[HN Gopher] Winnie the Pooh should have been free decades ago: C...
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Winnie the Pooh should have been free decades ago: Copyrights
should be shorter
Author : jseliger
Score : 150 points
Date : 2022-01-03 20:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fullstackeconomics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fullstackeconomics.com)
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| I don't see that much a problem with it. 95 years or death + 70
| years gives the creator and their children the benefit of their
| copyrights.
|
| How long do people think it should be?
| loeg wrote:
| One thousand years. This gives the creator, their children, and
| their descendants the benefit of their copyrights for a
| millennium.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| 1,000 years is too long IMO.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Why should the children get the benefit of copyrights at
| all? If the work made anything during the author's lifetime
| they already inherit that benefit, and then you are saying
| they should get _another_ lifetime 's worth of revenue
| ownership as well -\\(deg_o)/-
|
| Also, many works are not by human authors but teams of
| contract workers who assigned their copyright interest to
| an employer for a paycheck and waived any long-term
| interest therein. Obviously said employer wishes to recoup
| their investment but I'm not convinced that the children of
| the original shareholders need monopoly protection.
|
| 95 years is already longer than the average human lifetime.
| Betty White died the other day at the age of almost 100;
| imagine if the 95-year erm had always been the in effect,
| and consider that only works published before she reached
| the age of 5 would have become available during her
| lifetime.
| loeg wrote:
| Why 200 years, but not 1000?
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Who said 200 years?
| _dain_ wrote:
| Disney, circa 2070.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Is that real or did you just make that up
| Gigachad wrote:
| I'd find that fine as long as we weaken the definition of
| copyright. Protect the exact text of Harry Potter for that long
| but allow people to write their own related works at any time.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| The _longest_ I can theoretically think is justified is the death
| of the author. The idea to keep works out of the public domain so
| that heirs or estates or businesses can live off economic rents
| is pretty bizarre to me, seems straight up feudal.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Alright, how's this for an intermediate compromise: instead of
| 70 + life, make it 70 - remainder of life. That way, people who
| die the second their book is submitted are still able to leave
| something for their children but people who live a very long
| amount of time for whatever reason aren't unjustly rewarded
| solely for living a long time.
| dahart wrote:
| How should works created by groups of people or companies be
| handled?
| goto11 wrote:
| How about real estate and land ownership? Should that revert to
| the public domain after a set number of years?
| cogman10 wrote:
| If someone writes a best seller and kicks the bucket, it'd sort
| of suck that someone like Disney could swoop in and make a
| bunch of movies without paying a dime of royalties to the
| author's family. Or that a bunch of publishers can have a field
| day republishing the best seller diluting all the work of the
| original publisher.
|
| But on the flip side, 90+ years is really WAY too long.
|
| Cut it to 20 years. Long enough to capture the initial buzz,
| but not so long that we end up with shit staying under the
| mouse's thumb forever.
| commoner wrote:
| 20 years is a reasonable length for copyrights, since many
| patents in the U.S. also expire after 20 years:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_S.
| ..
| shagie wrote:
| I have photographs that I took 20 years ago that I
| occasionally sell a print of. You are suggesting that that
| material now be part of the public domain?
|
| For that matter, you're suggesting GCC version 3.0.3, Emacs
| 21.2 and all prior versions be public domain and _not_ have
| any copyright or copyleft protection on it? And thus, I
| could take the source code for them, modify it, close
| source it release my own version.
| dlp211 wrote:
| This is exactly what Disney did do though; Snow White,
| Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio; to become a
| massive corp. And now that they are a massive Corp that just
| can buy the rights to any copyrighted material locking out
| competitors. Imagine if others had the chance to compete.
| troupe wrote:
| Disney doesn't own the rights to Pinocchio. You are free to
| make your own movie with book version of the the characters
| and the story. Carlo Collodi was dead by 1890 so Disney
| definitely didn't "swoop in" and benefit at his or his
| descendent's expense.
|
| I believe the other stories you mention are even older.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Companies can (and have) make their own versions of all
| those. What they can't use is disney's representation of
| those characters.
