New (and calmer) Copyright discussion thread (split out from "Publishing a Sequel")

I feel like you're looking at it very one-sided. What if your brilliant science fiction epic makes you a ton of money? And you make a movie of it, and make a ton of more money? And it's such a classic that it will continue to sell enough after your dead that you can provide for your children and grandchildren into adulthood? Do you and your team of lawyers really want to throw up your hands and say, sure! Take my world and my unforgettable characters and do whatever you want with them and feel free to sell it? Because I wouldn't.

I'm not up in arms for Disney Company to maintain its stranglehold on its signature mouse, but it's the same sort of thing. Walt started out as an unknown cartoonist, and his work has ended up an enormous success. Just because he's made a ton of money off Mickey Mouse, doesn't mean his kids and grandkids shouldn't be allowed to control his creations.

Omega said:

Doctor Who is actually a very good example. Who does the Doctor belong to? I don't think you can reasonably say he belongs to any single individual. Having been around for four decades, played by a dozen actors, written for by dozens of writers, he's become part of culture as a whole. The idea that one person (or more likely, corporation) somewhere should forevermore be able to decide who can publish something about the Doctor and who can't is ridiculous.

Or Mickey Mouse. The character is culturally omnipresent, he's been around for over eighty years, Walt Disney has been dead for nearly fifty years. Why should some corporate entity get to dictate who gets to make Mickey Mouse cartoons?

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Now you're mixing Trademark with Copyright. MickeyMouse, and other characters licensed for use in TV/movies aren't just under copyright. (And if Sony is making a movie based on Foundation then they have the trademark - no one else can touch it.)


You seriously need to read the thread on Lady Sybilla, because you're making her arguments, and they still don't hold water.

"When fictional characters become such an intricate part of the popular psyche, as is the case with the Twilight Saga, legal boundaries become blurred, and copyright laws become increasingly difficult to define. This is especially the case when actual cities like Forks and Volterra are used as the novel's settings. Such settings are not copyrightable, as they are considered public domain. Similarly, the Quileute Nation is also not copyrightable, and neither are vampire or werewolf legends. Copyright laws protect writers from unauthorized reproductions of their work, but such reproductions only include verbatim copying. Characters are only copyrightable if their creator draws them or hires an artist to draw them. Stephenie Meyer herself borrowed a great deal from previous works dealing with these mythologies."

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Omega said:

Doctor Who is actually a very good example. Who does the Doctor belong to? I don't think you can reasonably say he belongs to any single individual. Having been around for four decades, played by a dozen actors, written for by dozens of writers, he's become part of culture as a whole. The idea that one person (or more likely, corporation) somewhere should forevermore be able to decide who can publish something about the Doctor and who can't is ridiculous.

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I can very reasonably say he belongs to the BBC so long as they are producing new works with the Doctor in it.

I say this as a fan who loves the series and who loves reading fan fiction. I'd love it if the BBC stopped going after fanvids on YouTube but I don't want every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there to publish his own version of the Doctor for profit. To do so would only harm the properties and characters I love.

There are some truly phenomenal writers of fan fic but they understand that they cannot publish their works.

Kathleen42 said:

I can very reasonably say he belongs to the BBC so long as they are producing new works with the Doctor in it.

I say this as a fan who loves the series and who loves reading fan fiction. I'd love it if the BBC stopped going after fanvids on YouTube but I don't want every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there to publish his own version of the Doctor for profit. To do so would only harm the properties and characters I love.

There are some truly phenomenal writers of fan fic but they understand that they cannot publish their works.

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Right.

Even when shows go off the air, the fans can't profit from them because they're still owned by the Prod. Co. which bought the rights to them - that's why fans of dead shows have collaborative "virtual seasons" to continue the series in fanfic form for others to enjoy free. But if the Prod. Co. that owns the show issues a C&D, they will.

Omega said:

Doctor Who is actually a very good example. Who does the Doctor belong to? I don't think you can reasonably say he belongs to any single individual. Having been around for four decades, played by a dozen actors, written for by dozens of writers, he's become part of culture as a whole. The idea that one person (or more likely, corporation) somewhere should forevermore be able to decide who can publish something about the Doctor and who can't is ridiculous.

Or Mickey Mouse. The character is culturally omnipresent, he's been around for over eighty years, Walt Disney has been dead for nearly fifty years. Why should some corporate entity get to dictate who gets to make Mickey Mouse cartoons?

