Greg Bear, Others Cry Foul on Project Gutenberg Copyright Call 721
Nova Express writes "Recently a lot of science fiction stories from the 1950s and 60s (including work from still-living authors like Frederik Pohl and Jack Vance) have been showing up on Project Gutenberg as being in the public domain. However, according to science fiction writer Greg Bear and his wife Astrid Anderson Bear (daughter of Poul Anderson, some of whose works were among those put up), Project Gutenberg has made a mistake: 'After conducting legal research on the LEXIS database of legal cases, decisions, and precedents, we have demonstrated conclusively that PG was making incorrect determinations regarding public domain status in many, many works that originally appeared in magazine form ... In general, Project Gutenberg is doing a tremendous service by making available texts that have truly long since fallen out of copyright, but they are clearly overstepping their original mandate. They are not merely exploiting orphan works, but practicing a wholesale kidnapping of works that are under copyright protection.'"
Wholesale kidnapping? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wholesale kidnapping?
Who, exactly, is "kidnapping" the stories in this case? The people who are putting them in a publicly accessible format so that everyone can look at them, or the people who are keeping them behind an iron wall of intellectual property?
I was under the impression that it was the people doing the imprisoning that were generally the kidnappers, not the people granting freedom. Silly me.
Re:Wholesale kidnapping? (Score:5, Funny)
new terminology:
music movies - piracy
texts - kidnapping
releasing your own copyrighted material to creative commons or public domain - terrorism
leave it to writers to be creative with language.
That said, if it is not public domain or PG does not control the copyrights, they should remove the material. Leave the wholesale piracy - er, kidnapping - to google books.
Re:Wholesale kidnapping? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, we all know copyright doesn't guarantee revenue. So what is the big malfunction with PG taking long-dead (used books possibly) stories and making them available to a new audience. And since the author/estate doesn't get any royalties for used book sales, their "kidnapping" argument is more specious than usual. At least they didn't say "stealing".....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I fail to see your point here.
Guttenberg, by publishing these works usurped control.
Re:Wholesale kidnapping? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes lets focus on the hyperbole.
Instead of looking at the facts that PG may be violating some copyright, lets battle over the use of words and throw in a "granting freedom" BS while we're at it.
I'm interested in how PG will handle this. They may have documentation showing that the magazines granted them permission to republish their works. More likely they discovered that the magazine no longer exists, and the magazine is no longer capable of making copyright claims.
It's up to the authors to prove that they didn't turn over copyright ownership to the magazine. Personally, I think the authors should thank PG for bringing their work back from the dead.
Re:Wholesale kidnapping? (Score:5, Funny)
Awesome. So you don't mind if I come to your place and take all your stuff for the masses to use?
Sometime in the future, when matter replication is commonplace and law and order has collapsed, there will be roving copy-gangs savagely breaking into houses and duplicating everything inside, storing it in vast warehouses for the masses to replicate for themselves. And replicate the masses certainly shall. Like librarians caught in an animalistic orgy of card-filing.
Can you picture 300 million near-identical Ikea coffee tables all stacked up and filed, hundreds of stories high, indexed and cross-indexed, until they block out the very Sun? Dare you imagine every teenager in America wearing the same brand of jeans at once?
That's the dark future the copy-gangs will create if they're not stopped now.
Re: (Score:3)
Can you picture 300 million near-identical Ikea coffee tables all stacked up and filed, hundreds of stories high, indexed and cross-indexed, until they block out the very Sun?
No need to imagine. Just go into the warehouse part of the Ikea store.
Help me out with this, please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this all about semantics? I mean, Project G is very clear about this: If a copyright holder makes a claim, they take the material down. I would think putting this stuff out there, rather than letting it rot is hardly a disservice to the authors/publishers.
Re:Help me out with this, please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this all about semantics? I mean, Project G is very clear about this: If a copyright holder makes a claim, they take the material down. I would think putting this stuff out there, rather than letting it rot is hardly a disservice to the authors/publishers.
Based on Baen publishing's experience, making electronic copies freely available will likely rouse enough interest in these old works that whoever owns the copyrights will probably be able to make some money on a new printing. It's a little counter-intuitive, but Baen says the effect is quite consistent and reliable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Baen, unlike PG, does sell copies of the same work. IOW, there's a contribution mechanism there if you feel like the work is worth some money. Not the same thing at all.
It's irrelevant who provides the for-sale, dead-tree versions of the work. The point is that free electronic distribution sparks a demand for hardcopy sales of formerly dead, or at least slow-selling, works. Unless you think that people who read the e-book for free are buying the paper copy as a donation. I suppose there might be some of that happening, but I really, really doubt it's in any way significant. What happens is that people who start to read the e-book decide they'd rather read a paper versi
Re:Help me out with this, please... (Score:5, Informative)
I think the point is that when you're talking about half century-old, out-of-print works, PGs approach *should* be the expected one. Luckily for PG, Google has already blazed this trail for them. If you recall, Google's settlement with the publishers is actually pretty similar to what PG is doing -- out-of-print works are made available unless someone objects. Google has placed some limitations which PG has not, but the concept is very similar.
