Music Industry Argues Works Entering Public Domain Are Not In Public Interest 302
An anonymous reader writes: With news that Canada intends to extend
the term of copyright for sound recordings and performers, the
recording industry is now pushing the change by arguing that works
entering the public domain is not in the public interest. It is hard to see how anyone can credibly claim that
works are "lost" to the public domain and that the public interest
in not served by increased public access, but if anyone would make
the claim, it would be the recording industry.
Something to see behind the curtain? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reasoning is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
By retaining copyrights, the recording industry can limit availability to older works. By limiting availability, they can drive consumer interest perpetually towards newer works. This ensures that there is consistent demand for new music from new artists, which further ensures that new music is continually created, which is good for everyone.
The fact that most of this new music is just rehashed variants of the old music which is no longer on the shelves is irrelevant. The fact that the money going to new artists, in this scenario, represents money that is NOT going to old artists that are still alive, is also irrelevant. The fact that the limits on availability often results in the permanent loss of important cultural artifacts is also irrelevant. The fact that people want the old music is also not relevant. And, lastly, the fact that all of this drives people to illegal file sharing networks is the least relevant bit of all.
You got it all backwards ... (Score:5, Insightful)
First, file sharing networks is THE goddam most relevant bit of all. THAT's what all this is about. The digitization of IP blew up the revenue stream, and it will continue to do so.
What happened is, all IP looks the same in binary form. That means the tools that manipulate one, manipulates all.
You have those tools. I have those tools. The government has those tools. The IP industries have those tools. Every country on the planet has those tools.
Essentially overnight, IP is in the public domain, not by law, but by lack of friction. Digital IP is slicker'n mockingbird shit on a sycamore limb. To rephrase for Texans: It's slicker'n deer guts on a door knob.
File sharing networks have no problem dragging copies from here to there, to everywhere.
That's all we need to know. This is not your father's IP world.
The entertainment business has been making way too much for way too long. Those days are over and there's no going back.
What we're hearing from IP interests is their last breaths.
People are going to have to produce entertainment for time and material and a realistic margin of profit.
It will be good.
People will be producing IP because, by golly, by gum, it's fun.
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You're right, it's going to be good.
Because it means I can release a Linux based device without following the GPL anymore since that's bound to "IP
Re:You got it all backwards ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Believe it or not, if it comes to that the makers of GPL will be happy!
Free Software may not mean gratis. It means freedom FOR THE USERS. GPL is just a license in order to protect Free Software from being usurped by proprietary non-free vendors, while enjoying similar protections.
If you buy something that cannot be inspected, tweaked and improved, your paying for your own jail.
So your idea has been proposed by proponents of FSF and GPL, e.g. RMS, in order to make people free to do whatever they want with any code.
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Take as much visible source as you like. Put it in binaries with your own "secret" sauce. People who want human readable source will decompile your binaries (even obfuscated ones) and extract any valuable bits you came up with. With impunity.
It works both ways. Either you have protections or no one has. Don't try to hide behind contract law. One leaked copy and one breach of contract later, ev
Re:The reasoning is simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Different AC here:
Music is not fungible. You cannot trade two Justin Bieber CDs for a Beatles album. You cannot trade a Ke$ha MP3 group for Dark Side of the Moon. Music that is popular is not by signed bands; it is by bands that are built from scratch by the labels with a squad of psychologists and marketing types writing every line of a sing, then hiring good looking musicians who can follow in lock-step, sing, and obey orders.
The problem is that the music industry is killing itself. Yes, it can squeeze out more from each band it promos... but between streaming, piracy, existing music collections, and many other sources, people are starting to go elsewhere for their music fix... and discovering bands that were footnotes in musical history before. In fact, the entire hipster craze was about finding bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and feeling superior because they know an esoteric band.
The ironic thing is that I was wondering when there would be news about the industry and its tactics.
Of course, there is one thing that will turn things around:
Between jailbreak-proof devices and consoles with a 0% piracy rate, it shows that when there is no piracy, costs shoot up. Back in the Apple 2 days, we were constantly chided for piracy and how software costs would be insanely cheap once piracy was stopped... however, look at consoles now... what used to be a $50-60 game is now a multiple C-note game just to download the DLC pieces which were normally included with the game in the first place.