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Intellectual property is property and is alienable. In the case of something like "Dr. Who," there is a rights-holder who commissions the works. The writers, directors and actors who make shows do so for pay, and don't own the work; the rights-holder does.

A corporation is a person for legal purposes, and it can own property, including intellectual property.

Omega said:

You are correct in that this is what I am saying. Intellectual property should be treated differently from tangible property. This is because they are different, namely in that ideas can be copied while physical property can only be removed. Theft is illegal because otherwise you don't have anything resembling a civilization. But civilization existed for millennia without any concept of intellectual property. Intellectual property is an important concept, and when properly implemented benefits all involved. But to treat ideas exactly the same as we treat physical objects is absurd. There is absolutely no equivalency between stealing a physical piece of property and depriving someone of hypothetical future profits by copying their ideas.

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We don't. The law covering the protections bundled with copyright is entirely distinct from the law related to theft or conversion of goods or personal property.

The idea that violation of intellectual property rights constitutes "theft" is a simplified explanation and a PR term that's thrown around in relation to downloading copyrighted content.

You are not considered to be stealing by appropriating "The Foundation." But Asimov's rights to those ideas are exclusive, and he can therefore exclude you from using them.

Omega said:

But why should you and your descendants get paid forever for you doing one thing? You should get paid something, for some period of time, but in perpetuity? Yes, you want this, because you benefit from it. But you also prevent other people from benefiting from their own work. "Because it's good for me and I want it that way" is not a sufficient answer to why it should be this way. Once again, copyright term is all about balance between the good of society and the good of the content creator. What you are proposing benefits the content creator and his descendants forever, and benefits society not at all.

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Omega said:

As far as I can tell, her arguments are, in one significant regard, completely in error. Namely, characters can be copyrighted even if they're not drawn. Other than that, the segment your quoted about why a particular copyright is not valid bears no resemblance at all to the arguments I am presently making about why extremely long copyright terms are neither morally obligatory nor beneficial to society.

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Copyright and trademark benefit the creators and rights holders, but everything that gets published doesn't necessarily benefit society every time.

Omega said:

As far as I can tell, her arguments are, in one significant regard, completely in error. Namely, characters can be copyrighted even if they're not drawn. Other than that, the segment your quoted about why a particular copyright is not valid bears no resemblance at all to the arguments I am presently making about why extremely long copyright terms are neither morally obligatory nor beneficial to society.

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Really? Read it again.

Omega said:

Doctor Who is actually a very good example. Who does the Doctor belong to? I don't think you can reasonably say he belongs to any single individual. Having been around for four decades, played by a dozen actors, written for by dozens of writers, he's become part of culture as a whole. The idea that one person (or more likely, corporation) somewhere should forevermore be able to decide who can publish something about the Doctor and who can't is ridiculous.

Or Mickey Mouse. The character is culturally omnipresent, he's been around for over eighty years, Walt Disney has been dead for nearly fifty years. Why should some corporate entity get to dictate who gets to make Mickey Mouse cartoons?

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When fictional characters become such an intricate part of the popular psyche, as is the case with the Twilight Saga, legal boundaries become blurred, and copyright laws become increasingly difficult to define.

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Omega said:

As far as I can tell, her arguments are, in one significant regard, completely in error. Namely, characters can be copyrighted even if they're not drawn. Other than that, the segment your quoted about why a particular copyright is not valid bears no resemblance at all to the arguments I am presently making about why extremely long copyright terms are neither morally obligatory nor beneficial to society.

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You're not the only one who has argued that copyright terms are unnecessarily long, and you're correct that they have been extended, particularly for corporate rightsholders, to protect their revenue streams from older works.

Disney wants to continue to derive revenues related to "Steamboat Willie" and "Snow White," and retroactive copyright extentions do nothing to promote invention or innovation. But the public interest in having works lapse into the public domain is slight, and the grassroots resistance to copyright extension is diffuse and weak.

Lawrence Lessig at the EFF tried to overturn the extension with litigation, and the Supreme Court basically upheld the law on a basis of deference to Congress. Congress responds to entertainment industry lobbyists. And the world keeps spinning.

I think a hundred years before anyone becomes free to use a song is too long, and I would like to see a provision that allows copyrights to lapse if the rightsholder doesn't circulate the work for a period of years. This would encourage preservation of old films that are being neglected by studios, and might encourage republication of some interesting out-of-print fiction.

