It's just the opposite for me.... So, the library has become a lifesaver for me. Gotta have my regular book fix!
It's sound like it's currently the same, not the opposite: if you need your regular book fix, without libraries (either public or private) you'd need to get them from somewhere - presumably that would require buying them. Therefore, libraries reduce your expenditures per book (as they do with me), thereby reducing your contribution to the IP producers' total compensation.
Actually, I'm not spending any money on books these days. For the past year, I have donated a chunk of my book collection to the library -- theirs to sell on the book table, add to the Friends of the Library annual book sale, or add to their collection. I have another donation box started. As for reading, I haven't read that many books in the past year -- I would have read at least triple the number if I had been buying. I have been spending more time catching up on house projects -- and trying to finally listen to unheard eMu purchases. I have been surprised by the number of tracks that haven't yet reached my ears.
I think part of the issue for me is my age. I am trying to pare down the material things accumulated over the years. I just don't want my kids having to deal with all the stuff, and it's taking longer to go through it all than I had thought it would.
amclark2 said if they had stuck to a more likeable physical format like records or tapes
No, no, no! One of the reasons they're in trouble now is that they were asleep at the switch 10 years ago when mp3 players started to get popular*. An entire generation grew up learning how to rip or download music to get it in digital form. Purchase wasn't an option. They continue to fail because they insist on the same pricing as physical media that has to be manufactured, shipped, and stocked in a store.
*Asleep at the switch isn't quite accurate. They were keenly aware of digital, but didn't want to sell until they had bulletproof DRM. It took Steve Jobs waving handfuls of cash to break them out of their gridlock.
So I've been going over your post a few times in my head. You see, I agree that ethics and legality are not one in the same. That's why I've often pointed out how ridiculous the hand wringing over compensation often is, because there are so many legal ways for them not to be compensated. First and foremost being the contracts that they sign in an effort to "make it big".
And that's why I really have to disagree with the bulk of your opinion. The legal basis for IP ownership and rights in the US is hardly ethical to begin with, so I can't really get behind the notion that those who own the copyright on IP deserve anymore than they get right now. And the notion that libraries, currently closing down due to cost cutting measures across the US, should pay rental fees would essentially move us toward a society in which legally obtained books, music, and movies are no longer available to the working class.
An economic historian has recently put forth the idea that Germany's rapid growth in the 1800s compared to England's stagnation had much to due with their lack of copyright law.
I'll also add that the idea that someone has a right to receive payments for every time a song they wrote 60 years ago is played or streamed or whatever is absolutely ridiculous in my mind. Much of this seems to have developed over decades of unreasonable expectations that creating art (whether it be music, books, etc.) is a way to become a millionaire - or at least to live very comfortably. Now it's crashing down because the system was aided by a lot of technologies that are going away. Now the reality that being a musician is hard work if you want to do it full time is setting in. Creating an album is just the start - marketing yourself, touring, etc. is where you actually make the money.
thom, I'm not sure we disagree so much - there are mitigating methods I support that address some of your concerns (e.g. I support library rental fees, but wouldn't object to usage vouchers for "the working class"). My ethical position is based on the ethical foundation of the idea of IP in the first place. The argument's irrelevant if one disagrees with that. But the idea of no IP feels to me unfair, and I'd be surprised if you feel differently.
I'm not sure what you mean by deserving "any more than they get right now". That's all over the map, in practice.
I don't know what my ideal IP setup is. I don't really think it should be transferrable for long periods - maybe short term leases (companies owning purchased IP for decades is ridiculous and without ethical foundation, I agree). The IP of any creator that dies should immediately become public property (allowing for some minimum IP period to the creator's family, maybe 25 years or something). But person A "owning" person B's IP doesn't strike me as an ethically supportable arrangement - limited leasing, yes, but not purchasing.
One example of where the law hasn't addressed the ethics involved is with recording mastering - afaik one can spend much effort and resources remastering public-domain recordings, and there are no legal restrictions on someone else's copying and distributing those remasters without permission.