So, if there is some law passed mandating DRM stacks, we can see that happening with music as well. Streaming services will go the way of the dodo, and we will be paying $20-$25 per album again... albums with limited plays and locked to the MP3 player or computer, just as in the days of OpenMG and ATRAC3/LiquidAudio devices.
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"It's a Wonderful Life" was in the public domain (Score:5, Informative)
Frank Capra's classic "It's a Wonderful Life" was largely forgotten in its time. In 1974, possibly due to an error, its copyright lapsed. TV networks, eager for low cost holiday fare, basically had this film running on a loop during certain times of the year. Then, Paramount managed to pull the movie back into copyright. And low and behold, the showings of this great movie slowed to a trickle once again. Public interest indeed. These media industry slime-balls are evil. Literally evil.
Re:"It's a Wonderful Life" was in the public domai (Score:4, Funny)
Unless you talk to an audience of cows, you want to say "lo and behold".
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"It's a Wonderful Life" was, is, and always will be, a crap movie. The people at the time it was made recognized this, which is why it was forgotten. The behavior of the cast, especially George, is the sort of thing that would get him thrown in jail today - verbally abusive to his wife and kids, physically manhandling his wife, giving an important deposit to Uncle Billy when he knew Uncle Billy was, in George's words, "a drunken old fool" and then blaming Billy for his own error in judgment, refusing to tak
Would you kindly cut out the political crap? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you still have any respect for this forum within Slashdot, would you kindly cut out your political crap, please?
As this is a thread discussing the action of GREEDY ASSHOLES of the Music Industry, can you please stick to the context?
Subservience to the vested elite is not limited to the Conservatives - the critters on the other side of the isle, the Liberals, have also proven to be doing the same thing
It is thus an utter disgust for you kind to pollute this conversation by astroturfing the 'conservative vs liberal' debate
Re:Would you kindly cut out the political crap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Canada does not yet have a two party system. Please stop with your CRAP talking points.
It is entirely relevant who is in power with regards to these kind of LEGISLATIVE changes.
Re:Would you kindly cut out the political crap? (Score:5, Informative)
If you still have any respect for this forum within Slashdot, would you kindly cut out your political crap, please?
As this is a thread discussing the action of GREEDY ASSHOLES of the Music Industry, can you please stick to the context?
Subservience to the vested elite is not limited to the Conservatives - the critters on the other side of the isle, the Liberals, have also proven to be doing the same thing
It is thus an utter disgust for you kind to pollute this conversation by astroturfing the 'conservative vs liberal' debate
Extending copyright is a legislative action which means it has to be enacted by politicians. Those 'GREEDY ASSHOLES' you refer to would not be able to get away with their heavy handed tactics if they didn't have political clout through lobbying and campaign finance.
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In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
This is making me uncomfortable. Until now I thought cognitive dissonance was something entirely contradictory.
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We cross-checked the Open Secrets list of the top 100 individuals donating to outside spending groups in the current election against the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires and found that, as of June 19, there were 22 individuals on the Open Secrets list who were billionaires. Of those 22 billionaires, 13 -- or more than half -- gave predominantly to liberal groups or groups affiliated with the Democratic Party. The other nine gave predominantly to conservative groups. (A list of billionaires and how much they donated can be found here.)
The top donor from either party so far this cycle is pro-Democratic -- California billionaire Tom Steyer, who has given more than $11 million and has pledged to spend at last $50 million.
The needs of the many... (Score:3)
--Mr. Spock
i.e. The CRIA, or whatever they are now calling themselves, can get stuffed.
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...outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. --Mr. Spock
Yeah.
The needs of lots of dollars, versus the needs of few dollars.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Now can someone please publish the counter-argument, that Copyright is not in the Public Interest.
Shall we compare them side by side?
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, I'll play. Here's an example I happened to be thinking of recently. Consider the case of a film from the silent era, 1894–1929. On a common-sense basis, it clearly should be in the public domain. After all, the people who made it are all dead - as likely are their heirs. So, who really deserves any money from something created that long ago?
