Reductio Ad Absurdum: Eternal Copyright Is Crazy... But What About Today's Copyright Term?
from the where's-the-limit dept
A ton of folks have sent in Adrian Hon's brilliant satirical "modest proposal" for eternal copyright. If you haven't yet read it, you should. Here's a snippet:But what, I ask, about your great-great-great-grandchildren? What do they get? How can our laws be so heartless as to deny them the benefit of your hard work in the name of some do-gooding concept as the "public good", simply because they were born a mere century and a half after the book was written? After all, when you wrote your book, it sprung from your mind fully-formed, without requiring any inspiration from other creative works – you owe nothing at all to the public. And what would the public do with your book, even if they had it? Most likely, they'd just make it worse.Of course, it's easy to laugh at satire like this... until you remember that some make such arguments seriously. But, similarly, it seems worth recognizing that for most of us, copyright is already effectively eternal. Here in the US nothing has entered the public domain in quite some time and it's questionable if or when anything new will enter the public domain... as most people fully expect Disney to push for another copyright term extension as Mickey Mouse approaches the public domain yet again.
No, it's clear that our current copyright law is inadequate and unfair. We must move to Eternal Copyright – a system where copyright never expires, and a world in which we no longer snatch food out of the mouths of our creators' descendants. With eternal copyright, the knowledge that our great-great-great-grandchildren and beyond will benefit financially from our efforts will no doubt spur us on to achieve greater creative heights than ever seen before.
However, to make it entirely fair, Eternal Copyright should be retroactively applied so that current generations may benefit from their ancestors' works rather than allowing strangers to rip your inheritance off. Indeed, by what right do Disney and the BBC get to adapt Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, and Sherlock without paying the descendants of Lewis Carroll, the Brothers Grimm, and Arthur Conan Doyle?
Of course, there will be some odd effects. For example, the entire Jewish race will do rather well from their eternal copyright in much of the Bible, and Shakespeare's next of kin will receive quite the windfall from the royalties in the thousands of performances and adaptations of his plays – money well earned, I think we can all agree.
So if you laugh at this kind of satire, remember it's this kind of "satire" that we effectively live under today with the existing copyright regime. That is... until lawmakers finally come to their senses over the ridiculous length of copyright today.
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Filed Under: copyright, eternal copyright, life plus, term
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Abolish them. This is an unacceptable consequence of IP laws.
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*/sarc*
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http://www.determinismsucks.net/archive/1289145351118.jpg
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Eternal copyright might solve that completely. :-)
(With apologies to and claims of fair use and fair dealing to the BBC and it's show Doctor Who.)
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Everytime you have a kid you need to pay God royalties.
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I sort of think of it as porn for the Techdirt crowd. I can picture you all beating one out reading it.
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...*Yawn*... dammit AC...
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Ultimately, and despite all the gnashing of teeth, this is a policy issue, with persons holding contrary views each having, nevertheless, legitimate observations underlying their views.
To call one "crazy" with whom you happen to disagree is to close one's mind to the possibility the other actually presents fair and valid points. It is also arrogant; the quintescent "I am right and you are wrong...so there! Please shut up and go away."
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I would also offer a cloud service where they would be able to upload and download anything, and sync that with an online store, and keep offering better materials or complementary materials also for $0.001 you see, once they get the material most people don't want to have to deal with having to organize and manage those collections and if they lose those they probably don't care that much because they can buy it again on the cheap in their lifetimes and they will keep spending little by little on my store and I will be collecting from the whole world and not just one geographic region.
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Mind you, I am not saying I agree with them, but I do disagree with you and strongly believe that their views are deserving of respect.
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An excellent idea. Now all you need to do is define "artistic human culture". I'm sure there won't be any arguments about that so no problem there.
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How is one incentivized when dead?
The stated purpose of copyright is to provide incentive to create additional works. This becomes rather difficult after death - no?
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Zombie authors - awesome!
I'll make the popcorn.
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So present those "fair and valid" points. We're waiting. We're practically begging for substantive discussions, but all you have is rhetoric and unfounded assertions. Put forth your facts. Or, to put it another way, "Put up, or shut up."
