their copyright expire after 42 years and then have their books be republished by "pirates ... and they get the profit that properly should have gone to wife and children."
Either way, this a complete joke notion that doesn't play out in history at all. Companies usually end up owning any popular or notable IP, do not fairly compensate those who make the products of that IP, and sometimes have literally nothing to do with it, just bought it from some other inhuman entity juggling around IP so far divorced from any notion of compensating the creator I don't see why we should acknowledge it.
Owning ideas is stupid and disgusting, any idea you have belongs to all of humanity, you didn't have that fucking idea by yourself. If you want to have secret ideas you don't owe to everyone else, try growing up removed from civilization in a cave somewhere next life.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:50 PM on January 1, 2023 [18 favorites]
Either way, this a complete joke notion that doesn't play out in history at all. Companies usually end up owning any popular or notable IP, do not fairly compensate those who make the products of that IP, and sometimes have literally nothing to do with it, just bought it from some other inhuman entity juggling around IP so far divorced from any notion of compensating the creator I don't see why we should acknowledge it.
Owning ideas is stupid and disgusting, any idea you have belongs to all of humanity, you didn't have that fucking idea by yourself. If you want to have secret ideas you don't owe to everyone else, try growing up removed from civilization in a cave somewhere next life.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:50 PM on January 1, 2023 [18 favorites]
(Truly, did not think this would be a spicy thread, but man.)
posted by Going To Maine at 1:56 PM on January 1, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 1:56 PM on January 1, 2023 [14 favorites]
By the time Twain made those presentations to government, he was old, bitter and very broke. Around 25 years before that speech, he was approached by a somewhat opportunistic engineer called James Paige who claimed he could have an automatic typesetting machine up and running in a few years. Twain loved gadgets, and especially liked the idea of being able to be in control of his own typesetting. He felt that typesetters took liberties with his precious text, and as a former typesetter himself, he had a little knowledge in the field. Twain invested heavily in Paige's machine.
Years went by, and Paige kept promising Twain that the machine was “almost” ready. Not merely did Twain sink all of his money into Paige's R&D, he invested all of his wife's money in the machine too. In 1886, Mergenthaler's Linotype machine hit the market. It was an instant success, and was the main way that newspapers were typeset for nearly a century. Paige finally cobbled together a working machine two years after the Linotype: it required almost constant manual intervention, while a well-maintained Linotype could set type all day.
So yes, Twain was an uncritical investor who had been duped, and was ranting at the perceived injustices of a government who threatened to “take” his works. A little bit of due diligence can go a long way.
posted by scruss at 1:57 PM on January 1, 2023 [22 favorites]
Years went by, and Paige kept promising Twain that the machine was “almost” ready. Not merely did Twain sink all of his money into Paige's R&D, he invested all of his wife's money in the machine too. In 1886, Mergenthaler's Linotype machine hit the market. It was an instant success, and was the main way that newspapers were typeset for nearly a century. Paige finally cobbled together a working machine two years after the Linotype: it required almost constant manual intervention, while a well-maintained Linotype could set type all day.
So yes, Twain was an uncritical investor who had been duped, and was ranting at the perceived injustices of a government who threatened to “take” his works. A little bit of due diligence can go a long way.
posted by scruss at 1:57 PM on January 1, 2023 [22 favorites]
I am SO PLEASED about Public Domain Day and I always forget it's happening and I'm always SO grateful for these posts reminding me.
I am especially chuffed at more people getting more access to works by Berlin, Armstrong, Ellington, and Gershwin (or, as one of my favorite singers used to say, "Gershwins"), since jazz is such a deep and joyous and soulful and marvellous art form and so much of its heart is about sharing, reinterpreting, riffing. (One of the jazz artists I signed to my tiny indie label explained to me that jazz musicians in particular may not in good conscience be able to agree to not incorporate any other artists' works into their own, because that's what so much of jazz IS.)
As a content creator, copyright owner, and former record label owner, I personally support the shortest possible copyright terms, and would be happiest with 28-year or even 14-year terms; and of course I've given it a LOT of thought and would ALSO like to see creators get way more income than they are now, and - well, I have LOTS of thoughts on copyright and income, but I can't write them all out now because I have to go listen to some celebratory Elliington.
Thank you SO MUCH for this post, biogeo! And thanks to everyone who creates, and for all the joy and pleasure and utility we all get from those who are able to share their works, both under copyright and via the public domain!
I am in love with the public domain.
posted by kristi at 2:00 PM on January 1, 2023 [20 favorites]
I am especially chuffed at more people getting more access to works by Berlin, Armstrong, Ellington, and Gershwin (or, as one of my favorite singers used to say, "Gershwins"), since jazz is such a deep and joyous and soulful and marvellous art form and so much of its heart is about sharing, reinterpreting, riffing. (One of the jazz artists I signed to my tiny indie label explained to me that jazz musicians in particular may not in good conscience be able to agree to not incorporate any other artists' works into their own, because that's what so much of jazz IS.)
As a content creator, copyright owner, and former record label owner, I personally support the shortest possible copyright terms, and would be happiest with 28-year or even 14-year terms; and of course I've given it a LOT of thought and would ALSO like to see creators get way more income than they are now, and - well, I have LOTS of thoughts on copyright and income, but I can't write them all out now because I have to go listen to some celebratory Elliington.
Thank you SO MUCH for this post, biogeo! And thanks to everyone who creates, and for all the joy and pleasure and utility we all get from those who are able to share their works, both under copyright and via the public domain!
I am in love with the public domain.
posted by kristi at 2:00 PM on January 1, 2023 [20 favorites]
If we're going to talk Twain, we can also talk about Dickens, who fell entirely outside American copyright laws and received nothing from American editions of his novels. What The Dickens Is Going On? [RTMworld.com] Charles Dickens and the American Copyright Problem [CreativeLawCenter.com]
posted by hippybear at 2:05 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 2:05 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
But if I create a copyrighted work, like a book or movie, its financial benefits to me and my successors are limited to 95 years.
Because you are drawing on a deep well of “cultural property” to make your book or movie. Why should you have the right to create a detective story without paying the estates of Poe, Doyle, Christie, etc? So your work is protected for a bit, so you are rewarded for your work, then returned to that pool of “cultural property” for later creators to draw on.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:08 PM on January 1, 2023 [23 favorites]
Because you are drawing on a deep well of “cultural property” to make your book or movie. Why should you have the right to create a detective story without paying the estates of Poe, Doyle, Christie, etc? So your work is protected for a bit, so you are rewarded for your work, then returned to that pool of “cultural property” for later creators to draw on.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:08 PM on January 1, 2023 [23 favorites]
Remember that copyright is functionally unnatural - patents and copyright exist to incentivize creators. People have the copyright to works because it benefits society to incentivize creators to make things. If there’s an argument that eternal copyright terms would better incentivize people to make creative works, well, okay then! But arguments for that are actually kind of hard to make. The notion of owning idea is quite fraught - ideas can undeniably be “yours”, but what that means is complicated.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 2:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
Remember that copyright is functionally unnatural
The concept of property - real or intellectual - is functionally unnatural, as it's all a legal fiction.
