Green Party on copyright

[commandlinegamer]

Hollywood runs in cycles -- one company schedules a Columbus movie, suddenly there are several, diluting the value.

Listening to radio discussion this morning about the four Robin Hood films in development (different studios, all, IIRC)!

 

[Noztradamus]

Listening to radio discussion this morning about the four Robin Hood films in development (different studios, all, IIRC)!

Why? surely the Costner one was definitive.

 

[The Don]

The Greens are for the rights of Corporations, not individuals.

My view is that The Greens think that their heart is in the right place and are fighting for the rights of the person in the street and the planet. They're rather naive and don't really understand how people who are less principled than themselves can twist their well-meaning proposals.

 

[Ian Osborne]

My view is that The Greens think that their heart is in the right place and are fighting for the rights of the person in the street and the planet. They're rather naive and don't really understand how people who are less principled than themselves can twist their well-meaning proposals.

Spot on.

 

[Information Analyst]

That's what the copyright holder's will is for.

Isn't the idea of copyright is for protection of the author of the work so that they can benefit from their work? If so, then why should the author's offspring benefit from copyright protection since they didn't create the work? The author created the work, not his/her family. Any financial benefit for the offspring of the author should have been handled by the author himself/herself during their life while accruing the financial benefit of that copyright protection of their work.

The thing is that writing is not the same as ordinary work. Most writers' output produces only a modest income, spread over a long period of time, and for many it doesn't start paying until the work is actually published. Someone can spend months or years writing something, get it published, and only then start to earn what is usually a relatively small income. For this reason it would be wrong to have no posthumous copyright period.

For example, I delivered my last book in October 2013, and it was published the following January, and I didn't get the first royalty payment until Janaury this year. Say I'd died at some point after October 2013, but before January 2015. If that had invalidated my copyright, the publishers could presumably have got out of paying the royalties - i.e. my income for work carried out - to my wife. This would be a bit like giving employers the right to withold salary for a worker who dies half-way through the month.

 

[Information Analyst]

I'd make a case for life of artist +n (10 or 20 sounds reasonable) years or, say 30 years whichever is longer.

edited to add...

Of course that works for individuals but not for companies - forget that proposal then, makes no sense in that context.

Corporate-owned copyright at the moment is still linked to the lifetime of the specific people who created the work in question. If we take films as an example, the copy which makes them will invariably own the copyright, but the duration of it is the life of the last "author" to died, plus seventy years. "Authors" of a film are:

(a) The writer/s of any original work the script is based on
(b) The writer/s of the script
(c) The director/s
(d) The composer/s of original music specifically writtent for the film

We can take the example of the 1936 film Things to Come, with the script being written by H.G. Wells (d. 1946), based on one of his own books, so that covers (a) and (b). It was directed by William Cameron Menzies (d. 1957), but the original music was by Sir Arthus Bliss (d. 1975). This means the copyright lapses after the end of 2045, but it is currently still owned by ITV Global as the successor company to the studio (London Films).

Generally, where a work has no known author, the 70 year copyright clock starts ticking from the date of publication or otherwise being made available to the public. Under this rule the copyright on the production photographs taken during the making of Things to Come - because nobody knows who the on-set photographers were - would have expired at the end of 2006, although because they were subject to an earlier rule of creation + 50 years, it was actually the end of 1986.

 

[a_unique_person]

I would go for life of the original copyright holder plus ten years. I think he has the right to leave his kids some income from his work.
I would never vote for the Greens because they so obviously have a basic problem with the idea of personal property.

I don't know why the Greens are supposed to be the crazies when the current copyright trend is to increase the time of copyright indefinitely, not to mention other intellectual property rights like patents. Disney seems to have it's own direct line to the US Congress to get copyrights extended indefinitely. It's a proposal, not one I would agree with, but I don't see much in the way of sanity out there at the moment either way.

Disney is particularly hypocritical because they have plundered a vast history of public domain material for their own gain.

 

[fuelair]

Why? surely the Costner one was definitive.

I am forced to assume this is a joke. Decent non-comedy Robin Hoods stopped with Richard Greene.................

 

[fuelair]

I don't know why the Greens are supposed to be the crazies when the current copyright trend is to increase the time of copyright indefinitely, not to mention other intellectual property rights like patents. Disney seems to have it's own direct line to the US Congress to get copyrights extended indefinitely. It's a proposal, not one I would agree with, but I don't see much in the way of sanity out there at the moment either way.

Disney is particularly hypocritical because they have plundered a vast history of public domain material for their own gain.

Non public domain too - "Simba!...I mean Kimba!!!"

 

[Damien Evans]

Why? surely the Costner one was definitive.

You're kidding, right? Other than Alan Rickman's performance nothing of value would be lost if that film ceased to exist tomorrow.

 

[Ian Osborne]

It seems the outcry did not fall on deaf ears. The proposal (which isn't a commitment for the next parliament) is for life + 14 years, not 14 years from publication, and it's under discussion anyway.

 

[Darat]

And how much does Shakespeare's estate collect from those performances?

Exactly the same as Shakespeare.

