There's Copy Rights, There's Copy Wrongs, And Then There's Mutant Randroid Clones Options

[Somey]

The thrust of my assertion is not merely that Dubya³ allows isolated individuals to becomes as vapid as they wish to be — I am saying that there is an amplified entropism, a grubitational distraction, a selective devolutionary pressure that is dragging the whole mass of participants down into the depths, even those who are governed by other wishes, even those who resist as best they can.

I really, really hate to play Devil's Advocate, but certain hardcore WP'ers actually do have a point about the worldwide overextension of copyrights. Their solution, which is to grow a collection of low-quality public-domain content from the ground up, isn't the optimal one or even a good one, but in the face of corporate near-control of the political process required to "liberate" older works from the copyright system, it's something publishers should have predicted before they started demanding the extensions. (Of course, that would have required long-term thinking.)

In reality, it seems to be a case of a few large 'n' greedy megacorps (Disney and Time-Warner, for example) holding everything else hostage because of their demands to control everything they currently hold in near-perpetuity, and publishers like the Encyclopedia Britannica just coming along for the ride.

I doubt it's as significant an effect on the intelligence of the general public as, say, the anesthetization of people by a constant barrage of trivialized and sensationalized TV and other mass-media... But if we grant the possibility that much of the user-generated content we're concerned with here (not just Wikipedia) wouldn't have been necessary to set up in the first place if copyrights weren't being blanket-extended to ridiculous lengths, then it's probably worth mentioning, IMO.

[MBisanz]

The thrust of my assertion is not merely that Dubya³ allows isolated individuals to becomes as vapid as they wish to be — I am saying that there is an amplified entropism, a grubitational distraction, a selective devolutionary pressure that is dragging the whole mass of participants down into the depths, even those who are governed by other wishes, even those who resist as best they can.

I really, really hate to play Devil's Advocate, but certain hardcore WP'ers actually do have a point about the worldwide overextension of copyrights. Their solution, which is to grow a collection of low-quality public-domain content from the ground up, isn't the optimal one or even a good one, but in the face of corporate near-control of the political process required to "liberate" older works from the copyright system, it's something publishers should have predicted before they started demanding the extensions. (Of course, that would have required long-term thinking.)

In reality, it seems to be a case of a few large 'n' greedy megacorps (Disney and Time-Warner, for example) holding everything else hostage because of their demands to control everything they currently hold in near-perpetuity, and publishers like the Encyclopedia Britannica just coming along for the ride.

I doubt it's as significant an effect on the intelligence of the general public as, say, the anesthetization of people by a constant barrage of trivialized and sensationalized TV and other mass-media... But if we grant the possibility that much of the user-generated content we're concerned with here (not just Wikipedia) wouldn't have been necessary to set up in the first place if copyrights weren't being blanket-extended to ridiculous lengths, then it's probably worth mentioning, IMO.

I remember discussing this with a mentor of mine once. He had written a book on politics in the mid-1980s, when he was in his late 40s. When I knew him he was in his 60s and the book, like most books by academics, had been out of print for several years. I found it amazing that assuming he lived to be 80, the book would not enter the public domain until I was ~110. So, basically a book published when I was something like 7 years old and that went out of print when I was 11, would be foreclosed to further reproduction or use outside of large research libraries until after my children were dead. Something there doesn't make sense to me. Are we actually saying authors would write less or in some way be harmed if their great-great grandchildren can't get a penny of royalties?

This post has been edited by MBisanz:

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

I found it amazing that assuming he lived to be 80, the book would not enter the public domain until I was ~110. So, basically a book published when I was something like 7 years old and that went out of print when I was 11, would be foreclosed to further reproduction or use outside of large research libraries until after my children were dead.

The folks that write the copyright laws are also Satan's sockpuppets. You cannot win either way.

And he did a better job on patents.

[Peter Damian]

Two horrible ironies here.

1. The field of academic publishing does not depend on remuneration. You do not get paid for publishing an article in a journal. Your reward is the prestige. About 1 in 10 of articles submitted to prestige journals get published, and appearing in print is the benefit. Similarly for those who work as editors, do peer review, work on advisory boards and so on. I peer review for a number of publications and there is no reward at all, except for the networking benefit from those you are doing a favour to.

