Don't know much about No on S. 2823 but you would think that more focus should be on enforcing what's there already than to add more restrictions and rules.
The fine article does not make a convincing argument to opposing the copyright extension. They just whine that the record companies will "wring out more money" from pre-1972 works. If that were the whole argument, then I would actually be in favour.
It seems that the EFF position is "we want free music", and does absolutely nothing to address culture and access to culture.
If you've not managed to recover a sufficient wage for your work in 1972 from 46 years of publicly enforced monopoly then I think the public should have a right to cease offering you that monopoly. If you have, then why do you need this protection?
20 years at most IMO, anything longer damages cultural progress.
Copyright is nothing like a natural right, so it's not really the EFF's place to make a convincing argument against it, more the proponents should be convincing the public to extend this favour.
To me that's a bit hard, one needs to balance things so as not to disproportionately harm individual inventors/creators.
It would be great IMO to link renewal to revenue, but too difficult in practice (and too many potential loopholes).
One problem with early, high cost, renewal fees is that companies know they can wait out an individual; you're not going to pay a £M renewal without already having done serious revenue.
It can take a long time to get a new technology, or a new book, or whatever, to market -- the IPR system needs to enable individual creators.
3.5 years are enough to raise an apprentice/intern to a junior level self sufficient proficiency (once you have a junior worker, you are expected to efficiently produce or perform your innovation). There are no renewal fees in first 3.5 years in my proposal.
> It would be great IMO to link renewal to revenue, but too difficult in practice (and too many potential loopholes).
Charge proportional to declared value, with the declared value also an offer to accept payment from any combination of parties to buy the work into the public domain at that price. (It's not exactly based on revenue, but based on value to the copyright holder, but that's close enough to the same thing.)
* The incumbent can instantly kill any new competitors by buying their core technologies into the public domain.
* If you're creating something for the first time e.g. a small indie game, you need to know before you release it whether or not it will become the next minecraft.
> The incumbent can instantly kill any new competitors by buying their core technologies into the public domain
By buying them out at a price set by the competitor involved, sure, and only after the first renewal is due, sure.
Of course, a monopolistic incumbent can have the public (instead of tolerating monopoly rents) and prospective competition band toether to buy it's technology out into the public domain for competition to use, too.
> If you're creating something for the first time e.g. a small indie game, you need to know before you release it whether or not it will become the next minecraft.
Well, no, because we are talking about the method for setting a renewal tax for copyright, not an initial one. So you have to have an idea of how valuable it is to you before the first renewal.
(I like the 4-12 year granted period proposed upthread, but using the declared value approach I would probably go with annual renewals with a long limit—maybe even the current maximum—rather than 6mo renewal with a 21 year cap.)
I might keep the idea of having an exponentially escalating fee by doing that for a required floor to declared value of a work (maybe even instead of a maximum time limit.) Have a nominal floor at the first renewal (say, $1 in today's money) and increasing by 50% each year, with the annual fee as 5% of the declared value. Sure, you can keep renewing as long as you want, but after 50 years of renewals you're at a $32 million minimum renewal fee.
I happen to agree with you. But you and the article are preaching to the choir. I'm saying that the article fails to make an argument that would convince someone ignorant of the intricacies.
This is a short page urging you to contact your senator, their full argument is linked to on the page. I doubt it will change your opinion though, as your opposition seems to be based on the idea they're hiding something from you.
The point of copyright is to incentivize the creation of new works, at the expense of making those works less available. Adding additional copyright restrictions to existing work from decades ago does nothing to incentivize the creation of new works. It's all cost and no benefit.
It all makes perfect sense to me now. Someone has developed a time machine. If copyrights are longer in the past, they will have incentive to go back into the past, create new works there, and use the profits to fund the operation of their time machine.
That's actually the only scenario where this copyright extension will cause the creation of new works. Barring that, yes, it's just a money grab by copyright holders (most of whom are not even the artists who created the works).
"The fine article does not make a convincing argument to opposing the copyright extension. They just whine that the record companies will "wring out more money" from pre-1972 works."
Their argument is that the government extending copyright should be balanced by some public good (such as releasing more works in to the public domain).
Without such a public good being served, this is just a money grab by the copyright holders. These are generally are not the creators or artists, but rather publishers and other corporations. So if your support for this legislation hinges on the illusion that its the creators or artists who will be the primary beneficiaries of it, you might want to reconsider.