IANL & IANE but my general perception is that the long duration on patents, while serving to allow companies to protect and recover their investment, results in the unintended consequence of slowing overall market growth and innovation. Honestly, my feeling is that the our patent system, both functionally and politically, is some 80 years behind the times. Patents are issued for vaporware or general concepts (1-Click Shopping), gathered like weapons by patent companies where the sole purpose of the venture is to extract licensing fees from the unwary. Add to that a lifespan of 20 years and it is a recipe for an innovation tar pit.*
There needs to be reform and a better balance because as I read the history the fastest growing economies are typically the ones with the weakest patent systems. I don't know the best way to reform the system but reducing the length of the patent duration is a start as well as getting more rational about what is actually patentable. Working models should be the rule and not the exception (just look at the filings for touch screen devices and software, so much vapor) as well as actually enforcing the concept of prior art and not patenting marketing concepts (1-Click shopping, really?). The more radical me would also drop things like software, algorithms, genetic manipulations from the list of patentable items.** Much of the work in those spaces is too new to be applying a system developed during the industrial revolution.
* I work for an Internet startup*** and time dilation and compression is felt very differently in this industry. A year feels like a decade and a decade is a lifetime. Twenty years is older that the Internet as we know it and if patents are awarded for software and algorithms then what we are enjoying right at this moment would cease to evolve.
** In the industry I am working in several patents have been issued on concepts of tagging and sorting financial transactions. This will serve to chill entrants to the space and potentially cause us grief if the players to purchased those patents decide to clear out the space so they can "stretch their legs".
*** We've been at it for 3 years so I'm not sure we can really apply the "startup" moniker but it generally seems to apply to any company taking funding and not generating an operating profit. We are close to exiting that phase as we have a workable model, are generating revenue, and are not actively soliciting investments.
An economic historian has recently put forth the idea that Germany's rapid growth in the 1800s compared to England's stagnation had much to due with their lack of copyright law.
Heh, that provides a fascinating comparison to an Economist review of a book claiming that England's advanced patent-law situation was the fundamental basis of the Industrial Revolution there.
That may raise the question of differences between copyright and patent, and of subject-types within. I can see the utilitarian usefulness of relatively short-term durations of IP protection for knowledge-based ideas - inventions, information, those things can obviously significantly impact economic activity and progress. With artwork and literature, though, the utilitarian impact of individual works is probably much less on average, and I can't help but consider them differently. It doesn't bother me at all to imagine that an artist/lit-writer/etc owns their output (and deserves usage compensation) until they die, that just feels like the "right" default thing to do (and as I mentioned above, I'd set a minimum period to allow a family to benefit if the creator dies soon after the work is produced). And just as "right" would be that, upon death, the works become public domain.
Economically-impactful ideas, seems to me, "should" have a shorter protective lifetime, based more (though maybe not totally) on utilitarian bases (that may well depend on the topic area).
I don't have specific suggestions about the distinction, but I don't think they should be treated as one concept.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
From my point of view, the current copyright situation: life plus 75 years, or something like that, not to mention constant extensions, does not in any way "promote the progress."
For an easy example, look at Disney; if Walt saw what copyright protection would allow his empire to become, he probably would have just offed himself and saved the world the trouble. Disney doesn't create anything anymore, they just live off old creations and litigate to protect the new.
Yes, there is a difference between legal and ethical, but keep in mind that IP protection is a (legal) gift that society gives creators. When the payback becomes worth significantly less than the gift, either the law should change, or society will start to ignore the law. How is it ethical for someone to make billions off someone else's creation, especially when that person is long dead, and to have the society protect that un-earned income with extreme prejudice?
Yes patents are probably too long, but 20 years would seem about reasonable for copyright. Hell, I'd even be ok with life. But life plus 5 generations???
But the idea of no IP feels to me unfair, and I'd be surprised if you feel differently.
I'll say that I'm on the fence these days. I haven't seen much indication that the concept of IP helps anyone but large corporations and a few really big superstars. Hence why an artist like Paul McCartney whines about his songs possibly going into the public domain and how it will be the end of civilization, while Amanda Palmer (in the video linked above) talks about giving music away. They are not mutually exclusive ideas, but you can see that one is hellbent on propping up an aging music industry that supports his lifestyle while the other is trying to figure out how to move ahead.
