"Happy Birthday" Public Domain After All? 183
New submitter jazzdude00021 writes: No song has had as contentious of copyright history as "Happy Birthday." The song is nearly ubiquitous at birthday parties in the USA, and even has several translations with the same tune. Due to copyrights held by Warner Music, public performances have historically commanded royalty fees. However, a new lawsuit has been brought to prove that "Happy Birthday" is, and always has been, in the public domain.The discovery phase for this lawsuit ended on July, 11 2014, yet this past week new evidence surfaced from Warner Music that may substantiate the claim that the lyrics were in the public domain long before the copyright laws changed in 1927.
Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:5, Informative)
Disney defends "Steamboat Willie" from about the same time frame to protect Mickey Mouse from falling into the public domain. "Happy Birthday" is from about the same time. This era is kept out of the public domain by repeated copyright law changes, the most recent being the DMCA which extended the time works stay copyrighted.
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Re:Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:5, Informative)
That's a trademark, the copyright is in the cartoon 'steamboat willy', which should be copyable and would not stop Disney from holding the trademark.
Re:Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, it's a little more complicated than that.
The sine qua non of a trademark is that all goods with the same mark originate from the same source. If this is true, the mark can be protected. If not, the mark cannot be protected. This is why trademark holders are always concerned with infringers; if the infringer is not stopped, there will be identically marked goods originating from different sources, and the protected status of the mark is jeopardized and can be lost.
Trademarks and copyrights only sometimes overlap with regard to the subject matter that they protect (e.g. a very artistic trademark could be protected by copyright as a work of art; a mere word used as a trademark could not be copyrighted, however). However, copyright is considered the superior right; a trademark is not allowed to function as a substitute for a copyright, nor to interfere with copyright policy.
This means that if the trademark is a character from a creative work, and the work is in the public domain, copyright law allows everyone to make copies and use the work and thus the character from the work, as they see fit. Trademark rights in the character can't interfere with this, so to the extent that there is a conflict, the trademark loses.
So the MICKEY MOUSE trademark might survive with regard to products unrelated to creative works, like those ice cream bars that looked like a Mickey Mouse head. But it would not survive with regard to movies, books, comics, television shows, etc. And I wouldn't want to bet money on whether it would survive with regard to things like t-shirts or hats that might feature Mickey Mouse in an ornamental capacity, rather than as a trademark. So a lot of the merchandising gravy train would derail.
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I don't understand your comment. I'm saying that whatever Disney's trademark rights in the Mickey Mouse character are, once the first work in which the character appears enters the public domain, that opens the door for third parties -- that is, parties other than Disney -- to use the character, at least in some ways, and it limits the scope of Disney's trademark.
How the hell did you get from that to shilling in favor of Disney? I think perhaps you should read posts more carefully before replying.
Re:Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether or not a copyright is used is irrelevant. You're thinking trademarks where they are granted for the context permanently as long as they remain used and defended.
Copyrights are explicitly intended to be for a limited time and for most of American history that limited time was well within the lifespan of an average person. Until relatively recently the only way to obtain a copyright was to explicitly submit the material to the Library of Congress for certification at which point you were granted a 14 year exclusive use. You could apply for an additional 14 year grant but after 28 years the material would be forced to fall into the Public Domain and permanently accessible from the Library of Congress. You had those maximum of 28 years to make as much return on your investment as possible, but you were expected to then reinvest that return into new ventures. It was never intended that an entity could squat on the material indefinitely regardless of whether they continued to make money on it as much of the purpose was to incentivize the creation of new material through the very loss of that monopoly.
The current form of copyright in the US is a perversion of that intention. Aside from the near indefinite monopoly status due to extensions granted to the Disney lobby there is also no requirement to submit the material to an archive. Works are simultaneously locked up permanently as well as lost forever. As with Disney an entity can create one work and rest on their laurels effectively eternally and never have to invest in new art forms. What's worse is that because of Disney everything else not explicitly put into the Public Domain is just as lost, regardless of whether or not anyone is still actively creating new works with it.
Re:Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's exactly where the current form of copyright not only fails to address its original purpose but actually works against its purpose.
The purpose was to give people an incentive to create works of art by giving them an monetary incentive to do so. If you can monopolize something great for a time (instead of fearing that whatever you create immediately being copied by anyone, rendering your work worthless), you have an incentive to create something great and reap the rewards of your work. That's fine.