Re: (Score:3)
That said, I think PG's best bet is to follow the DMCA to the letter, and hopefully the onus of copyright policing their works can be left squarely with the authors and t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
n the contrary. Google's settlement only applies to Google and no-one else. They didn't trailblaze so much as monopolize.
Regardless of the fact that the terms of the settlement only apply to Google, it establishes a precedent. Not a precedent in the normal sense of a legally binding rule which judges must follow, but a precedent in the sense of "this sort of agreement was found to be reasonable by these parties, it makes sense that it should be done here, too." That precedent won't avoid or even limit a lawsuit, but it will pave the way to another settlement or, if PG can garner enough support, to legislative changes.
That said, I think PG's best bet is to follow the DMCA to the letter, and hopefully the onus of copyright policing their works can be left squarely with the authors and their deadbeat descendants.
Does t
These works were written between 40 - 60 years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
They should be in the public domain.
Works that are not in active circulation will likely be forgotten and effectively lost to the world if they are not allowed to transition into the public domain in a timely fashion.
Copyright needs reformation.
Re:These works were written between 40 - 60 years (Score:4, Informative)
Particularly music is lost to the world. It is not as if one has an alternative and can go and buy the music or the novel. Try finding Jazz from the dawn of the twentieth century. If you are lucky enough to find it at all it is likely a crudely put up version that is almost useless. And I'm talking about scores not finished music.
Re:These works were written between 40 - 60 years (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then they should pay property taxes on it until the end of time, just like the real estate taxes they pay on their land.
Assigning an appraisal value is more problematic than for real estate, but cheating to reduce taxes could be prevented by making the owner's declaration of value an automatic offer to sell at that price. If the owner wishes to avoid th
Re:These works were written between 40 - 60 years (Score:4, Insightful)
"should" - either take it up with your representative (congress if you're in the US) or be aware that civil disobedience carries penalties.
At least some of these works are in fact in circulation, by the way. See the original article; there are stories that were first published in magazines and then in books.
60 years isn't actually very long as copyright laws go (sadly) - when I'm researching images or my Web site, http://www.fromoldbooks.org/ [fromoldbooks.org], I frequently find images over 100 years old that are still in copyright. Sometimes even older.
As for "lost to the world," well, I agree, but note that there are "dark archives" (e.g. at the Library of Congress in the USA) where items are held until such time as copyright expires.
A difficulty with copyright law is that it's the publishers who make the money, and hence have the most representation at governmental levels. I'd guess that with wider representatoin, copyright terms could be simplified and shortened. However, in the US, you also have to remember the Disney Laws. Protectionism and corruption.
Re:These works were written between 40 - 60 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my proposal:
Movies, books, TV shows, video games, etc.: 10 years from first publication. No extensions, although a "new and improved version" rerelease is copyrighted separately. This puts plenty into the public domain: Star Trek up to Insurrection, the classic James Bond films, the first few Super Mario Bros. games, and so on. However, it also provides plenty of time to make a profit, and even when something enters the public domain, some people will still buy it (see The Lord of the Rings, the original printing of which is PD in the US due to an oversight)
Genuine inventions: Patent lasts 10 years. Extension can lengthen it by another decade if you are actively using the patent in a product. This cuts down on patent trolls, but otherwise keeps the system as-is.
Software/Method patents: Six months. This is mostly to make it easier to strike down the 20-year patents: it's less of a jump to say "this was patented in the wrong category, and as it has been X years since registration, the patent is no longer valid" than it is to say "this thing should never have been patentable".
Trademarks: Pretty much as now, although I'd make protection of parodies much more explicit
"Casual infringement": If you "steal" something from a P2P site, the most you can be liable for is the most common trade price of the thing, and the prosecution is responsible for court costs. This would make it pointless to sue people for downloading a few albums, but it would still be possible to sue massive-scale "pirates" or even people running torrent sites if they're advertising "pirated" material.
exploiting? kidnapping? really?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unwise move (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an extremely unwise move for Project Gutenberg. While I am certainly opposed to the overly-long copyright terms we have today, and somewhat sympathetic to testing the boundaries of the often unclear copyright status of some works, PG is not the group to do it. They are nowhere near funded well enough to risk a legal confrontation with the major publishing houses or their star authors, and by taking that risk, they are endangering the good and unambiguously legal work they have been doing for so many years.
