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Yes, but only after a significant amount of time.

Yes, within a few decades.

Yes, within a decade.

Only in certain cases.

I am undecided.

No, never.

Other (Please post)

Don't care. / View poll.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

It's not that Disney's garbage is a valuable part of culture that would benefit anyone if made public domain; it's that Disney is so fucking terrified of its garbage slipping into public domain that it eternally bribes congress to extend copyright by a few more decades.

[sonerohi]

I think the authors should have a damn good say in what goes on. If I write a book series, inside a mythos I make, I damn well want it to stay that way. I don't care if 99% of the population wants to add the same thing to it, because then it is not the mythos I made, or wanted to make. As such, there should be clauses in place that, once an author is finished with their works, decides they are done publishing, and doesn't want it changed, they can kill the ability to change it. It would have prevented Lucas and the authors he leases to from raping Star Wars so thoroughly if it had been invoked on them.

[Soadreqm]

It's not that Disney's garbage is a valuable part of culture that would benefit anyone if made public domain; it's that Disney is so fucking terrified of its garbage slipping into public domain that it eternally bribes congress to extend copyright by a few more decades.

While it is very silly of Disney to waste money like that, and it would certainly show corporate responsibility to find out who made this decision and reprimanding him for making these unwise investments, is it actually detrimental to the rest of the world? Is Disney evil for doing it, or just inefficient?

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Is Disney evil for doing it, or just inefficient?

Were it restricted to the early Disney works themselves, then no, but given it applies to all copyright, then yes. They're harming everyone for the sake of their own greed and insanity.

Copyright shouldn't last even a single decade (hell, with regards to games and movies, I'd argue a few months would be generous enough), at least in the state it is now. Perhaps a second tier of "free to use, with attribution to the original creator for borrowed material" after that.

[Willfor]

To be honest, this thread makes me feel completely ashamed to be have read this thread, as someone who would like to become an author. Most authors already live below the poverty line if we take what they make on their work into account, and rights are the only real money in the industry. The only people who make money after rights pass into public domain are then the publishers, who already take the lion's share of the money anyway. 50 years? That's good. 28 years with an option to renew? Okay, that's probably enough time in case what I wrote goes into a second printing and beyond.

A single decade? Yeah, thanks, anything after my X reprint (I should be so lucky) goes straight into the publisher's pocket. Films based on books will also disappear for about a decade. Guess what you'll see after that decade is done? Oh cool, all those books they wanted to make into films are suddenly in public domain without them needing to pay the author a cent. Isn't that convenient that what a lot of authors dream of so that they can actually live off their craft is suddenly taken away. No studio will want to pay for something they could get for free in ten years.

[Soadreqm]

Were it restricted to the early Disney works themselves, then no, but given it applies to all copyright, then yes. They're harming everyone for the sake of their own greed and insanity.

Copyright shouldn't last even a single decade (hell, with regards to games and movies, I'd argue a few months would be generous enough), at least in the state it is now. Perhaps a second tier of "free to use, with attribution to the original creator for borrowed material" after that.

Yeah, I think that would do serious cultural harm. There's no real reason to become an artist if you can't make money from what you make. A few months of movie profits? That's just insane. Having a big budget doesn't automatically make for a good movie, but it sure does help. The entire film industry would probably be reduced to weird black and white French films that aren't even supposed to turn a profit. And publishing other people's two-month old movies, because that way you don't have to pay anyone to make the film. Big publishing companies would switch to exclusively rereleasing two-month-old zero-budget indie films. That's stepping out of the "never gonna happen, the corporate lobby would never allow it" territory, to the "The UN would condemn it as an obstacle to international trade" area.

And I don't think we have clearly established that long copyright expiration times ARE hurting consumers. Long copyright expiration times mean that tiny indie developers (and everyone, really) don't feel terrified of releasing their stuff, secure in their knowledge that no one can lay their filthy hands on their precious brainchildren. They mean that you can make money from art, a definite question for many considering a career in it.

EDIT: Fixed quote tags and grammar.

[fenrif]

And I don't think we have clearly established that long copyright expiration times ARE hurting consumers. Long copyright expiration times mean that tiny indie developers (and everyone, really) don't feel terrified of releasing their stuff, secure in their knowledge that no one can lay their filthy hands on their precious brainchildren. They mean that you can make money from art, a definite question for many considering a career in it.

EDIT: Fixed quote tags and grammar.

I think we've made a pretty compelling case why long copyright lengths are hurting consumers.

Also: with absolutely no exception every single artist, musician, film maker, writer, and otherwise creative person I've ever met does it because that's what they do. For every creative person who turns a profit on their work there are thousands who do it just because. Even if copyright law was changed to put everything into public domain the second it's created art wouldn't die out in any form. I'm not saying this should be the case (I've said a few times the orginal 28 + 28 years is what I'd prefer), I'm just saying that people will always create. If any sort of creative endevour was outlawed tommorow on pain of death, people would still draw, sing, write, etc.