However, if it's in the public domain, there is no monetary incentive to locate, digitize, and restore such a film. It either sits in a vault somewhere, decomposing (maybe even on nitrate film [wikipedia.org] - egad!), or maybe it was transferred onto videotape before its copyright expired. So, it's either not available at all, or maybe isn't available in the best possible quality. But if somebody still owned a valid copyright for it, they might have a financial incentive to make it available in HD.
Don't get me wrong, though - I don't think any film from the silent era should still be protected by copyright. But at least some case can be made for that. So there's your counter-argument.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Counter argument: if the copyright holder felt that there was money to be made by transferring to another medium and selling, it would have already happened.
Instead, all those nitrate copies are locked away and will either burn or decompose. Many of those old movies have copies lurking away, open to non-copyright holders if they had the right to make updated copies and release them. But copyright prevents this.
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FWIW, my story includes the element of the march of technological progress. Specifically, videotape such as VHS was once the best way to monetize an old film, but now HD or streaming - with much higher quality - might be. So, if copyright expires, there's no monetary incentive to transfer to the lastest-and-greatest technology, and to undertake the expensive process of digital restoration.
Admittedly, my example is a bit contrived, but as someone who is mildly a silent film buff, I've been surprised that N
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, a restored copy (or even a digitized copy) would be a derived work. Derived works can be copyrighted independently of the foundation work, as long as some degree of artistic creativity was involved. If I digitally-restored an old film that was in the public domain, digitally-watermarked it, and you distributed unauthorized copies of it, I could most certainly sue you for infringement. I couldn't stop you from independently obtaining a copy of the original work and doing YOUR OWN restoration on it (and getting your own copyright), but I CAN stop you from using MY restored copy as your source.
Here are some other examples:
The original German text of Grimm's fairy tales: public domain
A translation of them (with a few artistic liberties) published long ago: public domain.
A new translation of them: the lines you changed are a derivative work & copyrighted. The lines that were unchanged from the original translation are public domain. The limits of how far someone could go republishing your translation with your own changes slightly paraphrased: anyone's guess, but likely to be messy.
You print an anthology of public domain works. I OCR them, and typeset & sell my own anthology. You MIGHT have a valid (if weak) copyright claim if my book had a 1:1 correspondence with yours (every story in one was in the other, in the same order, but without any interpretations/footnotes/etc added by you), but the more my book diverges from yours in form and content, the weaker your claim would be.
You print an anthology of public domain works. I scan each page, and use the images to publish my own anthology. You can absolutely sue me, because I violated the copyright on your "performance" of the original public-domain works.
I record myself playing a Beethoven fugue. You copy and sell verbatim copies: I can sue. The content itself is public domain, but my specific recorded performance of it is not. The process of recording, mixing, and editing added copyrightable value. On the other hand, if I performed it in a public place & you made YOUR OWN recording, I'd probably have no valid claim against you. And I absolutely couldn't stop you from performing the public-domain work YOURSELF, recording it, and releasing it on your own.
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"Perhaps the Harold Lloyd films I saw had some new music added precisely to extend the copyright as derived works"
Adding something to an existing work doesn't extend a copyright: whatever copyrights already existed continue unchanged. Rather, new copyrights are created when the new work is, provided that the new work is a "work of authorship". All works are derived, because all of us rely upon historical material of the past. Conceptually just saying "ABC" is deriving content from the alphabet, but in such a case there is a work but no substantial authoritative content to hang copyrights on. Incorporating letters, word
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
You didn't address the counter argument though.
If copyright gave an incentive to keep these works in circulation then they would not be presently rotting away anywhere, they would be widely available. But they aren't. So the existing lengthy copyright regime is currently is doing exactly the opposite of what you argued would happen.
Add to this, that if the movies were in public domain, *anyone* with an interest - monetary or otherwise - could do the digitization and restoration. This could be some other company, some silent movie buff society, or a museum or archive.
nice argument, considering the ridiculous proposit (Score:2)
Considering how ridiculous the notion is that copyright should last approximately forever, you came up with a pretty good argument. Not a PERSUASIVE argument, of course, but pretty good. Reminds of OJ Simpson's lawyers - there was a ton of evidence against him, so anyone who felt like taking the time to learn about the evidence knew he was guilty; yet his lawyers made arguments good enough to sway some jurors.
