Supreme Court Not Interested In Dispute Over Steinbeck Heirs Trying To Reclaim Copyrights
from the shouldn't-these-works-all-be-in-the-public-domain? dept
A few years back, we noted the ongoing legal fight from some of John Steinbeck's heirs seeking to regain control over the rights to some of his works via the termination provisions in US copyright law that we've talked about a lot recently, and which are going to get even more attention in the near future, as lots of classic works get close to hitting the point where they can be "terminated" and taken back by the artist (or their estate) from whomever the rights were assigned to.It appears that the case is now over, with the Supreme Court refusing to hear the case, meaning the heirs are unable to recover the works. The issue was that Steinbeck's third wife apparently had worked out an agreement not to terminate, but Steinbeck's son and grandson sought to get around that... and lost.
Of course, the whole thing really demonstrates the ridiculousness of such long copyrights. By any traditional measure, the works being fought over would be in the public domain by now (for a long, long time already), such that anyone could build off of them. It's a sad state of affairs that people are still in court today arguing over a book from 1938, when the author himself is long dead. Ah, the "legacy" of copyright.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, john steinbeck, surpreme court, termination
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
How dare you Mike
How dare you not be concerned for future grandchildren who would miss out on the ability to profit from, or expand upon their grandfather's works.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Would Big Media hire fitness instructors for everyone that works for them? Would they build cryogenic storage chambers, and keep their authors on ice indefinitely? Does Walt Disney's brain in a jar count as being "alive"?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Walt Disney
Maisie: Hi Walt, you still alive?
Walt: Yes, you scumbags. You know perfectly well how boring it is here in this jar. I've been here 200 years and still you won't turn me off. How about you get me some eyes that actually work? How about you hook me up to a TV?
Maisie: Sorry Walt, none of that stuff has been invented yet. Talk to you next week.
Maisie turns off the Brain Communicator for another week.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
(seriously, given the stupidity that corporations get up to now, what makes you think they Wouldn't hire assassins if it looked to be the most profitable rout?)
corporations like to have works locked up under their control where only they can exploit them, rather than in the public domain, but they'd rather have them in the public domain where, again, they can exploit them, than locked up under someone Else's control, where they can't.
that and an author's natural lifetime is just way too freaking long in a lot of cases.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
No - they would rather have them locked up than in the public domain, period.
You see most of this stuff is just held under lock and key so that it doesn't compete with new works. The corporations act as a cartel and if one of their number tried to release stuf to the public doamin then the others would actually complain.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Let's use Rowling and Harry Potter as an example.
1) Rowling retains the rights to Harry Potter for a set amount of time. During this period, her competitors will have to come up with something else to compete. This is as things go today.
2) Rowling retains the rights to Harry Potter until she dies.
2a) Competitors will have to create something else to compete, which is the same as today.
2b) Competitor(s) have her murdered so they can...what? What benefit do they gain? It'd be in the public domain so anyone can publish it, including Project Gutenberg and The Pirate Bay, and everyone on any given p2p network and Amazon (which gives out public domain kindle books for the whopping revenue generating price of free). So in addition to her competitors having to create something to earn the dollars of consumers, they'll have to do so while competing with free, which only makes their job harder.
Let's give it a rest already. No one is going to get murdered so that their works enter the public domain earlier.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
...wishing for an edit button...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Corporations don't need to hire assassins--they are assassins. Or maybe "mercenaries" is more appropriate.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Damage To Scholarship
By the time that copyright law finally gets out of the way, everybody directly involved with the original work, is long dead. All the now long-dead author's friends and associates are also long dead. The information in those brains is just gone forever. That is why the founding fathers put "for limited Times" in the constitution. That is a limited time compared to a human lifetime. 20% of three score years and ten is probably about right.
Isn't it a shame that the present crop of congress critters think they know better than the founding fathers?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Damage To Scholarship
From my reading of history, the founding fathers were held in much the same levels of esteem by some of the people they represented as the current set are today, i.e., not a lot!
I accept there were some of the founding fathers were remarkable individuals, but politics is about the art of the possible and I wonder if the current congress were tasked with drafting a new constitution would they draft something that 200 years of hindsight would assign "wisdom" to?
More related to the discussion - if we concede that copyright should outlive the original holder/creator, then how should we determine the right length of time - why would 35 years be any more sensible than 10 or 100?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Damage To Scholarship
there's some research (been mentioned here before) that indicates that there might be some point in copyright for five or ten years (i forget which) after publication, and after that financial gain for the creators is limited at best even with it. based on this, it seems that after ten years it serves mostly to limit further creation without any redeeming factors.
so, logically, it seems to me, copyright should last no more than ten years (more logically, opt in, pay, get five years, and if you want after five pay a heck of a lot more for another five, one time only), and if the author dies before that period expires, the monopoly right for the work should be treated as part of his estate until such time as it expires. this isn't That much of a problem when you're looking at a short copyright period. the problem is when the copyright lasts a very long time, the owner is actually a corporation (as is the case with movies and games), Especially when the owner is not actually the author, and... well, then you get this sort of sillyness.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Damage To Scholarship and unfairness in inheritance taxes
How come this special privilege escapes taxation when the fruits of hard graft are taxed at 40%?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Damage To Scholarship
If George W. and Thomas J. would have had to deal with 'lobbiests' and 'corporate interests' (above and beyond their own) throwing wagon loads of cash at them, we might have had an entirely different constitution. As it was they were pretty free to get high and contemplate the 'better ways' to do things, which is what they drafted in the constitution.
Do I think a bunch of cross dressing, wig wearing, dope smoking, ex-patriots (from England) had more wisdom then our current crop of congress critters? Definitely, they had more wisdom in their little finger (the one they held out and wiggled when they were drinking their tea) than the entire crop of 'corporate stooges' that are in power today.
USA... the best government Corporations can Buy....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Damage To Scholarship
Because the founding fathers didn't send naked pictures to people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Damage To Scholarship
Why should we concede that copy protection laws should even exist to begin with? I say abolish them, they have no business in our society.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
More related to the discussion - if we concede that copyright should outlive the original holder/creator, then how should we determine the right length
of time - why would 35 years be any more sensible than 10 or 100?
Or 1000, 2000 or 10000.
Copyright should never extend beyond the natural lifetime of the creator.
If Congress may extend copyright even retroactively, all classical works could be re-copyrighted only for the benefit of the heirs of men dead centuries ago.
Such a result can't and shouldn't be consistent with the Constitution's limited time clause.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You wouldn't want to give up that whining, would you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Where in the constitution does it mention the rights of a "corporate entity" or a corporation for that matter? Corporations are not people. They're not held to the same laws (of man or nature) as people. People are people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
In Louisville, C. & C.R. Co. v. Letson, 43 US 497 (1844), the SCOTUS held that for the purposes of the case at hand, a corporation is "capable of being treated as a citizen of [the State which created it], as much as a natural person." Ten years later, the Court reaffirmed the result of Letson, though on the somewhat different theory that "those who use the corporate name, and exercise the faculties conferred by it," should be presumed conclusively to be citizens of the corporation's State of incorporation. Marshall v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 57 US 314 (1854).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Trying to blame copyright for a probate issue seems stupid.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Irony
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Well, if big corporations would stop writing our laws ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]