| tehjoker wrote:
| I'd rather do away with it entirely, but under capitalism, I
| would reduce it to 7-10 years though initially it was 14
| years.
|
| https://www.arl.org/copyright-timeline/
| markdown wrote:
| I spend years writing a novel. My wife contributes to this
| novel by keeping me fed, clothed, and sheltered while I write
| it. The day it's published, I die.
|
| Your proposal leaves my family nothing.
|
| Life + a decade is reasonable, IMO. Alternatively, 25yrs or
| life, whichever is longer.
| midasuni wrote:
| Why not 10 years? That's all your wife gets in the first
| case, why linger if you don't die?
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Dead creators can't create new works. The primary purpose of
| copyright, to my mind, is to incent the creation of new works
| for the ultimate benefit of humanity.
|
| I'd like to see "life plus" sunset over a period of years,
| allowing those who "banked" on that business model to still
| benefit while decreasing the copyright term after death until
| it's eventually eliminated.
|
| Removing copyright-after-death gradually discourages the
| business model you describe. It makes sense, to me, to ease
| into that gradually.
|
| Does the end of copyright-after-death mean some works won't
| be created? Maybe. Some people might not create new works if
| their estate can't profit after their death.
|
| Eliminating copyright-after-death opens the door for new
| derivative works sooner. I think there's potential for more
| new works to be created with copyright ending at death. More
| creators can build upon the old work versus a single creator
| toiling at the end of their life.
|
| I am of the camp, ultimately, that wants to see the U.S.
| Constitution's original copyright terms restored (and the
| requirement for registration and renewal). I think it will
| need to be a gradual process if only to allow those who have
| (unfairly, in my mind) lobbied for effectively infinite
| copyright terms to die.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Doesn't the same apply to property in general? Should children
| be allowed to inherit a house, but not intellectual property
| rights?
|
| What if the author dies shortly after creating the work, and
| was hoping to support their family on the proceeds?
| smilbandit wrote:
| Death of the author and spouse. No need for it to transfer any
| farther then that.
| xwdv wrote:
| How naive. This encourages killing off an author with a hitman
| so you can swoop in and steal extremely valuable intellectual
| property.
|
| What, are you going to make an exception for authors killed in
| grisly murders of mysterious circumstances? Imagine if instead
| of paying George Lucas billions for the rights to Star Wars
| Disney just had him killed off for a fraction of the price.
| nerdjon wrote:
| While I do agree that 95 years is fairly long, as a consumer I am
| a little more conflicted.
|
| I like the idea that any IP created in my lifetime can stay in
| control by some entity from a consumer standpoint. Take something
| like Star Wars, once that enters general domain than there is the
| possibility of "Star Wars" being taken in a ton of different
| directions and makes it harder for a fan to follow since they
| will effectively be competing with eachother as the true "Star
| Wars".
|
| Personally I don't exactly know what a good timeline is, but I
| don't fully understand what exactly the harm is of some entity
| being able to keep control of something for a certain period of
| time.
|
| Or am I missing something here?
| vixen99 wrote:
| For those who, unaccountably, can't stand Winnie the Pooh, here
| is someone who will stand with you.
|
| https://bookmarks.reviews/in-which-winnie-the-pooh-makes-dor...
| moate wrote:
| Everyone has "that one thing" right? How many guys at parties
| have tried to seem interesting by telling everyone how
| overrated the Beatles are or how the MCU isn't really even
| movies when you think about it.
|
| _goes back to humming "Little Black Rain Cloud" to himself_
| watwut wrote:
| For whatever it is worth, Winnie the Pooh is far from most
| popular children's books.
|
| It was movies that got super popular and fun to watch. Book
| is one of those you buy, but rarely read cause neither you
| nor kid wants it that much.
| easton wrote:
| I never thought I'd find a Heffalump or Woozle on HN, but there
| you have it. Truly all walks of life come here.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I saw your comment I was reminded of Dorothy Parker's
| quote. And indeed, what should I find in the link... (I did
| like Milne's books as a child though.)