Now, last thing I heard about "happy birthday" was that it makes 5 grand a DAY for Warner. Now, imagine you made "happy birthday". And got 5 grand a day from it. Where the fuck is your incentive to EVER create anything again? 5 grand a day? Fuck, I couldn't be assed to do anything but sit there and rake in the money for the rest of my life. Why bother work ever again if you already get more money than you can sensibly spend without doing anything?
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I don't need 5k a day. I ain't Paris Hilton.
Why bother having more money than I'd want to spend in a lifetime?
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I sure canspend 5k a day. Easily. But that's only funny for so long. After that, it just gets hollow.
There isn't really much that I'd really, really want. I'm quite easy to please. And quite hard to bribe. There ain't much you could offer me that I want enough to "buy" me.
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No. Any mechanism by which copyrights can be maintained forever will be abused. The DisneyCorps of the world will just automate the system to the point that long after human life is extinct, their computers will continue renewing copyright and submitting payments.
Why? Because if they ever let copyright lapse, even on property they doubt will ever make another dime, somebody else might make a profit off that work, and that would be money the copyright holders would feel they lost due to negligence.
How about
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Copyright should be renewable forever upon payment of a fee every ten years or so. If a property is so valuable that it generates income, fine. Keep paying the fee and keep the property.
NO. The whole point of copyright was to encourage writers and publishers and artists to invest time in making a good product. It originated because publishers who tried to print a book had to invest a lot of money in things like manual typesetting and proofreading -- but the better-known publisher down the street could just buy the first copy, recreate it (cheaper, with more errors, but good enough), and make all the money (because they make it on the cheap), while the first (lesser-known) publisher goes
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The whole point of copyright was to encourage writers and publishers and artists to invest time in making a good product.
No, the whole point of copyright was to promote the progress of science (which is an archaic term for knowledge) and to thus serve the public interest.
Half of that involves encouraging authors to create and publish works which they would not have created and published but for copyright. But the other half is to grant the least amount of protection, for the least amount of time, that is necessary to accomplish that.
And the success of any copyright law is measured in how much of a benefit it provides for the
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Not quite. It has always been a balancing act
All you've identified there is a gap between what copyright policy requires and what we actually have implemented. I'd be the last person to say that our copyright laws, as enacted, have lived up to our proper policy goals. But that doesn't change what the correct policy is.
Copyright doesn't exist absent affirmative action by the government, and it is wholly utilitarian in nature. This means that there is no policy of balancing interests. Rather, it is a question of how it can best serve the public interest
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Ok, gross royalties is nothing to it is perpetual?
Make copyright like patents- for a limited time that is in all realistic measures, limited.
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It would be a conflict of interest if the government made a percentage of the profit that a private or corporate entity made from a particular ruling. This would lead eventually to the gov issuing trademarks to large business for practically everything. I do not want to live in that world.
Re: Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:2)
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Until relatively recently the only way to obtain a copyright was to explicitly submit the material to the Library of Congress for certification at which point you were granted a 14 year exclusive use. You could apply for an additional 14 year grant but after 28 years the material would be forced to fall into the Public Domain and permanently accessible from the Library of Congress. You had those maximum of 28 years to make as much return on your investment as possible, but you were expected to then reinvest that return into new ventures.
"Relatively recently?" What are you, a highlander?
The 14+14 term you describe lasted from 1790 to 1831. Then it became 28+14. And in 1909, it became 28+28. That's the term that changed relatively recently, in 1978, to life + 70, etc.
Still, kudos on the general thrust of your argument.
Mickey Mouse copyright extenstions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither is it fair that Disney stole Osamu Tezuka's Kimba for use in The Lion King.
The Constitutional requirement is: (1) to authors and inventors, (2) for a limited time, (3) in order to promote progress in the sciences and arts.
It is impossible that extending the copyright term for works of a fifty-year-dead author can encourage him to produce more work. Nor is the resulting term "limited" in either in mathematical or human terms. And the current Mickey Mouse "copyright owners" are certainly NOT that author nor inventor.
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Extending it won't encourage the dead author to produce more work, but it can (theoretically) encourage people who are alive now to create works they wouldn't otherwise have done because they'll be able to better provide for their descendants.
Are the laws designed to fulfill this theoretical justification? Do they say that copyrights are extended for extremely long terms on the condition that the copyright remain with descendants, and pays them revenue?