The money may not be "lost" in the sense that money may still flow, but it won't flow to the hands of the people who invested the capital to make it happen. ...snip..

Why won't it?

 

[Darat]

...snip...

In the event or artists who have died young, why should they be prevented for providing for their young children ? If the copyright for all of their work expires, the only people making money are the companies selling their work and image rights.

Because they are dead, there is no actual "they" it's just a quirk of our language that we use the same pronouns for a non-existing person as we do for a person that actually exists. The dead cannot own anything.

Quite seriously life is not fair many people will die young and their families and friends will be financially worse off because of that death, just like some people will be born in financial situations that are very poor.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

For example, I delivered my last book in October 2013, and it was published the following January, and I didn't get the first royalty payment until Janaury this year. Say I'd died at some point after October 2013, but before January 2015. If that had invalidated my copyright, the publishers could presumably have got out of paying the royalties - i.e. my income for work carried out - to my wife.

You would be dead there would be no "me" to have anything invalidated. Why should you wife be able to take over something you had owned?

This would be a bit like giving employers the right to withold salary for a worker who dies half-way through the month.

Why would that be withholding anything from anyone? And I'm sure if the dead person turned up at work and said they wanted the rest of their wage they would be given it, all they would need to do is turn up!

 

[Darat]

The point is to ensure the exclusive and natural monopoly of an artist's work to the artist himself.


...snip...

There is nothing "natural" about copyright it is a socially created convenience.

 

[Corsair 115]

The thing is that writing is not the same as ordinary work. Most writers' output produces only a modest income, spread over a long period of time, and for many it doesn't start paying until the work is actually published. Someone can spend months or years writing something, get it published, and only then start to earn what is usually a relatively small income. For this reason it would be wrong to have no posthumous copyright period.

Again, the idea of copyright is, nominally, for the author of a work to financially benefit from said protection. A dead person is well past the point of being able to create works, spend money, or otherwise derive any benefit from their creation(s)... indeed, they are past the point of being able to do, well, anything.

Let the offspring of the author create their own work rather than gaining benefit from the protection of a work they themselves played no part in creating.

For example, I delivered my last book in October 2013, and it was published the following January, and I didn't get the first royalty payment until Janaury this year. Say I'd died at some point after October 2013, but before January 2015. If that had invalidated my copyright, the publishers could presumably have got out of paying the royalties - i.e. my income for work carried out - to my wife.

A well-made point, but I am still reluctant to agree.

This would be a bit like giving employers the right to withold salary for a worker who dies half-way through the month.

If the person is paid an hourly wage, I would presume if they are not able to be at work no pay is being earned.

 

[Ziggurat]

Again, the idea of copyright is, nominally, for the author of a work to financially benefit from said protection. A dead person is well past the point of being able to create works, spend money, or otherwise derive any benefit from their creation(s)... indeed, they are past the point of being able to do, well, anything.

Let the offspring of the author create their own work rather than gaining benefit from the protection of a work they themselves played no part in creating.

No, actually, you are wrong. The point is not to benefit authors. The point is to create an incentive for authors to create works. The benefit is incidental from the point of view of the government, it's merely the mechanism used to give authors an incentive to create works, but what the government wants out of the arrangement is more works produced.

If the heirs cannot benefit from an author's work, then the author has less incentive to create a work, and so less work will be created. This is especially true of old authors.

So in terms of the purpose of copyrights, they are well served by having those copyrights survive the death of the author. Each additional year past the author's death will produce less marginal benefit, of course, and I'm of the opinion that the current period is too long, but removing copyright at the point of death isn't the right solution either. It's not a matter of what the heirs deserve, it's a matter of what will make authors want to create works. And authors care about their heirs. It's irrelevant whether the heirs are spoiled or undeserving.

 

[Ziggurat]

Why won't it?

Why would you pay $10 to watch a movie at a theater which pays royalties to the production company when you could pay $3 to watch the same movie at a theater which doesn't? Why would a TV network pay for a show if a competitor can just take that same show without paying for it?

Movies and TV depend upon their copyrights to make money. The production companies cannot make anywhere near the cost of production if they do not have that copyright protection. Which means they will not get made without copyrights.

 

[Darat]

Why would you pay $10 to watch a movie at a theater which pays royalties to the production company when you could pay $3 to watch the same movie at a theater which doesn't? Why would a TV network pay for a show if a competitor can just take that same show without paying for it?

Because one might be a better movie or TV programme than the other. But it would seem you contradict your own argument for copyright, if copyright is to incentivise new works copyright actually reduces the number of new works.

That aside of course I am actually not arguing to do away with copyright, just limit its stifling effect on creativity.

Movies and TV depend upon their copyrights to make money. The production companies cannot make anywhere near the cost of production if they do not have that copyright protection. Which means they will not get made without copyrights.

Yet we see very successful series such as Sherlock (the current BBC version) and Elementary (USA network show) using the same non-copyright creative property and both are very successful.

 

[Ian Osborne]

Yet we see very successful series such as Sherlock (the current BBC version) and Elementary (USA network show) using the same non-copyright creative property and both are very successful.

And each is itself copyrighted as a derivative work.