I don't know Greg Bear personally, but I am familiar with his position on copyrights generally, and he has always seemed to me to be one of the more reasonable authors in this area. Even if he's wrong on this point, Project Gutenberg should leave the grey areas for better-suited groups to explore. While it is deplorable that it is often prohibitively expensive to secure justice in the courts even when one is entirely in the right, that's the reality PG has to deal with if it wants to venture into this area, and it should not be done carelessly.
Re:Unwise move (Score:4)
And I don't know Poul Anderson's daughter, but the idea of progeny of famous people trying to live off their parents' work is distasteful to me.
Anyway, I've decided arbitrarily to make 15 years the point at which a work becomes public domain and I intend to act accordingly. The only thing to do when laws are out of whack is to act as if they are not.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know Astrid either, but I do know Poul's widow, editor and co-author, Karen Anderson. If anybody's profiting from Poul's work at this time, it's Karen, not Astrid. I do hope you don't object to that.
Re:Unwise move (Score:4, Interesting)
Apparently the new logic is that kids are to be cut loose, that you're not supposed to leave anything for them, but rather give 'em the boot, and anything you've saved or produced should not benefit them at all.
I'm all for copyright reform, but this idea that authors are somehow different than anyone else in that their literary works, while still under copyright, shouldn't be part of their estate seems ridiculous to me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for copyright reform, but this idea that authors are somehow different than anyone else in that their literary works, while still under copyright, shouldn't be part of their estate seems ridiculous to me.
What do you mean "different than anyone else"? If I'm a plumber, should the pipes I install somehow continue generating revenue for my kids after I've stopped installing them? I can pass on the money I've made without any need for some sort of perpetual revenue stream, and so can authors.
Re:Unwise move (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm all for copyright reform, but this idea that authors are somehow different than anyone else in that their literary works, while still under copyright, shouldn't be part of their estate seems ridiculous to me.
What do you mean "different than anyone else"? If I'm a plumber, should the pipes I install somehow continue generating revenue for my kids after I've stopped installing them? I can pass on the money I've made without any need for some sort of perpetual revenue stream, and so can authors.
If you're a plumber shouldn't the business you invested in pass to your kids?
If my kids operate my plumbing business, they're going to have to actually work to make their money, not just sit back and watch the royalty checks roll in.
If the children of famous authors want to make a living by writing books, they're more than welcome to, and they actually have a significant leg up on their competition due to their name recognition, contacts in the industry (you can bet that Brian Herbert's offerings never languished in a slushpile, even if I think that's where they belong) and the opportunity to have learned their craft from their parent. Not to mention the inherited money, which may free them from having to do other work while they build their own reputation.
Re:Unwise move (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently the new logic is that kids are to be cut loose, that you're not supposed to leave anything for them, but rather give 'em the boot, and anything you've saved or produced should not benefit them at all.
Actually, that's pretty old logic at this point. The idea is to avoid having a permanent hereditary aristocracy and to require people to achieve success (or not) through their own merits and achievements.
That's really neither here nor there where copyright is concerned. The original goal of the American copyright system (as opposed to the British, which was government control of the press) was to encourage authors to produce more work by giving them a temporary monopoly. Since dead authors are incapable of producing more work, the purpose of the law is not served if their copyrights survive them.
That said, I have no objection to striking a balance between the interests of the public domain and the author's dependents, if he/she had any, by allowing the copyrights to endure a little beyond the lifetime of the author, but seventy years is absurd.
Old Logic (your specious argument) (Score:3, Interesting)
Your logic that copyright should last long enough to inherit is ridiculous to me, 'cause Mister Anderson is not likely to rise from the grave an write more, so the value of his copyright "to encourage" him is somewhat limited.
Why should any single act of creativity or performance be rewarded with more than a reasonable wage for the effort exerted.
The fact is that normal people can leave behind what they have saved or produced, provided they _save_ some of it. But that's just for us proles apparently. Someho
Re: (Score:3)
Server location (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Server location (Score:5, Informative)
Since the works in question were first published in the US, by American citizens, the US terms would still apply even if the servers were in New Zealand or Australia. Those countries have copyright agreements with the USA.
Works published jointly in more than one country (jointly usually means within 30 days) usually get the "shortest term" of any of the countries involved, but that's only for works published in multiple counties. Works published (even on the Web) without the permission of the copyright owner do not get a reduced copyright.
In practice, you can often get away with republishing woks because it's too expensive to take legal action, and because you get into an area of law called Conflict of Laws, which is one of the hardest and most expensive areas of law. However, simply moving the servers to another Berne Convention country wouldn't actually help PG very much.
In the past, the US has not tended to honour the copyright agreeents of other counties, but of late that has been changing.
Canada (where I live) also has life + 50 years instead of life + 70 years; it's not actuallyhalf of the US term, though. If you publish a work when you're 20 and you live to be 100, the work gets (100 -20 + 70) = 150 years of protection in the US, and 130 years in Canada.
