5 years it should be a law

[jackfaire]

Now first of all I respect a companies right to protect their copyright to ensure they can continue profiting off of a property. More power to them.

And if a company is continuing to use a property then I think that company should of course keep the copyright.

That being said I have an issue with sitting on a property in excess of 5 years with no action taken to market the property. Especially now that digital video is becoming more of a thing. I believe a use it or lose it law should be passed.

If you do not distribute the property for an excess of five years then you lose the copyright and anyone may distribute it.

I say this in part because if it wasn't for the people at Lionsgate then Boy Meets World never again would have seen the light of day.

Buena Vista released seasons 1 through 3 decided sales were lackluster and decided not to distribute the rest of the series.

Fine that is their right but legally the rest of us were looking at "I can never own this series legally."

Some of us me, honor that and don't pirate as tempting as it might be.

Five years later Lionsgate bought a pool of shows and movies from Buena Vista and one of these was Boy Meets World they then re released seasons 1-3 and have since released the rest of the series.

If they hadn't done that though the show would have languished in a vault somewhere possibly forever or could have gone the way of Dr. Who a show which is missing much of it's original footage due to a fire.

I think a law should therefore be passed stating that after 5 years the property is declared public domain and distribution is open to all.

What do you think?

[AdminAssistant]

I think the lawyers at Disney would like a word with you.

[Andara Bledin]

There are vaults full of old films mouldering away, unreleased and ignored and hoarded because despite the copyright holders not giving a rat's ass about them, because they don't think they'll make them any money, they're damned if they'll let anyone else touch them.

I, too, am of the opinion that copyright needs a time-limit on the order of about thirty years, a generation or so, then let it go and move on.

The Spider Robinson story Melancholy Elephants (http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html) is a look at what the natural progression of copyright law as it stands now will eventually lead to.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

Were it up to me, I'd make two changes: 1) make it a bit longer, maybe 10 years (no more than 7 for software); and 2) If nobody else has taken up distribution, you can reobtain the copyright by making it available yourself, expiring immediately when you withdraw it again. (This because sometimes the only copy is one locked away, and otherwise there's no incentive, even if they come across it in housekeeping, not to toss it in the trash.)

Oh, and this supersedes the DMCA provision that makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection even if you otherwise have the right to make a copy. There was never even a plausible excuse for that one anyway.

[wolfie]

That DMCA "lockbreaking" provision needs to be re-thought. Rather than the current situation ("fair use" copying becomes a crime if the lock is broken in order to do it), why not make it that if someone makes an ILLEGAL copy, it's an enhanced offense if they broke the lock in order to do so (sort of like how some jurisdictions increase the penalties for any crime if a gun is involved, even if its presence is not known to the victim).

Copyright was originally for 50 years after the author's death (or 50 years straight if a work-for-hire). Many of the extensions were bought by the "house of mouse" to protect early works with ongoing characters. A more logical solution would be that for ongoing characters, the copyright owner must classify the work as being primarily a certain class (literature, music, motion picture, etc.), and then have the protection for earlier works (i.e. Steamboat Willie) extended only as long as the body of work was increased by (my initial guess of what's reasonable) 5% per year as measured by something appropriate to the primary class (words for literature, minutes of new material for music and motion picture).

Keep releasing new Hardy Boys books/Mickey Mouse cartoons? The copyright on the old ones stays "live". Rely on what's already been released? Older works start "aging out" of copyright.

[bara]

I can see where you are going with this. How many shows/movies/books etc are rotting away some where because the owner doesnt see them making money.
With digital downloads available the cost of making these shows available is almost free once the necessary framework is put up. Honestly, in my pirating days, which are long past, the only things I would download illegally are things I could not find anywhere else to purchase.
I would scour stores and websites, and if I couldnt find it for purchase then and only then would I pirate it.

[Andara Bledin]

I have no qualms making copies of works that are not available for purchase in any form. There's just no excuse for it these days.

And screw Disney and their vault. They don't need to take works off the market in an attempt to artificially increase their demand versus supply. However, knowing that Disney will make nearly every work available again, there's no reason to do anything but wait.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

There is a fairly serious problem with this whole idea. Companies are already pushing hard for streaming distribution and downloadable versions that are either time-limited or encrypted to a specific device. Either way, by the time even a five-year copyright expired, those copies would be long gone. And changing the law to give an otherwise-reasonable time limit takes away the incentive to make hard or reusable copies available at all.

[jackfaire]

There is a fairly serious problem with this whole idea.

How then would you suggest resolving the issue of lost properties due to no one releasing them?

[Mytical]

Simple. A copywrite can be done forever..but it must be renewed every 7 years (six years with a year grace period to be exact). If not renewed..it simply is public domain. No fees for renewing, but can not renew early..ie can only be renewed on the sixth or seventh year.

[Andara Bledin]

Simple. A copywrite can be done forever..but it must be renewed every 7 years (six years with a year grace period to be exact).
That's even worse than the crap laws we have in the US now.