I did a quick search on the Senator who sponsored this bill and was unable to find a recent news article where he explained his support for it.
I don't know enough about how the Senate interacts with the news media to determine if that's unusual or not, but it sure seems weird to me. If you're going to propose legislation with such a broad impact, why not speak up about it? This is something that a lot of folks want to talk about.
It’s Chris Coons, a D from Delaware. I don’t see much in his past to explain bringing it forward - other than he campaigned for Reagan in the 80s and later went D. I’m hoping this is some 3D chess move, but that seems doubtful. He’s taken a great move to unearn people’s distrust.
There's an overview of some of his opinions on this page, which doesn't have a date on it but I'd guess dates from his 2015 patent bill. He may have changed his thinking some since then.
Well I could be paranoid but you could just follow the money.
His top campaign contributions come from lawyers[0]. What kind of layers you ask? They do IP law[1]. BTW it possible I am missing something, this came from 5 minutes of google'ing. But the simplest solution is the most likely one IMO.
I find it amazing how US managed to legalize bribes in the form of 'campaign contributions' and 'lobbying'. And how this model spreads across the world, because money is what matters most. Hence, extended copyrights, more expensive health care, more policies driven by interests of money and not for the masses...
People should be more suspicious of bipartisanship, and increase scrutiny. It annoys me to no end as student of political science that people think bipartisanship is inherently good, and that aggressive ideological battle diminishes the conversation. All good things in politics come from vociferous arguing, and only later comes some sense of compromise. This bill and its bipartisan sponsorship is not the result of debate followed by compromise.
> All good things in politics come from vociferous arguing
I would hope you recognize the opposite. The natural inclination is to increase aggression to try again when battles are fought viciously and lost. The idea of losing as commonplace and safe is not reinforced enough. While I don't trust a single representative (very bad sign), I also don't think the arguments should be full of frothing.
Actually I'm far more suspicious of the opposite. Sure it can happen that there is dispassionate lawmaking that benefits most people and harms almost no one. But I'll continue to argue that this is only due to many prior frothing arguments, which distill out the crap, and leave only the salient arguments, and the skilled arguers.
Watch a debate in the British Parliament and then watch a U.S. Senate hearing. It's difficult to take the U.S. Senate or House seriously because there is so little frothing. It's docile, servile, and subservient, and their master is the dollar.
In self-rule, ultimately the buck stops with the citizens. Not only voters, but all of the citizens. The state of affairs is due to the combined effect of action and inaction. The blame ultimately rests with them, same as the buck rests with the shareholders of a company.
This sort of rhetoric, specifically has hurt democratic culture. If something you dislike happens, it's because you didn't do ENOUGH instead of the intended realization that everything is impermanent and open to revision.
It's not just about 'yay free music', though it would absolutely impact streaming services.
This would have a huge impact on remixers, hip hop beat track artists, original music creators, and people who cover old standards.
The way it is now, it's difficult enough for creative people to use the music that falls under free use as it is.
For example, an animator used Annette Henshaw recordings from the 20s that were no longer under US Copyright, and spent over 9,000 hours creating animation that synced up to the music, only to still end up in a copyright battle over the recordings.
Youtube already removes ad revenue/or the music for videos that use some recordings of music from the 30s and 40s using the Content ID system of ownership (not copyright).
and that doesn't even cover how passing this act would affect companies, artists, people who've been using these works as the basis of their work for years.
40 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 84.7 ms ] threadSo no.
But yeah this has nothing to do with Steamboat Willie expiring
It seems that the EFF position is "we want free music", and does absolutely nothing to address culture and access to culture.
20 years at most IMO, anything longer damages cultural progress.
Copyright is nothing like a natural right, so it's not really the EFF's place to make a convincing argument against it, more the proponents should be convincing the public to extend this favour.
It would be great IMO to link renewal to revenue, but too difficult in practice (and too many potential loopholes).
One problem with early, high cost, renewal fees is that companies know they can wait out an individual; you're not going to pay a £M renewal without already having done serious revenue.
It can take a long time to get a new technology, or a new book, or whatever, to market -- the IPR system needs to enable individual creators.
Charge proportional to declared value, with the declared value also an offer to accept payment from any combination of parties to buy the work into the public domain at that price. (It's not exactly based on revenue, but based on value to the copyright holder, but that's close enough to the same thing.)