Personally (and I'm speakingas a published author here too) I'd like a return to 20 or 30 years after publication, with no renewals, But Im not a film or music distribution company, of course!
Re:Server location (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the works in question were first published in the US, by American citizens, the US terms would still apply
The Berne Convention [cornell.edu] would seem to only require 50 years protection or the length in the country of origin, whichever is the lowest.
Hyperbole at its Finest (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not merely exploiting orphan works, but practicing a wholesale kidnapping...
Wow. Hyperbole much?
Seriously, that little tirade is just shy of "won't someone think of the children"...
I have troubles taking any point seriously, regardless of how valid I think it may or may not be, when it's attached to gross, blatant hyperbole of this sort. Make your point in an intelligent manner and people will respond. Make it sound like the sky is falling and doom is eminent and you'll quickly be ignored.
tempest in a teacup (Score:4, Informative)
http://cand.pglaf.org/bear-response.txt
"The error occurred because we did not know that Brainwave was a
complete publication of the serial parts of The Escape. We did know
from the publication of The Escape in 1953 that it was the first part
of a serialization, but did not know that Brainwave, from 1954, was
the title of the complete serialization."
Re:tempest in a teacup (Score:4, Insightful)
> What did Mr Greg Bear contribute to the literary world that he may reap these royalty
> fees?
Who says he's reaping them? The author's widow is, no?
Greg Bear just happens to be:
1) The son-in-law of the author in question, hence have a personal interest in the matter.
2) A published author in his own right; quite famous in science fiction circles (if you
were not aware of this, a short search would turn it up). This mostly means that he's
maybe thought about copyright more than average.
And as a matter of fact, the works in question are not public domain yet; that's the point of the Gutenberg response that was cited.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mr Bear's Bibliography [wikipedia.org].
Non-plussed - A state of perplexity, confusion, or bewilderment.
The sad state of copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
The theft of the public domain by companies and politicians is the true criminal act.
I hope Project Gutenberg adheres to the letter of the law but doesn't give an inch of generosity to grey areas.
Personally I don't see why the author's death should figure into it at all. A couple of decades from publication to public domain is plenty. If you don't want your thoughts and ideas to enter the public domain then keep them to yourself.
A decade or three of exclusivity is a reasonable incentive to create. Carving out chunks of language and idea space for your own exclusive ownership practically forever is not.
Our shared cultural heritage is far more important that someone's "right" to continue profiting from work they or their ancestors did half a century ago. And if no one is profiting but the works are simply being suppressed because they're out of print but "protected" anyway then that is a crime against humanity.
Re:The sad state of copyright (Score:4, Informative)
Copyright is supposed to make sure authors get paid for their art for a limited time, to create incentive for them to create MORE art, not to let them live off one piece for life.
From the US Constitution:
"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."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I don't see why the author's death should figure into it at all. A couple of decades from publication to public domain is plenty. If you don't want your thoughts and ideas to enter the public domain then keep them to yourself.
I cannot agree: if I'm writing my software and releasing it in open source for everybody to befit, then I want to stay opened until I go to grave (after that, I wouldn't know).
Okay, it's fine that you want that. But what you haven't said is why you think society should spend its resources to force your desire on others, to its own detriment.
I think your comment arises from the common, but misguided, notion that creators of intellectual works have some inherent, natural right to control those works at the same time they're distributing them far and wide. This erroneous idea arises partly from the poorly named "copyright" and partly from big media pushing the idea on us all bec
Re: (Score:3)
Anytime they want really, who here cares about the 1991 release of Linux? Most Linux users here are running the latests stable kernels, very few people may be running something older than a few years old kernel in some Gods forgotten backend server, if any.
I'd say that the version of Linux from 1991 would should have become Public Domain by 1996 but let's be generous and say 2001. I'm not a linux contributor myself (unless you count bug reports) but I'm pretty sure linux contributors wouldn't mind shortenin
Too blind and ignorant to see a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Its surprising to see such backwards thinking from people that are normally regarded as futurists. If anything you would think they would recognize that perhaps releasing the older works into the public domain would actually increase interest in the authors who as they point are either still living or recently dead all but ensuring greatly increased royalties from later works. A vast majority of these older works have been all but forgotten. You would think that as a writer of speculative fiction Bear would be able to see the future dark void of lost art that the current copyright over-extensions are creating and would be at the forefront of working to prevent it. Even without that awareness you would think that typical heir greed would compel them to think about the potential windfall of sales from later works rather than the potential loss of future revenue from something like Chain Of Logic or Tomorrows Children which after 60+ likely does not result in enough revenue to buy a new hardback title.
Copyrights Gone Wild!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be honest. Copyrights expire at death, with a minimum term (like 15 years) to support any children. Or how about death + years until any children are over 18.