I'm not sure what you mean by deserving "any more than they get right now". That's all over the map, in practice.
All I meant was that any attempt to have more royalties generated is simply going to result in lining the coffers of major labels even more rather than sending money to the artists themselves. Libraries paying rental fees would help out Sony and their ilk, but not the libraries themselves, the public, or the artists.
It doesn't bother me at all to imagine that an artist/lit-writer/etc owns their output (and deserves usage compensation) until they die
This is actually starting to bother me. I don't really see why someone who writes a 3 minute pop song that essentially re-hashes 50 other pop songs should have lifelong government protection for their work.
I haven't seen much indication that the concept of IP helps anyone but large corporations and a few really big superstars.
There's a rather huge number of people who have created some artistic work and earned some compensation from that. I doubt most of them equate that compensation with zero. IP is, ethically speaking, basically just protection from plagiarism and "theft".
Also, my comments are based mostly on my idealization of the concept, where one could never transfer their IP to another (just short-term-lease its use). Corporations would not be able to take over an individual's IP. (I realize fuzziness exists between personal IP and work-for-hire.)
I don't really see why someone who writes a 3 minute pop song that essentially re-hashes 50 other pop songs should have lifelong government protection for their work.
Whatever the law is, I don't want it attempting to distinguish artistic quality. You're obviously not characterizing all artistic output there.
Maybe plagiarism wouldn't be a huge problem in the total absence of IP, but ethically I'm concerned about those that would end up victims of it, suffering an injustice I feel the law should address.
There's a rather huge number of people who have created some artistic work and earned some compensation from that.
But how many have truly earned money via the concept of IP? The majority of musicians earn their money via touring, t-shirt sales, etc. That has nothing to do with IP. CD, DVD, and book sales as well as rentals and theater tickets are only partially attributable to IP - in other words, copyright is not the only thing that drives those numbers.
People don't go to movie theaters simply because it's the only legal means to see a movie before it hits DVD. They go for the experience - the supposedly better picture and sound quality and the joy of having your feet stick to the floor while some spoiled brat keeps kicking the back of your seat. Remove copyright and the situation doesn't really change much. Could some "bootleg theaters" creep up? Sure, but they're not going to get the good prints that real theaters do. And if anything they might force costs down and allow for more "second run" opportunities.
And as for CDs, DVDs, etc. major chains are going to sell the originals, authorized versions regardless. Why? Because otherwise labels and studios won't deal with them. And as for the small shops that don't get the big discounts? They're already selling the bootlegs anyway.
I understand that you're looking at an idealized concept of IP. And if that existed where only the true creators could "own" the copyright and simply license their work, I probably wouldn't argue too much against it. But if we're starting from scratch, I'd rather work from the notion that copyright isn't absolutely essential and figure out where it's beneficial rather than start with the idea that everybody who creates something has 100% exclusive rights as long as they are alive.
Whatever the law is, I don't want it attempting to distinguish artistic quality. You're obviously not characterizing all artistic output there.
It's not even a matter of artistic quality. All artistic output is derivative to some extent, so why should it be protected as though it is original and unique?
Plagiarism isn't truly covered by copyright. It's considered an ethical/moral issue in most districts, not a legal one. Attribution is not 100% a copyright issue either.
Personally I'm fine with 10-20 years for a copyright. But anything beyond a generation is highly questionable to me.
Interestingly, Penny Arcade set off a huge debate today with their commentary on used games sales. A major publisher said that they were being cheated by people who buy used games. This set off the usual rhetoric that developers are getting cheated out of money by used sales. Some of the more eloquent responses pointed out that the devs don't make money based on sales.
What the game publisher fails to consider is they already lost that game sale. If the game was worth full price to the buyer, she would have bought it new when it came out instead of waiting to find a used copy.
Not really an IP issue on the VW suit. On the surface invasion of privacy/misappropriation of image are somewhat similar to IP, but it's a tort based on common law and not a violation of statute, so legally there is a world of difference.