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- mob of Corporate Leeches
Copypriveledge The Right To Steal Copies (Score:5, Interesting)
How about the core of the problem. Copyright is an artificial construct, people want to make stuff, sell it and keep it, the ultimate have your cake and eat falsity. We owe you nothing, not one thing for making it, you make it's your choice. What you do with it is your choice. Keep it secret, destroy it, release it, make a hard copy and stick it up your arse, all your choice. Nothing what so ever to do with the rest of us, not our choice and most definitely not our responsibility, you made it your choice, so don't want to released, keep it secret, nothing what so ever to do with the rest of us. So why the bullshit of forcing us to protect it like we own it, we don't it yours, do with it what you will.
The reality of copyright kind of stops there, sure the token thing of ensuring a person who didn't create it can not claim they did but it pretty much stops there. Now you release it, your problem, nothing to do with the rest of us. People copy it with their equipment and their materials, again nothing to do with the rest of us, as such, so what. For the famous car analogy, you make a self replicating car and complain when people us it to make copies and for some reason expect the rest of us to stop them, even when they supply all the equipment and hardware to make those copies.
Now taking that into account, do you understand why copyright was meant to be limited. OK we will humour you and give you limited protection, like a decade. Then the creative artists cease to be the concerned parties and publishers take over and not one scrap of creativity in them and demand that we enable them to basically print money and pretend it's real because they have enough money to corrupt government. So copyright a token limited right, whoops, privilege not a right at all, as you are attempt to claim ownership of something someone else produced, something some one else paid for and some things some one else has a right to, the copy.
So copyprivilege is the legal illusion of allowing some to steal other peoples copies that they have created and not only steal those copies but make them pay for creating them after they already paid to create them. That copy is actual property, it used actual materials and equipment and those people who made it paid to make it have a right to it. So seriously what gives anyone the right mind you the 'RIGHT' to steal it. Yes copyright is theft, the right to steal copies legally made by others (they were made with legally owned material, labour and equipment) and pretend they were not legally made because, hmm, 'GREED'. That is the only reason in the majority of instances, as that content in the majority of instance has no public value and in fact quite a large portion of it is damaging too society and in reality as such is of negative value to society.
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Copyright could easily be adjusted to be beneficial to society. Limit it to twenty years, make it non-transferable and nullify any contracts that bind the exclusive marketing of copyrightable material to one company. That would allow the copyright holder to (i) make some money from his works for some time, and (ii) would get limit the power of the publishing industry in a way that is beneficial to the artists. The publisher could still market and sell the works and pay only lousy percentages, but at least y
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I guess the case you are making for a film is special since digitizing and mastering is so expensive- but it doesn't hold true for music an books.
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I agree. My story is a bit of a special case. But the original poster had asked for a counter-example to his argument and I simply gave him one that I happened to be thinking about recently while reading a biography of Charlie Chaplin.
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It's also possible that the copyright holder does not have the financial means to updat
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Very interesting point, in theory. Luckily, that kind of thing has been studied, and it=s the other way around. Copyrights hinder availability, and entering public domain is an incentive for publishing.
Look at this, it was a study on Amazon availability of books : http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/copyright-stagnation.html.
This shows that books seem to get republished as soon as they enter the public domain, and for a long time after that too.
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I think a book is fundamentally different from a film in the technical sense that any available copy can be reproduced without loss of quality. That's why it doesn't matter that we lack the original manuscripts of the Bible or Shakespeare.
In comparison, reproducing a film with the best possible quality would begin with locating the best possible print, then making it better via a restoration process. The ideal thing is the original camera negative or at least a master print. In the case of films from the
Counter example (Score:3)
If copyright is held by cvompany : when they lose int
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However, if it's in the public domain, there is no monetary incentive to locate, digitize, and restore such a film.
There is monetary incentive if you can put the movie onto a shelf in the shops and sell it. Most people don't actually copy stuff. And those with huge illegal collections don't actually listen to or watch all the stuff that they copied. So you have to be careful estimating how many sales would be lost. And at last, you _can_ put DRM onto works in the public domain if you feel like it.