A similar principle applies to books. These are published expensively, and circulate mostly to university libraries, which effectively subsidise the industry.

Thus if anything is ripe for 'open source', it is academic publishing. The irony is that it is the least open of all publication forms. Particularly in my area (13th century medieval logic) where the main skill is simply getting hold of source material. This is often in the form of manuscripts, which are (a) in a foreign language, Latin (b) are unreadable except to those trained in the peculiar form of writing used © are hard to obtain - every new source I discover involves protracted arguing and bureaucracy with the libraries that hold the manuscripts, who are exceptionally impervious to the idea of publishing on the web.

2. The field popular culture, by contrast, depends on individuals from mostly poor backgrounds playing the lottery card to become famous for their talent and mass entertainment value. Their main motivation is the financial reward. They deserve it: they enrich our lives and history with their art, even if it is slight when compared to the total history of human civilisation.

The irony here is that this field suffers most from the 'free culture' movement, as we know.

[CharlotteWebb]

I remember discussing this with a mentor of mine once. He had written a book on politics in the mid-1980s, when he was in his late 40s. When I knew him he was in his 60s and the book, like most books by academics, had been out of print for several years. I found it amazing that assuming he lived to be 80, the book would not enter the public domain until I was ~110. So, basically a book published when I was something like 7 years old and that went out of print when I was 11, would be foreclosed to further reproduction or use outside of large research libraries until after my children were dead. Something there doesn't make sense to me. Are we actually saying authors would write less or in some way be harmed if their great-great grandchildren can't get a penny of royalties?

I believe that is the position held by Mark Helprin in his now-infamous New York Times editorial .

Randroids love him.

Their solution, which is to grow a collection of low-quality public-domain content from the ground up, isn't the optimal one or even a good one…

What, then, would be a "good" solution?

[GlassBeadGame]

Randroids love him.

This exposes the Randoid libertarian right to be about what the rest of the right is about, the maintenance of privilege. Otherwise they would be concerned about the disconnect this creates between creativity and reward. The idle and parasitic heirs shouldn't benefit under any system that actual is concerned about rewarding creation. In practice the linkage between reward and creation is better advanced by liberals, and even more so by socialists.

[Milton Roe]

The thrust of my assertion is not merely that Dubya³ allows isolated individuals to becomes as vapid as they wish to be — I am saying that there is an amplified entropism, a grubitational distraction, a selective devolutionary pressure that is dragging the whole mass of participants down into the depths, even those who are governed by other wishes, even those who resist as best they can.

I really, really hate to play Devil's Advocate, but certain hardcore WP'ers actually do have a point about the worldwide overextension of copyrights. Their solution, which is to grow a collection of low-quality public-domain content from the ground up, isn't the optimal one or even a good one, but in the face of corporate near-control of the political process required to "liberate" older works from the copyright system, it's something publishers should have predicted before they started demanding the extensions. (Of course, that would have required long-term thinking.)

In reality, it seems to be a case of a few large 'n' greedy megacorps (Disney and Time-Warner, for example) holding everything else hostage because of their demands to control everything they currently hold in near-perpetuity, and publishers like the Encyclopedia Britannica just coming along for the ride.

I doubt it's as significant an effect on the intelligence of the general public as, say, the anesthetization of people by a constant barrage of trivialized and sensationalized TV and other mass-media... But if we grant the possibility that much of the user-generated content we're concerned with here (not just Wikipedia) wouldn't have been necessary to set up in the first place if copyrights weren't being blanket-extended to ridiculous lengths, then it's probably worth mentioning, IMO.

Whatever the length of protection of IP is, it's completely ridiculous that it's not the same for patents as for copyright. And yes, copyright is ridiculously long, and Disney has much to do with it. Mickey Mouse won't be public domain until a century after his creation, and this was done ex post facto, by congressional mandate in the Bono law, funded by Disney and others.