No, they do not. If a corporation acquires a copyright then they receive any revenue, not descendants who may exist. Laws must be designed to fulfill the purpose that is used to justify them, otherwise you are just pulling arguments out of a hat.
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Extending it won't encourage the dead author to produce more work, but it can (theoretically) encourage people who are alive now to create works they wouldn't otherwise have done because they'll be able to better provide for their descendants.
Actually, the long copyrights actually discourage the creation of new works, as those who are living today cannot use these characters or stories as building blocks for new stories. Also, the long copyrights don't realistically provide for their descendants - you've got a better chance of winning the lottery than having a work give real value after 30 years.
The truly ironic part of this is that Walt Disney became famous and made his empire by building upon stories that were in the public domain - Snow White
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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.
The above is otherwise known as the copyright clause of the US Constitution. Copyrights were not intended to be infinite. What you are thinking of are trademarks.
1000 years is still a "limited Time"
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1000 years is still a "limited Time"
So is a trillion years. Perhaps we should extend all copyrights to a trillion years, by that logic.
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1000 years is still a "limited Time"
So is a trillion years. Perhaps we should extend all copyrights to a trillion years, by that logic.
Proponents have argued that the law should be changed to allow them for "forever minus one day". Same affect as your proposal, but the Mary Bono was testifying before Congress when she suggested it, and she was serious.
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1000 years is still a "limited Time"
But that interpretation is not possible in context. Read it again:
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.
So, copyright terms can only be justified if they "promote progress." Which basically occurs if the specified "authors and inventors" are encouraged to create more things. A 1000-year copyright term doesn't encourage more "progress" -- it only rewards someone (and that person's descendants) lucky enough to come up with something really popular.
A copyright term longer than a lifespan is thus not justified by the Constitution.
If I said t
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If you're so against copyright why don't you and people like you learn to draw, paint, sing, compose music, etc. Then you can create artistic works you can distribute for free to the public. That's better than whining on forums how other people are not offering their hard-earned stuff to you for free.
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Can you explain how innovation is stifled if copyright duration is infinite? Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn't quit their company after making their first billion. A billion dollars is a lot for one person and his family. So why did they continue to work?
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Can you explain how innovation is stifled if copyright duration is infinite? Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn't quit their company after making their first billion. A billion dollars is a lot for one person and his family. So why did they continue to work?
However, did you notice that they stayed with that company instead of going to a new one? The company owned the work, and the inventor would never be allowed to expand upon that invention if they'd left. An inventor creates, but a company simply collects - In the case of Steve Jobs, he was forced out of Apple for many years, and worked on other projects and in other industries. Apple, on the other hand, stagnated without Jobs's influence and spurred no real innovation while it sat on the copyrights it hel
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The laws are all screwed up and perverted by corporate interests.
The fair thing is for copyrights to only last 14 years, maybe with a single extension to a total of 28 years, based on some specific criteria like popularity and cultural significance.
Trademarks are the domain where Disney could protect its characters like Mickey Mouse from exploitation by others... Trademarking Mickey Mouse means nobody else can use that character to make a profit, while holding the copyright to a certain amount of time elimi
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maybe with a single extension to a total of 28 years
With a renewal fee of 10% of the 1st years gross income. If the property is valuable enough to renew, let 'em pay for the privilege.
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Uh, not quite the same era. "Steamboat Willie" was 1927, but "The Birthday Song" was originally penned by [attributed to] Patty and Mildred J Hill in 1893.
Disney has always renewed copyrights, but only so many can be granted. Hence, the Sonny Bono Copyright Act.
Birthday song is different [I'll try to summarize the legal brief found in the article]:
- In 1922, "The Cable Company" published the "The Everyday Songbook". It had "Good Morning and Birthday Song" [aka "Happy Birthday"] in it, with "Special permission through courtesy of Clayton F Summy Co." under the title. Note that the song above it on the page had a copyright notice.
- Modern copyright law is different than it was in 1922, which was governed by the Copyright Act of 1909. Under this act, a work must have an explicit "Copyright", "(C)", or "Copr." in it.
- Under the 1909 act, if a compilation of various works is published, and a work does not have an explicit copyright, the original author loses their copyright to that work.
- The "special permission" probably means that the work was already in the public domain.
