Your cure is worse than the disease. If I understand this right, works need to register and pay a fee to be copyrighted. So if I take a picture of my smiling family, post it on FaceBook without registering it (and paying a fee) it's automatically public domain?
So it can be used in a brochure by any political party, company, gun advert, whatever, without my consent and without any renumeration? And this is ok so someone can make crappy remixes of Milli Vanilli songs?
>> Regarding governments, just like we establish residency for income tax purposes, you could establish residency for copyrighted-work creation.
Excellent. So you're saying big companies and rich people pay pennies for copyrights in copyright-havens, while poor people get screwed.
>> If you register an off-shore tax-haven company today to receive your income while you reside (and work) in another country, when found out, you'll be charged with tax evasion.
um, that's not how tax havens work - and very much don't work for companies. Tax havens are completely legal for companies, they maximize tax avoidance (which is legal) not tax evasion.
It wasn't my proposal. My original response to the GP comment was that I'd avoid registration and only introduce registration/renewal fees after a certain short (compared to existing duration) period, like 10 or 15 years.
> ..my smiling family...
On top of me agreeing that requiring registration when publishing sucks, hopefully privacy laws stop your family photo from ever being misused.
On the topic of tax havens, you are right: my bad for misrepresenting stuff.
I was just trying to point out that you receiving your income somewhere where your government can't see it (either in cash or in a foreign bank account: plenty of 'poor' people evade tax in this way, even service workers in the US) does not change your tax residency. IOW, residency rules are well defined, and they could apply equally to copyright-residency.
But since copyright registration should be, IMO, voluntary and only after an initial grace period where copyright protection is automatically assumed, residency matters only in avoiding registration/renewal "migration".
Btw, let me cover this one again. Copyright for the photo of your family actually belongs to the photographer. But because it has humans in it, author can only use it for whatever purpose those humans agree to. Without explicit permission from the photographer, you might not be able to use it for any purpose either (eg. print it out and put it on the wall).
Are you really suggesting that all photos posted to Facebook or WhatsApp should be in the public domain?
> I'd avoid registration and only introduce registration/renewal fees after (a period of 10-15 years)
After that initial period (whatever it is, maybe even longer), do you seriously think you'd be disadvantaged from someone using a non-humans-containing photo from your Facebook?
As for photographer holding the copyright, I am mostly pointing out a legal nuance today that is never enforced. And many of those photos you are in — selfies excluded — you don't have the explicit right to post (but neither does the photographer but not because of copyright).
As for them being taken by family, family members have sued each other for less :)
Regarding governments, just like we establish residency for income tax purposes, you could establish residency for copyrighted-work creation. If it's multiple countries you've been in while "creating", the one you spent most time in, or choose-one. If you register an off-shore tax-haven company today to receive your income while you reside (and work) in another country, when found out, you'll be charged with tax evasion. It's not that hard and we've got mechanisms to deal with it already.
All signatory countries to global copyright agreements would uphold the terms regardless of where works are registered.