All that would do would be to allow a few IP trolls to amass a ton of copyrights and then just sit on them. Forever. Because corporations don't die, and for the most part, they never let copyrights go. Ever. Because they might be able to force someone to pay them for breaking them, and that's easier than creating new content.

^-.-^

[bara]

I like the 'all copyrights expire after x amount of time has passed'. After that amount of time they cannot be renewed.

[Hyena Dandy]

I like 12

I think 12's a good number.

You can make a lot of money on 12 years.

[AdminAssistant]

Copyright should absolutely be at least the life of the creator. If someone has created something, then they deserve to 1) reap the financial benefits and 2) control how it is used for the extent of their natural life.

[Andara Bledin]

Copyright should absolutely be at least the life of the creator. If someone has created something, then they deserve to 1) reap the financial benefits and 2) control how it is used for the extent of their natural life.
Why? Most of the money from a created work is garnered in the first few years. In the case of writing, adding new works to an existing body would extend the copyright on the entire set. Give it a decade or a dozen years and most authors would have either extended the work or moved on. Music, on the other hand, is more important to let lapse, otherwise we're going to start running out of works to be made. Most people write works that are influenced by what they heard growing up, and if you extend copyright to the lifetime of the artist, then the majority of what anybody hears growing up will be off the table, utterly stifling the ability of future generations to use their own lives as inspiration.

^-.-^

[AdminAssistant]

Music, on the other hand, is more important to let lapse, otherwise we're going to start running out of works to be made. Most people write works that are influenced by what they heard growing up, and if you extend copyright to the lifetime of the artist, then the majority of what anybody hears growing up will be off the table, utterly stifling the ability of future generations to use their own lives as inspiration.

:confused:

You can write works influenced by things that are under copyright. Covers and remixes can be (and often are) done with permission. (The briefest glance at the electronica/dance music community will confirm this.) Fair Use covers satire. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here.

But I believe that a playwright ought to be able to prevent their play from being turned into a Broadway musical or a Brett Ratner film for as long as they're living. I believe that a scholar should have their work cited and respected. Copyright doesn't just cover Top 40 music, books, and movies. It covers academic work as well. And I'll be damned if I bust my ass to write a book, only to be told that I have no control over my own intellectual property.

Copyright laws might be frustrating. I don't like the fact that intellectual works sit molding in archives because the copyright holders don't think they can make a buck off of them. But I prefer that to yanking away rights from the people who created the damn thing in the first place. I mean, you're complaining about not being able to buy Disney movies on demand or tv show episodes not being on DVD. I'm talking about the right to control the intellectual property that a person creates. There's no question there.

[bara]

But I believe that a playwright ought to be able to prevent their play from being turned into a Broadway musical or a Brett Ratner film for as long as they're living. I believe that a scholar should have their work cited and respected. Copyright doesn't just cover Top 40 music, books, and movies. It covers academic work as well. And I'll be damned if I bust my ass to write a book, only to be told that I have no control over my own intellectual property.



I can agree with this.

[AdminAssistant]

Actually, I thought of an interesting idea. Companies cannot pursue charges of piracy or theft if the item in question is not available for sale to the general public. That might encourage production companies to keep tv shows, movies, books, etc. at least available in a digital format online. Greater access to materials for consumers, plus greater visibility for the creators.

[DrFaroohk]

I look at it like this: If I copy a movie that the company is selling, I'm cheating them out of their 19.95 that the movie costs. If I download a movie that is no longer in print and unavailable everywhere, then I am cheating them out of their 0.00 that their movie costs.

Okie dokie, they can sue me for 0.00, and I will gladly pay reparations of that 0.00 plus %10,000.

I've never understood some people's obsession with protecting their garbage.

[jackfaire]

Copyright laws might be frustrating. I don't like the fact that intellectual works sit molding in archives because the copyright holders don't think they can make a buck off of them. But I prefer that to yanking away rights from the people who created the damn thing in the first place. I mean, you're complaining about not being able to buy Disney movies on demand or tv show episodes not being on DVD. I'm talking about the right to control the intellectual property that a person creates. There's no question there.

Except the law I propose is about availability.

Not saying yank rights away from writers. Saying if a writer refuses to let the book they wrote be published in book form for 5 years then they should lose the right to it.

I am not saying they have to option it as a movie or lose it I am saying they have to keep distributing it.

That is the key. Writers would still maintain the rights unless they decided to have their books pulled from shelves and buried for a period of 5 years or more.

[AdminAssistant]

The problem with that is distribution is often decided by the publisher or production company (a separate issue). So you'd punish the writer for the actions of the publisher?

[jackfaire]

The problem with that is distribution is often decided by the publisher or production company (a separate issue). So you'd punish the writer for the actions of the publisher?

No because making an honest attempt to distribute is still distribution and in a time when your written material can be sold in digital format the publisher choosing to no longer publish it argument holds as little weight as the DVDs don't sell well.

Plus I see it happening with a hearing. Each property owner given the opportunity to explain why they are deserving of keeping the copyright.

There is no reason to just run around taking people's rights away but there is no reason to bury things either.

Imagine if someone had decided one of your favorite Playwrights works should never be read or performed and they vanished from the public consciousness.