The notion of owning idea is quite fraught
Let me stop you here, because this is a core point in this whole issue - creative labor is not an 'idea'. There's a reason why creative industries routinely say "ideas are worthless" - it's because there are so many of them, and what actually has the value is taking an idea and putting creative labor into it to create an actual work. Furthermore, it's this conflation of creative labor with ideas which is a major driver of why creative labor in particular gets treated like shit in our society.
patents and copyright exist to incentivize creators.
If you make this argument, you don't get to ever call anyone a "sellout" (which frankly is a despicable term used to devalue creative labor.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:43 PM on January 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
The concept of property - real or intellectual - is functionally unnatural, as it's all a legal fiction.
The notion of owning idea is quite fraught
Let me stop you here, because this is a core point in this whole issue - creative labor is not an 'idea'. There's a reason why creative industries routinely say "ideas are worthless" - it's because there are so many of them, and what actually has the value is taking an idea and putting creative labor into it to create an actual work. Furthermore, it's this conflation of creative labor with ideas which is a major driver of why creative labor in particular gets treated like shit in our society.
patents and copyright exist to incentivize creators.
If you make this argument, you don't get to ever call anyone a "sellout" (which frankly is a despicable term used to devalue creative labor.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:43 PM on January 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
I just want to note that while I don't agree with beagle's point of view, I admire greatly their willingness to express and defend that position clearly despite it being a minority position here, and hope that we can keep this a polite and informative discussion without it becoming a pile-on.
As for me, my mother spent her career in the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. I absorbed from her a strong belief in the importance of copyright for allowing authors of all types of creative works to earn a living within a market-driven, capitalist economy. I also strongly agree with the former Registrar of Copyrights, quotes in the article:
posted by biogeo at 2:47 PM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
As for me, my mother spent her career in the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. I absorbed from her a strong belief in the importance of copyright for allowing authors of all types of creative works to earn a living within a market-driven, capitalist economy. I also strongly agree with the former Registrar of Copyrights, quotes in the article:
Karyn A. Temple, former United States Register of Copyrights, described the public domain as "part of copyright's lifecycle, the next stage of life for that creative work. The public domain is an inherent and integral part of the copyright system. . . . It provides authors the inspiration and raw material to create something new."An eternal copyright would mean effective death for the vast majority of creative works, while the public domain allows some of them to find new life. And an eternal, corporate stewardship over successful works like Mickey Mouse rarely, if ever, does anything to benefit the authors of those works, but merely keeps them artificially animated to produce safe, unchallenging, profitable income for large corporations, and specifically their executives and shareholders. That is not what copyright was for.
posted by biogeo at 2:47 PM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
If you make this argument, you don't get to ever call anyone a "sellout" (which frankly is a despicable term used to devalue creative labor.)
I… what argument am I making? It seems fine to generally not call people “sellouts”, though as always there are surely specific cases that go against any general rule. Anyhoo, I always think of Wozniak’s response to Stewart Brand on this: “Information should be free, but your time should not.”
posted by Going To Maine at 2:58 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
I… what argument am I making? It seems fine to generally not call people “sellouts”, though as always there are surely specific cases that go against any general rule. Anyhoo, I always think of Wozniak’s response to Stewart Brand on this: “Information should be free, but your time should not.”
posted by Going To Maine at 2:58 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
squat all the buildings and pirate all the culture and fuck both Disney and Mark Twain.
(also, i'm basically a "content creator" for the likes of wiley and springer -- compensated in bullshit "prestige" plus a salary paid not by the publisher but rather by the public-ish institution getting screwed by the publisher via library subscriptions or "open access" fees -- who outsourced the copyediting (in many cases) and rely on volunteer labour for almost all the actual value (as opposed to bullshit prestige) they add via peer review. so line up the IP rentiers against the same wall as the landlords as far as I am concerned. everyone's entitled to the same share of whatever pie we can produce but you probably can't own your ideas and definitely shouldn't have to sign over that dubious ownership to parasites.)
posted by busted_crayons at 3:02 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
(also, i'm basically a "content creator" for the likes of wiley and springer -- compensated in bullshit "prestige" plus a salary paid not by the publisher but rather by the public-ish institution getting screwed by the publisher via library subscriptions or "open access" fees -- who outsourced the copyediting (in many cases) and rely on volunteer labour for almost all the actual value (as opposed to bullshit prestige) they add via peer review. so line up the IP rentiers against the same wall as the landlords as far as I am concerned. everyone's entitled to the same share of whatever pie we can produce but you probably can't own your ideas and definitely shouldn't have to sign over that dubious ownership to parasites.)
posted by busted_crayons at 3:02 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
A fight Negativland has been fighting for decades.
posted by hippybear at 3:21 PM on January 1, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 3:21 PM on January 1, 2023 [6 favorites]
No one has a right in perpetuity (or even at all) to income from works (or property) they themselves did not create. Inheritance is a stronger force of bad than good in our society, especially at the upper end of it.
posted by maxwelton at 3:33 PM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 3:33 PM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
I would also like to add to this discussion a website I have that exists purely because the authors chose not to avail themselves of copyright protection, in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Aberree was a monthly zine that started off talking about Dianetics (and then Scientology, once that concept was coined), and also talked about other self-help ideas and astrology and past lives and UFOs.
In the November 1954 issue, the publishers listed three reasons for choosing not to copyright their publication.
Thanks to their decision, I was able to put nearly the entire run on the internet for anyone and everyone to enjoy, 70 years later. There are hundreds of pages in over 100 issues. And inspired by their choice, I placed everything I added at that site into the public domain as well.
It's an unusual choice and a minority opinion, to be sure, but some creators are unconvinced that copyright protection is a good way to go.
posted by kristi at 3:36 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
The Aberree was a monthly zine that started off talking about Dianetics (and then Scientology, once that concept was coined), and also talked about other self-help ideas and astrology and past lives and UFOs.
In the November 1954 issue, the publishers listed three reasons for choosing not to copyright their publication.
Thanks to their decision, I was able to put nearly the entire run on the internet for anyone and everyone to enjoy, 70 years later. There are hundreds of pages in over 100 issues. And inspired by their choice, I placed everything I added at that site into the public domain as well.
It's an unusual choice and a minority opinion, to be sure, but some creators are unconvinced that copyright protection is a good way to go.
posted by kristi at 3:36 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
I… what argument am I making?
That creators should be externally incentivized to do so. Our society plays a two-step with creative labor over whether creators should be intrinsically or externally incentivized to create, shaming them for choosing one or the other when it's most convenient. My point is that if you think incentivizing creators externally is important, you don't get to take that back when it stops being convenient.
Anyhoo, I always think of Wozniak’s response to Stewart Brand on this: “Information should be free, but your time should not.”
The problem with Woz's rebuttal is simple - the two cannot be divorced. Again, a creative work is not an idea - there is an idea at its core, yes, but that idea has then been built on through creative labor, and you can't take that labor out of the work. And this goes beyond the usual things we think of with creative labor - for example, a market analysis is information, but it's a work created through the labor of that analysis, and that labor actually in part created the information - and thus can't be divorced from it.