Frankly, copyright should be original publish date. If it was published in a magazine, then later in book form. Should the copyright be furthered? The music industry has used so-called "re-mastering" to continuously keep works in copyright.
And we all know that when these 70 yr copyrights expire, a law will be passed to extend it to 100 yrs. And then after that - infinitely. But hey, no one will be alive that will remember anything but infinite copyrights.
DISGUSTING....
Re:Copyrights Gone Wild!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Library of Congress (Score:3, Interesting)
The best thing for the US would be to announce that all works from before 1940 should automatically return to public domain one year from now, unless rights holders come forward to claim copyright. If there's nobody living to make the claim, then let it into the public domain.
They want a lawsuit to determine this firmly (Score:5, Interesting)
dude, Greg (Score:3, Insightful)
Sincerely,
the rest of the humans
You don't have to listen to me, but I have an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless if the laws change or not, I'm making it a personal goal of mine to educate people better and cheaper through software. I'm not doing it immediately though. First things first, get my feet on the ground with some video games. If I can get a money machine through video games, I can then do more humanitarian projects. Cuz the thing is,"Even if they don't change the IP law, no one says you can't rewrite a ton of books yourself, and give it out for free."
Comments from PG (Score:5, Informative)
The Anderson/Bear folks posted this a couple of places, and it was picked up a few other places. Here is the text of the most recent substantial message I sent them on the topic: http://cand.pglaf.org/bear-response.txt [pglaf.org] . The group has not provided the author/title (or PG eBook number) of any title they think was wrongly determined to be non-renewed, other than those mentioned in the email. They seem to have some theories about what is eligible for renewal, or who can renew, but these are not contested by Project Gutenberg (in fact, our policy is to NOT to question whether renewals were fully compliant with the law, nor whether a person had the correct standing to renew).
The issue is whether a renewal was made. For The Escape, part 1 was republished with a different title, complete with part 2. Part 1 was not individually renewed, but the newly titled complete work was. We were unaware of the subsequent retitled republication, so did not find the renewal. For the purposes of copyright and renewal, a major outcome of the legal advice we received concerning The Escape is that serialized works are treated as single acts of authorship. Thus, renewal of a part may be considered to apply to the whole -- provided it happens within a reasonable timespan (we have been advised to use +/- four years).
The Project Gutenberg Copyright How-To has details on our procedures, although the Rule 6 how-to there (for non-renewals) is older than the version we used for the original Anderson/Escape non-renewal determination. We are working on a revision that will include additional research for serials, and a few other variations like republication with different titles. The how-to is here: www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Copyright_How-To
For those who aren't aware, Project Gutenberg is classified in the US as a 501(c)(3) charity, as a library. With over 35,000 published titles, and well over 50,000 unique instances of copyright research (thousands for our Rule 6), it's not surprising that we make occasional errors. To date (I've been doing this aspect of volunteer work for Project Gutenberg since around 1999), we've changed our stance on fewer than 1/2 dozen public domain determinations. Not perfect, but I believe we're doing a good job overall, and have some very solid procedures by copyright experts over the years.
I first initiated our Rule 6 nearly 10 years ago. This was because I saw that of all the books and serials published in the US from 1923-1963 (when renewal was required for copyright to still apply), 85--90% were never renewed. The US Library of Congress does annual reports on this. Statistically, that means there a million or so items from 1923-1964 whose copyright expired after a 28-year term. These items have been in the public domain in the US since 1992 or earlier (1964+28), and many are out of print. As a policy decision, Project Gutenberg decided it was worth the risk of occasionally missing a renewal, to be able to affirmatively identify the many items for which no renewal occurred. I still believe this decision was the right one.
For those who are paying attention to Project Gutenberg news today, there was a story in the Washington Post that, more or less, accused Amazon of abusing their customers by selling public domain Project Gutenberg works, with DRM added, for a fee. The article is here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/11/amazon_charges_kindle_users_fo.html [washingtonpost.com] . (I exchanged several emails with the author.) It's a weird coincidence that within the same 24 hour period there is another story that basically accuses Project Gutenberg of stealing.
Enough for now. I'm going back to reading Marusek's "Mind over Ship" (sequel to the excellent "Counting Heads"), one of the hundreds of printed books I purchase every year. Maybe before I shut down for the evening I'll post Doctorow's "Makers"
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
>These works have been forgotten about a long time ago. They should have been in public domain since nobody is profiting from them anymore.
That's your opinion, but it's someone else's rights you are talking about. If I said your rights should be abridged (not only copyright, but any rights) how would you respond? I find your tagline most ironic, because it seems you want other people to pick and choose which of your rights should be defended.