[Boozy]

Okie dokie, they can sue me for 0.00, and I will gladly pay reparations of that 0.00 plus %10,000.


That is essentially how civil law works in Canada when it comes to intellectual property. You have to show damages to get damages.

However, if I wrote a book that I haven't released yet, but plan to at some point, I get damages if someone gets a copy of that book and distributes it. It might be difficult for the courts to determine exactly what future income would have been, but they do some rough estimates and figure something out. Depending on how rosy my writing career looks, it could be anywhere from $1 to $100 million.

If JK Rowling's last Harry Potter book had been widely distributed before her publisher had a chance to release it, I don't think anyone would have claimed she suffered no damages.

[DrFaroohk]

That is essentially how civil law works in Canada when it comes to intellectual property. You have to show damages to get damages.

However, if I wrote a book that I haven't released yet, but plan to at some point, I get damages if someone gets a copy of that book and distributes it. It might be difficult for the courts to determine exactly what future income would have been, but they do some rough estimates and figure something out. Depending on how rosy my writing career looks, it could be anywhere from $1 to $100 million.

If JK Rowling's last Harry Potter book had been widely distributed before her publisher had a chance to release it, I don't think anyone would have claimed she suffered no damages.

Well yeah that's different.

Let's just say a hundred years from now the books are out of print. But damn I really want to read the books, and would gladly pay a reasonable retail fee for said books. But there is no where to pay said fee. So I'm going to try and download it somewhere.

[AdminAssistant]

Imagine if someone had decided one of your favorite Playwrights works should never be read or performed and they vanished from the public consciousness.

That's not really fair since plays/musicals work under a different set of circumstances. There are actually a number of valid critiques of the way copyrights work in theatre and there do need to be some changes made. (Other theatres should be allowed to perform pieces currently in production on Broadway, productions should not run for 15+ years...etc.) For the record, most of my favorite plays aren't performed very often, even though most of them are in the public domain. Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas just doesn't pack 'em in like it used to...and does anybody do Duchess of Malfi anymore? It's a pity. But I also have to accept that I am not the typical theatre-goer in this country and the market is not about to conform to my desires. As long as the masses flock to whatever Andrew Lloyd Webber or Stephen Schwartz craps out, it's not going to change.

No because making an honest attempt to distribute is still distribution and in a time when your written material can be sold in digital format the publisher choosing to no longer publish it argument holds as little weight as the DVDs don't sell well.

Are you suggesting self-publishing as an alternative? Because most contracts forbid the author from doing just that. Now, if you're talking about removing publishers from the process entirely and having all authors self-publish their work....all I will say is that editors are more important to the writing process than you might think.

[HYHYBT]

Why shouldn't productions of plays run just as long as ticket sales keep them profitable?

Separately... I don't remember the name at the moment, but there's a series of books I won't begin reading, even though I've very much enjoyed another series by the same author, because the last book has been written for years and the publisher is just sitting on it. As long as we're reforming things, can we throw in something that says that the rights revert back to the author if the publisher doesn't release within some reasonable amount of time? Long enough that legitimate delays and issues of timing don't cause a problem, but short enough that it can be published elsewhere before becoming free.

[AdminAssistant]

Why shouldn't productions of plays run just as long as ticket sales keep them profitable?

I think I may have started a separate thread on that, once upon a time.

[HYHYBT]

I think I may have started a separate thread on that, once upon a time.

I can't find such a thread among those you've started. Would you mind a link, or a summary, either one?

[AdminAssistant]

Would you mind a link, or a summary, either one?

Basically, the art gets stagnant. Same sets, same costumes, same everything. Once the original cast leaves the show, they hire actors who look like the original cast and they can't do anything different with the role. They have to perform it just as the first person did. (Exception here for celebrities they bring in periodically to perk up ticket sales.) Then they run this monstrosity through a copy machine a few times to create tours that go all over the country. Absolutely nothing original about it. And, during this process, nobody else in the country can do that show. It's not such a problem with new plays, but it's a real pain with revivals. A group of students were two weeks away from beginning rehearsal for Equus, and then they had the rights yanked away because the Broadway production w/ Daniel Radcliffe was announced. That's not right.

RENT has always been my favorite example. It's a musical that's perfect for colleges, regional theatres, community theatres, high schools, etc. I was really excited when the Broadway show closed after ~15 years, opening up the rights. The production company has already re-mounted a new production Off-Broadway, headed for Broadway by the summer (tourist season). They simply don't want anyone else to be able to profit from the show, stifling one of the best musicals from the 90's.

[HYHYBT]

The problem, then, isn't that they're continuing to run the play, but that they won't let anyone else do it?

(Would it be a bad idea to hold your breath for The Mousetrap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mousetrap)?)

[Seifer]

I think the lawyers at Disney would like a word with you.

Disney doesn't have to use a copyright via movie releases - I'm pretty sure every character they've ever made is featured in a ride and/or merchandise located somewhere in their parks. So a "use it or lose it" law wouldn't hurt Disney one bit - not unless the lawmakers put something in there specifically concerning movie rights.