(This is also part of what's fueling our issues with privacy - one of the old guardrails was that compiling information on someone had a labor cost, and it used to be expensive enough that few people were worth the effort. But that cost has cratered in recent years, and now it's cost effective to compile information on anyone, and we still haven't figured out how to deal with that guardrail being gone.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:41 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
That creators should be externally incentivized to do so. Our society plays a two-step with creative labor over whether creators should be intrinsically or externally incentivized to create, shaming them for choosing one or the other when it's most convenient. My point is that if you think incentivizing creators externally is important, you don't get to take that back when it stops being convenient.
Anyhoo, I always think of Wozniak’s response to Stewart Brand on this: “Information should be free, but your time should not.”
The problem with Woz's rebuttal is simple - the two cannot be divorced. Again, a creative work is not an idea - there is an idea at its core, yes, but that idea has then been built on through creative labor, and you can't take that labor out of the work. And this goes beyond the usual things we think of with creative labor - for example, a market analysis is information, but it's a work created through the labor of that analysis, and that labor actually in part created the information - and thus can't be divorced from it.
(This is also part of what's fueling our issues with privacy - one of the old guardrails was that compiling information on someone had a labor cost, and it used to be expensive enough that few people were worth the effort. But that cost has cratered in recent years, and now it's cost effective to compile information on anyone, and we still haven't figured out how to deal with that guardrail being gone.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:41 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
(also, i'm basically a "content creator" for the likes of wiley and springer -- compensated in bullshit "prestige" plus a salary paid not by the publisher but rather by the public-ish institution getting screwed by the publisher via library subscriptions or "open access" fees
This is a slightly different issue, and I would be fine for scholarly production from employees of universities that receive state funding to be public domain from the beginning, with no barriers to use and no coverage by copyright.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:42 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is a slightly different issue, and I would be fine for scholarly production from employees of universities that receive state funding to be public domain from the beginning, with no barriers to use and no coverage by copyright.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:42 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
I knew it would be just a matter of time before a bunch of Mefites would start arguing that my work is not mine and I should be dead. For some reason workers are valuable unless they commit the crime of writing books that people buy and enjoy.
Once again: writing and creating other kinds of art is one of the only types of work that is not paid for as it's done. We have no salary; we only get paid if we're published and our work sells, and for most of us it's a pittance. Stop thinking you're screwing over Mickey Mouse by opining that other people's ideas should be free to you. You're screwing over people living far below the poverty line.
As ever, I'm happy to agree that 95 years is too long. But 14 years is absurd. I beg you all to understand that this is not a fun theoretical game to some of us; it's our fucking income you want to take away.
posted by zompist at 3:54 PM on January 1, 2023 [20 favorites]
Once again: writing and creating other kinds of art is one of the only types of work that is not paid for as it's done. We have no salary; we only get paid if we're published and our work sells, and for most of us it's a pittance. Stop thinking you're screwing over Mickey Mouse by opining that other people's ideas should be free to you. You're screwing over people living far below the poverty line.
As ever, I'm happy to agree that 95 years is too long. But 14 years is absurd. I beg you all to understand that this is not a fun theoretical game to some of us; it's our fucking income you want to take away.
posted by zompist at 3:54 PM on January 1, 2023 [20 favorites]
As ever, I'm happy to agree that 95 years is too long. But 14 years is absurd. I beg you all to understand that this is not a fun theoretical game to some of us; it's our fucking income you want to take away.
I'd always thought "lifetime of the creator plus 5 years" made sense. That would allow for an author to reap rewards across their lifetime, and for descendants to gain a tiny bit if the author didn't pass anything else down. It would be more complex to manage (not really), as dates would not come based on creation date. But it could be handled, I'm sure.
posted by hippybear at 4:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
I'd always thought "lifetime of the creator plus 5 years" made sense. That would allow for an author to reap rewards across their lifetime, and for descendants to gain a tiny bit if the author didn't pass anything else down. It would be more complex to manage (not really), as dates would not come based on creation date. But it could be handled, I'm sure.
posted by hippybear at 4:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
I knew it would be just a matter of time before a bunch of Mefites would start arguing that my work is not mine and I should be dead.
No one here is saying either of those things and it only makes a challenging discussion more challenging by making such baseless, loaded accusations. Don't do that, please.
posted by ElKevbo at 4:41 PM on January 1, 2023 [27 favorites]
No one here is saying either of those things and it only makes a challenging discussion more challenging by making such baseless, loaded accusations. Don't do that, please.
posted by ElKevbo at 4:41 PM on January 1, 2023 [27 favorites]
I feel like there should be a difference between the copyright rights enjoyed by a singular author or smaller independent groups of creators, and massive behemoths of IP ownership like Disney, and in a direction that favors the smaller while preventing the behemoths from locking things up for nearly a century. No idea how such a law would be written though, to say nothing of the impossibility of getting such a thing passed under the current political climate.
posted by Aleyn at 4:48 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Aleyn at 4:48 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
Over on Twitter, Jess Nevins provides a descriptive list of all the characters from the pulps who were created in 1927 and thus fall into the public domain starting today
posted by cheshyre at 5:13 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by cheshyre at 5:13 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]
There's the short view of copyright and control of duplication, in which creators absolutely deserve compensation. Though I would also urge us to move toward a UBI model such that no creator's survival hinges on making it big
And there's the long view, in which we need to acknowledge that the only reason we still have any copies of some works was thanks to unauthorized copies. Because strict control of a work limits it's spread and makes it more vulnerable to loss.
posted by emjaybee at 5:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
And there's the long view, in which we need to acknowledge that the only reason we still have any copies of some works was thanks to unauthorized copies. Because strict control of a work limits it's spread and makes it more vulnerable to loss.
posted by emjaybee at 5:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [10 favorites]
No one here is saying either of those things
Perhaps read the discussion before making such accusations. People are saying "Owning ideas is stupid and disgusting, any idea you have belongs to all of humanity" and "pirate all the culture", equating all artists with Mark Twain and Disney, arguing for 14 year copyrights or no copyrights, and tossing out hypotheticals that would harm artists (like taxing art as property, or making them pay for writing in a genre).
It's a funny game for most of you. As I said, it's my actual income. Without income I'm dead. Please stop pretending that you're fighting Mickey Mouse when you fantasize about not paying artists. And don't play stupid language games. When you attack people's livelihoods, you want them gone, don't pretend you're just having a discussion.
But you know, people think it's funny to make writers' lives even harder, and somehow it's the writer's fault for complaining. I'm out, have fun making the world shittier.
posted by zompist at 5:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [15 favorites]
Perhaps read the discussion before making such accusations. People are saying "Owning ideas is stupid and disgusting, any idea you have belongs to all of humanity" and "pirate all the culture", equating all artists with Mark Twain and Disney, arguing for 14 year copyrights or no copyrights, and tossing out hypotheticals that would harm artists (like taxing art as property, or making them pay for writing in a genre).
It's a funny game for most of you. As I said, it's my actual income. Without income I'm dead. Please stop pretending that you're fighting Mickey Mouse when you fantasize about not paying artists. And don't play stupid language games. When you attack people's livelihoods, you want them gone, don't pretend you're just having a discussion.