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think your rights terminate when you do.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Copyright extends to the life of the author +70 years (assuming there was proper renewal etc.). Even if the authors immediately dropped dead after writing these stories they haven't entered the public domain yet.
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Informative)
United States Copyright extends to the life of the author +70 years (assuming there was proper renewal etc.). Even if the authors immediately dropped dead after writing these stories they haven't entered the public domain yet.
There, fixed that for you.
It's only life+50 years for member countries operating under the Berne Convention, although some works-for-hire have 120 years from creation or 95 years from publication.
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Informative)
Berne Convention is only applicable to works that fall under the 1976 Copyright Act. Anything from before falls under the 1909 Copyright Act. If you didn't renew, the work became public domain. It's a Wonderful Life was a forgotten flop until someone figured out that it had fallen into the public domain through non-renewal. The UHF channels picked it up and started showing it since they wouldn't need to pay anyone. Now it's a Christmas classic. Go figure.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Berne Convention is only applicable to works that fall under the 1976 Copyright Act. Anything from before falls under the 1909 Copyright Act. If you didn't renew, the work became public domain. It's a Wonderful Life was a forgotten flop until someone figured out that it had fallen into the public domain through non-renewal. The UHF channels picked it up and started showing it since they wouldn't need to pay anyone. Now it's a Christmas classic. Go figure.
Actually, no. While it was not properly renewed, it was still protected as a derivative work, amongst other reasons.
From Wiki:
However, a clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974.[34] Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still were required to pay royalties. Although the film's images had entered the public domain, the film's story was still protected by virtue of it being a derivative work of the published story "The Greatest Gift", whose
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't know that major corporations could be considered a "poor family"
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
The rights of the dead should not infringe upon the rights of the living.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You livies hate us deadies!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Go back to Undercity, you!
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
The rights of the dead should not infringe upon the rights of the living.
Wouldn't this enter on collision course with the idea of a will (before death) act? I mean, can you imagine what the death of a house owner would bring? (relatives stampeding to pick everything before anyone from outside would enter the home and start shouting "Finders keepers").
Re: (Score:3)
To have a copyright that you can give to your children, to a buyer, to an estate that will have 70 years of value after you're dead is (in the US) a right of the living. I'm conflicted on IP in general, and I do agree that 70 years is too long in any case, but in principle, it is the guarantee of the persistence of that right for some time after death that makes it valuable: otherwise, a ghoulish opportunism results, and it makes little sense to really use much of anything during the artist's lifetime. One
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Interesting)
What about OUR rights?
All these works draw heavily on the public domain. They build on existing ideas, use cultural references, feedback from readers on previous work. You could even count the English language as a public domain resource. No artistic creation is ever 100% original, it always relies on our culture and other works. Shouldn't our right to benefit from derive from our cultural property in our own lifetimes be considered? If someone samples a song they have to pay the musicians who created it. Where are our royalties?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the case of copyright, it is the rights of the dead's living dependents that meant to be are protected.
How exactly do the rights of the dependents encourage the dead person to go on creating works?
Re: (Score:3)
In the case of copyright, it is the rights of the dead's living dependents that meant to be are protected.
How exactly do the rights of the dependents encourage the dead person to go on creating works?
Along with GP's point, it doesn't necessarily encourage the dead to go on creating works, but it definitely discourages the living from stopping prematurely due to an early, unnatural death because someone didn't want to pay for rights to their works.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a thought.
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got it completely backwards.
A 100% estate tax would be extremely regressive against the less well-off, quite unfair, and certainly unequal.
In case A, I am wealthy. I have more money than I could spend in 100 lifetimes. My coat tails could extend for generations. Faced with a 100% estate tax, I simply give a large amount of my money to family and friends before I die.
Since I can afford the best lawyers and accountants, I likely end up with close to nothing left of my personal fortune when I die. In fact, I've given everything away and live in a house owned by my children when I die.
Death tax paid as percentage of my total net worth at its peak: roughly 0%.
Case B, I am poor. I have a job, but essentially live paycheck-to-paycheck. What little I have, I'd like to pass down to my children before I die.
But most of the net worth is tied up in my house. I am lucky to have a place to live, but I could never give my house away. The gift taxes would be more than I (or my children) could afford without selling the house first.
When I die, my house goes to the state to be auctioned.
Death tax paid as percentage of my total net worth at its peak: roughly 100%.
How is that fair and equal???????????
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How exactly do the rights of the dependents encourage the dead person to go on creating works?
Because the creator, when alive, is motivated by the knowledge that her dependents will be provided for when she is dead. If you care about what's in your Will (and especially how big your estate is so that your Will matters to anyone), you probably would care about copyright extending beyond your death.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most folks decided a long time back that the work of their own hands should go to those of their own choosing
Whose hands made the copies we are talking about? Nobody wants to take the original manuscript - the work of the creator's hands - from the his widow & children.