* If you're creating something for the first time e.g. a small indie game, you need to know before you release it whether or not it will become the next minecraft.
By buying them out at a price set by the competitor involved, sure, and only after the first renewal is due, sure.
Of course, a monopolistic incumbent can have the public (instead of tolerating monopoly rents) and prospective competition band toether to buy it's technology out into the public domain for competition to use, too.
> If you're creating something for the first time e.g. a small indie game, you need to know before you release it whether or not it will become the next minecraft.
Well, no, because we are talking about the method for setting a renewal tax for copyright, not an initial one. So you have to have an idea of how valuable it is to you before the first renewal.
(I like the 4-12 year granted period proposed upthread, but using the declared value approach I would probably go with annual renewals with a long limit—maybe even the current maximum—rather than 6mo renewal with a 21 year cap.)
I might keep the idea of having an exponentially escalating fee by doing that for a required floor to declared value of a work (maybe even instead of a maximum time limit.) Have a nominal floor at the first renewal (say, $1 in today's money) and increasing by 50% each year, with the annual fee as 5% of the declared value. Sure, you can keep renewing as long as you want, but after 50 years of renewals you're at a $32 million minimum renewal fee.
That's actually the only scenario where this copyright extension will cause the creation of new works. Barring that, yes, it's just a money grab by copyright holders (most of whom are not even the artists who created the works).
Their argument is that the government extending copyright should be balanced by some public good (such as releasing more works in to the public domain).
Without such a public good being served, this is just a money grab by the copyright holders. These are generally are not the creators or artists, but rather publishers and other corporations. So if your support for this legislation hinges on the illusion that its the creators or artists who will be the primary beneficiaries of it, you might want to reconsider.
Their article is not meant to persuade you of that, but to inform concerned people about how to contact their representatives.
I don't know enough about how the Senate interacts with the news media to determine if that's unusual or not, but it sure seems weird to me. If you're going to propose legislation with such a broad impact, why not speak up about it? This is something that a lot of folks want to talk about.
That's one of the most confusing double-negatives I ever saw. Could you please clarify what you meant here?
https://www.coons.senate.gov/issues/intellectual-property
His top campaign contributions come from lawyers[0]. What kind of layers you ask? They do IP law[1]. BTW it possible I am missing something, this came from 5 minutes of google'ing. But the simplest solution is the most likely one IMO.
[0]https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=...
[1] https://www.youngconaway.com/ (scroll to the 'Our Practice' section)
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/282...
I would hope you recognize the opposite. The natural inclination is to increase aggression to try again when battles are fought viciously and lost. The idea of losing as commonplace and safe is not reinforced enough. While I don't trust a single representative (very bad sign), I also don't think the arguments should be full of frothing.
Watch a debate in the British Parliament and then watch a U.S. Senate hearing. It's difficult to take the U.S. Senate or House seriously because there is so little frothing. It's docile, servile, and subservient, and their master is the dollar.
In self-rule, ultimately the buck stops with the citizens. Not only voters, but all of the citizens. The state of affairs is due to the combined effect of action and inaction. The blame ultimately rests with them, same as the buck rests with the shareholders of a company.
This sort of rhetoric, specifically has hurt democratic culture. If something you dislike happens, it's because you didn't do ENOUGH instead of the intended realization that everything is impermanent and open to revision.
This would have a huge impact on remixers, hip hop beat track artists, original music creators, and people who cover old standards.
The way it is now, it's difficult enough for creative people to use the music that falls under free use as it is.
For example, an animator used Annette Henshaw recordings from the 20s that were no longer under US Copyright, and spent over 9,000 hours creating animation that synced up to the music, only to still end up in a copyright battle over the recordings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita_Sings_the_Blues#Copyright...
Check out the movie, it's pretty fab, https://archive.org/details/Sita_Sings_the_Blues , but would it exist under the new CLASSICS act? I doubt it.
Youtube already removes ad revenue/or the music for videos that use some recordings of music from the 30s and 40s using the Content ID system of ownership (not copyright).
and that doesn't even cover how passing this act would affect companies, artists, people who've been using these works as the basis of their work for years.
Will they have to get multiple retroactive mechanical licenses? https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_li...
Or will the record companies just claim their works/revenue from the works?