But you know, people think it's funny to make writers' lives even harder, and somehow it's the writer's fault for complaining. I'm out, have fun making the world shittier.
posted by zompist at 5:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [15 favorites]
Because we see further when we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Maybe it’s only because I’ve read that Newton intended the original of that remark as a vicious swipe at Robert Hooke, variously described by contemporaries as a 'dwarf' — made in a letter to Hooke himself, no less — that it makes us sound like a bunch of helpless toddlers to me.
If copyright is to be extended for decades beyond the life of the artist, which I think is a good idea in lots of ways, I’d like to see a substantial percentage of value and income be inalienable from descendants and other close blood relations.
posted by jamjam at 6:01 PM on January 1, 2023
Maybe it’s only because I’ve read that Newton intended the original of that remark as a vicious swipe at Robert Hooke, variously described by contemporaries as a 'dwarf' — made in a letter to Hooke himself, no less — that it makes us sound like a bunch of helpless toddlers to me.
If copyright is to be extended for decades beyond the life of the artist, which I think is a good idea in lots of ways, I’d like to see a substantial percentage of value and income be inalienable from descendants and other close blood relations.
posted by jamjam at 6:01 PM on January 1, 2023
re compensating "creative" work:
I guess I'm a "creator", too, in that I have a day job alongside which I write stuff (for a very small audience consisting mostly of people in the same business, or much more precarious versions of it). technically, writing this stuff is in the contract but there's no connection between my compensation and the success of anything I write; the boss doesn't know or care about the content, and the only way to be able to create this sort of "content" is to negotiate a labour market that's not that much less brutal/competitive than any other "creative" field.
we collect zero or essentially zero rent after the fact on stuff that's years in the making, to say nothing of the high rate of flops that don't make it off our desks; very similar process to *real writers*, but no financial benefit from "ownership" of the content produced.
I'm not sad about this, because unlike many real writers, I get a paycheque to do other stuff for the other 120% of my time. I don't see why people who create content that's more broadly appealing should expect a different state of affairs just on the basis that someone can market their work more widely. i just think they should get a paycheque. sign me up to pay some taxes to implement this.
i'm just skeptical that (some types of) "creative work" warrant a special category of protection not afforded most other types of labour, especially at the cost of (1) creating opportunities for profiteering and parasitism (not by the actual creators), and (2) inappropriately expanding the institution of property.
in my business: copyright enriches some shareholders and business vampires, and acted as a minor drag on creative output until st elbakyan delivered us from paywalls on our own fucking papers. so it's an obvious evil in that and any similar context.
i get that for other "creative workers" it serves a much more essential function but that doesn't make the overall state of affairs positive, or the idea of "intellectual property" an overall plus from the point of view of justly valuing labour.
certainly people who are mostly not the creators are getting stinking rich off the IP situation. anyone getting stinking rich is an extremely bad outcome to set against the fact that copyright is one way of allowing some subset of a subset of workers to be fairly compensated.
(another bad outcome is the effect on actual content. doesn't seem like big institutional IP owners are feeling the pressure to innovate; looks a lot like they're milking existing assets to the absolute repetitive maximum, not with good cultural effects. this seems like sort of a side issue though.)
probably "creative workers" should be organising for something like UBI, the way all those "ordinary" workers (you know, the ones whose creativity and hard work is too allegedly ephemeral in its individual instances, or too allegedly unremarkable, to entitle them to special protection and status) have to fight for anything like a fair price for their labour.
TLDR when my not-that-important occupation is occasionally threatened in some way, i want the union PR hacks doing the biggest baddest special pleading they can muster about the special important status of my job. so i don't begrudge "creatives" who are pro-copyright; may their arguments all land and their royalty cheques clear. that doesn't make it not special pleading or make copyright a just and beneficial institution overall, though.
posted by busted_crayons at 6:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
I guess I'm a "creator", too, in that I have a day job alongside which I write stuff (for a very small audience consisting mostly of people in the same business, or much more precarious versions of it). technically, writing this stuff is in the contract but there's no connection between my compensation and the success of anything I write; the boss doesn't know or care about the content, and the only way to be able to create this sort of "content" is to negotiate a labour market that's not that much less brutal/competitive than any other "creative" field.
we collect zero or essentially zero rent after the fact on stuff that's years in the making, to say nothing of the high rate of flops that don't make it off our desks; very similar process to *real writers*, but no financial benefit from "ownership" of the content produced.
I'm not sad about this, because unlike many real writers, I get a paycheque to do other stuff for the other 120% of my time. I don't see why people who create content that's more broadly appealing should expect a different state of affairs just on the basis that someone can market their work more widely. i just think they should get a paycheque. sign me up to pay some taxes to implement this.
i'm just skeptical that (some types of) "creative work" warrant a special category of protection not afforded most other types of labour, especially at the cost of (1) creating opportunities for profiteering and parasitism (not by the actual creators), and (2) inappropriately expanding the institution of property.
in my business: copyright enriches some shareholders and business vampires, and acted as a minor drag on creative output until st elbakyan delivered us from paywalls on our own fucking papers. so it's an obvious evil in that and any similar context.
i get that for other "creative workers" it serves a much more essential function but that doesn't make the overall state of affairs positive, or the idea of "intellectual property" an overall plus from the point of view of justly valuing labour.
certainly people who are mostly not the creators are getting stinking rich off the IP situation. anyone getting stinking rich is an extremely bad outcome to set against the fact that copyright is one way of allowing some subset of a subset of workers to be fairly compensated.
(another bad outcome is the effect on actual content. doesn't seem like big institutional IP owners are feeling the pressure to innovate; looks a lot like they're milking existing assets to the absolute repetitive maximum, not with good cultural effects. this seems like sort of a side issue though.)
probably "creative workers" should be organising for something like UBI, the way all those "ordinary" workers (you know, the ones whose creativity and hard work is too allegedly ephemeral in its individual instances, or too allegedly unremarkable, to entitle them to special protection and status) have to fight for anything like a fair price for their labour.
TLDR when my not-that-important occupation is occasionally threatened in some way, i want the union PR hacks doing the biggest baddest special pleading they can muster about the special important status of my job. so i don't begrudge "creatives" who are pro-copyright; may their arguments all land and their royalty cheques clear. that doesn't make it not special pleading or make copyright a just and beneficial institution overall, though.
posted by busted_crayons at 6:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]
Companies usually end up owning any popular or notable IP, do not fairly compensate those who make the products of that IP, and sometimes have literally nothing to do with it, just bought it from some other inhuman entity juggling around IP so far divorced from any notion of compensating the creator I don't see why we should acknowledge it.
So, so much media is just straight up being lost every single day because companies don't see enough value in it to make it available and yet will sue the crap out of anyone infringing their ownership. Or the copyrights are essentially abandoned and you couldn't clear them with Musk levels of money. Or they are owned by a despicable rapist like Harvey Weinstein and he's withholding the media out of spite. Copyright terms are way to long and I honestly think smaller media companies are going to be pushing hard in the future to get them reduced.
I'd always thought "lifetime of the creator plus 5 years" made sense. That would allow for an author to reap rewards across their lifetime, and for descendants to gain a tiny bit if the author didn't pass anything else down
it would also incentivize people and corporations to kill creators to remove copyright.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
So, so much media is just straight up being lost every single day because companies don't see enough value in it to make it available and yet will sue the crap out of anyone infringing their ownership. Or the copyrights are essentially abandoned and you couldn't clear them with Musk levels of money. Or they are owned by a despicable rapist like Harvey Weinstein and he's withholding the media out of spite. Copyright terms are way to long and I honestly think smaller media companies are going to be pushing hard in the future to get them reduced.
