Persistence of Copyright

kzt wrote:For the sum of 1 billion dollars the Government will grant a 1000 year copyright.

Otherwise renewals are for 5 years and cost 25 dollars for the first, doubling at each renewal.

kzt wrote:

darrell wrote:The 1978 change only applies to books and movies copyrighted in the US on or after 1978. books and movies copyrighted before 1978 retain the 50 year term, the law is not retroactive.

I own a part time business that copies VCR tapes to DVD, and copyright law means that in 2016 I can't copy a VCR tape if the movie was copyrighted after 1966, but I can legally copy a movie if it was copyrighted in 1965 or earlier, (51 years) even if the author is still alive.

Nope. The Mouse House has really excellent lobbyists.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf

Automatic Extension for Works in Renewal Term
Works originally copyrighted after 1922 and renewed before
1978. These works were automatically given a longer copy-
right term. Copyrights that had already been renewed and
were in their second term at any time between December 31,
1976, and December 31, 1977, inclusive, do not need to be
renewed again. They have been automatically extended to
last for a total term of 95 years (a first term of 28 years plus a renewal term of 67 years) from the end of the year in which hey were originally secured. For more information about renewal of copyright, see Circular 15,
Renewal of Copyright
.
Copyright Extensions before 1976 Act
Before passage of the 1976 Copyright Act, Congress enacted a series of nine acts that provided interim extensions for works whose copyright protection began between September 19, 1906, and December 31, 1918, if they were in their renewal terms. Without these interim extensions, copyrights commencing during that time would have expired after 56 years, at the end of their renewal terms, between September 19, 1962, and December 31, 1976.

Example: A work that first secured federal copyright pro-
tection on October 5, 1907, and was renewed in 1935, would
have fallen into the public domain after October 5, 1963. The first act extended the copyright to December 31, 1965; the second act extended it to December 31, 1967; the third act extended it to December 31, 1968; the fourth act extended it to December 31, 1969; the fifth act extended it to December 31, 1970; the sixth act extended it to December 31, 1971; the seventh act extended it to December 31, 1972; the eighth act extended it to December 31, 1974; the ninth extended it to December 31, 1976; and the 1976 Copyright Act extended the copyright through the end of 1982 (75 years from the end of the year in which the copyright was originally secured).

feyhunde wrote:Note it's even more complicated than that (I'm an IP lawyer). There's automatic renewal built in in 1966, but there's differences between mediums too.

Most of this has to do with GATT/WTO and free trade harmonization. The US used to be very utilitarian in its copyright laws, compared to Civil Law nations using a theory of moral rights of the author. We branched off earlier and it wasn't until we got into big trading that it became a thing we thought about.

(The utilitarian view for copyrights is its a fixed exchange to promote the spread of arts and sciences. The comma in the arts clause will be litigated eventually since the Heller decision on gun control dealt with a similar comma. The US is a bit more in favor of moral rights for patents as the sweat of one's brow versus Europe's belief that the public disclosure is what the limited monopoly is given in trade for, eg. without the patent right, there would be no incentive for public disclosure so we'd be dealing with stuff like the Chamberlen family sitting on forceps for a century).

We adopted the Continental view in exchange for concessions on patent laws under GATT/WTO.Essentially we adopted moral rights theory of copyright (but not really despite the Monty Python Case), and they adopted the moral rights theory of patents (theory's about inventorship, etc).

As to various other points brought up as I'm avoiding work:

Re-releases are derivative works, same for sequels, reboots, etc. Derivative works do have copyrights of their owns, but only protect the features introduced in the derivative work. Best example is 'Wizard of Oz'. The slippers are silver in the book, ruby in the movie. The book is public domain, the movie is not. But only movie only elements are protected. So when someone made commemorative plates featuring ruby slippers on Dorthy, those violated MGM's copyright of the derivative work, and they could sue.

Re: software, the copyright is easy to get around if you got a good lawyer to consult with. Its mostly about not using the same expression of the idea, as the copyright only protects the expression. Consult your own lawyer before trying to do something there. While the right is long lasting its narrow.

Re: Midlists reprints, huge evidence is unless you're in the top 1% read after the author dies, your books will die as no one can get reprints. I think this points to us looking at more fixed terms again. The problem is the organization and the money is on the publishers side. When disney tries to get a Bono 2 act going to extend copyright again, there will be a bigger pushback.

Re: copyrights purpose. Copyright was the creation of the guild of stationers in the UK and its purpose was originally regulation within the industry, beyond who had the royal printing patent. Printing patents were kinda messed up and got really messed up in the prelude to the English Civil War (see the playing card patents). Under the anglo view, they were never about author rights. They were always about the rights of the specific printer against other printers. (I've got a few well researched articles on this I can point to).

