He takes a very strict stance on copyright law, and does not give a shit about parody, art or even hommages. Moulinsart will take every opportunity to strike down your Tintin webpage, even DMCA takedowns even though you're French and Moulinsart is Belgian (see what happened to [0], an explanation is available in French in [1]). Rodwell also wanted to publish a new Tintin episode, just to prevent the license to fall into public domain.
The guy has all powers on Tintin, because he married the author's widow. And that's it.
[0]: https://lepetitvingtetunieme.tumblr.com/
[1]: https://www.lesinrocks.com/2014/03/26/actualite/tintin-la-ma...
In Germany, this organization is called Gema and they send takedown notices and demand to be payed for work to which they do not own the copyright which they then distribute among their members. This happens even when this goes against the will of the legal copyright holder and you get absolutely nothing unless you are member. Becoming a member is very long process and is not free. So you have to pay to eventually get the right to get payed. It is effectively the bigger Gema members that grab most of the cash that it collects.
Effectively organizations like Gema are legalized extortion schemes. They get to play judge, prosecutor, and police. Real judges routinely and blindly rule in their favor. Lawmakers are lobbied into submission, etc. Wikipedia has a nice overview of how artists are getting ripped off, misc fraudulent schemes involving Gema, and how money rolls to their exclusive members rather than the artists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEMA_(German_organization).
What happened in this case is that the recordings are in the Gema database which parties like Youtube are required to use to check for potential violations. Of course Gema has no interest whatsoever to prune this database of stuff that shouldn't be there (like public domain stuff) and good luck convincing them to remove stuff from that db. More entries basically means more money for them and the burden is on the payer to prove otherwise. Their strategy is to make this as hard and tedious as possible so they can maximize their profits.
It's absurd.
Copyright is supposed to be a balance between the author and society. In exchange for releasing the full body of the work, the author gets paid in the form of a limited monopoly. Somehow, this became an argument about moral rights rather than repayment, and that the author has the right to prevent anybody from using certain characters, in perpetuity.
20 years is a perfectly reasonable time for copyright to last. On the side of the author, most profit comes within the first 5 years. On the side of society, 20 years means that the stories a child grew up with can then be built upon when they are adults.
Although I disagree that this should be considered a human right, isn't this generally covered by fair use in the US anyways?
Of course, there are plenty of companies that take down stuff that is not being done for profit. Good examples include Nintendo taking down the tools used to create Pokemon games, or Paramount killing the Star Trek fan shows (because they were better and more popular than anything Paramount could do).
The problem is that there's the letter of the law, the spirit of the law, and how rich and powerful entities can get the courts to interpret the law, and its possible, even common, for all three of those to be different things.
Nope, creating derivative works is something that is explicitly part of copyright, whether or not it is for commercial gain. Fanfiction or fan recreations are only legal with the consent of the author. Typically, authors will turn a blind eye to it, since it increases the longevity of the original works. It is only a civil matter, and so only the copyright holder could bring a suit against fanfiction authors.
I know the tech world changes fast but there are some niches where something written or recorded in 1998 is still valid today.
Copyright is meant to be an incentive for the creation of works that otherwise would not be made. The public benefits by the fact that they’re created. They eventually get to use them too, but it’s less crucial than it is for patents.
Copyright was there as an incentive for the release of works that would otherwise be kept hidden. As an example, playwrights were very secretive about the plays that they had written. Actors would only be given copies of their own lines, not the lines spoken by anyone else. Full copies of the script were never distributed. As a result, there are a great many works that are simply lost (for example, Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won by Shakespeare). It is this loss of works that copyright is intended to prevent.
With current copyright law, books are being lost by virtue of copyright being too long and covering too much. Books from before copyright became perpetual and recent books are easily available, but very little from in between [1]. If the holders of the copyright do not continue to release a work, it becomes entirely unavailable.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-m...
As for America, the reasoning on the continental congress on copyright was:
“that nothing is more properly a man's own than the fruit of his study, and that the protection and security of literary property would greatly tend to encourage genius and to promote useful discoveries.”
Again, nothing about releasing works to the public, and everything about promoting more publishing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
“Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing, Reprinting, and Publishing, or causing to be Printed, Reprinted, and Published Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors or Proprietors of such Books and Writings, to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families: For Preventing therefore such Practices for the future, and for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books; May it please Your Majesty, that it may be Enacted ...”
I got the continental congress quote from the history of copyright article on wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law
If someone wrote a math book 100 years ago, that math book will still be correct today, even if it's in the public domain.
Pulled that ladder right up behind them.
In point of fact, some kinds of work depend on the longer payback period. Children's books, for example, don't usually earn so much initially, but successful ones can be dependable earners for a long time.