I can respect your right to have a differing opinion, even if I have no respect for that opinion. But I see nothing wrong with calling someone crazy when they can't back up their opinion with data or logical arguments.
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No, it's ridiculously long. There is no valid argument for it being ridiculously short. Sorry. If you think that, you're wrong.
Ultimately, and despite all the gnashing of teeth, this is a policy issue, with persons holding contrary views each having, nevertheless, legitimate observations underlying their views.
It is possible, but unlikely. I've been living in this space long enough that if there valid views for such extensions I would have seen them. None have been shown.
Setting up a "well there are valid arguments on both sides" lie makes you look ignorant of the facts. At this point there is enough clear data that the length of copyright is too long and is harming the public interest.
Arguing against that position is silly and a sign of ignorance or extreme bias.
To call one "crazy" with whom you happen to disagree is to close one's mind to the possibility the other actually presents fair and valid points.
I'll listen to fair and valid points. There are none for such long copyrights. The data is clear on that. If there were valid points they would have been made. They have not.
Pretending that this is some sort of balancing game is silly.
It is also arrogant; the quintescent "I am right and you are wrong...so there! Please shut up and go away."
I am right. And you are wrong. It's not "so there," it's that you're ignorant. If you learned a little and looked at the data you would recognize this too. You choose not to for whatever reason. But I will not stand idly by and pretend that crazy ideas are not crazy.
I call it as I see it and I stand behind my positions. I know that's a foreign concept to you since you've never been willing to stand behind a position on this site in your life (including signing your name).
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Allow me to help you out. What you are dealing with is the classic argument that goes like this.
statement: I respect your opinion but I am entitled to my opinion as well, so we have to agree to disagree.
counter: But your stance is an opinion and my stance is based on fact.
counter: That is YOUR opinion.
In other words, your facts are not valid because the opposition considers your facts to be an opinion like their opinion.
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As I commented above - these people are like creationists, astrolgers and the members of various wacky cults. What one has to remember is that the court astrologer was once a powerful figure in the land - so the possession of worldly respect and authority does not guarantee that you are not talking rubbish!
The problem is that those in authority are so unversed in the scientific method that they cannot tell the difference between facts and opinions - hence the attempt to see valid arguments on both sides.
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I was - sorry I should have been more specific.
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"Those are just facts, and Facts are just opinions, and opinions can be wrong."
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Bravo.
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Name one. Difficulty: it can't be a corporate whore or money-grubbing descendant of an author who died a century ago. Name an actual creator who thinks that copyright is too short.
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Life plus 3 generations is ridiculously short? for copyright? really?
Let's assume you are not insane: Please tell us what your ideal copyright law / policy would be.
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Excluding others can only lead to one inevitable conclusion and that will be confrontation.
People will not pay for the same thing more than once and keep paying for it their entire lifes that is just not going to happen, if they find a way not to they will embrace it and if you try to stop it, you will get what you deserve and that is scorn.
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You don't see that anymore, durable goods don't last forever they are limited too, now this BS IP is not and it should and because it is an exclusionary that encroaches on public space it should be very very limited indeed.
I don't even think there should be IP at all, I am sick an tired of those people who claim ownership on ideas and try to extract rent from others who do all the work.
John Locke said back in the 18th century that fruits of labor should befall the guy worked, not the guy who seats there and tries to collect from others because worked once and think he doesn't need to work anymore because of that one instance.
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IRS to Billy-Bob Lucas:
"Ok, as your share of Grandpa George's estate, you own the rights to 'Star Wars: A New Hope' - please pay us $1 billion dollars"
Billy-Bob Lucas:
"Phew, I'll earn at least $2 billion from that over my lifetime."
IRS to Billy-Bob Lucas:
"You also own the rights to 'Star Wars: Caravan of Courage' - please pay us $1 billion dollars."
Billy-Bob Lucas:
"Nooooooooooooo!!!!!"
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> unless it is for a very, very, very good reason
Huh? So I need a "very, very, very good reason" to exclude people from coming into my home or driving my car?
I would hope that "because it's mine" would be reason enough.