I'd always thought "lifetime of the creator plus 5 years" made sense. That would allow for an author to reap rewards across their lifetime, and for descendants to gain a tiny bit if the author didn't pass anything else down
it would also incentivize people and corporations to kill creators to remove copyright.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
If there’s an argument that eternal copyright terms would better incentivize people to make creative works, well, okay then! But arguments for that are actually kind of hard to make.
Maybe not eternal, but if the creator of a work only retained ownership of it for a short period of time (i.e. 14 years) there would be no way to make a living at creative vocations. Creativity is not a job where you can produce a “thing” continuously and in a predictable cadence. An artist may work on a piece for years, decades even, before it is completed. Income from previous work can sustain these creative pursuits (either through copyright or by selling it for a larger sum).
The Aberree statements on copyright are interesting. I do take offense at #3:
As I stated above, not all creative works can be churned out perpetually.
As an artist I regularly wonder about my place and the viability in the future online world of art. I purposefully do not post a lot of my work online because I do not want to spend my time chasing down people stealing it for their own profit. I have often thought of projects I want to do online but wonder if it’s pointless when it will just be taken. If I feel discouraged from creating while owning the copyright I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I knew all of my work would only last into its teenage years! There’s a difference between reusing/reissuing/profiting from someone else’s work and being influenced or inspired by it.
It’s hard for me to argue this because I, too, think seeing these works pop up again is super cool. Then again, looking at the list of pulp figures entering the public domain I have to ask what difference it makes. Most of those characters have influenced new characters to the point that they are somewhat redundant in their original form because they have effectively been recreated already. I don’t know the answer, but it’s very interesting hearing everyone’s views on this, many based on their own personal connection to copywriter works.
posted by Bunglegirl at 6:54 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maybe not eternal, but if the creator of a work only retained ownership of it for a short period of time (i.e. 14 years) there would be no way to make a living at creative vocations. Creativity is not a job where you can produce a “thing” continuously and in a predictable cadence. An artist may work on a piece for years, decades even, before it is completed. Income from previous work can sustain these creative pursuits (either through copyright or by selling it for a larger sum).
The Aberree statements on copyright are interesting. I do take offense at #3:
3. Copyrighting everything you write is a confession that you have little faith in your ability to continue producing salable stuff--and that there may come a time when you'll have to fall back on your own, protected material to make a living. When we can't produce new copy for The ABERREE, The ABERREE ceases to exist, because we're certain no one wants to read what we said yesterday and today tomorrow.
As I stated above, not all creative works can be churned out perpetually.
As an artist I regularly wonder about my place and the viability in the future online world of art. I purposefully do not post a lot of my work online because I do not want to spend my time chasing down people stealing it for their own profit. I have often thought of projects I want to do online but wonder if it’s pointless when it will just be taken. If I feel discouraged from creating while owning the copyright I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I knew all of my work would only last into its teenage years! There’s a difference between reusing/reissuing/profiting from someone else’s work and being influenced or inspired by it.
It’s hard for me to argue this because I, too, think seeing these works pop up again is super cool. Then again, looking at the list of pulp figures entering the public domain I have to ask what difference it makes. Most of those characters have influenced new characters to the point that they are somewhat redundant in their original form because they have effectively been recreated already. I don’t know the answer, but it’s very interesting hearing everyone’s views on this, many based on their own personal connection to copywriter works.
posted by Bunglegirl at 6:54 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
it would also incentivize people and corporations to kill creators to remove copyright.
Um. Okay, I'm just going to back away slowly. That's one of the most airport novel insane things I've read here ever.
posted by hippybear at 7:24 PM on January 1, 2023 [19 favorites]
Um. Okay, I'm just going to back away slowly. That's one of the most airport novel insane things I've read here ever.
posted by hippybear at 7:24 PM on January 1, 2023 [19 favorites]
Methinks a shorter posthumous term might incentivize heirs and other beneficiaries to keep you and your gravy train around longer, no?
But all that wouldn't make any difference if you've already assigned your copyright to a music label, who aren't very good custodians.
posted by credulous at 8:05 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
But all that wouldn't make any difference if you've already assigned your copyright to a music label, who aren't very good custodians.
posted by credulous at 8:05 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
The Universal fire destroyed recording masters, which may affect the availability of high quality copies and the possibility of getting remasters or remixes or unreleased material, but the legal copyrights to those recordings of the songs and of the songs themselves (these are 2 different copyrights, and not necessarily owned by the performers or songwriters) still reside with whoever owns them. We may never hear the demo version of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, but Elton John hasn’t lost copyright because of that fire.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:45 PM on January 1, 2023
posted by soundguy99 at 8:45 PM on January 1, 2023
My point is that if you think incentivizing creators externally is important, you don't get to take that back when it stops being convenient.
I’m not sure what “take it back” is actually supposed to mean, here. One can draw the boundaries as to what’s a sensible and appropriate way to externally incentivize creators in any number of places. The whole debate about terms of IP protection is about tradeoffs. Moreover, calling somebody a “sellout” is a rather fuzzy ethical judgement, not a legal one. The vast majority of situations in which that epithet gets deployed are ones in which the person on the receiving end is clearly legally in the right.
posted by atoxyl at 10:00 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m not sure what “take it back” is actually supposed to mean, here. One can draw the boundaries as to what’s a sensible and appropriate way to externally incentivize creators in any number of places. The whole debate about terms of IP protection is about tradeoffs. Moreover, calling somebody a “sellout” is a rather fuzzy ethical judgement, not a legal one. The vast majority of situations in which that epithet gets deployed are ones in which the person on the receiving end is clearly legally in the right.
posted by atoxyl at 10:00 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Anyway “life of the creator” isn’t really all that controversial a baseline at this point, is it? It’s what happens afterwards that gets messy.
posted by atoxyl at 10:01 PM on January 1, 2023
posted by atoxyl at 10:01 PM on January 1, 2023
Lots of people still advocating for something in the 14-28 range as originally setup in the US. I've come around to the idea it should be about a generation (say 30 years or so).
posted by Mitheral at 10:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 10:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lots of people still advocating for something in the 14-28 range as originally setup in the US.
And as I've pointed out previously, the guy who set those standards was a brutal slaver rapist who literally made his living on the backs of others while creating an ediface to hide that reality.
Perhaps not the best argument, there.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:13 PM on January 1, 2023
And as I've pointed out previously, the guy who set those standards was a brutal slaver rapist who literally made his living on the backs of others while creating an ediface to hide that reality.
Perhaps not the best argument, there.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:13 PM on January 1, 2023
Moreover, calling somebody a “sellout” is a rather fuzzy ethical judgement, not a legal one.
