Copyright Sci-Fi: What Will Lifelong Copyright Terms Mean When People Live Way Longer?

from the satire-time dept

Wed, Jun 6th 2012 11:59pm — Leigh Beadon

Correction: I initially mistook the name of Paul Di Filippo's regular column for the title of the story itself. Post has been updated with the correct title.

As copyright issues have been propelled into the mainstream conversation, they have become an increasingly juicy target for lampooning by authors and artists. Satire is a clumsy tool for explaining an unknown concept, but an ideal way to skewer one that people are already talking about. Reader aethercowboy points us to a new creative construction of copyright found in the latest issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, in the form of a short story by author Paul Di Filippo for his regular column Plumage from Pegasus.

In What Immortal Hand or Eye Could Frame Thy Dreadful Copyright?, Di Filippo muses about the effects of "life plus 70 years" copyright terms in a future where medical science allows people to live much, much longer (not an unrealistic notion). The story is no masterpiece—rather a quick scene geared at sci-fi wonks, heavily indulging in the pulp technique of tossing out references to unexplained futuristic details and relying on the reader's knowledge of science fiction tropes to fill in the gaps. It's like a less elegant version of Kurt Vonnegut's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, with copyrights in place of beds. But Plumage from Pegasus is fun because it takes a central concept we talk about a lot—that copyright law is out of sync with technological realities—and pushes it to an exaggerated extreme in the way that only sci-fi can. Overall, of course, it's just neat to see the copyright discussion turn up in yet another cultural corner.

I'll leave you with the beginning of the story—you can read the whole (short) thing on the F&SF website.

Today was my father's five-hundredth birthday, and also the day that I had determined to murder him.

But before you think too poorly of me, let me inform you that my father was Arden Pence.

Yes, that Arden Pence! Creator and sole owner of what had once been one of the most beloved entertainment franchises in the inhabited Solar System: Rajah Robot and Poxy Toff, Oort Cloud Explorers. A multi-platform, full-sensory, optionally immersive fictional construct that had generated trillions in profits, but which, for the past two centuries, had not manifested a single new idea, instead gradually frittering away all its goodwill and prestige in an endless series of self-imitation and recycling, until now the series was practically a byword for staleness and decrepitude.

I was Arden Pence's sole heir, his son, Kilmer. Although a youthful two-hundred-and-sixty-five years old, I was not getting any younger, and my well of patience had steadily evaporated to undetectable amounts. For two hundred years I had been biding my time, watching in frustration as my father's intellectual property, the delight of my own childhood, dwindled and became a source of predictable mild amusement for the public, all the while waiting for some mortal accident—a quench in the nearest zero-point capacitor, a hail of rogue strangelets from an exploding spaceship—to strike my progenitor and legally deliver the franchise into my hands.

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Filed Under: paul di filippo, satire, science fiction

43 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 12:15am

Techdirt vandalized briefly
At 3:06 AM I tried to check Techdirt for new articles and the front page came up with just "No articles found.". http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?start=20 did the same thing (I was going to try that, then lower the number to 1, and then try 0). On the other hand, individual bookmarked articles loaded (though abnormally slowly), indicating that the vandal didn't delete the entire content of the site, only the index.

As of 3:07 the index had been restored.

Possibly the vandalism was worse but was already in the middle of being fixed and nearly done being fixed when I checked it.

Still, it's disturbing. This site is run by tech-savvy people who probably know their stuff when it comes to security, and it nonetheless got hacked. And it no doubt has lots of enemies.

I hope you keep several backups, some off-site.

On the plus side, vandalism occurred and was fixed all in the span of just a couple of hours. That's a quick response. When a lot of sites get trashed, they stay that way for days, not helped at all by the likelihood that the operator illicitly set things up so webmaster@ would bounce to avoid spam/taking responsibility/something. I've even seen some sites get vandalized and just stay that way permanently, or for a while and then they stop resolving without ever being restored to what they were supposed to be.

Relaxed.com way back a decade or more ago ended in this sad, sad way. Someone clobbered the entire site content and replaced it with some silly comment about if you want relaxation take a Disney vacation, I reported it to the webmaster, report bounced. Weeks passed without anyone noticing and fixing the problem. Then I guess the webmaster finally noticed it, but had no backups or something, and his only response was to stop paying for the domain.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 12:50am

Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Um... can we get an off-topic forum
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Boyd Waters (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 1:48am

Obligatory Melancholy Elephants
Fun story, thanks for pointing it out!