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A house or car are a rivalrous good, so only a limited number of people could use it at a time. To avoid the problems of fighting over what home or car you will be using today, it makes a pretty damn compelling reason to allow exclusivity laws for them.
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> home or car you will be using today, it makes
> a pretty damn compelling reason to allow
> exclusivity laws for them.
Private property rights don't exist in order to alleviate the inconvenience and confusion of multiple people trying to use the same car or live in the same house at the same time.
I have a private property rights in my home and car (and all my other stuff) because they're *mine*. Nothing else.
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That's a circular argument.
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I don't agree that that's the reason they are his. That would mean that without the law, they would no longer be his. Are you saying that outside of law, there is no ownership of anything? Clearly enforcing property rights with laws is more civil, but it isn't the only possibility.
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With law societal norms rights are established, which under our system of laws is the right to have our courts come to the assistance of the rightful possessor (the "owner") and kick the interloper good and hard.
One can certainly see how a rivalrous good is somehow more in line with general notions of property than a non-rivalrous good. However, the law is not so limited, because it has long been recognized that even non-rivalrous goods may be deserving of legal protection. Patents and copyrights are two examples that easily come to mind, but there are a host of others that are likewise non-physical, e.g., a stock certificate, a promissory note, etc. These are mere pieces of paper with little intrinsic value as paper, but otherwise quite valuable so long as the law provides support for what these papers represent.
I mentioned it before, but I believe it bears repeating that one of the most difficult concepts to master in preparing for the practice of law it to try and grasp the entire notion of property as has developed over centuries of legal jurisprudence.
BTW, I do appreciate your very thoughtful comments. Here it seems it is far too easy to simply dismiss what someone says merely because you happen to disagree. It is a pleasure to exchange positions is such a respectful manner, and for this I thank you.
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Right.
there are a host of others that are likewise non-physical, e.g., a stock certificate, a promissory note, etc.
Those are non-physical, but they are rivalrous. For example, you cannot (honestly) sell more than 100% ownership in a venture. Thus, if you sell Bob 10%, that's 10% of it that you can't sell Jim. Rivalrous and physical are orthogonal attributes.
I mentioned it before, but I believe it bears repeating that one of the most difficult concepts to master in preparing for the practice of law it to try and grasp the entire notion of property as has developed over centuries of legal jurisprudence.
IP and actual property are completely different areas of law though, are they not?
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Infinite Driver's license
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I have often wondered
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Transistors came onto the scene in the 40's, and yet they are still important building blocks in current electronic goods. Cellular methods, componentry, protocols, etc. came onto the scene at least as early as the 60's, and yet they continue to be incorporated into even the newest generation products. The list goes on and on.
As to many of these older components any associated patents expired many, many years ago, so their use in new generation products poses no problems, unless, of course, some older components have undergone improvements over their original embodiments, or perhaps even new and improved methods for their manufacture. Some of these are no longer secured by patents, but this cannot be said about all of them.
The point to be made is that new products enter the market continuously, but this certainly does not mean that they do not rely in significant part on components, manufacturing methods, etc. whose genesis dates back many decades.
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Minor detail:
The transistors to which you refer (late 40s) were of a bipolar design and made from germanium. These devices are still being made and used today, although the processes have been improved. The majority of transistors made today are used in integrated circuitry, these are of a field effect design and are based upon silicon with various other elements diffused in order to create positive and negative areas. Other elements are also used for transistors (Ga As for example). The point being, that the William Shockley patent on the bipolar junction germanium transistor is not applicable to the FET silicon transistors of today.
"The point to be made is that new products enter the market continuously, but this certainly does not mean that they do not rely in significant part on components, manufacturing methods, etc. whose genesis dates back many decades."
Agreed. Standing on the shoulders of giants
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I do believe I mentioned improvements to hardware and manufacturing processes.
Yes, people stand on the shoulders of giants. Problem is only a select few of them are able to rise even higher and perform acts of particular significance in the fields of science and useful arts (here using the two terms embodied in the Constitution). A point to be considered, however, it that one has to wonder how many of these particularly significant acts would have come to light when they did were it not for incentives associated with patents and copyrights. Would they have come to light eventually? Probably. As soon as they did? This is the $1M question. In many cases the answer is clearly yes.