The Celebrities Rights Act or Celebrity Rights Act was passed in California in 1985 and it extended the personality rights for a celebrity to 70 years after his or her death. [1] Previously, the 1979 Lugosi v. Universal Pictures decision by the California Supreme Court held that Bela Lugosi's personality rights could not pass to his heirs, as a copyright would have. The court ruled that any rights of publicity, and rights to his image, terminated with Lugosi's death. [2]
California Civil Code section 3344 is for the publicity rights of living persons, while Civil Code section 3344.1, known as the "Astaire Celebrity Image Protection Act," grants statutory post-mortem rights which prohibit the unsanctioned use of the "name, voice, signature, photograph or likeness on or in products, merchandise or goods" of any person. Similar laws have been enacted by 12 other states in the United States.
Wikipedia'ed.
And but anyway, some things discussed on this thread, like plagiarism and software are more common law than statutory based anyway. And some of the conversation seems to veer toward the idea of moral rights, which, in the few places it does exist is statutory. And moral rights do have a lot in common with publicity rights, because it's not about copying so much as about the manner of use or treatment of an image.
But if we're starting from scratch, I'd rather work from the notion that copyright isn't absolutely essential and figure out where it's beneficial rather than start with the idea that everybody who creates something has 100% exclusive rights as long as they are alive.
From scratch, I guess my position starts with the idea that someone else's nonconsensually taking another's work and profiting from it feels wrong, and that it harms the creator (by reducing their own income). I don't have a sense that that harm disappears after a certain time (though statistically, yes, it will decrease with time), so on that first principle, I can't easily derive a time limit. I also have the sense that an artistic work or idea is 1) "ownable" by the creator, and 2) not "ownable" by another. So upon death, it obviously goes to the public domain.
Now, I'm definitely partial to defining law through harm assessment, and I'll admit with time that a "taking" produces less harm with time (on average). So it's possible that there are general utilitarian benefits to specific works being released into the public domain that eventually outweigh the harm. But (again, on first principles), I can't really see what those benefits are, for artistic works.
Btw, I probably misused "plagiarism" - I had in mind the extreme of someone, in the absence of IP, simply taking a work, crediting it to themselves, and selling it. But harm-wise, that's similar to just selling under the creator's credit, but taking the revenue.
The majority of musicians earn their money via touring, t-shirt sales, etc. That has nothing to do with IP.
This may or may not be true (the "majority"), but perhaps because of my listening habits (lots of jazz and experimental music), I don't consider that representative of the spectrum of artists' situations.
Otoh, a pre-death copyright limit wouldn't bother me that much, as I've noted that harm from "theft", on average, decreases over time. This is all a bit moot though, in light of current law.
The used game thing feels like Deja vu to me. Remember the anti used cd crusades of the 90s? Difference this time is the game companies are going to make used purchasers pay for online play by including a one time use code in the retail box. To get another code, they'll have to shell out another $10. I think the idea that a used sale = a lost new sale is wrong most of the times, but I wonder how this will shake out.
Comments
I think part of the issue for me is my age. I am trying to pare down the material things accumulated over the years. I just don't want my kids having to deal with all the stuff, and it's taking longer to go through it all than I had thought it would.
No, no, no! One of the reasons they're in trouble now is that they were asleep at the switch 10 years ago when mp3 players started to get popular*. An entire generation grew up learning how to rip or download music to get it in digital form. Purchase wasn't an option. They continue to fail because they insist on the same pricing as physical media that has to be manufactured, shipped, and stocked in a store.
*Asleep at the switch isn't quite accurate. They were keenly aware of digital, but didn't want to sell until they had bulletproof DRM. It took Steve Jobs waving handfuls of cash to break them out of their gridlock.
So I've been going over your post a few times in my head. You see, I agree that ethics and legality are not one in the same. That's why I've often pointed out how ridiculous the hand wringing over compensation often is, because there are so many legal ways for them not to be compensated. First and foremost being the contracts that they sign in an effort to "make it big".