- Even if the "special permission" notice could be construed as a copyright, it would have to be renewed in 25 years [the copyright term in those days]. Thus, copyright would have to be renewed no later than 1949, either by Summy or Cable. Neither of them did so.
- Even if Summy and/or Cable had renewed in 1949, the work would still have become public domain in 1997.
Warner/Chappell's response is that the 1922 songbook was an "unauthorized" and/or "piratical" copy. See http://arstechnica.com/tech-po... [arstechnica.com]
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Re: Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:2)
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It may not be god-given, but it should be the ethical and legal right. You paid exactly squat for the talent of the artist, his training and the hard work that went into creating his/her copyrighted works. So why should you get it for free, since it's unlikely you will spend 1 dollar on a copyrighted work that does not satisfy your needs or profit you in some way?
Don't you have a legal government provided right to be safe from physical harm by malicious peop
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Walt Disney isn't creating any new art since he died.
By the way, how much are you willing to pay the descendants of the inventors of the 200 or so glyphs of the extended Latin alphabet? You aren't an evil and greed consumer of texts who wants to avoid paying your due for every single usage of A, a, B, b, C, c... {, [, !, @... 7, 8 and 9, or are you?
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Something as basic as letters or words are not copyrightable. It would be the equivalent of a infinite patent on the wheel -- that is, make the life of people inventing products based on wheels, a hell. Copyrighted works, on the other hand, don't prevent anyone from creating their own works. Copyright just ensures the current owner gets paid based on how much the work is selling.
As far as copyright on the glyphs for the letter font goes, the consumer or manufacturer who uses them, pays or has to pay for the
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As far as copyright on the glyphs for the letter font goes, the consumer or manufacturer who uses them, pays or has to pay for their use. I'm sure Microsoft and Apple license the various fonts included in their respective OSes.
Letter shapes are not copyrightable in the US. They may be eligible for a design patent, but that's relatively short-lived. Usually the only protectable thing, especially over a decent timeframe, is the name, as a trademark. That's why Apple's version of Helvetica from way back was called Geneva, and Microsoft's was called Arial.
How about forcing these descendents to donate their parents' assets to the public domain, just like copyrighted works?
We do.
We impose taxes on inheritances, because inheritance of substantial wealth is harmful to society. We impose taxes on property, because ownership of large, unproductive estates
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There is no stripping of assets.
The natural state of a creative work is to be in the public domain. Authors do not create copyrights; the public creates them (through our servant, the government), with the public benefit in mind. Some works aren't even eligible for copyright at all, because it wouldn't be for the public benefit. When a copyright is granted, it is for a limited period of time, because a perpetual copyright can never be for the public benefit.
Thus, a better way to imagine the situation is th
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The natural state of a piece of land is to belong to no one, so yes, it is only man-made laws that allow you to "own" a piece of real estate.
I agree. What's your point?
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Copyrighted works, on the other hand, don't prevent anyone from creating their own works.
Yes, they do. A person may be a good creator of characters, of settings, of situations, and of dialogues, and having the four abilities, produce a full original novel. Another person might be good at three, two or one of the four, and therefore unable to exercise his creativity except by means of appropriating respectively one, two or three of those from another artist.
Case in point: fanfic. I read a lot of fanfic, some of which better than the original. And why is it better? Because while the original auth
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No, they don't. Remember, copyright protects the exact expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. So you can create a comic with a Micke
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as long as he does not look too similar to Mickey Mouse
Therefore preventing the full artistic expression of countless artists who can do excellent stuff with Mickey Mouse itself. You agree with my argument event though pretending you don't. :-)
LOL, what a retarded argument. There's no royalties because that's menial work, not creative work.
And here you show you don't know the history of art. Back in the day things made sense, it worked like this: the artist, let's say, Da Vinci, was contracted to paint a certain scene by a rich patron. Such highly technical painting however wasn't considered fundamentally different from that of common house painter, except
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Exclusive right to a work is not a god given right
It may not be god-given, but it should be the ethical and legal right.
It already is. You have exclusive right to anything you create. Now, if you want to distribute it for a fee, then you are given a monopoly on the ability to make copies of that work. The only copy any owners of a copy of your work may create is the one in his/her brain. I have exclusive control of all the books on my bookshelf. Some of them I can scan into my computer and print all the copies I want. Some, however, I am forbidden from doing so by federal law. If I do so, the grantee of the exclusive righ
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A small nit here:
An exclusive right isn't a right that is held only by one party (and in fact, copyrights can be held by many parties), but is literally a right to exclude others.