It's not fuzzy at all - it's an argument that extrinsic motivation for creators is wrong, and that they should be intrinsically motivated. And the reality is that the term is routinely used to attack creative labor for using their labor for pay, arguing that creative labor should be "above" concerns like pay. Hence why I consider the term vile and anti-labor.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:21 PM on January 1, 2023
It's not fuzzy at all - it's an argument that extrinsic motivation for creators is wrong, and that they should be intrinsically motivated. And the reality is that the term is routinely used to attack creative labor for using their labor for pay, arguing that creative labor should be "above" concerns like pay. Hence why I consider the term vile and anti-labor.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:21 PM on January 1, 2023
Why not shorter periods of copyright for businesses, and longer terms for people? Most people live longer than businesses anyway. When the business term has ended they can renegotiate with the original artist or their heirs.
posted by The River Ivel at 12:12 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by The River Ivel at 12:12 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I propose that a copyright term be reduced to a tenth or less if its current outstanding duration when it is transferred. Individual authors or painters or whatever owning copyrights is almost never an issue; corporate ownership almost always is. Make it so copyright can only be initially awarded to an individual, and make it far from free to transfer. (This also stops rent seekers of the kind that are so common in the music industry).
posted by Dysk at 12:40 AM on January 2, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 12:40 AM on January 2, 2023 [8 favorites]
It's not fuzzy at all - it's an argument that extrinsic motivation for creators is wrong, and that they should be intrinsically motivated.
It's not quite that simple. I don't think anyone who has thought much about it thinks anyone is motivated to do anything purely by extrinsic or intrinsic factors, it's always a mix. Calling someone a sellout is suggesting that the extrinsic is overriding the intrinsic - you are compromising the character or your art as you would judge it as being the best at, in favour of optimising for earning potential, making what you judge to be the best product. Everyone who does any kind of art for a living will inherently anyways be balancing these two factors and motivations to an extent.
Now, judging someone a sellout, or the even the concept itself is still very much a position that it is possible to reasonably disagree with, but it isn't the strawman you're arguing against. It also isn't so black-and-white - one person's sellout is another person's sensible artist who wants to make it work as a vocation. You can not only disagree about the extent to which someone is extrinsically motivated, but also about where in the spectrum the cutoff is (or if it is at all).
posted by Dysk at 12:47 AM on January 2, 2023
It's not quite that simple. I don't think anyone who has thought much about it thinks anyone is motivated to do anything purely by extrinsic or intrinsic factors, it's always a mix. Calling someone a sellout is suggesting that the extrinsic is overriding the intrinsic - you are compromising the character or your art as you would judge it as being the best at, in favour of optimising for earning potential, making what you judge to be the best product. Everyone who does any kind of art for a living will inherently anyways be balancing these two factors and motivations to an extent.
Now, judging someone a sellout, or the even the concept itself is still very much a position that it is possible to reasonably disagree with, but it isn't the strawman you're arguing against. It also isn't so black-and-white - one person's sellout is another person's sensible artist who wants to make it work as a vocation. You can not only disagree about the extent to which someone is extrinsically motivated, but also about where in the spectrum the cutoff is (or if it is at all).
posted by Dysk at 12:47 AM on January 2, 2023
I agree that shorter posthumous copyright terms are good. But I dream a little bigger. I suppose, you know, UBI, or a modified society where no one starves or sleeps on cardboard if they don't perform service to capitalists, is on the table? People are going to create no matter what. How much more beautiful would our world be if creators didn't have to worry about food, medicine, shelter or personal safety but could just ... create.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:53 AM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:53 AM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
Cartoons that should’ve entered public domain in 2023 (but didn’t)
The Public Domain Review goes over some of the same things as the post link but has a little bit more info on some of the entries.
posted by LostInUbe at 5:27 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
The Public Domain Review goes over some of the same things as the post link but has a little bit more info on some of the entries.
posted by LostInUbe at 5:27 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Surely the key is to kill the creator before they create the work? Then you never have to worry about someone stealing the property?
posted by mittens at 5:53 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by mittens at 5:53 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's really wild to me that people are so incredibly entrenched on the *length* of copyright, when it's clear that the real violations occur in the short-term, not the long tail. Designs are stolen from artists online. People pirate new movies and TV shows. People are downloading the latest albums from musicians.
28-30 years of copyright is HUGE. In video games, that'd be most of the SNES and Genesis games, but not later generations. In music? What's 1992? Vanilla Ice? Books? All of Harry Potter and all of Game of Thrones would still have a few more years.
These things get mined out, the profit's all in the first few years. Yeah, there's always the author or musician who hits it big later and gets some sales from their back catalog. But not 30 years later! And even if there were one or two, we shouldn't let the exception dictate the rule of when these get released to the public domain.
If we're really concerned about artists having security, we should be arguing for a stronger social safety net, not incentivizing the hoarding of copyright and the transmutation of it into "intellectual property". Advocate for stronger protections and make it easier for artists to reclaim damages during the copyright period, and then let it go sooner.
posted by explosion at 6:06 AM on January 2, 2023 [13 favorites]
28-30 years of copyright is HUGE. In video games, that'd be most of the SNES and Genesis games, but not later generations. In music? What's 1992? Vanilla Ice? Books? All of Harry Potter and all of Game of Thrones would still have a few more years.
These things get mined out, the profit's all in the first few years. Yeah, there's always the author or musician who hits it big later and gets some sales from their back catalog. But not 30 years later! And even if there were one or two, we shouldn't let the exception dictate the rule of when these get released to the public domain.
If we're really concerned about artists having security, we should be arguing for a stronger social safety net, not incentivizing the hoarding of copyright and the transmutation of it into "intellectual property". Advocate for stronger protections and make it easier for artists to reclaim damages during the copyright period, and then let it go sooner.
posted by explosion at 6:06 AM on January 2, 2023 [13 favorites]
Twain lived before the time when a crap book may later morph into a screenplay.
I should divulge I hold six song copyrights, none of which has earned any money.
posted by aiq at 7:20 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I should divulge I hold six song copyrights, none of which has earned any money.
posted by aiq at 7:20 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
"Maybe not eternal, but if the creator of a work only retained ownership of it for a short period of time (i.e. 14 years) there would be no way to make a living at creative vocations.
Demonstrably not true in fashion design. (Other design areas get only partial protection, too.)
posted by oddman at 8:59 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Demonstrably not true in fashion design. (Other design areas get only partial protection, too.)
posted by oddman at 8:59 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wonder if Professor Moriarty resurfacing on Star Trek next month after decades away is related to this timing. I recall the Holmes people pitched a fit when TNG originally used him because the producers thought he was already public domain in 1989.
posted by Servo5678 at 9:17 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Servo5678 at 9:17 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I don't have any take on how long copyright should last generally, but Holmes is an interesting case in US copyright law. There are so many Sherlock pastiches out there, I didn't even realize there was any copyright remaining until the Enola Holmes movie suit. Kind of hilarious argument that a coldly logical asshole Holmes was public domain, but a kinder, gentler, respectful of women Holmes was copyright infringement (at least by the Doyle estate's legal theory). If anyone more versed in copyright law than myself can point to other examples of characters/works being in that kind of limbo, I'd love to hear about it.
posted by the primroses were over at 9:36 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by the primroses were over at 9:36 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wonder if Professor Moriarty resurfacing on Star Trek next month after decades away is related to this timing.
