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[palsch]

Actually that is not as flawed as you think. Musicians have to register with agencys anyway if they want to profit from uses of their music. In Germany you can't even get a CD pressed if you don't register it with GEMA. (Though that system is a horrible clusterfuck where you have to pay if you want to get money for your music. Basically only very sucessful artists benefit from that, yet still it is more or less enforced.)

I do think it would work for mass market music like that (mostly because I feel most commercial profit from music is heading towards patronage models combined with agency models for long tail profits), and it's easy to implement for traditionally or electronically published books (having a required copyright code alongside or instead of an ISBN works and makes checks easy), but it gets harder on other art forms.

Take paintings or sculptures. Registration would be tricky and checking whether it's still covered would be harder still.

Or photography. If I take a series of snaps and publish them online today they are covered by copyright. I retain ownership and control over them. If I had to register each one, somehow, that's a substantial burden.

Or even just random rambling blog posts and other forms of writing that are covered by copyright today simply because they count as publications and so are automatically covered.

In these two cases I can imagine digital publishing platforms that automatically register materials uploaded, but that has huge potential for both exploitation and unwieldy nature. It's possible such a system could be designed to be manageable. I'm just not sure of it.

And I am generally a fan of that model, I just wanted to attack the idea to see if others can find arguments I've missed.

[XXSockXX]

Yeah, it should at least in theory be possible to develop digital publishing platforms that would allow for something like that.
The problem with checking status of non-digital things remains, but I guess there has to be a check for that even today, right? You can use old paintings and statues (or at least images of them) for commercial purposes I think, so there must be a checking system in place.

[palsch]

Yeah, it should at least in theory be possible to develop digital publishing platforms that would allow for something like that.
The problem with checking status of non-digital things remains, but I guess there has to be a check for that even today, right? You can use old paintings and statues (or at least images of them) for commercial purposes I think, so there must be a checking system in place.

It does exist but is pretty much a mess, largely because the modern scheme is designed to be simple.

Currently there are only a few works that require such a check; those published between 1923 and 1977. These are works published when copyright registration and renewal existed, so they may have been registered and, for those published before 1963, have had their term renewed and still been under copyright when the law changed. If they were under copyright in 1978 then their term was extended to 95 years from publication and so they are still copyrighted.

For everything else it's just age. Anything published before 1923 is public domain. Everything else will become public domain either after 95 years or 70 years after the death of the creator.

This idea that you just look at the age of a work and see if it's public domain or not sounds far simple and arguably is, although the outcomes aren't that simple. The general rule is that everything should be treated as under copyright unless you can prove that it isn't. Mostly because nothing new is being released so it's generally true.

[XXSockXX]

This idea that you just look at the age of a work and see if it's public domain or not sounds far simple and arguably is, although the outcomes aren't that simple. The general rule is that everything should be treated as under copyright unless you can prove that it isn't. Mostly because nothing new is being released so it's generally true.

Wow, I always thought that more stuff was in public domain in the US than in the EU. Maybe I was looking for translations or literary editions that remain copyrighted.
And taking stuff out of public domain...that's absurd.

[palsch]

And taking stuff out of public domain...that's absurd.

In the specific case it wasn't quite as bad as made out, although the precedent is horrible.

Essentially the US signed an agreement that retroactively restored copyright to works still copyrighted in other countries. This was actually a condition of the Berne Convention some years before, but the USA (unlike all other signatories) had never accepted that the copyright restoration was retroactive and so had only recognised copyright on previously unqualified foreign works published after 1989. With the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (and later Supreme Court ruling upholding it) the retroactive recognition was extended to all works under copyright in their own country, within current American copyright terms. That took a whole set of works in the American public domain but that were copyrighted overseas and put them under American copyright protections.

The problem is the courts decision suggests there are no legal protections for the existence of the public domain in the US, and so future laws could go further in removing works from the public domain, although it does seem unlikely to happen.

[Neonivek]

My comment was neither "sardonic" nor was it mockery.

Sure it wasn't

[Jimmy]

In regards to copyright and pornography, there's a strong argument for lack of protections under existing laws.

Aside from the German ruling mentioned earlier, there's the case of Taiwan ruling that publishers copying Japanese porn and rereleasing it are not committing a crime, as it's not protected under copyright laws.

Pornography not protected as intellectual property: prosecutor - March 21, Focus Taiwan News Channel

To my knowledge this issue is still being argued in court in the US. If it was resolved can anyone link the source?

FALA Asks Court to Dismiss Claim Porn Is Not Copyrightable - Aug 24, 2012, XBIZ Newswire

[alexandertnt]

The term "useful art" is somewhat concerning. I was not aware art had to have some utility to be copyrightable.

[Neonivek]

The term "useful art" is somewhat concerning. I was not aware art had to have some utility to be copyrightable.

Well you hardly put a painting in a totally dark room or a videogame in a box do you?

[Vector]

So I see that Neonivek has never been introduced to the post-Warhol art circuit...

[alexandertnt]

The term "useful art" is somewhat concerning. I was not aware art had to have some utility to be copyrightable.

Well you hardly put a painting in a totally dark room or a videogame in a box do you?

But the painting and the video game would still be art. One could also argue that the video game and painting still do not serve any useful function when they are accessable. Which brings me to my point, I was pointing out the use of the weasel word "useful", which on its own is quite vague and very open to interpretation.

[Neonivek]

I mean that a painting at least serves the function of being seen.

[FearfulJesuit]

Art doesn't have to be seen, it doesn't have to be useful. The only, and I mean the only, requirement for art is that it be interesting.

[Neonivek]

Art doesn't have to be seen, it doesn't have to be useful. The only, and I mean the only, requirement for art is that it be interesting.

Then it is useful for inspiring interest.

[GlyphGryph]

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290181

 Abstract:     
A random sample of new books for sale on Amazon.com shows three times more books initially published in the 1850’s are for sale than new books from the 1950’s. Why? This paper presents new data on how copyright seems to make works disappear. First, a random sample of 2300 new books for sale on Amazon.com is analyzed along with a random sample of 2000 songs available on new DVD’s. Copyright status correlates highly with absence from the Amazon shelf. Together with publishing business models, copyright law seems to stifle distribution and access. On page 15, a newly updated version of a now well-known chart tells this story most vividly. Second, the availability on YouTube of songs that reached number one on the U.S., French, and Brazilian pop charts from 1930-60 is analyzed in terms of the identity of the uploader, type of upload, number of views, date of upload, and monetization status. An analysis of the data demonstrates that the DMCA safe harbor system as applied to YouTube helps maintain some level of access to old songs by allowing those possessing copies (primarily infringers) to communicate relatively costlessly with copyright owners to satisfy the market of potential listeners.