So copyright isn't a right to make copies (that's free speech, and it applies even to works that aren't eligible for copyright). It is instead a right to exclude other people from making copies, and from doing certain other things with regard to the protected work.
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You may not do what you want with it. You paid a lousy $10 or $50 for a copy for personal use. That's it. The actual asset may cost millions or billions. So if you pay less than $100 for something worth millions/billions, it automatically means you can't do what you want with it. Try using some common sense next time.
You have lost your mind. If I pay less than $100 for something then that means that's ALL it's worth. And if I paid for it, it's mine. Period. You don't like property rights at all, apparently. Your whole viewpoint is you want the government to control everybody and you get to dictate terms. Sorry, that's not how it works. I absolutely can redistribute it if I want. You do NOT get to control me or what I do with my property, no matter what you think your crap is worth.
And it doesn't hurt your culture, because you can still buy the work from the store.
Unless it sucks as bad as your
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So what? Some people volunteer to do charity work, does that mean no one should get paid a salary?
Why not? Lots of people give their money to charities which in turn pay their top earners six and seven figure salaries. You should try it. Sounds like it would be right up your alley.
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Yes, I think places, things, people, events and other things critically responsible for the artistic work should be compensated somehow... perhaps a royalty percentage similar to how the artists themselves are paid. So if you're selling a great photo of a park, you owe the park owner royalty.
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You're conflating trademarks and copyrights. No-one's disputing Disney's right to hold a *trademark* for the Mickey Mouse character and likeness to use in representing their company and its products.
As for *copyright*, you're asking the wrong question. This is because copyright is not a right, but rather a privilege granted by the State. So the proper question in this case is, "Why should the government continue grant Disney the privilege of copyright on the Steamboat Willie cartoon *indefinitely*?"
Re:Mickey Mouse copyirght extenstions... (Score:5, Informative)
Hundreds of cartoon characters were created in the early and mid 1900s. Only a few became successful and one of them was Mickey. Why should Disney make that asset available free to the public because the luck, creative and technical skills in pulling off a creative masterpiece is a lot? Why do creators of copyrighted work owe free stuff to the public? Do members of the public mail at least one dollar bill per year to failed artists? No. But artists are supposed to be charitable to the public somehow.
So end this scam called limited times for copyrighted work. Disney and M. Mouse were valuable a few decades ago, are valuable today and will remain valuable a 100 years from today.
I really hope that's sarcasm. I can't really tell. Sorry, but it just doesn't read well in print without some kind of sarcasm tag or a whole lot of exclamation points or something to indicate it.
In the event that it's not, you do realize how stupid, ignorant, and deluded you are, right? The text of the constitution that authorizes copyright reads: [earlyamerica.com]
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;
Notice the parts about promotion and limited that I highlighted? Yeah...copyright is a contract between the public and the artist. They get to make something, profit from it for a while, then we get to make something new out of it or just make it part of our culture and share it with others all we want. The current state of copyright has perverted that.
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Sorry bub, I don't know the other poster. Copyright seems to be like the "grave robber's code: once a wealthy person passes away, we're gonna take all his treasure and distribute it amongst overselves." Give me one good reason why you ethically deserve to get the copyrighted work for free?
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Give me one good reason why you ethically deserve to get the copyrighted work for free?
Because media is culture. And without a common culture, society dies. Media is the glue that holds society together. Shared music and shared images let people relate to each other in ways that are difficult or impossible to achieve in any other fashion. And I have the right to share media. Today, I have the right to play an MP3 that a friend gave me. Historically, I had the right to play a tune on my own instrument that I'd heard once the week before. I have the inherent right to reproduce what is min
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I don't deserve to get the copyrighted work for free, while it's under copyright. However, copyright is an artificial restriction on what I can do with something I bought, and should not be indefinitely prolonged.
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Legal laws are based on fairness, equality and yes, ethics. So let's have the ethical reason then.
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Piffle.
Copyright is utilitarian from top to bottom.
Copyright is only tolerable if it is better for society than not having it. One specific implementation of copyright is better than another if it provides a greater benefit for the public than the alternative.
It's no more based on fairness than a zoning regulation requiring a certain setback from the street.
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The artist created the work so he owns it just like you own your body and mind, no one else does.