However, the exclusivity of copyright is about an artist's right to the integrity of his work as well as his exlcusive financial rights. You operate from the premise that your fanfic sequel to "The Foundation" is beneficial to society.

To the extent there is ambiguity in the original work, it's probably intended, and to the extent he died before resolving those ambiguities, he probably wouldn't have wanted you to resolve them for him.

There's a lot of moral force behind his right not to have you twisting his work into whatever shape you see fit. There is a lot of moral force behind his heirs preventing you from offering some kind of closure on his characters.

If you think you're so good, go make something of your own.

Omega said:

But why should you and your descendants get paid forever for you doing one thing? You should get paid something, for some period of time, but in perpetuity? Yes, you want this, because you benefit from it. But you also prevent other people from benefiting from their own work. "Because it's good for me and I want it that way" is not a sufficient answer to why it should be this way. Once again, copyright term is all about balance between the good of society and the good of the content creator. What you are proposing benefits the content creator and his descendants forever, and benefits society not at all.

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I don't think one should hold rights in perpetuity, but I do think that the current long copyright terms make sense. And, if you are smart enough to get rich off your brilliant work (like, I dunno, Milne, or Tolkien), and you can hire a team of lawyers to renew or hold onto those rights, then more power to ya.

Omega said:

I read it several times. Arguing that only because something becomes part of the collective psyche makes copyright law difficult to define is... well, frankly, silly. The law is clear, and she seems to be arguing that it's not. I, on the other hand, am arguing that the law should be changed. Not in any way that makes Twilight not protected, because I believe copyright should last a bare minimum of ten years, and I'd prefer more like twenty. You'll note that this would still keep me from publishing my book for another ten years, since I use characters from a book published in 1999, so this still isn't about getting my book published.

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Lessig argues for a shorter copyright term as well, but I think it's entirely unreasonable to even consider a copyright duration that is not at least fifty years long, or that expires during the lifetime of a natural person who is the owner and creator.

Ten years or even twenty is much too short to allow authors to benefit fully from their works. Many works older than this get optioned for films, and the films re-invigorate readers' interest in the books and the author's works.

There are also a number of authors who write breakthrough bestsellers on their fifth or sixth published novels, which creates renewed interest in their catalog of previous work. It would be inequitable for authors to be deprived of these revenues so you could be allowed to dry-hump Issac Asimov's corpse.

This would also completely destroy the economics of music and film. The music industry finances a lot of artists on the basis that a single superstar creates value that can be exploited for decades.

Similarly, movie studios rely on remakes and sequels to franchises they own, as well as home video releases of older movies.

And if you wrote a hit song in 1980 that's still on the radio all the time, and keeps getting used in movies and keeps selling records, you should keep getting the checks.

Omega said:

But why should you and your descendants get paid forever for you doing one thing?

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Because it was me who wrote it and my descendents (if I had any) came out of my body.

Now tell me this:

Omega said:

But you also prevent other people from benefiting from their own work.

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Why should you get to benefit from someone else's work?

Omega said:

What you are proposing benefits the content creator and his descendants forever...

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Because the content creator is the one who created it. Duh.

Omega said:

...and benefits society not at all.

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Society can suck my left one if it thinks it has the right to make money off my work.

Omega said:

But how do you define "benefit fully from their works"? If it's "benefit financially from every profitable derrivation of their work", then why end it at death? What if it gets made into a movie after the author dies? Tough luck for them? If it's not eternal, there has to be a cutoff point somewhere. Death? Arbitrary number of years? Eternity? It's all arbitrary, because we're talking about ideas, not real property.

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FFS.

IDEAS ARE PROPERTY.

Omega said:

So we should maintain current copyright laws to support the business model of the record cartels? Corporatism isn't my preferred method of government.

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Let me guess; communism is?

Property is theft, right?

Omega said:

And you might want to look into how much money the content creators actually make in the record industry, because it's pretty much zero.

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Uh...right.

Omega said:

WHY? Nobody answers the question WHY?

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BECAUSE YOU WROTE THE FUCKING SONG.

Omega said:

You all keep saying the way you think things should be, I keep asking WHY you think things should be that way, and nobody answers the question! Yes, laws are the way they are. I think they should be changed because they hurt society as a whole.