The fact that they have legal ownership of a work is a societal construct, enforced by government, to incentivise the creations of said works for the sake of the public good.
The notion of intellectual property, of ideas "belonging" to the first person who had them publicly, are a fairly recent invention in human history; and the notion of practically eternal copyrights held by immortal entities spanning multiple human lifetimes is an extremely recent invention.
As much as the capital-L Librarians like to jump up and down yelling "Property rights! Property rights!", those rights are only exist because there are folks with guns willing to use them to enforce those rights;
So with that in mind, the only thing I think worth arguing is what the terms of that deal should be. I am of the opinion that that the term of a copyright should be as short as possible, while still being long enough to incentivise creation. I think this was the original idea of the 20ish year copyright term. Personally, I think that the sooner a society can claim a work, and continue building off of it, the better.
I didn't know they had a stake in this.
So long as an author does not share their work with anyone, they can have complete control over it for as long as they want. As soon as they they share it with somebody, enforcing copyright means that somebody is being restricted from the natural human instinct of retelling a story. Copyright is not property to be had by the author. Copyright is a restriction on everybody else, granted in exchange for releasing the work in the first place.
Copyright is a balance between rewarding the author, minimal restrictions on society, and progress of the arts. Unlimited copyright fails the latter two goals entirely.
Boy you are generous, if it was up to me copyrights would have a life of 10 years, no extensions/renewals. Ten years ought to be enough to squeeze a healthy chuck of profits out of your material. If after 10 years you can't/haven't come up with anything new, then you better find a new job.
a) Almost all artists sign deals with publishers to "get their foot in the door" which end up giving all of the rights to the publisher, and so the artist ends up being a "wage slave" because they don't profit off the rights of the work they made.
b) Locking away works for entire generations means that cultural artistic development is stifled. Shakespeare's works were based on previous works and stories, and under the copyright system of today he would have been sued for his plays (and we probably wouldn't have them today). It is insanely short-sighted for corporations to lobby for longer copyright terms to have monopolies, at the expense of eradicating future generations' Shakespeares.
c) The original purpose of copyright (under the Statute of Anne in 1710) was to provide a very limited monopoly by the authors (not publishers) so that they are incentivised to create new works. By your own admission, having lifetime copyright protections does not incentivise the creation of new works (you could argue that it actually is a counter-incentive if you wrote one work that became very popular early in your career). A return to that system would be a significant improvement.
b) I specifically said my lifetime. An average work might be covered for two generations. Not a big deal. If Shakespeare's work is so derivative, then I don't have a problem. 50 Shades of Gray started as Twilight fan-fiction. You can be derivative without being a mashup.
c) you're talking about publishers again, as if that's relevant.
As for this:
By your own admission, having lifetime copyright protections does not incentivise the creation of new works
I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth to form a low-quality argument. At no point did I ever say or imply anything of the sort!
> I specifically said my lifetime. An average work might be covered for two generations. Not a big deal.
The average lifetime is more like 5-6 generations (each generation being maybe 15 years). I disagree it isn't a big deal, and I also very much disagree that it's fine if Shakespeare didn't exist because his works were derivative.
> 50 Shades of Gray started as Twilight fan-fiction.
The work '50 Shades of Gray' has absolutely nothing in common with 'Twilight', despite it's history. Not to mention that the author probably got permission of some sort. Shakespeare's plays were far more significant mash-ups of previous stories and works (with changes obviously, but nowhere near as many changes as the two works you mentioned).
> At no point did I ever say or imply anything of the sort!
Yes you did. From your original comment:
> If I create original work, I want to profit off it for my life.
If you have a guaranteed profit source for the rest of your life, what reasonable person would ever find a need to make more works (there's no point in getting more money if you already have whatever you need)? The point of copyright is to incentivise the creation of new works -- which is the precise reason why it is limited in every country on Earth (and was even more limited in the Statute of Anne). Having a limit to any reasonable person is equivalent to unlimited (since once your dead, there's no profit motive any more) has the same effect of removing the incentive for more works.
If you don't believe that the purpose of copyright is to incentise new works, read the US constitution (I imagine you're in the US) or whatever copyright law is applicable in your country.
> [Congress has the Right] 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.
Of course you do. Everyone wants free money.
But look at the flip side - you want everyone else to accept an obligation to not do a a number of things with that work, and other people to enforce your rights, which is a claim on other people's time and money.
So even if you believe there's some moral right to prevent others from doing things with some "intellectual property", you're still stuck compromising with all the people you're demanding do or not do certain things.
> Anything else is just punishing people who are creators rather than property owners.
Actually, you're calling a failure to coerce others into to building legal regimes to your preferred specifications a 'punishment'. You might instead ask, why should the fact that I scribbled something down create legal obligations on someone I have never met?