Moriarty would have been under copyright in 1989, but he has been public domain for years. Even though he's mentioned in later stories, his last appearance is in The Valley of Fear from 1914. He's not in the two stories that just entered public domain.
posted by betweenthebars at 9:37 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Moriarty would have been under copyright in 1989, but he has been public domain for years. Even though he's mentioned in later stories, his last appearance is in The Valley of Fear from 1914. He's not in the two stories that just entered public domain.
posted by betweenthebars at 9:37 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Um. Okay, I'm just going to back away slowly. That's one of the most airport novel insane things I've read here ever.
Methinks a shorter posthumous term might incentivize heirs and other beneficiaries to keep you and your gravy train around longer, no?
BRB, off to write an airport novel set in a world where the US copyright term is "lifetime of the creator plus 5 years". It's about the creator of an extremely valuable IP whose home is besieged by a team of corporate assassins out to end the copyright for their bosses (who have determined that it would be cheaper to create a public domain version of the IP rather than keep paying the creator) who are battling a team of mercenaries hired by the creator's family to preserve the copyright. The twist is that the mercenary team is also there to force the creator into an experimental mind upload project to preserve their copyright forever. Our intrepid IP creator must outwit both groups if they want to survive.
Surely the key is to kill the creator before they create the work? Then you never have to worry about someone stealing the property?
And the sequel where, both the corporate assassins and the family mercenaries having failed, the genius family member who was heading the mind upload project is seduced by money and betrays the family, helping the evil corporate consortium develop a time machine to send a killer back in time to steal the work before the creator could create it.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:13 AM on January 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
Methinks a shorter posthumous term might incentivize heirs and other beneficiaries to keep you and your gravy train around longer, no?
BRB, off to write an airport novel set in a world where the US copyright term is "lifetime of the creator plus 5 years". It's about the creator of an extremely valuable IP whose home is besieged by a team of corporate assassins out to end the copyright for their bosses (who have determined that it would be cheaper to create a public domain version of the IP rather than keep paying the creator) who are battling a team of mercenaries hired by the creator's family to preserve the copyright. The twist is that the mercenary team is also there to force the creator into an experimental mind upload project to preserve their copyright forever. Our intrepid IP creator must outwit both groups if they want to survive.
Surely the key is to kill the creator before they create the work? Then you never have to worry about someone stealing the property?
And the sequel where, both the corporate assassins and the family mercenaries having failed, the genius family member who was heading the mind upload project is seduced by money and betrays the family, helping the evil corporate consortium develop a time machine to send a killer back in time to steal the work before the creator could create it.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:13 AM on January 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
Let me know the title of that novel when it comes out please
posted by some loser at 10:22 AM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by some loser at 10:22 AM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
The twist is that the mercenary team is also there to force the creator into an experimental mind upload project to preserve their copyright forever.
Maintenance of mind uploads is expensive. Creators whose creations don't earn enough revenue have to go on the run, otherwise they get their uploaded selves deleted by another set of mercenaries, and their work finally enters public domain.
(I would also buy or illegally copy this novel.)
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:29 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maintenance of mind uploads is expensive. Creators whose creations don't earn enough revenue have to go on the run, otherwise they get their uploaded selves deleted by another set of mercenaries, and their work finally enters public domain.
(I would also buy or illegally copy this novel.)
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:29 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maintenance of mind uploads is expensive. Creators whose creations don't earn enough revenue have to go on the run, otherwise they get their uploaded selves deleted.
posted by They sucked his brains out!
epony
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:33 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out!
epony
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:33 AM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Leaving aside disturbed people like John Hinckley Jr. who are acting irrationally corporations and their lackeys routinely kill workers and activists to advance the bottom line through negligence, gross negligence and direct action on a regular basis for amounts much less than even a mid level artistic work is worth.
The Coca-Cola Killings:
The 16,000+ people killed in the Bhopal disaster are directly attributable to Union Carbide choosing to operate a dangerous chemical plant after removing and disabling multiple safety systems to save money.
Five labor organizers were killed at the Greensboro Massacre [November 3, 1979], as workers were attempting to organize across racial lines at various textile mills in the area.
...
March 1959 A United Mine Workers strike called on March 9 grew violent as the union used mass picketing tactics, and launched assaults against tipples using dynamite and arson. Firefights were common. At least three strikers were killed.
And those just off the first few hits on the first page of google hits for corporations kill workers activists.
posted by Mitheral at 11:35 AM on January 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
The Coca-Cola Killings:
Colombian union Sinaltrainal, together with the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), filed a lawsuit in the Florida courts against Coca-Cola, Panamerican Beverages (the largest soft-drink bottler in Latin America), and Bebidas y Alimentos (owned by Richard Kirby of Key Biscayne, Florida), which operates the Carepa plant. The suit charges the three companies with complicity in the assassination of the union leader Isídro Segundo Gil.More.
The 16,000+ people killed in the Bhopal disaster are directly attributable to Union Carbide choosing to operate a dangerous chemical plant after removing and disabling multiple safety systems to save money.
In 1991, the local Bhopal authorities charged Anderson, who had retired in 1986, with manslaughter, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. He was declared a fugitive from justice by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal on 1 February 1992 for failing to appear at the court hearings in a culpable homicide case in which he was named the chief defendant. Orders were passed to the Government of India to press for an extradition from the United States. The United States declined to extradite him citing a lack of evidenceCheveron bought Unocal shortly after this:
When Unocal, a U.S. oil and gas company, partnered with the notorious Burmese military to build a gas pipeline, knowing the military would commit human rights abuses, we filed a landmark lawsuit against Unocal. As predicted, the military pulled villagers from their homes and forced them to do backbreaking work to support the Yadana gas pipeline project, while committing other horrific abuses including rape and murder.Action against environmental activists:
The daughter of Fikile Ntshangase says that last October, three armed men entered her mother's home and shot her dead.The year before:
Ntshangase had publicly questioned a local coal mine that she thought was — quite literally — undermining the small South African town where she lived, located about 360 miles east of Johannesburg.
...
Ntshangase is one of 227 activists that the group says were killed last year [2020] in connection to their grassroots environmental efforts, according to a report released Monday
A 2020 report from Global Witness, an international human rights group, documented that 212 environmental and land activists were murdered in 2019. Over half of those murders took place in Colombia and the Philippines, countries where intensive mining and agribusiness have transformed the environment.From Wikipedia:
Five labor organizers were killed at the Greensboro Massacre [November 3, 1979], as workers were attempting to organize across racial lines at various textile mills in the area.
...
March 1959 A United Mine Workers strike called on March 9 grew violent as the union used mass picketing tactics, and launched assaults against tipples using dynamite and arson. Firefights were common. At least three strikers were killed.
And those just off the first few hits on the first page of google hits for corporations kill workers activists.
posted by Mitheral at 11:35 AM on January 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
And those just off the first few hits on the first page of google hits for corporations kill workers activists.
Yes, but having your Pinkerton strong men taking out striking or activist workers, while horrible, is different from the assertion that major publishing houses will be hunting book authors for sport and valuable prizes.
posted by hippybear at 12:30 PM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yes, but having your Pinkerton strong men taking out striking or activist workers, while horrible, is different from the assertion that major publishing houses will be hunting book authors for sport and valuable prizes.
posted by hippybear at 12:30 PM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
Just a reminder:
All posts are © their original authors.