On the other hand, if people are worried about cultural values being lost, and these people are not the copyright holders,
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OK, I'll play. Here's an example I happened to be thinking of recently. Consider the case of a film from the silent era, 1894–1929. On a common-sense basis, it clearly should be in the public domain. After all, the people who made it are all dead - as likely are their heirs. So, who really deserves any money from something created that long ago?
However, if it's in the public domain, there is no monetary incentive to locate, digitize, and restore such a film. It either sits in a vault somewhere, decomposing (maybe even on nitrate film [wikipedia.org] - egad!), or maybe it was transferred onto videotape before its copyright expired. So, it's either not available at all, or maybe isn't available in the best possible quality. But if somebody still owned a valid copyright for it, they might have a financial incentive to make it available in HD.
Don't get me wrong, though - I don't think any film from the silent era should still be protected by copyright. But at least some case can be made for that. So there's your counter-argument.
But what's to stop someone from taking those old films and digitising them and selling them on whatever medium they want. There will be no copyright so after costs it's all profit.
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Freaking capitalists.... Because money is the only reason to do anything. You are like the religious people who believe that morality would not exist without god except that it's "incentive would not exist without monetary gain".
What really happens is this: Whom ever owns the copyright sits on those films and does nothing because there is no monetary incentive. The film buff(s) who would donate their time to restore and archive
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In your example there is only one house, once you sell it you no longer have the house and that applies equally to whoever originally built it as any subsequent purchaser.
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I'm not entirely sure you're not trolling, but I'll bite anyway.
The US Constitution states that the purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts", artists and inventors may be granted a (temporary, limited) exclusive right to their work. Anytime copyright comes up among my group of friends (who include a large number of writers, musicians, and graphical artists, in addition to programmers) copyright is a fairly contentious issue. I tend to like to argue the position that any
I'll be Bach (Score:5, Insightful)
Look how bad things went with Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven works. Shouldda let Disney own their notes.
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Yeah, poor Mozart was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. Roll forward a hundred-plus years, though, and Gershwin's got himself a pretty nice place [findagrave.com].
Re:I'll be Bach (Score:5, Informative)
Mozart was buried as a regular citizen. His grave was reused after a decade because that was the custom for all citizens; that wasn't an indication of poverty. The idea that he was buried in a "pauper's grave" is false.
Mozart's financial difficulties weren't a result of lack of income, but because he spent too much and wasn't prudent with money. He actually made a good amount of money from his works and his performances.
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You do realize that Beethoven was one of the pioneers of the copyright-based music publishing? (Of course in his time it was sheet music and not recordings.)
Protect the income of the creators or they can't.. (Score:4, Interesting)
...create anything. Just 'cos the 'net makes it easy to copy and distribute creative works does not make it OK. People who just don't want to pay for stuff should admit it instead of pretending they have some kind of real philosophy or that is is for the creators' good (I mean, it might be, but it should be up to them to decide, not some guy in a basement who really just wants free stuff). The problem is the middle level. I want creators to get well paid and consumers to get well priced access. That does not need a record company, say, in the traditional sense.
Copyright needs to (I reckon) end with the death of the creator; simple. And the creator has to be a human not a corporation. Probably legally difficult, but makes sense to me. I guess we need ways for copyright to be signed over to a corporation; or do we? Leased instead, until the 'death' of either party or until some agreed time prior. That way a corp can 'own' the copyright but only till the creator dies or the contract is up, whichever comes first.
This argument I keep hearing that free distribution of, for example, music benefits the musician because they 'make more money in live shows anyway' is moronic in the extreme. Like every musician has the same business model? Sure, for some it might work that way: http://gizmodo.com/5903937/six-reasons-why-recorded-music-should-be-free but not everybody can keep touring. They get older -- do they suddenly lose the right to make any money off their life's work because they can't tour behind it? Musician thinks: "Gee, I've got kids, a wife who works, I can't spend 10 months a year on the road like when I was 25 -- and double whammy, I don't get royalties either 'cos apparently I 'benefit' from all the exposure I get from my music being free." One size never fits all and ideology is often a cover for greed.
Ideally, creators get to say what happens. That's bound to encourage people to create. They can release their songs into the wild if they want, or not. But it's not up to 'us' to decide.