Science Fiction authors have trod these grapes before.

http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html
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drew (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 1:48am

Copyright conversations in the mainstream
Sort of on topic-ish...
Was camping with some friends over the weekend, none of whom have a particularly vested interest in copyright but there are a few geeks, and we actually ended up talking about the ridiculousness* of copyright law.
The main thing that they found farcical was the duration and its impact on fan-created content.
It's the kind of conversation I'm regularly involved in but it was interesting to watch it unfold without my input at all.

* Is that even a word? There must be a better one, but I'm still on my first coffee.
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hfbs (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 2:16am

Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Can't have been a server error, those things are infallible! Must those darn vandals again!
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E. Zachary Knight (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 2:21am

Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Yeah those database backup viruses can be a killer on any site. Hopefully it can be purged from the server soon.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 2:40am

Copyright other than life limit
Under current law, can a copyright owner willfully give up his copyright to public domain after, say, 30 years after the book has been published?

Also, can the copyright owner recollect the copyright from the publishers? (I think this would be a requirement if such book is to be given to public domain before the copyright lifetime has passed)
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Mike Masnick (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 2:54am

Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
At 3:06 AM I tried to check Techdirt for new articles and the front page came up with just "No articles found.". http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?start=20 did the same thing (I was going to try that, then lower the number to 1, and then try 0). On the other hand, individual bookmarked articles loaded (though abnormally slowly), indicating that the vandal didn't delete the entire content of the site, only the index.

As of 3:07 the index had been restored.

Possibly the vandalism was worse but was already in the middle of being fixed and nearly done being fixed when I checked it.

Still, it's disturbing. This site is run by tech-savvy people who probably know their stuff when it comes to security, and it nonetheless got hacked. And it no doubt has lots of enemies.

I hope you keep several backups, some off-site.

Why do you automatically assume vandalism? Every night around that time we do the very off-site backups you suggested we do -- and sometimes the backup process takes a little longer than it should and the database locks up briefly. You happened to hit the site at exactly that moment.

Vandalism was not the issue. It wasn't "hours." For less than a minute *some* users saw "no stories found" rather than the content of the page because the database was locked up briefly. We'd like to avoid even that brief downtime, but for now that's the system we've got.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 3:31am

Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
I've seen this twice before when "no new articles" came up over the last few months.

Hope nothing too problematic is going on.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 3:32am

Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Note to self: Continue reading the thread before posting.

(I am going to claim sickness caused my oversight)
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mattarse (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 3:44am

Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
I've seen this a few times - I assume being in Europe puts your backup time in my mornings.

I always assumed network issues/slight hiccups and never thought more of it :)

I think next time I'll blame the unicorns, now that Mitt is all but confirmed as one they must be getting ready to take over.
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John Doe, 7 Jun 2012 @ 4:09am

Can we start a countdown until Ray Bradbury's works are in the public domain?
The year is 2012. Famed author Ray Bradbury dies. We only have to wait until 2082 until his works are in the public domain. That doesn't seem to bad does it?
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aethercowboy (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 5:12am

Re: Copyright other than life limit
While I'm not a lawyer, I believe the answer is yes to both of those questions. You can dedicate your works to the public domain prior to the 70 years after your death (take at look at the Creative Commons licenses CC0 or Founders Copyright for two such examples).

Likewise, in the US if you have assigned your copyright to another entity, you can reclaim it after (I think) 30 years. The ultimate question though is: does the publisher actually hold the copyright to the work, or have you just exclusively licensed that work for them to publish?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 5:14am

Since the legitimacy of a copyright regime is premised on its benefit to the public, its duration should be derived from the expectations of that public, not the prospects and life expectancy of the creator.

A more reasonable formulation would have as a basis recognition of all that existed prior to a person being born into the world as being part of the public culture. Of course, since a day never passes without a birth taking place, this would mean that copyright duration would be zero, leading to a result that is in all probability politically unfeasible.

However, this could be accounted for by recognizing that the rights of youths in the world are often subjugated within the rights of their parents. It is when the youths reach the age of majority that they are conferred the full rights of citizenship.

