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Post by brandonakaxerxes on Jan 19, 2012 10:43:04 GMT -5
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Post by mylungswereaching on Jan 21, 2012 15:04:35 GMT -5
The re-copyright law is designed to get the U.S. in line with international copyright law. There are books,movies, etc that were made in the U.S. that are still under copyright in the U.S. but not available here, but are available, legally overseas and vice versa.
I'm sort of half and half on this issue. I don't like the idea of the U.S. is above international law but I also don't like copyrights that go on forever. I wonder how many movies and books have been lost because the only remaining copy slowly deteriorated while people argued over who really owned it 70 years after everyone involved in making it in the first place died.
One question about the 75 year rule. After whose death? With a book it's pretty simple but with most movies, cartoons and some music a lot of people are involved in making the product.
The problem is that companies like Disney don't want to lose the copyright on their iconic symbols, like Mickey Mouse. I think there should be a different category for people or corporations for people actively using the symbol and actively producing new material in the same format as the original. If Disney keeps making new Mickey Mouse cartoons, they can keep the copyright active. But they should move the time back to 50 years from 75 years for people or corporations that don't.
For example, lets look at an iconic character like James Bond. Lets say that Ian Fleming co-wrote the last couple of bond books with his daughter and she kept writing reasonably successful new books every five years or so. Then she passed it on the same way to her son. I don't have a problem with the family keeping the rights to the book for a hundred years if they are still producing new material in the same format on a regular basis. Allowing third parties to make movies doesn't count. The child and grandchild of the original author make their money by producing new Bond books. If there are suddenly 20 new Bond books on the market by different authors, they could end up lost in the shuffle. If the grandchildren expect to get paid year after year for the work of their grandparent, I don't have as much sympathy.
There are a few series that I've seen the family continue to write books after the original writer dies, Oz, Dune, The Dragon Riders of Pern, and the Thomas the Tank Engine stories come to mind. In most cases, the followup books aren't as good but if someone wants to read them I don't have a problem with it,
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Post by mrsphyllistorgo on Jan 31, 2012 14:16:37 GMT -5
Ahhh, intellectual property....
I'm not going to pretend I know anything about copyright law, but like mylungs, I'm of several minds about the topic.
One has only to look at how authors were royally screwed before modern copyright (Poe and his raven come immediately to mind) to heartily commend the authors of said laws and offer them a glass of sustaining port. And copyright has kept as many obscure works in print as it has out of it--things like Cold Comfort Farm, old comic book series; heck, anything that had a vogue that passed. Trust me, Sheila Gibbons would not be known today if a few relatives hadn't kept stubbornly reapplying for the rights they had inherited from their obscure at the time relative.
But on the other hand, as you pointed out, a tangible copy doesn't last forever. Books mildew, film crumbles. It does no one any good for the last copy of London After Midnight to dissolve while battles over who actually owns the thing rage on. In such cases perhaps archival or preservation laws could go into effect, with the necessary precautions taken to make enough copies of the original to preserve the body of the work.
And yet...books and movies are things. They're owned. And like anything owned, the can be bought and sold. That's how our system works. It may be irritating that Ian Fleming's descendants can live large because their dad wrote some books forty years ago, but if he passed the copyright down to them legally, it's theirs. Just the same as if he'd made a fortune in bonds or coffee or jewelry, that right is, legally, a physical, tangible thing. A book is the same as a heirloom ring, a movie the same as a Ming vase.
And yet they're not. Lovely as a Ming vase may be, it doesn't need people staring at it to continue to exist. But books and movies are different. They exist in the real world in the first place because their creator wanted an audience, wanted to share a concept molded into a particular shape. With no reader or viewer, a book or movie has no real existance. It may be tangible in form, but not function.
Like I said, it's complicated, and the advent of the internet has just complicated it expodentially.
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Post by inlovewithcrow on Feb 6, 2012 14:45:52 GMT -5
After whose death? Walt disney's. and no, I'm not kidding. the law will certainly change again soon. Kill the mouse!
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Feb 12, 2012 16:32:50 GMT -5
While I admit a part of me doesn't care for the fact that Copyright Laws can get extended for things like Disney, I can't ignore the fact that corporations like Disney didn't actually exist when the original copyright laws were being made.
And having said that, I appreciate the fact that we don't just outright ignore copyrights. Anyone who wants to use Peter Pan still has to get permission/pay to do so, and I think it's fair to acknowledge the families of those who make such iconic characters since in a way the book legacy is one of the few things that a creator can actually pass down to a family.
But then, every once in a while, there's a situation where you just can't use something that might make more sense to use. ...fortunately, there are always new songs.
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Post by Don Quixote on Feb 12, 2012 17:14:33 GMT -5
I'm going to copyright the alphabet, and then everyone will have to pay me to use the English language. It's the perfect scam!
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Post by mylungswereaching on Feb 12, 2012 19:54:17 GMT -5
The problem with never ending copyrights is that over time it could get more and more difficult to produce anything new. Lets say copyright starts in 1900 and never ends. How many books, songs. etc. have been produce since then? If a few big corporations buy up the rights to millions of books, with the data mining capacity of modern computers, how easy would it be to find a book similar enough to claim copyright violation and sue any new bestselling book or movie?
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Post by Don Quixote on Feb 12, 2012 21:07:07 GMT -5
Why do you hate the job creators, mylungswereaching?
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Post by Mitchell on Mar 7, 2012 22:16:00 GMT -5
The problem with never ending copyrights is that over time it could get more and more difficult to produce anything new. Lets say copyright starts in 1900 and never ends. How many books, songs. etc. have been produce since then? If a few big corporations buy up the rights to millions of books, with the data mining capacity of modern computers, how easy would it be to find a book similar enough to claim copyright violation and sue any new bestselling book or movie? One cannot copyright a general idea or a certain plot, for instance. only the form in which it is expressed. Being "similar enough" isn't a violation it has to be in the same form. |
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Post by mylungswereaching on Mar 8, 2012 16:29:06 GMT -5
One cannot copyright a general idea or a certain plot, for instance. only the form in which it is expressed. Being "similar enough" isn't a violation it has to be in the same form. [/quote][/sup] If I write a book about Harry Ron and Hermione, three wizard children in a wizard school, I'd probably get sued. Everyone now can publish on the web easily and cheaply. There's probably 10 million books a year published somewhere, most bad. After 200 years that 2,000,000,000 books. With 2 billion books to pick from, you would probably be able to find one of them that's close enough to sue.
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