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No, they hurt your ability to steal.

Omega said:

You think they should stay the same because they benefit the rightsholders. But why should the rightsholders benefit outweigh the benefit of society by expansion of works in the public domain?

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BECAUSE THEY WRITE THE SONGS THAT MAKE THE WHOLE WORLD SING.

Omega said:

That's the question that has yet to be answered by anything more than "because it's his work". If that's the only answer, then you're assuming your conclusion, and there's nothing more to discuss, because your conclusion has no support.

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That's the only answer needed.

If you disagree, tell you what, I'll just come round your house and 'make use of' your computer, take all the digital photographs on it, anything you've written and see what money I can make from it because hey, it's not REAL property, is it?

It is clear you are ignoring the things people in this thread are saying. Why is this? Do you feel the need to patronise me for telling it like it is? Does this require you to accuse me of being angry in order to justify your ignorance?

Oh, and regarding anger - yeah. Thieves make me angry. I'm kinda funny like that.

Omega said:

But how do you define "benefit fully from their works"? If it's "benefit financially from every profitable derrivation of their work", then why end it at death? What if it gets made into a movie after the author dies? Tough luck for them? If it's not eternal, there has to be a cutoff point somewhere. Death? Arbitrary number of years? Eternity? It's all arbitrary, because we're talking about ideas, not real property.

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How long is up to Congress, which is empowered by the Constitution to make these laws.

You imply that protection for ideas should be somehow less than protection for other kinds of rights. But for many people, including Asimov, their ideas were their livelihood, and their ability to exclude others from reproducing or deriving from their works is the mechanism that permits these people to make a living.

WHY? Nobody answers the question WHY? You all keep saying the way you think things should be, I keep asking WHY you think things should be that way, and nobody answers the question! Yes, laws are the way they are. I think they should be changed because they hurt society as a whole. You think they should stay the same because they benefit the rightsholders. But why should the rightsholders benefit outweigh the benefit of society by expansion of works in the public domain? That's the question that has yet to be answered by anything more than "because it's his work" and increasing insults to my integrity and my work. If the only answer is "people should benefit forever from their creations because they should", then you're assuming your conclusion, and there's nothing more to discuss, because your conclusion has no support.

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People should benefit from their creations, because, to the extent that there is commercial value in a work or idea, it is equitable for that value to be realized by the creator or the entity that finances and commissions the work.

Such exclusive rights supply an incentive to create. What is your argument in favor of stripping the rights away from the creators, to allow the work to be exploited financially by others without compensating the author?

scarletpeaches said:

BECAUSE YOU WROTE THE FUCKING SONG.

That's the only answer needed.

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QFT

Furthermore, the OP wants to know why. Let me ask YOU a question.

You write a novel that doesn't use other people's ideas, characters, world building. Everything is original. It took you three years, a divorce, lots of sleepless nights, lots of cursing, screaming, tears, confusion, anger and fucking IMAGINATION to write this epic novel that makes the world stop and go "Wow." You did that. You are proud. You made a difference.

Now, some snot-nosed ass hole with no clue about true work takes your hard work and bastardizes it into something not only not of your creation, but totally and completely ripping off all the work you put into creating this epic.

You, my friend, would be pissed. Anyone would be. This is not Mickey Mouse. This is not Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden. This novel you wrote was published only a few years ago. You are still alive and kicking. YOU OWN everything you created. It is on paper. It is in print.

Snot-nose has no god damned right. Neither do you. Get over it. End of story. No one should benefit from the hard work of others. You die, copyright goes defunct. Snot-nose can do whatever he wants. But until then, it's bull shit. Try using John Coffey in a novel and see how quickly Stephen King rips you a new one. He created that big man with the weepy eyes. John Coffey belongs to him. My characters belong to me because I made them.

My children are mine. No one can take them and say "These are my kids." simply because a certain number of years have gone by. THEY ARE STILL MINE! My name is still on their birth certificate. Therefore, if I publish a multi-million dollar epic, you are damned right they deserve to benefit from my work... more than any rip-off artist would.

Do you honestly think that you should have the right to take other people's work and get glory from it? Really?

How would you feel if you were a lawyer that had just won a big corporate case, but John Q. Attorney down the street got all the credit, the promotion and partnership you worked your ass off for? Wouldn't be so eager to have your glory stolen, then, huh?