This suggests that an appropriate copyright term would be on the order of 18-21 years, at which point all fully vested citizens become unrestricted in their access to and use of the culture that existed before they were born.
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Someone, 7 Jun 2012 @ 5:18am

Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
I work with DB and web servers all the time. I haven't seen a DB get locked up during any kind of back-up.
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aethercowboy (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 5:32am

Some Notes:
Di Filippo's regular column in FSF is called "Plumage from Pegasus" in which he satirizes "current events" with a somewhat humorous sci-fi twist. This particular article's title is "What Immortal Hand or Eye Could Frame Thy Dreadful Copyright?".

Also, in a 1953 issue of the same magazine, Donald F. Reines contributed his satire "The Shape of Copyright to Come" (sometimes called "Interplanetary Copyright"). It was originally published in the Information Bulletin of the Library of Congress that year, but I can't seem to find a link. It's well worth reading copyright satire if you can get your eyes on it.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 6:16am

Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Pretty sure you just tried to connect during our nightly backup.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 6:37am

Re: Copyright conversations in the mainstream
You're safe

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ridiculousness
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abc gum, 7 Jun 2012 @ 6:37am

What would be the copyright duration if the author is cryogenically frozen? Assuming the process were perfected, they are not really dead ... are they?
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 7:24am

Re: Some Notes:
ahh! thanks for clarifying. I did think "Plumage from Pegasus" was kind of a weird name for this story. Updating the post now.

I'm going to try to find that other story for sure...
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jupiterkansas (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 8:12am

Re: Re: Copyright other than life limit
Has that ever been tested in court?

If an author claims public domain, and someone uses it to make millions, couldn't the author still legally claim copyright?

I would happily "donate" to the public domain but I don't feel there's a real legal way of doing it.
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Kevin (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 8:13am

One Flaw
The one flaw in this imaginative idea is that science has shown that even if the body can live longer the brain can't.
According to some research the human, living a utopia existence, that is disease and stress free environment, may be able to expand his brain life.
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jupiterkansas (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 8:15am

Re: Can we start a countdown until Ray Bradbury's works are in the public domain?
In 2082 I'll be able to download his books for free and finally find out who this Ray Bradbury guy is.

Even though I'll also be dead by then.

And Disney will have extended the copyright to 2302.

Maybe I'll just get a book from the library.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 8:29am

Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
It wasn't a server error (timeout; spurious 404; 500-series error; whatever). The server successfully served the page, including the sidebars and upper banner, so the server was up and functioning normally at the time.

However, the page content had been altered to remove the main content (beneath the banner and left of the sidebar) and replace it with just the phrase "No articles found". That indicates an alteration of the page's HTML source rather than an inability of the server to find the HTML file and send it to the client or an inability of the server to respond to the client's HTTP request at all.

In short, the server was up but the content had been altered, rather than the server was down as you seem to be speculating.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 8:33am

Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Why do you automatically assume vandalism?

Because it wasn't a server error (timeout; spurious 404; 500-series error; whatever). The server successfully served the page, including the sidebars and upper banner, so the server was up and functioning normally at the time.

However, the page content had been altered to remove the main content (beneath the banner and left of the sidebar) and replace it with just the phrase "No articles found". That indicates an alteration of the page's HTML source rather than an inability of the server to find the HTML file and send it to the client or an inability of the server to respond to the client's HTTP request at all.

In short, the server was up but the content had been altered, rather than the server was down as you seem to be speculating.

The content alteration was, in turn, not one that it is plausible could have been intentional on your part or other authorized persons' parts; and unintentional alteration of the content simply should not happen. Therefore it was intentional on the part of an unauthorized person.
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DogBreath, 7 Jun 2012 @ 9:46am

Re:
That is why the Mickey Mouse Copyright Protection Act keeps getting passed into law. Not just because of big money paying to get these laws extended, but because of Walt Disney's lack of foresight. He should have had himself frozen before he died, not after.

Damn you Walt, and your little dog (Pluto) too!
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PT, 7 Jun 2012 @ 10:18am

NOW I see the point of ACTA....
When a cure for aging and death is discovered, only the most unsuitable people will be able to afford it.