By your logic, every artist should have the right to erase the memories of every person that ever heard one of their songs, because there is a copy of the song in those peoples' brains. Is that what you are asserting? That the songwriter owns my brain because his song is in it?
Next think you know, you'll be asking your neighbors to help pay for your porch light, because it reaches their yards and they are using your light.
Just because to AGREE to steal/seize someone's work after a set amount of time, does not absolve you from theft.
So ... you are claiming copyright expiration is a seizure. How does that happen?
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And where my friend did the artist get the vocabulary, the musical scale and the tropes on which his works are based? Culture is a shared resource. You cannot create in a cultural vaccuum devoid of the works created by other people.
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We still are paying for Mozart's music if you want to listen to it on CD or iTunes. People don't listen to sheet music, you have to play that on the piano in a competent manner for people to enjoy it. So instead of paying tens or hundreds of dollars to the pianist or some publisher, why can't we pay Mozart's heirs directly since they are more deserving than
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Why? Mozart's heirs didn't write Mozart's music. I didn't write Mozart's music. We're equal on that score.
For practical purposes, it makes sense for a copyright to not expire on the artist's death, since that would reduce the incentive for old or sick people to create, but there's nothing ethically mandatory about it.
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Because copyright is a human invention designed to encourage creative work by protecting what is otherwise easily copied and transferred around. That copyright protects the creator from unauthorized reproduction of his creation for a long enough period of time to allow him to recapture his investment. Once that period of time ends, he no longer has such protections and whether he likes it or not, his goods become public domain. He has plenty of time to both enjoy profit from his creation, and time to create
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Because in the course of the long haul, society benefits from a continually diverse influx of creative works. Certainly there is a valid argument (and one that I very strongly support) that the creator or agents authorized by the creator should be allowed a monopoly on controlling content that they distribute for a limited time, but if that content is not ultimately allowed to be freely copied by the society that it was provided for, then the
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Disney holds a trademark on Mickey Mouse, and can retain said ownership into perpetuity. That aspect alone can rightfully keep anyone else from utilizing the character in their own works, forever,
No, that part of the trademark will lapse when the copyright terminates. A trademark can't function as a substitute for a copyright. The remainder of the trademark might prevent people from selling MICKEY MOUSE brand breakfast cereal, but it would not stop them from using the character in their own works.
This is really the main reason that Disney is concerned about copyright terms; they know what would happen to the trademark.
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Sorry, but no. If anyone can make a copy of a work featuring a trademarked character, then the trademark on that character, with regard to goods that are copies of creative works, has to lapse, as the mark has become generic in that context. Once the door is opened for multiple sources of identically marked goods, it kills the trademark. This is just the copyright version of the SHREDDED WHEAT case from the 1930s, plus a bit of the more recent Dastar case.
And the trademark can't prevent people from copying
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If the copyright on "Steamboat Willie" expired, anyone could copy the work or create derivative works from it featuring a similar character, but they could not call the character in derivative works Mickey Mouse, nor use Mickey Mouse's image in such works.
No, when the Steamboat Willy copyright expires, there is no longer a copyright which prohibits people from making or distributing additional copies of the work, from publicly performing or displaying the work, or from preparing new derivative works based on it (such as a new Mickey Mouse short in which he commands a homemade submarine powered by barnyard animals or something). Of course, attributes of the Mickey Mouse character which originated in later, still copyrighted material would not be available; th
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Categorically false. Someone could make a derivative work of the Disney short and call the title character something other than Micke
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If for no other reason, because Walt freely and willingly placed the work under copyright.
Meanwhile, Disney owes a LOT to the story tellers that went before them. Care to name the first movie Disney produced that wasn't somehow derived from an existing work?
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Hundreds of cartoon characters were created in the early and mid 1900s. Only a few became successful and one of them was Mickey. Why should Disney make that asset available free to the public because the luck, creative and technical skills in pulling off a creative masterpiece is a lot?
Indeed. And why shouldn't the heirs of the people who invented the tales of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Jack and the Beanstalk, the legends of King Arthur and so forth not be getting paid royalties because someone else (for example, say, Disney) has made use of them?
Pigs might fly first (Score:5, Funny)
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Even Time Warner programs like CNN NewsRoom shy away from singing Happy Birthday...
Re:Pigs might fly first (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing Time Warner is going to be giving all those royalties back?
