Denmark Reverses Position On Copyright Extension, May Impact All Of Europe
from the a-tax-on-the-public dept
There is no ethically honest argument in favor of retroactive copyright extension. The point of copyright is to present incentives for the creation of new works. It's a form of an agreement with the public: the public grants the content creator a limited monopoly for a certain period of years, and in exchange, the public gets the work which will then fall into the public domain once that monopoly expires. Extending copyright retroactively makes no sense unless you are distorting the purpose of copyright law. After all, the "deal" was clearly enough at the time of creation to incent the creator to create. Changing the terms of the deal retroactively later is a way to unilaterally change the deal with the opposing party: the public.Now, the argument most commonly used in favor of retroactive copyright extension is an argument of welfare: that poor starving musicians need this money to survive. Of course, there are two key problems with this. The first is that copyright is not a welfare program. If we want to create a welfare program for musicians, then let the government be upfront and create a specifically funded welfare program for old musicians. But, it would need to defend why it's doing that for old musicians as opposed to old "everyone else."
The bigger problem, however, is that copyright extension almost never actually helps those poor starving old musicians. Anyone who's actually looked into this has seen that the vast majority of that cash goes directly to the major record labels. And if you think they're going to start writing checks to those poor old musicians, you haven't paid much attention to how those record labels handle their accounting.
Either way, this fight comes up every time copyrights are about to expire, and there's been a big push across Europe to extend certain copyrights that are starting to expire. The EU Parliament apparently pushed for extending sound recording rights from 50 years to 70 years, but thanks to significant protests and complaints against this, the EU Commission hadn't moved forward on it. One of the countries holding out was Denmark. However, Slashdot points us to the news that Denmark has had a sudden and unexplained change of heart... and is now happy to support retroactive copyright extension. Not surprisingly, the reasons being given by the Danish culture minister are the classic welfare ones.
"I attach great importance to the musicians have strong rights. In government, we have carefully considered the matter and finds that a term of 70 years would be a sensible approach. Musicians should not experience losing rights to their recordings, while they are still active. We will therefore work towards an extension of protection that will strengthen the musicians and record companies' rights. ""Carefully considered the matter"? Yeah, right. Notice that no actual justification is given for this other than the idea that musicians should never lose their rights. So, does that mean Denmark now supports permanent copyright? Why "70 years"? Where's the evidence that's the proper number? Don't expect answers, you won't find them. Economists who have studied the matter come up with optimal lengths much shorter than even the current 50 years that was perfectly acceptable for those musicians originally.
Of course, with Denmark switching sides, there are concerns that the current folks in power will quickly push through the proposal across Europe, and without any reasoned debate or considerations of the economic and cultural costs of retroactive extension, it will have happened yet again.
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Filed Under: copyright, copyright extension, denmark, europe, welfare
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Some studies
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Let's do that and be done with it. Then we wouldn't need, y'know, ACTUAL support for aging musicians.
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OK, you pro-copyright folk out there, explain how this kind of fund was needed before all this rampant internet "piracy" was happening and the major labels were booming in the CD re-issue age, huh?
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How many Jazz albums did *you* buy in the 90s?
"Oh by the way, Frank Zappa, did you know that Tupac, Biggie, and Snoop all sold millions of records? So you're doing fine right?"
Sheesh.
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What I like
And yet all of the provisions of it seem to be getting pushed through individually all over the place.
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The Cultural Harm of Extending Copyrights
It is time we put a bullet into the romantic notion of creativity. So called "creative people" should have to work just like the rest of us.
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Re: The Cultural Harm of Extending Copyrights
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Re: The Cultural Harm of Extending Copyrights
The ludicrous extent to which copyright has been perverted today is beyond the pale, and solely the work of industry lobbyists whose employers reap all the rewards. Not most - all. The artists generally find that if they don't perform, they still don't eat regular, unless they achieve the popularity of the Beatles, etc., (a statistical improbability on a par with becoming the next NY Giants quarterback, who by the way, still has to keep playing to generate income, unless they are fortunate enough to be a brand that advertisers will pay for). Not that many of them, either.