|
| He did write some other things that were definitely not as
| child-oriented. I saw his play The Dover Road when I was in
| London a number of years back.
| password1 wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder how many amazing movies, series and videogames
| we would have if everyone could use popular franchises for their
| creations (think MCU, Star Wars, LOTR, but also more niche
| franchises).
|
| Instead we only get the safe and family friendly cookie-cutter
| versions tuned for mass consumption. Big media corporations want
| to play it safe to ensure profitability, but other creators would
| be free to experiment in all other sort of narrative and
| stylistic directions.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| We'd end up in a world full of absolute junk like Pride and
| Prejudice and Zombies. Good stewardship is valuable, not just
| from an economic perspective.
| password1 wrote:
| Pride and Prejudice and Zombies didn't in any way damaged or
| removed anything from Pride and Prejudice though. The book is
| still there for everyone to enjoy.
|
| The movie was also a commercial failure, I'm not sure we
| would end up with so much junk if it doesn't sell.
| kristopolous wrote:
| There's another mechanism at play. It wasn't always there.
|
| Take Max and Dave Fleischer cartoons of the 1920s and 1930s.
| They'd _star_ black singers like Cab Calloway, make references
| to LGBT subculture, premiere immigrants, Jewish characters, and
| the full spectrum of society. They were engaged with
| integrating live action and animation and experimenting with
| the film as art form.
|
| Compare that to say Walt Disney, the most whitewashed family
| friendly content.
|
| And it wasn't just "Hayes code", there's something deeper in
| how people want to relate to their entertainment. Adventurous
| narratives that challenge people's assumptions doesn't seem to
| be what people are looking for when they are relaxing from a
| hard day
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think I'd prefer a world where there were fewer remakes and
| adaptations of existing franchises, and people focused on
| coming up with new things instead. I'm not suggesting that
| copyright should be extended for that purpose.
| password1 wrote:
| The problem with remakes and adaptations of existing
| franchises is that they all basically follow the same safe
| and tested structure. So they are boring and feel all the
| same because they basically are.
|
| I might argue that this phenomenon is too a byproduct of
| copyrights. In a world were everyone can create interesting
| things on any IP, there's no market for cookie-cutter
| adaptations. People watch cookie-cutter adaptations and
| remakes because it's the only way to experience the
| characters and worlds they like. If they had another option
| they probably just skip the reboot and go watch the new take
| from a different studio or director.
| larsiusprime wrote:
| Arguably the reasons there are more remakes and adaptations
| of existing franchises is specifically for value to accrue to
| those IP's, in a very siloed and narrow way with minimal
| cross-pollination across brand ownership lines.
| watwut wrote:
| Amazing all is possible without everyone milking the same
| characters and universe over and over and over.
|
| It would be way better if economic system favored many smaller
| competing studios producing a lot of different stuff. Better
| then one or two big ones, doing essentially same or similar
| movie again and again.
| cassac wrote:
| I'm fine with copyrights being longer as long as company's have
| to actually pay for it. Something like 3% gross revenue. We could
| minimize shell companies by limiting infringement fines to be
| based on the copyright payment. So if Disney hides Mickey Mouse
| behind a 30 cent company then violations are only worth 30 cents.
| Gigachad wrote:
| I don't think it has to be profit based. Just have an ever
| increasing flat rate. Free 20 years but every year after
| becomes increasingly expensive. Then Disney can protect their
| stuff for ages while putting a lot of money back in to the
| government, while the vast majority of content becomes free at
| 20 years because it has no commercial value.
| dahart wrote:
| It's great that the article starts with what's right about
| copyrights. I also agree that copyrights last too long at the
| moment, they could be shortened a bit.
|
| > But this system has its limitations. I'll highlight three that
| are particularly important: Intellectual property rights can
| result in fewer people enjoying the product than would be
| efficient. They can be expensive to determine and enforce. And
| they can ultimately create a kind of drag on the whole economy if
| too many of the economy's rewards are for work that was done in
| the distant past.