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If it were not for copyright, Disney would not have to rehash the same shit over and over, but would be forced into some creativity. Star Wars, anyone?
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There's a simple reason for that. Disney (branded) films are blockbusters - they have a huge production budget, hundreds of millions. The studio can't risk that much money on something new and untested, it might flop and cost them a fortune. If you're spending such a heap of cash you have to go with ideas that have a proven history of financial success - the stock cliches, or a remake or sequal. Low-budget films can afford to be more experimental.
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Star Wars?! Oh, man, there are so many better examples of Disney rehashing old works. How about Maleficent (aka Sleeping Beauty from the villain's perspective)? Or running the Disney Princess angle into the ground with Brave (at least other Princess films had a legend or fairy tale background, Brave was just a complete fabrication)? Better yet, let's just talk about Disney Princess films, and how Disney takes an old legend or fairy tale, and turns it into a highly profitable film and merchandising effort? If that's not rehashing the same shit over and over, I don't know what is. The recent Star Wars acquisition doesn't have anything on the black hole of creativity that is Disney.
How about Avatar which is Pocahontas in space, which is a rip off of Dances with wolves which is no doubt a rip off of something else and so forth.
Re:Protect the income of the creators or they can' (Score:5, Interesting)
Your same pathetic argument can be made by every working person on the planet. Except no one else gets to work a few days and then collect the revenue from that brief labour (sorry, "life's work") forever either.
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Yep - copyright can only be owned by a human - not a corporation or a government. A human can licence reproduction of his/her works to another human for a period of time NOT TO EXCEED the lifespan of the creator. Might need to to have a catch-all there to cope with early death - see Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, etc. Perhaps the copyright will expire at the time of expected human lifespan at the time of the work's creation. But then the creator might live longer than that. Well, the licence to reproduce is for
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The 'creator's life' bit breaks down when you've got a work with many creators - a film might have a few hundred people directly contributing to the finished product. That's why the US goes for a fixed 95-year term for works-for-hire.
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My only problem with the "until death" thing is that legally, everything else I do whilst married is partly due to my wife, and so would be part-owned by her in the event of a divorce. Thus, if I write a new 'happy birthday' song, it's in-part down to her. She should get some benefit if I die the day after I write it. I'd agree that a bazillion years of benefit is too much - I'd imagine 10-20 years should be plenty.
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Given that we've established that the entertainment industry is a collection of sociopathic asshats, are you quite sure you want to give them a genuine monetary incentive to, say, kill copyright holders in order to plunder their now-orphan works?
Then there's the whole question of figuring out if/when a creator died.
A reasonable fixed term from publication/creation makes the most sense. Emphasis on "reasonable".
Who is public here? (Score:2)
S/he who has the money and can't get enough of it and then after dying to pass his/her legacy on to their offspring to continue to live on there - all a great mind game,
Reality is different..
Mostly it seems to be "he's" doing this kind of game.
Get inside their heads (Score:2)
Because some rent seeker can no longer make money from a work produced by someone else it is "lost" to a world that sees things in only monetary value.
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That's the power of a good ethics system. That it holds even with widely divergent moral viewpoints.
Definition of public (Score:2)
By 'public interest', they're referring to their own bank accounts.
The notion that anything else could have value doesn't even occur to them.
And their message isn't for us, it's for politicians who already agree with them.
Oh Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there any work that is over 50 years old that still brings in big money? The proper solution is to charge an annual fee per work for continued protection of, say $1000/year after 50 years. I'll bet they won't want to pay that.
Re:Oh Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on, you really can't think of any music from the 1950's and '60s that's still bringing in money? Who was that truckdriver from Tennessee with the swivel hips and pouty lips? I think his catalog still makes a bit of money and just about all of his biggest hits were more than 50 years ago. When the Etta James hit "At Last" is used in a Mercedes commercial, or in a popular movie, cash registers are ringing for somebody, but certainly not for anyone who had anything to do with making the music.
The first handful of Beatle albums were more than 50 years ago. Hell, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue still sells pretty steady and that was what, 1959?