Thanks, Matt!
posted by TedW at 2:02 PM on January 2, 2023
All posts are © their original authors.
Thanks, Matt!
posted by TedW at 2:02 PM on January 2, 2023
corporations and their lackeys routinely kill workers and activists to advance the bottom line through negligence, gross negligence and direct action on a regular basis for amounts much less than even a mid level artistic work is worth.
Since the legal regime around murder does not stop this, what makes anyone think tweaks to the laws of copyright would affect it?
Clearly the solution is to reduce the monetary value of all creative works to zero.
This is probably best accomplished by abolishing money entirely.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:58 PM on January 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
Since the legal regime around murder does not stop this, what makes anyone think tweaks to the laws of copyright would affect it?
Clearly the solution is to reduce the monetary value of all creative works to zero.
This is probably best accomplished by abolishing money entirely.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:58 PM on January 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
On the Canada extension thing, I'm really disappointed this got pushed through. When it was first put forward by Trump's team for the all-new USMCA (gotta put US first, wotta wanker) to replaced NAFTA, Canada hinted that it wasn't going to implement this because they expected USMCA to fail rapidly. And then, there it was in the omnibus bill, dammit
posted by scruss at 7:20 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by scruss at 7:20 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
_perhaps_ some alternative ways to split the IP baby?
Property is theft (and allocatively inefficient too)
Property is theft (and allocatively inefficient too)
The basic idea is Proudhon (‘All property is theft!’). Any private ownership of property contains within it the seeds of market power. Worse, “Private ownership of any asset, except homogenous commodities, may hamper allocative efficiency.” A more efficient and more egalitarian arrangement is for all property to be in effect rented from the state, by current ‘owners’ stating what they think every item is worth, and paying a tax on that amount. At any time, somebody who values it more can bid it away from them; there are continuous auction markets. For homes, there might be a notice period so people can order their affairs. There might be exemptions for small items of sentimental value such as Grandma’s fountain pen. The revenues raised from the tax would be returned as a basic income to all citizens.Property Is Only Another Name for Monopoly
The existing system of private property interferes with allocative efficiency by giving owners the power to hold out for excessive prices. We propose a remedy in the form of a tax on property, based on the value self-assessed by its owner at intervals, along with a requirement that the owner sell the property to any third party willing to pay a price equal to the self-assessed value. The tax rate would reflect a tradeoff between gains from allocative efficiency and losses to investment efficiency, likely in the range of 5 to 10 percent annually for most assets. We discuss the detailed design of this system from an economic and legal perspective.A Flexible Design for Funding Public Goods[*]
We propose a design for philanthropic or publicly-funded seeding to allow (near) optimal provision of a decentralized, self-organizing ecosystem of public goods. The concept extends ideas from Quadratic Voting to a funding mechanism for endogenous community formation. Citizens make public goods contributions to projects of value to them. The amount received by the project is (proportional to) the square of the sum of the square roots of contributions received. Under the “standard model” this mechanism yields first best public goods provision. Variations can limit the cost, help protect against collusion and aid coordination. We discuss applications to campaign finance, and highlight directions for future analysis and experimentation.posted by kliuless at 1:11 AM on January 3, 2023
>I don't think anybody's arguing a no-copyright stance
I often argue a no-copyright stance while paying for multiple subscriptions and supporting as many author's (who publish their art for free) on Patreon as I can because we live in a world where capitalism is rampant. I think this says it better:
"Art is just an arrangement of matter that flows forth with endless beauty. It's humans inside human-made economic structures that ruin everything." - A robot in SMBC's AI Art 2
posted by gible at 5:49 AM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I often argue a no-copyright stance while paying for multiple subscriptions and supporting as many author's (who publish their art for free) on Patreon as I can because we live in a world where capitalism is rampant. I think this says it better:
"Art is just an arrangement of matter that flows forth with endless beauty. It's humans inside human-made economic structures that ruin everything." - A robot in SMBC's AI Art 2
posted by gible at 5:49 AM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wonder if Twain would be in favor of perpetual rights when the rights holder to King Arthur comes a-knocking over "A Connecticut Yankee"
posted by Ultracrepidarian at 12:34 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Ultracrepidarian at 12:34 PM on January 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Even if we lived in some magical post-scarcity world with no money or UBI or some other way for creators to live... there is another aspect to the idea of "owning" knowledge or creative works. Which is, people want credit for the thing they did. When you do something for a friend, you usually want your friend to know. When you do stuff at work, you want your boss to know it was you. When you do housework and childcare you want your family to appreciate it. If you did a bunch of stuff and nobody cared or acknowledged it yet still riding on the fruits of your labor... I think it would probably feel really bad. I'm sure someone will go "Ah but I DO experience these shitty things on a daily basis!" Yeah and, wouldn't it be better if you didn't? If you personally don't care--do you really not see why someone else might?
When Rosalind Franklin generated data showing the true structure of DNA, that data was used by Watson and Crick without any acknowledgement or reference to her work, despite relying on it to make their publication. And, generally the discussions around this action are not tied to money but rather that she was not being fairly recognized. And now, because of the posthumous outcry, newer biology books that talk about Watson and Crick will more likely include Franklin as well. Do you think that's right? Or should it be fine for Watson and Crick to ignore Franklin, knowing that either way we now know DNA's structure and can get on with gene therapy and forensic science and such.
"We stand on the shoulders of giants" is supposed to be a celebration of the accumulation of small/non-famous people who make up the giant, not an erasure of them.
So, at least for me as an artist (and a scientist), although I might be flattered that someone could be inspired by my work or see some value in it, I don't want it "stolen" in the sense that I don't want someone reproducing or modifying it in a way that devalues or erases what I've done. And no amount of rules-lawyering or philosophical musings is going to change what ultimately comes down to interpersonal empathy and good will to other people. The very people who make things you enjoy.
I think to ignore that is actually to dehumanize people.
posted by picklenickle at 4:41 PM on January 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
When Rosalind Franklin generated data showing the true structure of DNA, that data was used by Watson and Crick without any acknowledgement or reference to her work, despite relying on it to make their publication. And, generally the discussions around this action are not tied to money but rather that she was not being fairly recognized. And now, because of the posthumous outcry, newer biology books that talk about Watson and Crick will more likely include Franklin as well. Do you think that's right? Or should it be fine for Watson and Crick to ignore Franklin, knowing that either way we now know DNA's structure and can get on with gene therapy and forensic science and such.
"We stand on the shoulders of giants" is supposed to be a celebration of the accumulation of small/non-famous people who make up the giant, not an erasure of them.
So, at least for me as an artist (and a scientist), although I might be flattered that someone could be inspired by my work or see some value in it, I don't want it "stolen" in the sense that I don't want someone reproducing or modifying it in a way that devalues or erases what I've done. And no amount of rules-lawyering or philosophical musings is going to change what ultimately comes down to interpersonal empathy and good will to other people. The very people who make things you enjoy.
I think to ignore that is actually to dehumanize people.
posted by picklenickle at 4:41 PM on January 3, 2023 [4 favorites]
« Older News to be happy about | Rescue beaver makes Christmas dam in house Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by beagle at 11:49 AM on January 1, 2023 [6 favorites]