I would propose that all IP, copyright OR patent, be protected for 50 years, or author's lifetime, whichever is longer. That prevents authors from outliving their work. But 50 years minimum is enough that no author will die tragically and young, and be prevented from leaving his/her IP to underage children. 50 years is also plenty for corporate IP, also. And this would give a nice boost to patents, which would become 2.5 times as valuable (they've certainly become more than 2.5 times as expensive to file! Compare with copyright, which costs nothing). The boon to basic scientific and technical research and funding for same, is hard to quantify, but would be gigantic.

Alas, there are not many inventors who are lawmakers. I think Abe Lincoln remains our only president to be issued a patent, and he never made any money on it. Compare with the millions and millions the last couple of generations of presidents have made from their memoirs. Congress is mostly composed of lawyers, but not patent lawyers.

[CharlotteWebb]

The idle and parasitic heirs shouldn't benefit under any system that actual is concerned about rewarding creation.

If you mean a non-transferable copyright term of (for example) life plus zero would be fairer than the status quo, I'd definitely agree with that.

However sometimes worrying about the authors' offspring is not enough; there may also be the offspring of their creations as decided in Pioneer v. J.E.M., Monsanto v. Scruggs, etc., milestones at which only the most hard-core capitalist spectators can doubt that "intellectual property" case-law has jumped the shark.

[Mackan]

I believe that is the position held by Mark Helprin in his now-infamous New York Times editorial .

Wow, that was awful. Has he ever talked with anyone who disagrees with him?

How about instead of focusing everything on how to give descendants control over things they didn't do, control that could never even exist without it artificially being provided, we focus on getting society to learn from the past? Copyright law is such a non-priority to the average person, it's always struck me as one of the most corrupt areas of U.S. law.

(Not to go too off topic. I think a lot of people were stupid before the web, and will remain stupid afterward, perhaps just in different ways. This discussion was making me think a little of what it is really that people should be learning in an ideal world... I'm not sure I agree with Somey that remembering facts is especially important. Actually I would probably put more importance on the amount or level of information a person encounters, in such a way as may challenge their preconceptions, or spark their interests to look further. At least to a degree, but that is a point that critics/commentators on Wikipedia might consider.)

[Milton Roe]

This exposes the Randoid libertarian right to be about what the rest of the right is about, the maintenance of privilege. Otherwise they would be concerned about the disconnect this creates between creativity and reward. The idle and parasitic heirs shouldn't benefit under any system that actual is concerned about rewarding creation. In practice the linkage between reward and creation is better advanced by liberals, and even more so by socialists.

In theory Randroids don't have any problem transferring money to heirs. Or to your favorite cause. You just put this down as financing your own "values." That idea is an overall safety valve which allows Randroids to do the standard "gene-pool and offspring conserving" acts, like nursing their offspring. Note that Rand never had any children, so, like a nun, her brain remained unchanged by all those mechanisms that flip over in the female (and to some extent male) brain when they become parents. "It's official-- I've become my own mother" is funny only because there's a lot of truth in it.

I've seen raging hippy liberals because conservative about a lot of things (drugs, sex) when they reproduce, and I've also seen raging conservatives become liberal about a lot of things, so long as it involves kin (there's nothing more communist or socialist about the value-transfers that happen within a family, and Rand had to deal with that philosophically even if she never had much feeling for it).

[Trick cyclist]

The idle and parasitic heirs shouldn't benefit under any system that actual is concerned about rewarding creation.

Unless people think that part of their reward is ensuring that their wife and children are provided for. Also, do you propose confiscating his entire estate when he dies to stop his idle and parasitic widow and childen benefiting from that too?

[Random832]

The idle and parasitic heirs shouldn't benefit under any system that actual is concerned about rewarding creation.

Unless people think that part of their reward is ensuring that their wife and children are provided for. Also, do you propose confiscating his entire estate when he dies to stop his idle and parasitic widow and childen benefiting from that too?

Then he should invest the profits made from it during the [shorter] copyright period.

Also, do you propose continuing to pay someone's salary forever in order to provide for their children (and their children, and their children, to the Nth level)?

[GlassBeadGame]

The idle and parasitic heirs shouldn't benefit under any system that actual is concerned about rewarding creation.

Unless people think that part of their reward is ensuring that their wife and children are provided for. Also, do you propose confiscating his entire estate when he dies to stop his idle and parasitic widow and childen benefiting from that too?