It's not free money. It's passive income from intellectual property.
So even if you believe there's some moral right to prevent others from doing things with some "intellectual property"
It's a legal right. Morality has nothing to do with it, aside from your own attempt to baselessly undermine opposing arguments.
Actually, you're calling a failure to coerce others into to building legal regimes to your preferred specifications a 'punishment'.
Now you're just getting into "property is theft" and "taxation is violence" level nonsense. By your logic, why shouldn't I be able to just park an RV on your lawn and live there? Property rights are just some legal construct.
We agree that the current laws are like this, but laws change all the time and laws are supposed to reflect society's ethics (in the US this is a joke nowadays -- they reflect the (lack of) ethics of large corporations).
If the current laws are unfair, then having a discussion of how the laws should be (to inform a decision on whether such a reform should be lobbied for and put to into an actual law) is entirely fair. Dismissing such discussions with "that's the way it is" is just silly -- would you have made similar comments to the civil rights movements or other such movements?
In exactly the same way that property rights are enforced. We're barreling into a knowledge-based economy, yet HN wants to devalue knowledge and IP.
Copyright protects against the copying of works -- there is simply no analog of "copying a work" for physical property. You cannot "copy" a chair, or "copy" a table. You can make a new one from scratch based on the design of the old one, and assuming it has no patents, this would be completely legal.
Copyright also can place restrictions on redistribution of works, as well as modification (or even use) of works. This is something that is has no physical property laws associated with it -- the previous owner of a house cannot place restrictions on who you can sell your house to (or whether you can drill holes in the wall or where you can place your furniture). A publisher cannot restrict your ability to sell a book you bought to someone else second-hand.
The same argument can be drawn out for all of the other completely separate legal concepts.
Not to mention that "intellectual property" doesn't mirror the core concept of property -- it is based on scarcity. The reason why ownership of a house is important is because there is only one such house, and there must be a way to figure out who has the right to make executive decisions about that house. This is not how "intellectual property" operates. There simply is no scarcity, as ideas can be spread and copied without cost.
There was an article on HN about an open source developer who is the sole maintainer of some complex, common tool (I can't recall what) who barely scrapes along. He's created many millions of dollars in value for others yet he can barely keep food on the table.
IMO, open source is great for consumers and middle-men, but takes advantage of and devalues software creators.
Lazy rich child B's dad wrote some music, which he and his children can benefit from for marginal costs (publishing, taxes).
I know - in one case it is a physical object, and in the other - immaterial. But both houses and music can offer enjoyment and can be benefited from financially, and thus have inherent value.
I am not sure if the notion of private property should depend on the continued existence of the original creator. When do we start requisitioning houses for the hommage of the original owner?
In one case or you live in the house or I live in the house. In the other, you can listen to music and other million people or 1 billion at the same time.
Physical ownership is required because it is a limit resource. Copyright is not limited by any physic constraint.
So, I agree that ownership has nothing to do with the original creator. But copyright has nothing to do with a house ownership but a legal monopoly created by the state with some goals in mind that may require or probably not to extend it beyond a few years.
If keeping things copyrighted had a continuous cost then copyright holders would be incentivized to release things to public sooner.
2. Private property is a false analogy
3. Copyright was established for two reasons: a) to let the author (and only the author) to profit from their immaterial work. b) to facilitate the free exchange of ideas
Are his children entitled to every piece of furniture this "dad who wielded a hammer" ever built? As it was already mentioned "The dad who wields a pencil" can just as easily buy a house and leave it to his children.
The problem with immaterial things is that they can be trivially copied. In this sense copyright law is more akin to patents: you get protection and possiblity to profit off of your immaterial work.
Copyright inheritance is not taxed in any way.
Michael Jackson's estate begs to differ: IRS argues that the pop star’s name and likeness should have been valued at $161 million; that would be down from 2013, when it valued those rights at $434 million. https://www.wsj.com/articles/michaels-jacksons-estate-faces-...
Lazy child C's dad worked at a factory making drills as a salaried employee. After he retired/died, the lazy child had to get over their laziness to make a living.
Why doesn't the factory have to keep paying the dad's wage to his family for decades after he died?
One difference between a house and a recording is marginal cost of replication/reproduction: not zero in case of a house, effectively zero in case of a recording.
Without a government granted monopoly on copies, the marginal financial value of a copy is close to zero in all but the most exotic cases.
With a government granted monopoly comes a real cost: enforcement, and loss of social value. How does one justify that?
Authors' descendants do not have a $DEITY granted eternal right to exploit the author's work, and rightly so. This is why "intellectual property" can be more accurately described as "intellectual rights".