Maybe a more clear way to put the issue at hand: An author has created and made public a piece of data which many find useful or enjoyable to copy. Does this oblige those who have made a copy of that data to support the author's widow, progeny, pets, etc long after the author himself has died? There is zero possibility that payments will en
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is especially irrelevant when the freaking SUMMARY says "including work from still-living authors like Frederik Pohl and Jack Vance) have been showing up on Project Gutenberg"...
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
all your solution will do is create a market for bumping off newly popular writers.
This is the stupidest argument I have ever seen, on any subject.
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
2) They got paid when they sold the books for quite some time, why not give that money to their kids?
3) How many jobs keep paying you money after you've died? Why do authors deserve this special privilege?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How dare you make a common sense argument against what is clearly a stupid policy?
#3 is +5 insightful imho.
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) The works aren't exactly making a ton of money or circulation.
How would you know? You don't, do you?
2) They got paid when they sold the books for quite some time, why not give that money to their kids?
Who says they haven't? Anyway, why is it up to you to decide what they do with their money?
3) How many jobs keep paying you money after you've died? Why do authors deserve this special privilege?
How about calling it an investment? These are big names who've made it as writers. Do you know how many people are struggling to make a living off writing? Do you know what kind of investment it takes to write a book, putting years of your life into it, and not knowing at all if it will pay off?
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
3) How many jobs keep paying you money after you've died? Why do authors deserve this special privilege?
Increased risk.
I think authors work like musicians, in that either they accept a loan from the publisher to get them by (book deal) while they write the material with the expectation that sales of the work will pay back the loan, and provide some actual profit to the author (if it doesn't sell enough, the author is on the hook to repay the loan); or, they self-fund the creation of the work (through working another, more normal job) and then sell the book afterwards.
That second option is more like standard entrepreneurship: invest some of your own capital into making something, with the potential of receiving a big payoff if you do it well (but also the risk of losing that investment if you do it poorly). However for that payoff to be feasible, you need to be the only one selling the product. Laws of physics protect entrepreneurs who are producing physical goods, but if you're investing time in creating something that can be represented digitally, only copyright provides that protection to your investment of time.
The first option is probably more common, especially for well-known authors. The difference between me and an author is that my employer doesn't pay me a year's salary upfront, and then expect me to pay it back through earnings from working for them. If they did, then I'd be quite hesitant to work for that employer: what happens if I get sick or injured and can't keep working, therefore can't repay the money? That's basically the situation an artist who gets a publishing deal is in - so they're taking on more risk than people with normal salaried jobs.
So with the current system, royalties makes sense. It provides the opportunity to make much more money than a regular job, thereby giving an incentive to take the increased risk.
Maybe the solution is for publishers to pay their creatives a salary like everyone else; an author would then just work 9-5 writing stuff, and be paid a regular salary for as long as they're working for that company. I would think the publishers would have the power to do this and it'd be fairly attractive for at least some writers, so I guess they (the publishers) feel the current system suits them better. Possibly just that most people can only produce good material for a limited time or in limited circumstances, and you don't want to be stuck paying a salary to someone who's producing rubbish. Safer for the publisher to offload the risk to the authors.
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
3) How many jobs keep paying you money after you've died? Why do authors deserve this special privilege?
They abided by the law of the land of the time, and there was no obvious moral conflict with abiding by those laws. We can certainly change the laws for people in the future, but if we want them to uphold those laws, we will have to make sure we honor past agreements.
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
privilege (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a privilege not a right. Copyright is a bad term. Ideas do not belong to the first being to hold them in their mind. Art does not belong to the artist. I'm not going to say some hippie crap like art belongs to everyone, rather I say it doesn't belong to anyone, it just is. You can't own blue, righteous indignation, the smell of napalm, or the force (sorry Lucas). We grant the privilege of profit for a period of time as a robust method of rewarding people for their efforts in proportion to how much people like the results of their mental labor. We made this law in the hope that it would encourage more such effort. The law was broken by PG, probably accidentally, but this is a legal issue, not a moral one, as no one is having their rights violated.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's the case then copyright owners need to start paying property taxes on their "intellectual property."
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If that's the case then copyright owners need to start paying property taxes on their "intellectual property."
Why? You don't pay tax on most property (cars, paintings, jewellery, yachts) just by owning it.
Re: (Score:3)
That's your opinion, but it's someone else's rights you are talking about. If I said your rights should be abridged (not only copyright, but any rights) how would you respond?
To draw an equivalence between copyright and natural rights like freedom of expression, movement or association is to wholly misrepresent what copyright is.
Just because the words are spelled the same does not mean they have the same meaning.
Copyright is nothing more than a legal fiction - manufactured by the consent of society to refrain from exercising their natural right of freedom of expression.