|
| I like the 3rd reason, but don't find the first two very
| compelling. We can make enforcement less expensive, having it be
| costly is a reason to make copyrights stronger, not a great
| reason to ditch the system. This is already happening in some
| ways online, sites like YouTube allow crowd-source reporting of
| breaches, for better or worse. Yes, it's being abused and there
| are problems, but it is in fact cheaper than going to court.
|
| > The first-order consequences of online piracy are that you are
| better off, and nobody is worse off.
|
| Copyright law is specifically founded on the principle that this
| is not true, and it is why being sued for copyright breach
| explicitly does not depend on the creator making money on the
| thing being copied. (It helps if there's clear financial damage,
| but is by no means necessary.) Coming from a site on economics,
| this assertion seems particularly troubling. Taking something of
| value without paying for it is still stealing, there is economic
| harm, and it's irrelevant whether the creator is deprived of
| something tangible. Even the author acknowledges that if there
| were no copyrights, it would be economically damaging, and the
| entire reason why is because there is harm done when pirating,
| and we're trying to balance that harm with the good.
|
| > We can ultimately reject an online piracy model, at least for
| some works, because we worry about the second-order incentive
| effects of creators not getting paid. But then we miss out on the
| good first-order consequences of distributing the work to anyone
| who wants it.
|
| Interesting framing that reverses first-order and second-order
| effect, again problematic from an economics perspective. Paying
| buyers of copies are the first-order primary economy for copies.
| What economic "first-order" good does distributing free copies to
| anyone who wants it do? I'm in favor of being able to incorporate
| and remix works after some time, but unlimited free copies
| immediately after creation would be first-order bad.
| cies wrote:
| > Copyrights should be shorter
|
| You're going up against a big lobby. To do that you first need a
| functioning democracy.
|
| In a place where "the people" rule, copyright's be optimized to
| ensure a rich commons for everyone to enjoy. That was the
| original idea behind intellectual property law, e.g. copyright.
| Now it's big biz holding our culture for ransom.
| google234123 wrote:
| I don't think people care much about this issue and will focus
| more on issues that actually matter to them in a functioning
| democracy. E.g. taxes, health care, crime, education.
| saxonww wrote:
| The counter-argument to this is that in a functioning
| democracy, people would actually have the ability to think
| about things like copyright, vs. scrambling to get adequate
| healthcare or education, while knowing their tax money would
| do meaningful things about crime instead of whatever they're
| doing now.
| adventured wrote:
| It's a flatly incorrect counter-argument.
|
| The majority of people that vote and ultimately (if
| indirectly) determine such matters as copyright duration,
| are not scrambling for healthcare or education. That
| majority of voters rests well above the median in fact in
| both income and wealth.
|
| That's trivially demonstrated by the demographic, income
| and employment profiles of the majority of people that
| vote.
|
| You've made a sizable mistake in thinking that that
| majority of voters are interested in freeing Winnie the
| Pooh versus boosting their equity portfolio by padding the
| bottom line of Disney. The majority American voting profile
| is one of the wealthiest on the planet. You might reassess
| what you think their priorities are.
| moonchrome wrote:
| Your point seem to be a rant about US social policies and
| is easily disproved by the fact that similar copyright
| terms existing in Europe where those things aren't the
| same.
| nextstep wrote:
| They exist in Europe because of a similar corrupting
| mechanism; just because the European system hasn't
| completely dismantled their social systems the way the US
| is close to doesn't mean that democracy isn't also being
| weakened by capitalism.
| dahart wrote:
| > Now it's big biz holding our culture for ransom.
|
| I hope we're not talking about big-biz created works like Star
| Wars or Marvel movies being the culture that's ransomed. We the
| people do have the power to create our own culture and commit
| any/all works to the public domain. A few people do this, but
| since we don't have basic income or even great healthcare for
| people who spend months or years writing music, books, code,
| etc., a lot of creators do need the economic incentive and
| protection in order to commit their time.