The fact that in one case the creation is easily reproducible with almost zero marginal costs, speaks not of the inherent value of the original creation (that was presumably undisputed at the author's lifetime), but is mere opportunistic thinking from the perspective of the society.
How would you vote against that if you were on your deathbed? You can burn your house, but you cannot undo music or literature.
I come from a former Russian occupied country that has maybe left me a bit overprotective of private property. The notion of requisitioning property "for the good of The People" is deeply repulsive - a lot of families here, including mine, actually were liberated from their house, farm, land and personal freedoms by the "liberators". So maybe after some decades, I should leave more room for "The People".
This doesnt create many opportunities for abuse like a monopoly of the state on the creations. Public domain is, by virtue of being freely reproducible, free.
There is nothing stopping the children of the musician from continuing to listen to that music.
But nothing also stops other people from listening to it either if they lose exclusive rights to it.
Nobody is liberated from anything, as they still can listen to that music as much as they want.
Copying something is not theft. The original remains intact.
P.S. I do feel for the difficult bit of history in your native country's past. Lots of friends and family from a small republic "liberated" 3 times the last 80 years, consecutively by the USSR, Nazi Germany, and again the USSR...
There are, to me, two broad classes of copyright. One is for the "works of art", that is for things that people can enjoy (e.g., music). I suspect whatever choice we make the society would not be affected too much. I think your lifetime / 50 years is a bit too generous, but whatever.
IMO way more important is finding the right balance for the technology / know how. That is something that people want to replicate to learn, produce or improve things. The original idea of copyright makes sense, but with modern communication and prototyping speed, 5 years of exclusive use is the max we should give.
I think the society should focus on the technology part first; sadly, most of the discussion is about the royalties to noise generators :).
I'll give you three:
1) Even if it's unlikely for anyone to act on it (which I don't think can be taken for granted), it's perverse to have a law making it possible to terminate a copyright by murdering the author.
2) The term is too long. At 50 years since first publication, the vast majority of works have been out of print for 40+ years. Roughly half of people who experienced the contemporary zeitgeist are dead, and by this time surviving copies of the work might be difficult to find or in long-obsolete formats that are difficult to work with.
3) For works older than 50 years, it requires would-be public domain users to find out whether the author is still alive. This wouldn't be difficult for a famous author, but many authors don't enjoy such fame later in life, particularly if their creative careers are short.
I'd support making it a 20-year fixed term with no renewals, although I think it can still be argued that that's too long.
OK, should you benefit from your father's or grandfather's talent in, say, business? Let's treat them equally.
I go to the bank. I ask for a loan. I tell them that I will small marginal profits after 75 years. I do not get the loan.
Even if in some cases this was actually possible. Still, we need to evaluate if it is worth it. All the stories, movies, characters that are part of your formation and your culture will be privately owned and restricted until way after you are dead.
Characters, music, and other cultural assets only become free when nobody cares anymore about them.
We are evaluating the possibility of the creation of some cultural assets against the reality of other cultural assets that are not created because the government sets monopolistic restrictions on them.
There is a sweet spot where creators can live out of their creations. And were citizens can make their own vision of characters that personally meant a lot to them.
However, even though most of the money remains concentrated at the top, we no longer have this problem. It is fairly easy to support your favorite artist with a few dollars every month and indeed there was a big discussion here when Patreon said they could no longer support adult entertainers. None of them makes a big payout but historically not many do anyways.
I'd argue nobody deserves the huge payout that artists get. What we need is a sustainable way to fund a universal basic income so those who want to pursue the arts can do so without a fear of starving.
I'd even argue that we can afford to take copyright down to five or ten years and eventually eliminate it. Imagine the innovation at Spotify if there were no copyright! Copyright holds business down.
None, because Spotify would go out of business overnight as people stole their source code.
Spotify's value is not running many Icecast servers.
is the purpose of copyright law to enable billion dollar stars, or million dollar albums?
I wish people would stop posting these "could be" arguments when real data is already available and either supports an "is" or doesn't.
After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem sales spike, a celebration of now freely available music for all to enjoy would be a much better hommage.
As for the family, there really isn't any reason they should obtain that copyright. If they wanna earn money with art, they have to create art on their own. What the current laws create in most cases are lazy rich children who spend the rest of their lives managing the copyright legacy of their parent. That doesn't benefit society in any way. Either they work like normal people or they make their own art but they're not entitled to the copyright of their parents. If the parents don't want to leave them in poverty, they can still leave the money they earned with this copyright over the years for their children.
Also, with the minimum 50 years duration, they could still inherit the copyright if their parent dies at an early age. However, a term of life PLUS a ludicrous amount of years is a really bad idea for the cultural development of our society.