Somebody's got a trust fund, huh?

[Trick cyclist]

Then he should invest the profits made from it during the [shorter] copyright period.

Also, do you propose continuing to pay someone's salary forever in order to provide for their children (and their children, and their children, to the Nth level)?

Invest the profits? So his parasitical relatives may benefit? No, confiscate his estate!

And any decent pension scheme will certainly carry on paying out to dependants after the pensioner dies, though admittedly not forever. Let's stop widow's and orphans' pensions.

[GlassBeadGame]

Then he should invest the profits made from it during the [shorter] copyright period.

Also, do you propose continuing to pay someone's salary forever in order to provide for their children (and their children, and their children, to the Nth level)?

Invest the profits? So his parasitical relatives may benefit? No, confiscate his estate!

And any decent pension scheme will certainly carry on paying out to dependants after the pensioner dies, though admittedly not forever. Let's stop widow's and orphans' pensions.

Trust funds come in handy when internet addiction interferes with employment.

[Mackan]

Then he should invest the profits made from it during the [shorter] copyright period.

There's something odd, really, about extending a copyright well after the author's death. Defamation isn't like that. Once someone dies, you can say whatever you want about them. But if you want to read their book, then you better pay whoever it is they picked to get the royalties.

If they realized there was something perverse about it I wouldn't so much mind. I wouldn't cut if off right at the author's death, but life plus 70? That's nuts.

And any decent pension scheme will certainly carry on paying out to dependants after the pensioner dies, though admittedly not forever. Let's stop widow's and orphans' pensions.

I wonder if longer copyright terms are a good way to help the disprivileged.

This post has been edited by Mackan:

[GlassBeadGame]

Then he should invest the profits made from it during the [shorter] copyright period.

There's something odd, really, about extending a copyright well after the author's death. Defamation isn't like that. Once someone dies, you can say whatever you want about them. But if you want to read their book, then you better pay whoever it is they picked to get the royalties.

If they realized there was something perverse about it I wouldn't so much mind. I wouldn't cut if off right at the author's death, but life plus 70? That's nuts.

It wouldn't have to necessarily end at death in all cases to be made much fairer. As much fun as yanking the chains of people benefiting from unearned wealth, life or at least 20 years from creation would pretty much take care of those "widows and orphans." Remember this libertarian scheme would have the remote heirs of Shakespeare and Cervantes receiving a endless dole.

[John Limey]

Then he should invest the profits made from it during the [shorter] copyright period.

There's something odd, really, about extending a copyright well after the author's death. Defamation isn't like that. Once someone dies, you can say whatever you want about them. But if you want to read their book, then you better pay whoever it is they picked to get the royalties.

If they realized there was something perverse about it I wouldn't so much mind. I wouldn't cut if off right at the author's death, but life plus 70? That's nuts.

I think it makes much more sense to make copyrights more like patents and simply have them last a fixed term - 20 years isn't a bad length of time. A big plus, naturally, is the simplicity of such a system, you don't need to look up when someone died (information that may be essentially unavailable) to determine whether or not the copyright is current. Furthermore, a fixed term gives stability and peace of mind to publishers (who would be in quite a bind under a life + 0 scheme should, say, John Grishman tragically die the day before his next big book is to launch). It just makes sense.

[CharlotteWebb]

New York Times editorial .

Wow, I swear this article was freely visible until yesterday. Guess I forgot to use web-cite.

This has happened before with NYT articles I have cited on Wikipedia, one of which was public domain (being published in 1921).

While coincidence cannot explain my generally poor experiences with the NYT web-site, I don't suppose I could convince more folks to kindly disable the http-referer header in their browsers? That might help.

[Krimpet]

Why do ultra-self-proclaimed "libertarians" prefer longer copyright terms? Copyright is an invention of the state; it's essentially a government restriction on commerce and free enterprise intended to benefit society as a whole (innovation, artistry, etc.). Having the government regulate the right to copy isn't all that different from regulating financial markets, or even regulating healthcare. Any ultra-dogmatic small-government libertarian type should be against copyright entirely.

But as they say, "socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else."