That's what Good Morning to You Productions is demanding in the lawsuit.
When one of the parties commits fraud upon the court, which is what it looks like they did in the discovery or non-discovery of that 1927 songbook, https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com] judges can get very angry.
They've been knowingly demanding and collecting all that money under false pretenses. That's a little worse than downloading a few mp3s.
The judicial system is so arbitrary and corrupt that anything could happen. But sometimes, once in a while, it actually produces justice.
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I'm guessing Time Warner is going to be giving all those royalties back?
That's what Good Morning to You Productions is demanding in the lawsuit.
I know this would never happen, but the damages here should have to go further than just returning the money. How many movies and TV shows over the years have been forced to not film a birthday scene to avoid royalties? How many people have been deprived of the standard birthday song at a restaurant or other public celebration, because the staff was not licensed for public performance?
Birthdays are important events. Movies and films often have scenes that want to show such events. Time Warner has deli
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Except if a jury doesn't buy it. This is a civil case, so it's judged on the preponderance of the evidence, not guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
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Due to aerodynamic issues and bone density pigs can not fly. I know as I have been breeding thousands of pigs for over a decade. Despite our best efforts we have not been able to achieve unpowered pig flight. The few pigs we have gotten to fly required launching with a catapult and that just isn't practical for most small scale pig airports.
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Life+50 years Life +70 years (Score:5, Informative)
That's the probem with copyright long after the creator is dead. You can't get them to testify under oath and so bogus copyrights like this are inevitable.
Here Warner had evidence that the lyrics predated their claim from other sources, and and the music they never made a clim on, so what they did was claim copyright on the lyrics based a piano arangement.
They would have known their claim was false because so many claims have been made about this copyright they would have examined it to protect their multi-million investment, so they likely acted to deceive.
Old news (Score:2, Insightful)
Read about this like 5 days ago. Anything else you guys want to present as "news". Perhaps the death of Jimmy Hendrix or that new Godfather II movie?
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You've a 6-digit UID and you're just now figuring this out?
(BTW, some of us who don't live in the US might not have heard about this yet. It doesn't seem to have been widely reported elsewhere.)
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Read about this like 5 days ago. Anything else you guys want to present as "news". Perhaps the death of Jimmy Hendrix or that new Godfather II movie?
You using your dad's account? Because in the 10+ years I've been on here, late news is the standard. In fact, 5 days late isn't even considered late on Slashdot, where we get stories that are years old frequently.
Just sayin.
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Actually, I've been on Slashdot for like 20 years, fuck I'm getting old.
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Dude. Spoilers!
Warner may let this one go (Score:2)
Maybe finally, there is a noticeable public backlash against indefinite copyright, and they are doing this to pacify that. The trick usually works.
Yes, even in a different key (Score:2)
From TFA comments:
If people sing it in a different key, is that copyright infringement?
Yes. [wikipedia.org] (At least in Australia.)
I think ... (Score:3)
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Or this one [youtube.com].
Doesn't sound like it's going to go anywhere (Score:2)
Is any class action suit possible? (Score:2)
crappy summary (Score:5, Informative)
To say the "new evidence surfaced from Warner Music" is rather misleading. The plaintiffs independently found the evidence; what they got from Warner had the evidence "blurred out". Here's the summary from TFA:
Warner, of course, denies that conclusion. rsilvergun may be right, but the date of the songbook relative to the date of the "copyright" and of the changes to copyright law would seem to weaken Warner's argument fatally.
The perfect storm of a dystopia. (Score:2)
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and lots of rapist will be set free to make room for them. also you less time for it any ways.
Publication dated to 1911 - anyone got earlier? (Score:2)
Here's a copy published in 1911 (words only, but it makes it clear that this song well predates the 1935 date the copyright claimants are pegging their millions on).
Title: The Elementary Worker and His Work
Author: Alice Jacobs, et al
Year: 1911
https://books.google.com/books... [google.com]
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Actually, the Copyright Act was replaced entirely in 1976 (becoming effective in 1978), and has been amended some, yet in substantial ways, since then. Noises are being made about a new Copyright Act coming along in the near future.
The person who wrote the summary is a bit confused. What happened is that the Warner claim was based on a copy published in 1935. Evidence was discovered of a copy that was published in 1927. That's not terribly interesting, but a copy published in 1922 has also come to light. Th