Natural rights are not created by governments, we are born with them. Nobody is born with the right to restric
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Privilege, you mean. This is a very important mental distinction. Copyright is a government-granted temporary privilege, not a natural right. It's not life, liberty, and all that jazz. Where it should concern American law, it exists for a very specific purpose:
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. -- Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution
With extension after extension, the "limited times" part is dead. Pretty much nothing ever falls into public domain anymore. Progress ceased to happen but to the wealthiest corporations; the People do not benefit. Copyright has become pure rent seekin
Re: (Score:3)
Someone's rights? You're honestly trying to say that the imaginary control over a work an author created 50+ years ago is a right?
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
All rights are the arbitrary creation of people - organized into entities called states, with governments.
If I choose to kill you, the only thing that makes the idea of you having a "right" to live is the decision of a government to enforce it, and punish me. All political rights are a collective fiction.
Re:That long ago? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Would Gutenberg not be allowed produce the copy now, hold on to that digital copy until the copyright expires, and then publish it?
After all, it is distribution which RIAA/MIAA sue people for, not format shifting which I believe is considered a fair use. Of course since Gutenberg isn't an individual it may face different rules.
Neither forgotten or out of print. (Score:4, Insightful)
These works have been forgotten about a long time ago. They should have been in public domain since nobody is profiting from them anymore.
From Amazon.com:
Poul Anderson [amazon.com]
Author Page. 99 books.
Ray Bradbury [amazon.com]
Author Page. 105 books.
Frederick Pohl [amazon.com]
Author Page. 60 books.
Jack Vance [amazon.com]
Author Page. 54 books.
Copyright gives the author - and his heirs - an exclusive and constitutionally protected right to control the distribution and use of his work. No where does it say that those rights are forfeit because his work isn't making any money.
Re: (Score:3)
The only way to get some of his older stuff was to spend thousands on the VIE [vanceintegral.com].
(MS's Paul Allen bought dozens of these collections for libraries around the world.)
Renewal fee (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That long ago? (Score:5, Insightful)
They should have been in public domain since nobody is profiting from them anymore.
There's lots of open source code protected by copyright, but not generating any profit. Should that all go into public domain and not have any copyright protection?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Right now, copyright is 70 years past the author's death [wikipedia.org], but before the 70s there was renewal. If the work was published before 1964 and not renewed, it's PD. When exactly something becomes copyrighted can be a tricky concept, as publication has increasingly come to mean "made permanent."
Re:originally appeared in magazine form (Score:5, Informative)
Correct. For works written before January 1, 1978, copyright extends for an initial term of 28 years and can be renewed for another 67 years. Copyrights that have not been renewed for all works published January 1, 1978 would be public domain. Furthermore, works published before January 1, 1978 had to registered for copyright protection status to be effective; this is not true for works written after January 1, 1978.
What is special about magazines is that many magazines did not register their copyrights for individual articles.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, he's right: 1928 (publication date) + 28 + 67 = 2023 (when Steamboat Willie will eventually be free, in theory).
The 67 years extension was allowed because Disney renewed that copyright when the law was changed, in 1976. You can bet they were first in line: they almost certainly paid for the law themselves.
(Besides, some people think SW is, in fact, already in PD for different reasons.)
Re:What a bunch of whiners (Score:5, Informative)
Except Project Gutenberg have retracted and admitted their mistake. But do go on, let's not bring facts into this.
Re:What a bunch of whiners (Score:4, Informative)
No, actually Greg Newby of Project Gutenberg sent Greg Bear a letter acknowledging that they had made a mistake and took the book down.
http://cand.pglaf.org/bear-response.txt [pglaf.org]
My apologies for my long delay in responding. As promised in
September, I discussed the situation with one of Project Gutenberg's
copyright lawyers. This particular lawyer had previously been very
helpful in preparing and then providing legal advice and feedback on
our procedures for determining non-renewal status.
Our lawyer advised that our non-renewal determination for The Escape
was in error. Therefore, on October 1, I removed The Escape from the
Project Gutenberg collections and catalog and announced its removal
to our mailing list.
On behalf of Project Gutenberg, I apologize for the error.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the work has passed into the public domain, they need no permission at all. They may not have overstepped the law at all.
Works prior to 1978 got 28 years protection with an option to renew. Reading the quote in TFA:
However, even if ‘The Escape” had not been published as a novel, it would have remained under copyright protection until 1981 (28 years) and been eligible for copyright renewal. Authors of that era, and Anderson in particular, were very aware of the need to renew copyrights, and typically meticulously kept their copyright protections up to date.
Typically doesn't mean DID in this case. "Well, I believe he probably..." isn't much basis to declare PG guilty, now is it?
I have no doubt they sincerely believe the works are NOT in the public domain now. They may even be right. They may be wrong. It's hardly a cut and dried issue.