I think the authors should have a damn good say in what goes on. If I write a book series, inside a mythos I make, I damn well want it to stay that way. I don't care if 99% of the population wants to add the same thing to it, because then it is not the mythos I made, or wanted to make. As such, there should be clauses in place that, once an author is finished with their works, decides they are done publishing, and doesn't want it changed, they can kill the ability to change it. It would have prevented Lucas and the authors he leases to from raping Star Wars so thoroughly if it had been invoked on them.

How would Lucas having the ability to stop anyone else from using his work have stopped him from fucking it up? He's the orignal author. Besides... he allready has full controll of who can use his works. It's not public domain! You defeated your own arguement.

[Grakelin]

Also, I don't think Timothy Zahn managed to ruin Star Wars.

[Soadreqm]

Also: with absolutely no exception every single artist, musician, film maker, writer, and otherwise creative person I've ever met does it because that's what they do. For every creative person who turns a profit on their work there are thousands who do it just because. Even if copyright law was changed to put everything into public domain the second it's created art wouldn't die out in any form. I'm not saying this should be the case (I've said a few times the orginal 28 + 28 years is what I'd prefer), I'm just saying that people will always create. If any sort of creative endevour was outlawed tommorow on pain of death, people would still draw, sing, write, etc.

Perhaps, but having more money available makes more things possible. Back in the olden days, artists had rich patrons who would essentially give them free money for the noble goal of making more art. Now, we have giant corporations who sell art for insane profits, and reinvest the money into more art. Having shittons of money isn't an absolute requirement, people can do stuff while maintaining day jobs, but high-budget productions can afford to be higher quality. Music and paintings are reasonably cheap to produce at home, and unless you want them printed for some reason, books cost nothing but time, but once you get to movies, the costs start climbing. Sculptures and such would probably fare pretty well, since they're harder to reproduce.

And this is just speculation, but the starving artist types might care more about people perverting their vision.

Anyway, if you're doing it for the art, you have the option to just ignore the law and release your Great Work illegally, under an assumed name, via seedy file sharing sites. As a bonus point, you'll feel like some kind of badass computer terrorist. You can wear weird cyberpunk goggles while waiting for it to upload, and pretend you're leaking secret CIA identity lists or something. I guess it might be construed that there is something wrong with the law if people regularly need to break it, but having a copyright law constructed mainly for people looking to make money from their works sounds fairly reasonable to me.

And I'm still not quite convinced about fanfiction being culturally significant. Maybe I haven't read enough of it.

Also, you do realize that the "original 28+28 years" system never existed in Europe, right?

[fenrif]

What do you mean it never existed in europe? It applied to all works created in the USA before 1978.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Fan fiction's already protected as parody under fair use. It is, however, almost universally horrible, on account of it almost exclusively being written by talentless children.

[Pathos]

To be honest, this thread makes me feel completely ashamed to be have read this thread, as someone who would like to become an author. Most authors already live below the poverty line if we take what they make on their work into account, and rights are the only real money in the industry. The only people who make money after rights pass into public domain are then the publishers, who already take the lion's share of the money anyway. 50 years? That's good. 28 years with an option to renew? Okay, that's probably enough time in case what I wrote goes into a second printing and beyond.

A single decade? Yeah, thanks, anything after my X reprint (I should be so lucky) goes straight into the publisher's pocket. Films based on books will also disappear for about a decade. Guess what you'll see after that decade is done? Oh cool, all those books they wanted to make into films are suddenly in public domain without them needing to pay the author a cent. Isn't that convenient that what a lot of authors dream of so that they can actually live off their craft is suddenly taken away. No studio will want to pay for something they could get for free in ten years.

Hence why I added the clause of it "not being used". My concept is that, if it's not been used for something major (say, a new book, film etc, reprintings don't count) then it gets given to the free domain.

[fenrif]

Fan fiction's already protected as parody under fair use. It is, however, almost universally horrible, on account of it almost exclusively being written by talentless children.

I was under the impression that fanfiction was in a questionable legal area. The wiki article on it seems to agree, and has a few examples of authors forcing fanfictions to be taken down.

but yeah, noone is arguing that fanfiction is literary excellence. That doesn't mean it has no cultural value whatsoever though.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Legality has nothing to do with the overuse of takedown notices, which 99% of people don't have the means or will to contest.

Willful takedown abuse should really be punished with public flogging (especially for the legal council of the offenders >:O ), that might help stem the epidemic a bit. :3

[fenrif]

Yes, most takedown notices are just random attacks. But the legality of fanfiction is still questionable.


From the Wiki article on fanfiction:

The 2009 ruling by United States District Court judge Deborah A. Batts, permanently prohibiting publication in the United States of a book by a Swedish writer whose protagonist is a 76-year-old version of Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye, may be seen as upholding this position regarding publishing fanfic, as the judge stated, "To the extent Defendants contend that 60 Years and the character of Mr. C direct parodic comment or criticism at Catcher or Holden Caulfield, as opposed to Salinger himself, the Court finds such contentions to be post-hoc rationalizations employed through vague generalizations about the alleged naivety of the original, rather than reasonably perceivable parody."[22]

As far as I know you can't just claim something is parody because it's based on a previous work. You have to prove it's within the legal definition of parody. I'm fairly sure most fanfiction doesn't fall under this because, as you said, most fanfiction is terrible.