And that's why I really have to disagree with the bulk of your opinion. The legal basis for IP ownership and rights in the US is hardly ethical to begin with, so I can't really get behind the notion that those who own the copyright on IP deserve anymore than they get right now. And the notion that libraries, currently closing down due to cost cutting measures across the US, should pay rental fees would essentially move us toward a society in which legally obtained books, music, and movies are no longer available to the working class.
An economic historian has recently put forth the idea that Germany's rapid growth in the 1800s compared to England's stagnation had much to due with their lack of copyright law.
I'll also add that the idea that someone has a right to receive payments for every time a song they wrote 60 years ago is played or streamed or whatever is absolutely ridiculous in my mind. Much of this seems to have developed over decades of unreasonable expectations that creating art (whether it be music, books, etc.) is a way to become a millionaire - or at least to live very comfortably. Now it's crashing down because the system was aided by a lot of technologies that are going away. Now the reality that being a musician is hard work if you want to do it full time is setting in. Creating an album is just the start - marketing yourself, touring, etc. is where you actually make the money.
I'm not sure what you mean by deserving "any more than they get right now". That's all over the map, in practice.
I don't know what my ideal IP setup is. I don't really think it should be transferrable for long periods - maybe short term leases (companies owning purchased IP for decades is ridiculous and without ethical foundation, I agree). The IP of any creator that dies should immediately become public property (allowing for some minimum IP period to the creator's family, maybe 25 years or something). But person A "owning" person B's IP doesn't strike me as an ethically supportable arrangement - limited leasing, yes, but not purchasing.
There needs to be reform and a better balance because as I read the history the fastest growing economies are typically the ones with the weakest patent systems. I don't know the best way to reform the system but reducing the length of the patent duration is a start as well as getting more rational about what is actually patentable. Working models should be the rule and not the exception (just look at the filings for touch screen devices and software, so much vapor) as well as actually enforcing the concept of prior art and not patenting marketing concepts (1-Click shopping, really?). The more radical me would also drop things like software, algorithms, genetic manipulations from the list of patentable items.** Much of the work in those spaces is too new to be applying a system developed during the industrial revolution.
* I work for an Internet startup*** and time dilation and compression is felt very differently in this industry. A year feels like a decade and a decade is a lifetime. Twenty years is older that the Internet as we know it and if patents are awarded for software and algorithms then what we are enjoying right at this moment would cease to evolve.
** In the industry I am working in several patents have been issued on concepts of tagging and sorting financial transactions. This will serve to chill entrants to the space and potentially cause us grief if the players to purchased those patents decide to clear out the space so they can "stretch their legs".
*** We've been at it for 3 years so I'm not sure we can really apply the "startup" moniker but it generally seems to apply to any company taking funding and not generating an operating profit. We are close to exiting that phase as we have a workable model, are generating revenue, and are not actively soliciting investments.
That may raise the question of differences between copyright and patent, and of subject-types within. I can see the utilitarian usefulness of relatively short-term durations of IP protection for knowledge-based ideas - inventions, information, those things can obviously significantly impact economic activity and progress. With artwork and literature, though, the utilitarian impact of individual works is probably much less on average, and I can't help but consider them differently. It doesn't bother me at all to imagine that an artist/lit-writer/etc owns their output (and deserves usage compensation) until they die, that just feels like the "right" default thing to do (and as I mentioned above, I'd set a minimum period to allow a family to benefit if the creator dies soon after the work is produced). And just as "right" would be that, upon death, the works become public domain.
Economically-impactful ideas, seems to me, "should" have a shorter protective lifetime, based more (though maybe not totally) on utilitarian bases (that may well depend on the topic area).
I don't have specific suggestions about the distinction, but I don't think they should be treated as one concept.
From my point of view, the current copyright situation: life plus 75 years, or something like that, not to mention constant extensions, does not in any way "promote the progress."
For an easy example, look at Disney; if Walt saw what copyright protection would allow his empire to become, he probably would have just offed himself and saved the world the trouble. Disney doesn't create anything anymore, they just live off old creations and litigate to protect the new.
