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Why should anyone else other than the author make money off of their original content? Copyrights are protected by the Constitution of the United States. Why do you hate America and our ways?
The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Timesto Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8
The original copyright clause is spot on. The SCOTUS has used the intent phrase to expand and modify the law over time. Around 1976 and beyond, there was a major shift that contravenes original intent - the use of retroactive extensions and repeated renewals is in direct opposition to promoting progress, but the money involved by then was so great that pruning the tree of copyright protections properly could shock the existing developed economic roots of the country.
Once an author or inventor is dead, chances of his benefiting from copyright drop dramatically. Chances of his popping out of the grave and inventing something new are even more remote. The abuse of copyright as occurs today is NOT protected by the Constitution of the United States, but by a perversion of interpretation. If you can tell me with a straight face how protecting the copyright on the "Happy Birthday" song and other corporate abuses "promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts" I might concede your point.
In point of fact, all you have to do is look at the court dockets to see how the costs of copyright and patent battles are restricting the development of applied science and the arts. Once the concept of copyright was separated from the author and the lifetime of the author, any noble intent died and was replaced by institutional and corporate dominance. The inventor and creators became relegated to the position of employee, especially in cases where work contracts demanded all rights to creation.
I agree that the term is too long on copyright. I disagree that corporate ownership is contrary to the purpose. When a work of art is the product of one person it makes sense to restrict the copyright to throat one person, but a TV show or movie takes hundreds to thousands of well-paid people. Without the ability to control the product of their work, there's little incentive to organize the massive teams involved in making something like today's entertainment.
The same goes for many inventions. I'd rather draw a salary and sign over rights to my inventions, which may or may not be huge money-makers. And even if they are, I doubt they would be without the resources of the company I work for.
I agree that the term is too long on copyright. I disagree that corporate ownership is contrary to the purpose. When a work of art is the product of one person it makes sense to restrict the copyright to throat one person, but a TV show or movie takes hundreds to thousands of well-paid people. Without the ability to control the product of their work, there's little incentive to organize the massive teams involved in making something like today's entertainment.
The same goes for many inventions. I'd rather draw a salary and sign over rights to my inventions, which may or may not be huge money-makers. And even if they are, I doubt they would be without the resources of the company I work for.
I certainly understand your point and your choice, but unless corporations have "lifespans" similar to the lifespans of humans, the bias remains in their favor, to the detriment of the public domain.
To further counter your point, much, if not most of the money in discussion involves the middlemen. Creators are rarely compensated in direct worth of their creation (which is why there was copyright in the first place - to attempt to break the class bonds of the artists in thrall of a rich sponsor).
The economics of our current system is highly weighted towards rewarding middlemen and distribution. Look at the price of peanuts in the market and then the price that the farmer is paid for growing them. Look at the price on a book and then at what the average author gets as a royalty. Look at the (past) revenue from records compared to artist compensation. If creators were well paid by corporations, I could agree with you more readily. The intellectual property rights arguments today are more about the struggles and desires of leeches than the struggles of creators.
Your example of movies is one that I am quite familiar with. With the few exceptions of well-known and well represented authors, the original creations (books) are manhandled in the process of converting them to a movie. Most books do not convert well, and there is a censorship of content and form in movies that most viewers are totally oblivious to. It is common for authors to come away shell-shocked or disavowing a movie based on their creation. The Art Buchwald fiasco is another example of how shoddily creators are treated.
"Without the ability to control the product of their work, there's little incentive to organize the massive teams involved in making something like today's entertainment. " That is naive. First, they do not control the product of their work. Look at any movie on tv and watch the pop-ups and credit compression and cuts at the end, and ask yourself how much artistic control they really have. The artistic value of just about EVERYTHING on tv has been compromised or destroyed. The incentive of middlemen is and always has been money. The incentives of artists can be wildly varied.
In my own case, due to the way copyright is abused and artistic and creative work NOT protected in any meaningful way, I have AVOIDED pursuing development of a lot of creations. It is that simple.
I have repeatedly made points on how intellectual property laws are turning the original concepts of copyright and patents on their heads and are a perversion. Perhaps this article will convince a few more people that those with deep pockets are the ones who want to continue to squeeze the rights of individuals until it will become illegal to OWN a copy of anything, and only a single user time limited license will be granted.
To help pay for grad school at USC, he sold textbooks online—legitimate copies that he’d purchased overseas. But academic publishing behemoth John Wiley & Sons sued Supap, claiming that his trade in Wiley’s foreign-market textbooks constituted copyright infringement.
The implications were enormous. If publishers had the right to control resale of books that they printed and sold overseas, then it stood to reason that manufacturers could restrain trade in countless products—especially tech goods, most of which are made in Asia and contain copyrightable elements such as embedded software.
Intent on setting a precedent, Wiley slammed Supap with a $600,000 jury verdict and all but buried him on appeal. But the grad student hung tough, arguing that as lawful owner of the books he had the right to resell them. Eventually he convinced the US Supreme Court to grant review.
Once Supap’s struggle hit the spotlight, powerful supporters such as eBay, Public Knowledge, Costco, and Goodwill Industries joined the fray. But the forces pitted against Supap were arguably more powerful: the movie and music industries, publishers of books and software, and even the US Solicitor General.
Note that there was an initial WIN by the forces that would cause further restrictions of rights. Had eBay etc. not joined in, the Supreme Court would never had had a chance to get a proper review. I do not expect the Supreme Court current ruling to hold for more than ten or fifteen years, as there will be a legal end run to make it irrelevant.
I have repeatedly made points on how intellectual property laws are turning the original concepts of copyright and patents on their heads and are a perversion. Perhaps this article will convince a few more people that those with deep pockets are the ones who want to continue to squeeze the rights of individuals until it will become illegal to OWN a copy of anything, and only a single user time limited license will be granted.
To help pay for grad school at USC, he sold textbooks online—legitimate copies that he’d purchased overseas. But academic publishing behemoth John Wiley & Sons sued Supap, claiming that his trade in Wiley’s foreign-market textbooks constituted copyright infringement.
The implications were enormous. If publishers had the right to control resale of books that they printed and sold overseas, then it stood to reason that manufacturers could restrain trade in countless products—especially tech goods, most of which are made in Asia and contain copyrightable elements such as embedded software.
Intent on setting a precedent, Wiley slammed Supap with a $600,000 jury verdict and all but buried him on appeal. But the grad student hung tough, arguing that as lawful owner of the books he had the right to resell them. Eventually he convinced the US Supreme Court to grant review.
Once Supap’s struggle hit the spotlight, powerful supporters such as eBay, Public Knowledge, Costco, and Goodwill Industries joined the fray. But the forces pitted against Supap were arguably more powerful: the movie and music industries, publishers of books and software, and even the US Solicitor General.
Note that there was an initial WIN by the forces that would cause further restrictions of rights. Had eBay etc. not joined in, the Supreme Court would never had had a chance to get a proper review. I do not expect the Supreme Court current ruling to hold for more than ten or fifteen years, as there will be a legal end run to make it irrelevant.
I remember that case and waited for the decision. I was so happy when the book reseller won!
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