The most egregious part of this entire saga is how works that were already in the public domain - movies, music, books - are being removed from public domain. This is why you're seeing so many great old movies removed from Netflix. It's shameful and it's hurting both future generations and the current state of the art.
Re:Oh Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Earlier this year, a Canadian company called Stargrove Entertainment began selling two Beatles records featuring performances that are in the public domain in Canada. The records were far cheaper than those sold through Universal Music and were picked up by retail giant Walmart, who continues to list the records on their website (Can’t Buy Me Love, Love Me Do). There were additional titles featuring the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and the Beach Boys. Some of the titles are still available for sale through Walmart.
The Stargrove Entertainment records provided Canadian consumers with low-priced alternatives while still ensures that the authors of the songs received the approriate royalties. While the sound recording is in the public domain for these works, the song itself remains subject to copyright. Therefore, the song writers – Lennon and McCartney in the case of the Beatles – were still paid for every record sold. The difference is that Universal Records was not profiting from the sale. Instead, a small Canadian company was succeeding in selling the records at a lower price to Canadian consumers.
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There is absolutely no reason an artist should receive royalties from works that are more than 50 years old.
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Is there any work that is over 50 years old that still brings in big money?
At least one: Mickey Mouse. He's on everything from T-shirts to books, films, etc., and Disney guards their IP like a tiger guarding her cubs. He is one reason American copyright is so long.
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Is there any work that is over 50 years old that still brings in big money? The proper solution is to charge an annual fee per work for continued protection of, say $1000/year after 50 years. I'll bet they won't want to pay that.
So what if they're still making money? The idea of copyright term was never to ensure that anybody would profit from them forever. It is to incentivize creators into creating, to help them make some money to making creating worthwhile. Do you think copyright terms extending beyond 50 years would have had any effect on the decisions of people 50 years ago as to whether or not creating something was worth their time? I'm sure Elvis would have thought, "Gee, copyright terms are only 50 years? Never mind,
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Almost all of the best music ever is about 50 years old (The Who, Rolling Stones early stuff, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, etc.). I would even include the Beach Boys (Good Vibrations, 1964, 51 years old, I've listened to it twice in the last week, God Only Knows was 1966, 49 years old)...
Everything done in the mid-1960's and prior is 50 or older. The best time for music ever to me was 1965-1975. And 1965 was 50 years ago.
There is a metric shit-ton of money being made off this stuff.
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Is there any work that is over 50 years old that still brings in big money? The proper solution is to charge an annual fee per work for continued protection of, say $1000/year after 50 years. I'll bet they won't want to pay that.
It is amazing how you have totally bought into the corporations most ardent desire: continual "ownership" of other people's work as if it was some inalienable right.
Copyright was invented as a limited term privilege to encourage artistic creation as a social good.
The proper solution is to revert to the original 28 year maximum duration and place all artistic works in the public domain after that time.
Lying stealing thugs (Score:2)
Immortals are corrupting.... (Score:2)
Immortals are corrupting much of our law and have in the past.
In the past dynastic power bases ruled clashed with each other and crushed common people.
Kings, Queens, Caliphates, Dynasty, Emperors, Pope, Pulpit all are the sharp end of immortal government
systems that devolved in many social ways and were eventually upended.
Today we have some ill begotten immortal legal frameworks that have many
of the rights that citizens have. Their immortality allows them to gain power and move from
a part of society to c
Stardate 201504.23 (Score:2)
Upon approaching the Neutral Zone with the RIAA, we have encountered an immensely powerful Stupid Field.
But it's okay! We're drinking like fish and flinging poo at each other while Mr. Snot attempts to bore a hole in the outer hull and let space in...
Man. And I thought Apple fanboys lived in a powerful RDF!
Them crazy Canucks, eh. (Score:2)
I didn't know people could be copyrighted.
Read The Fucking Constitution (Score:2)
Yes, I know the article says Canada. But let us Read The Fucking Constitution of the United States:
The Congress shall have Power...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...
For LIMITED TIMES, dammit. Life plus however many years since Steamboat Willie was released is not a limited time.
And TO PROMOTE THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE AND USEFUL ARTS. Not to make a bunch of fat c
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That will be 1 million dollars.
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Any time period less than infinity is limited.