| wcerfgba wrote:
| Are there any campaigns or groups working on reducing the
| standard copyright term length? I believe this is a very
| worthwhile pursuit, but very complicated to undertake. The WIPO
| Copyright Treaty and the Berne Convention are international
| agreements, and individual countries also have their own laws.
| Thus I'm not even sure how one would go about starting to lobby
| for a reduced copyright term.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| International Communia Association (https://www.communia-
| association.org/) is one group that I am aware of.
| goto11 wrote:
| > For example, imagine if you didn't have to pay full price for
| works, but instead, just for the cost of printing or downloading.
| You'd get to enjoy more of them than you would otherwise.
|
| I doubt that. The limiting factor for my reading is not money, it
| is time and other stuff I like to do. I suspect it is like that
| for most people. Reading is very cheap compared to other forms of
| entertainment.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Is there anyone who believes that copyright lengths have been
| decided by some kind of balanced process between equal parties
| that carefully looked at the economic interests and societal
| interests or is it just monopolists like Disney buying longer
| strangleholds on culture to make money?
|
| If you believe the latter, there's no point in writing about the
| balance of interests, you need to build counter power. We're just
| so far outside the regime of anything resembling reason. Talking
| about the balance of interests is only of use to try to decide if
| we should have copyrights at all in some theoretical alternate
| universe.
| VeninVidiaVicii wrote:
| Perhaps you underestimate the breadth of readership on HN.
| amelius wrote:
| If someone can give me a more reasonable copyright duration,
| I will change the law tomorrow!
| judge2020 wrote:
| I know this is pedantic but it's less about 'believing' and
| more looking at the hard evidence and news presented at the
| times that copyright was extended.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/10/cq/disney.htm...
| tehjoker wrote:
| Thank you for the link! I always appreciate empiricism.
| shmerl wrote:
| Why isn't there a stronger push to scale the terms down? Those
| corrupt who profit from it for more than a century have nothing
| to do with the authors.
| rflrob wrote:
| I believe that the issue is that the harms are broad but
| relatively small for each person, while the benefits are quite
| concentrated for those who do profit. Thus, there aren't going
| to be many people where loosening copyright terms is their
| primary factor in voting for a legislator or lobbying, while
| the large rights-holders will put considerable effort into
| maintaining or extending the status quo.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Same reason tech patents last for 20 years and not 5.
|
| You've got big moneyed interests who benefit from long IP terms
| and small groups of people that might benefit from shorter IP
| periods. End result, no legislator will push for shorter terms,
| they just don't care about it.
|
| Disney can show how much money they'll lose if the mouse
| becomes public domain (and how much that'd hurt campaign
| contributions) while Mickey's auto repair shop will struggle to
| show similar losses if they can't put the mouse on their
| billboard.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| There's no group that sees a huge immediate profit from their
| reduction to finance a lobby, and the overall benefit to the
| average person is very opaque.
|
| How would you pitch a fifty year copyright to a random
| neighbor? "Tired of spending full price on Beatles albums? Wish
| you could hear more Elvis covers? Reduce copyright!"
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Because lawyers and publicists cost $$$ and the payoff is
| indirect and broadly dispersed across population and time,
| rather than arriving in the form of a check. It would require
| at the least 10s of millions in lobbying expenses, and raising
| that amount of money in the name of an abstraction is likely a
| non-starter.
|
| You could run a piracy website that only offered works more
| than X years old, where X is some popular proposal for a
| reasonable term, and then fight a test case. To my mind the
| best legal argument against the current regime is that the
| Constitution's specification of 'limited time' copyright has
| been extended to be longer than the median human lifetime, thus
| making it effectively perpetual for most humans in the US; this
| also hinders the formation of a constituency for shorter
| periods because fewer and fewer people have had the experience
| of seeing a work they admired at the time of publication
| subsequently enter the public domain.
|
| But realistically, any test case is likely to fail because
| higher courts would probably just say 'the term might be
| effectively infinite for people but it's short in the lifetime
| of a nation and corporations are arguably immortal so no media
| giveaway for you peons.'
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