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So how about this?
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AFAIK, so called intellectual property is not taxed in the same manner that real property is - and this is one of many reasons why it is not real property.
Problem?
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Tax law is a rather poor method of trying to craft an argument for what is and what is not "property".
Merely by way of example and not limitation, when you sell your home the transaction is taxed as a captital gain. The same is true when you sell your copyright in a work. Surely no one is suggesting that because capital gain is the metric that both must be "property".
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IP if it is to be property should be taxed accordingly, just like every other piece of goods that generate revenues and if those taxes are not paid they revert to the union just like houses, cars, trucks and other physical assets would.
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Revenue (income) is taxed, but the common (as opposed to real) property that generates it is not necessarily taxed. If a business buys a piece of equipment, the sale of it is taxed, but they're not then taxed every year for owning it, or using it, are they?
Though I don't disagree with the plan to tax IP. Combine this with an opt-in system, and it would solve a lot of problems if done right (which of course the powerful interests would make sure it isn't).
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So if you have land, and air conditioning, machinery, buildings, et al, these are all included in calculating your tax.
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If it's something permanent that increases the value of the property, yes. But if you install a driss press, you don't get taxed on that every year, do you?
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If this site really wants to score some points, maybe some articles about government taxes (federal, state, municipal, etc.) would be appropriate. Government taxes and all to which they apply make the labels and studios look like amateurs when it comes to accounting.
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IP should be taxed at every level and at every transaction to help pay for all the costs involved in enforcing something that can't really be enforced.
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If it is property, then pay property tax.
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Quote:
Source: Wired: The Meta-Story: How Wired Published Its GitHub Story on GitHub By Robert McMillan on February 24, 2012
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Take it to the next step --- pre-emptive copyright
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(to paraphrase: Any position stated sarcastically on the Internet can and will be taken as if written seriously)
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For the last time
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IP doesn't farewell on the public space, it can't be enforced there because there is no legal entities that depend on a government to do business in there, the public space is constituted by people and they can live without a governing body or laws but they can't live without learning and that is what IP threatens the learning and spread of knowledge, it burdens natural freedoms that everybody has and make use of it everyday and so will never be enforced in the public space and it can't be, that would mean the end of any fair society dreams people have, if everything had an owner and needed to be paid for, 40 million Americans today would be in for bad times and wouldn't be able to learn anything or use anything to get out of the poverty they are in.
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Thank God IP is just an illusion, a make feel better kind of law, because if it was possible to enforce it and make everybody fallow it, we would have a lot more poor people in this world.
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Yes, but IP is only a legal construct. Real property would still have significance outside of any legal system.
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Yes, an acre of land at a particular location is unique from all others, but in our society what gives it meaning as property is recognition by law that is is possessed/owned, and one who interferes with ownership/possession may be called to account before a court of law. Otherwise, society devolves down to "might makes right".
It is said that law can be wielded as a sword. Speaking just for myself, I would rather face the "sword of law" than a physical sword in the hands of someone who knows how to use it and who is upset with something they believe I have done that caused them wrong. The former is civil society. The latter is anything but...
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Merely FYI, the term "property" is easily one of the most difficult concepts for those new to the law to wrap their arms around. Nevertheless, these are concepts that must be mastered because of their profound effects on a stable body of law necessary to facilitate domestic and international commerce.
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Yes, but even that is just a passing similarity, as it's true for fundamentally different reasons. An item can be possessed because of its nature. If I possess this banana, you cannot also possess it at the same time (ie it's a rivalrous good). The right to copy something by its nature is infinite. I can copy it and you can copy it at the same time, without interfering with each other. The restriction, or ownership, of this ability can only happen because the law is written that way.
Law recognizes and protects the possession of actual property, while it artificially creates the possession of intellectual property.
Nevertheless, these are concepts that must be mastered because of their profound effects on a stable body of law necessary to facilitate domestic and international commerce.
I think you're conflating the two issues. Intellectual property is not necessary to facilitate domestic and international commerce.
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It's ludicrous
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Lifetime copyright.
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Re: Lifetime copyright.
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