Netted out, copyright promotes laziness and discourages innovation, at least on the part of the "entertainment industry" itself. Witness the steady stream of crapola movies they crank out like Yugos, as well as the dreary "music" they purvey, by talentless mannequins who couldn't perform live-miked if their lives depended on it, expecting the sheeple to pony up whatever ludicrous ticket prices or media prices they demand as though their products were gold-plated Ferraris. Screw them all. I haven't bought a CD or DVD in years, nor have I been to the festering and dank hellholes they call "theaters" in eons. Somehow, my life has seemed pretty complete to me. I still obtain my entertainment by whatever means available, which does not include "piracy", and have no sympathy for these wannabe monopolists. I hope they die and burn in hell.
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Re: The Cultural Harm of Extending Copyrights
Wow.
Commentary here has reached a new low.
Alright, big man, time to put it on the table. What do *you* do for a living? How much do *you* make?
Remember, I'm a musician, *and* I also work 50 hours a week at a physically demanding job, so I can't wait to hear all about the "real" work you do.
Here's a tip, if your "real" work doesn't give you "real" muscles, then you're just as bad as these "creative types" you demonize. If you make more than a teacher by sitting at a desk, YOU are the problem with society. Leave the musicians out of your projected insecurities.
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Re: Re: The Cultural Harm of Extending Copyrights
Software development is probably not considered part of the 'creative' industry, but it's so very similar.
Once I create something, it's done, created, reusable forever. I don't get paid over and over again from some program I wrote years ago even though that program continues to make thousands or millions of dollars for the company using it.
I'm more than happy to support various forms of entertainment, but it's not my fault if they aren't capable of finding consistent ways to make a living with their trade. It shouldn't be up to the government to put in place barriers against the rest of us so some large corporations (because you really can't argue this helps the little guy) make massive amounts of money doing basically nothing.
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But there is a problem with it, although software can be changed to look nothing like the original thus making it difficult to claim copyrights on it, the protections embedded are what other industries are using to get copyright like protections, that is the loophole the allows them to create forced monopolies in certain real world spaces and even design things that will just stop working after a while.
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Re: Re: The Cultural Harm of Extending Copyrights
Face it there Bono, your band sucks and it's time to give up. The world has more than it's share of crappy guitarists.
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Re: Re: The Cultural Harm of Extending Copyrights
Would you find it fair to have to pay the creator of your house for every use you make off of it?
Would you find it fair is someone passed a law saying you must pay the creators of cars for every use you make off of it and that will cover every car that was ever made retroactively?
Why any artist deserves that level of rights when nobody else gets the same?
You are not special, you are not essential for life to continue, why do you need such a special treatment, what makes you deserve it?
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Quite frankly, I would rather it stay in the public domain where it belongs because I can go to any music store or public library and have a nice selection of recordings of those works to choose from.
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I'm sure that will hold up well.
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Cool my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great ...... great grandfather invented the wheel. Now Pay up!!
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The crux of the problem seems to be that creators have forgotten who grants them their rights. The rights have become unalienable to them; not granted. As such, creators resent the public for trying to take away their "rights."
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In any case, music is the area of the whole media production business (which includes music, film, radio, etc) that arguably deserves the least copyright protection. There are plenty of ways for musicians to survive and make money outside of royalties, and there are some long traditions in music of doing things such as covers of older songs.
At least film has the excuse of being very costly in terms of production expenses. Music doesn't really have that excuse, not anymore.
For that matter, I don't see why copyrights should get such long protection - in fact, they arguably deserve less than patents. Enforcing patent and copyright law has real costs, and you'd be hard-pressed to prove that spending money on enforcing such long copyrights has a really beneficial impact on society.
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As much as I hate retroactive copyright, I think this is no longer true. People can today have a reasonable expectation that copyright terms will be extended retroactively in the future. Therefore, it could be acting as an incentive to produce copyrighted works.
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Surely you don't think that is ethical?
It's like the bankers justifying their bonuses on the grounds that they got them last year so its fine to have them again.
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Surely you don't think that is ethical?
It's like the bankers justifying their bonuses on the grounds that they got them last year so its fine to have them again.
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Marcellus says
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Not to mention that the overwhelming majority of the sales on new content occurs within the first few years at most (often within the first few months even, if not within the first few weeks). The purpose of these extensions isn't to help anyone make money from the content, because that's not what they do, they're to prevent older content from competing with newer content. This is just evidence that copy'right' isn't about promoting the progress or expanding the public domain, it's about expanding a government imposed monopolistic economy. Copy'right' and patents exist for the same reason that taxi cab monopolies exist, for the same reason that private patents exist on government funded research, for the same reason why the government imposes monopolies on information distribution channels. They don't exist to serve a public good, they only exist to serve a private interest.
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