And that is exactly the reasoning that the Supreme Court has used to uphold the legality of the copyright extensions. Since there is some limit, even though it isn't fixed, and keeps getting extended for the very same work, now long past the life of the creator, it is still "limited". If Congress passed an extension to a thousand years, it would still be limited.
Stop resting on your laurels (Score:2)
So the "content" industry is crapping its pants, so afraid they can't make any money off their old content?
Here's an idea that y'all don't seem to have thought of.
Make some new content that will actually sell.
Today's music mostly sucks. Yeah, I know, Sturgeon's Law and we're mostly comparing the best of the past to everything made today. But can anyone look me in the eye and say that even one band active today will be relevant in 40 years? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm ei
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The problem is that they know all their own libraries still make them money. People are still making from the White Album.
As that anchor is dragged forward, those artists and albums at the back stop making money for them. And then they realise that as that anchor is inexorably drawn forward from that point on, they lose more money every year because it's likely the new artists aren't making as much as the old back catalogues (maybe individual examples, but not overall).
And then they realise that, in 50 ye
German "unfair competition" law (Score:2)
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That's not the right way, you need to give power to the actual content creators, not the companies who make the money with their works.
Think about it, it's fucking crazy and also hypocritical of society as a whole that an author can earn the Nobel Prize in Literature and will still have to sign away his copyright and all further rights on his works to some company in order to be able to make a living.
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Better to specify a fixed term for copyright in the spirit of the US constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Art...". Copyright should be about the public interest; the interests of creators are secondary to that. A copyright term should be short enough to ensure that all works enter the public domain
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So Disney ensures that every quarter, at least one copy of Steamboat Willy is sold. Or they simply show it once a year on the Disney Channel, which means they are making money off it.
We are talking about Germany here. Judges there don't like it if you game the system. Steamboat Willy would have to be on sale publicly, so that everyone who wants to watch it can do so. And judges can see if the price is exorbitant so that no actual sales are made.
So it covers my reasoning against eternal copyright: That copyright makes works disappear if the copyright owner doesn't care about it anymore. It doesn't cover lots of people's reasoning: That eternal copyright is bad because we want things f
Headline should read (Score:2)
Music Industry a bunch of retards with no clue, only greed
Jazz bands are losing to old recordings (Score:2)
I remember readings that jazz bands are under dire pressure from dead people's recordings (a lot of them pre-WW2) which causes them to disband or fail to get some hold in the first place. That is exacerbated by technology, as it is rather trivial to store some 100GB and make a playlist ; and that's full quality music not a 128K MP3 from the year 2000. (and the internet can give the content of an old record that stayed in very good condition)
It is very easy to make an "audiophile digital player network audio
Re:Because the public must PAY! (Score:5, Insightful)
each time I read about the recording industry pulling another fast one, it only encourages me to be bolder and download even MORE 'content'.
I now refuse to buy movies or music. and I can well afford it, but I simply refuse. because I can - the same reason they keep breaking their promises and agreements with us, the consumers.
they can, and we can. they don't care, so why should we?
just give up buying and paying. the bastards are just not worth supporting. too bad about the artists, but they never got all that much, anyway; its the rare performer that really gets rich. most are stiffed by the industry.
seriously - why should anyone follow laws when the big guys always ALWAYS get off scot-free and break rules without the slightest bit of care?
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Indeed. I treat any copyright over 14 years as a "taking", and take my own corrective action.
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Not quite sure what you mean there. Do you mean removing the Wikipedia links from the maps, or something else?
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This is a "new google maps is shit" troll, one of a series. This time they even constructed a link to the story.
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Damn, and I took the bait. Oh well, you live and learn I guess.
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there is considerable public interest in it staying.
You like it, do you? Can't say I used it enough to notice much difference.
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I've not see a mess like that in ages. Not only is your Latin impressively wrong, your application of logic is impossibly bad.
It all goes to hell at the very beginning with "Ad prop". I don't even know what you were trying to say. It's complete gibberish. (If I had to guess, you were trying to use the phrase "post hoc ergo propter hoc" which directly translates to "after this, therefore, because of this". Though that has nothing to do with the rest of your post.)
Moving on, the logic is as incomprehensibl
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