As to copyrights/patents for Einstein. He had both. But patents protect the expression of an idea, not the abstract of the idea or the phenomena of nature he describes. The only one I can find with a 20 second search is the Einstein refrigerator, which he inventor with Szilard. He never had a patent on his theories, because theories are not patentable. Instead, he had a patent on the applied principles of thermodynamics expressed in a device that was new, useful and not obvious. All patents require being new, useful and not obvious to be part of the main stream of patents (there's exceptions for some minor nations which just record all patents , but this is GATT/WTO rules). Copyright, otoh is judgement free, it just applies literally to the work published by an 'author'. Lots of complications about what works apply to (a live broadcast of a musical is a rights nightmare, as different rights apply to the music, lyrics, composition, choregraphy, broadcast rights, etc.)

As for trademarks, they are even more utilitarian, but also more limited. Their purpose in the US is consumer oriented, to protect the consumer from being defrauded. Interesting enough, its pretty clear in the US the protection to the company is a side benefit, as free riding in the US is fine so long as there isn't consumer confusion (note what is free riding and consumer confusion are very expensive and complicated questions to answer). In europe, anti-free riding is part of the EU wide law.

One small note, used to be copyright required proper notice to attach and failure to do so properly invalidated the US copyright. There's several questions about the first batch of steamboat willy prints and whether they meet the test. But actually litigating that would be required to prove it in court against the Mouse...

ok enough slacking...

cthia wrote:
Aren't derivative works referred to as copylefted?

feyhunde wrote:One small note, used to be copyright required proper notice to attach and failure to do so properly invalidated the US copyright. There's several questions about the first batch of steamboat willy prints and whether they meet the test. But actually litigating that would be required to prove it in court against the Mouse...

cthia wrote:Nice post.

Aren't derivative works referred to as copylefted?

Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:What if it isn't absurd but necessary to protect the credit worthiness of truly monolithic works whose "worth" is not completely fleshed out until many decades long after the author has been dead and buried - because of its quite cerebral and unprecedented nature.

Case: Einstein's works.

I guess it boils down to what you see the point of copyright being. I tend to side with founders of the US "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Hard to incentivize a dead author to create more science or art. To that extent a copyright that allows an author to live the rest of their life off one blockbuster early work could be seen as counterproductive. Though it clearly need to be long enough to discourage people from simply waiting out the copyright to avoid compensating the author. But, to my mind, the purpose isn't to provide for an author and their heirs indefinitely.

OTOH I understand that there are others who view copyright as a natural right of the author and therefore do not want control of any of their works to leave their control. That was the basis for life-plus terms.

I have less sympathy with that view. Especially because overlong copyrights IMO hurt society due to the permanent loss of some works due to copyright exceeding the effective storage life of the mediums they are preserved on (for example some films if stored without special care)

Probably my preferred compromise would be dial individual copyright back to life + 50 (minimum allowed by international treaties), but change work for hire back to fixed renewable terms (say 20 years). The twists would be that, first there is no hard limit on the number of renewals, and second the requirements to renew would be an increasing amount of money and evidence that adequate care was being taken to preserve the works for eventual release. That way if a company wanted to keep a commercially viable work protected they could. But they'd be incentivized to review which works it was worth paying to keep copyrighted.

And for an author themselves I'd allow them to convert their personal copyright retroactively into the work for hire status to gain the indefinite renewal capability, but they'd have to pay any back re-registration fees. If their heirs wanted to maintain the renewals, and pay the fees, that would be OK (whether that was because the work remained commercially viable or just because they wanted to affirmatively prevent its publication) but they couldn't covert a work from personal to for hire if the author didn't do so before their death.

This approach would hopefully allow many works that currently get abandoned to enter the public domain, but remove the need for those few (like Disney) with a strong interest in prolonged copyright from dragging the rest of the works forward in indefinite extension of copyrighted status. (I still think 20 years is too long for some media, like computer programs; witness the phenomena of abandonware; but that's a different argument)

Edited to clean up some typos and autocorrects

Jonathan_S wrote:Hard to incentivize a dead author to create more science or art. To that extent a copyright that allows an author to live the rest of their life off one blockbuster early work could be seen as counterproductive. Though it clearly need to be long enough to discourage people from simply waiting out the copyright to avoid compensating the author. But, to my mind, the purpose isn't to provide for an author and their heirs indefinitely.

Daryl wrote:This discussion is quite US centric. The US doesn't rule the world (yet), and other countries have different views, plus we don't have as litigating a culture.
A very small example is a current dispute about Ugg boots. These are sheepskin boots that are ugly and unfashionable yet comfortable. They have been available in Australia from many small suppliers for about 50 years, and the term is considered to be generic like riding boots. An American firm has now trademarked the term and is trying to sue small Australian manufacturers who are in the third generation of making them. The mood here is basically go elsewhere and fornicate. US law shouldn't have any bearing here.
Unless the US has managed to dominate copyright law up to the current Honorverse, I would imagine that it will be closer to the Chinese approach (if it looks good, copy it cheaper).