Yes, there is a difference between legal and ethical, but keep in mind that IP protection is a (legal) gift that society gives creators. When the payback becomes worth significantly less than the gift, either the law should change, or society will start to ignore the law. How is it ethical for someone to make billions off someone else's creation, especially when that person is long dead, and to have the society protect that un-earned income with extreme prejudice?
Yes patents are probably too long, but 20 years would seem about reasonable for copyright. Hell, I'd even be ok with life. But life plus 5 generations???
All I meant was that any attempt to have more royalties generated is simply going to result in lining the coffers of major labels even more rather than sending money to the artists themselves. Libraries paying rental fees would help out Sony and their ilk, but not the libraries themselves, the public, or the artists.
This is actually starting to bother me. I don't really see why someone who writes a 3 minute pop song that essentially re-hashes 50 other pop songs should have lifelong government protection for their work.
Also, my comments are based mostly on my idealization of the concept, where one could never transfer their IP to another (just short-term-lease its use). Corporations would not be able to take over an individual's IP. (I realize fuzziness exists between personal IP and work-for-hire.) Whatever the law is, I don't want it attempting to distinguish artistic quality. You're obviously not characterizing all artistic output there.
Maybe plagiarism wouldn't be a huge problem in the total absence of IP, but ethically I'm concerned about those that would end up victims of it, suffering an injustice I feel the law should address.
People don't go to movie theaters simply because it's the only legal means to see a movie before it hits DVD. They go for the experience - the supposedly better picture and sound quality and the joy of having your feet stick to the floor while some spoiled brat keeps kicking the back of your seat. Remove copyright and the situation doesn't really change much. Could some "bootleg theaters" creep up? Sure, but they're not going to get the good prints that real theaters do. And if anything they might force costs down and allow for more "second run" opportunities.
And as for CDs, DVDs, etc. major chains are going to sell the originals, authorized versions regardless. Why? Because otherwise labels and studios won't deal with them. And as for the small shops that don't get the big discounts? They're already selling the bootlegs anyway.
I understand that you're looking at an idealized concept of IP. And if that existed where only the true creators could "own" the copyright and simply license their work, I probably wouldn't argue too much against it. But if we're starting from scratch, I'd rather work from the notion that copyright isn't absolutely essential and figure out where it's beneficial rather than start with the idea that everybody who creates something has 100% exclusive rights as long as they are alive.
It's not even a matter of artistic quality. All artistic output is derivative to some extent, so why should it be protected as though it is original and unique?
Plagiarism isn't truly covered by copyright. It's considered an ethical/moral issue in most districts, not a legal one. Attribution is not 100% a copyright issue either.
Personally I'm fine with 10-20 years for a copyright. But anything beyond a generation is highly questionable to me.
Lawyered.
Craig
Wikipedia'ed.
And but anyway, some things discussed on this thread, like plagiarism and software are more common law than statutory based anyway. And some of the conversation seems to veer toward the idea of moral rights, which, in the few places it does exist is statutory. And moral rights do have a lot in common with publicity rights, because it's not about copying so much as about the manner of use or treatment of an image.
Seriously, that state is messed up legally.
Craig
Now, I'm definitely partial to defining law through harm assessment, and I'll admit with time that a "taking" produces less harm with time (on average). So it's possible that there are general utilitarian benefits to specific works being released into the public domain that eventually outweigh the harm. But (again, on first principles), I can't really see what those benefits are, for artistic works.
Btw, I probably misused "plagiarism" - I had in mind the extreme of someone, in the absence of IP, simply taking a work, crediting it to themselves, and selling it. But harm-wise, that's similar to just selling under the creator's credit, but taking the revenue. This may or may not be true (the "majority"), but perhaps because of my listening habits (lots of jazz and experimental music), I don't consider that representative of the spectrum of artists' situations.
Otoh, a pre-death copyright limit wouldn't bother me that much, as I've noted that harm from "theft", on average, decreases over time. This is all a bit moot though, in light of current law.
Best Buy & Target are going to get into the used game market, I read yesterday.
Sorry for going kind of OT.