Unless, that is, the Indians produce a cheap bootleg generic.... Then everyone in the world will be able to afford it, except Americans.

Only strong international IP laws can make the World safe for popes, dictators and senators.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 11:11am

Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
You do realize that websites can run off multiple servers, right?

The database server was temporarily down during backup. The web server was unaffected.

That indicates an alteration of the page's HTML source rather than an inability of the server to find the HTML file and send it to the client or an inability of the server to respond to the client's HTTP request at all.

No, it does not. The PHP file was unchanged and working normally - but could not retrieve the data from the database server, which was in the middle of its backup process. Thus it delivers a "No Stories Found" message.

In short, the server was up but the content had been altered, rather than the server was down as you seem to be speculating.

One server was up, the other was busy. Nothing was altered.

If you're going to attempt to diagnose website problems with zero information, you should learn a bit more about how websites work...
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aethercowboy (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 11:12am

Re: NOW I see the point of ACTA....
"Pope Vitus, the Last"
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 12:37pm

Re: Re: Some Notes:
You didn't change it here:

"But Plumage from Pegasus is fun because it takes a central concept we talk about a lot�that copyright law is out of sync with technological realities�and pushes it to an exaggerated extreme in the way that only sci-fi can"

Unless you didn't mean to. Still looks weird tho.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 8:23pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
I don't know why you're trying to spin this rather than admitting you had a security breach. You of all people I expected would know better than that.

Nonetheless, the indisputable fact remains that the page loaded without any error messages, but the content itself had been altered. Server errors cannot -- or at least should not -- alter the content of pages in ways that are not distinguishable from intentional edits; if a server problem did somehow erase much of a page and substitute different text on what was left that would constitute a severe bug in the server, which should always either return the exact page requested, unadulterated, or return an HTTP error code, per RFCs. So if I request a page with the first twenty techdirt articles from the techdirt server I should get either a page with the first twenty techdirt articles or an HTTP error response (or no response at all) -- but never a page that is neither an HTTP error response nor the page with the first twenty techdirt articles.

So, I (and anyone else) interpret the server's response, since it wasn't an HTTP error code, as indicating that that was the page with the first twenty techdirt articles, i.e. that page had been altered to remove the articles. Such alteration would clearly constitute vandalism.

By the way, I also don't appreciate the condescending tone of your comment, particularly the latter part of it. I know quite a bit more about HTTP and HTML than you are giving me credit for, as I hope I have now adequately demonstrated.

If your server really does send modified/truncated versions of pages on some error conditions instead of an HTTP error code, unlikely as that seems, then it has a serious bug, equivalent to if Word displayed a garbage Word document instead of popping up a "file not found" error box if I typed junk into the file/open dialog and hit enter. That bug needs fixing promptly.

Oh, and you really shouldn't be using PHP.

http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

If you are, perhaps it is causing bugs like that. And security holes.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 9:41pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
wow, dude, it's not that complicated... dynamic page requests info from a database, database is busy and does not respond, page is set up to output a "no stories found" error if it gets no response from the database
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Jun 2012 @ 10:42pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
But it didn't output an error. It output a 200 OK instead, along with a page that simply was not the correct page.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 7 Jun 2012 @ 11:26pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
But it didn't output an error. It output a 200 OK instead, along with a page that simply was not the correct page.

Wow.

The *page* was correct and loaded -- but it *calls* a database to fill just the blog portion. The db was hit during the backup and thus no data was returned, so it prints a "no stories found" message instead of the content.

There was no security breach. You're wrong.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jun 2012 @ 12:18am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
If the behavior is as you described, then the behavior is incorrect. If an HTTP server is unable to do its job properly due to a timeout or similar problem at the back end, it must return an HTTP 500-series status code, not lie about the situation and return a normal web page that's missing some content. If your web server lied and, basically, said that it had been vandalized when it had not really been vandalized, that's as troubling as if it actually was vandalized.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 8 Jun 2012 @ 7:45am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
For all your knowledge about HTTP and server theory, you are acting like you've never seen a database error in a dynamically generated website before. I don't know if you're sheltered or just being disingenuous, but they are extremely common. The HTTP server did not deliver an error because it did do its job - it interpreted the script in the requested dynamic page and successfully delivered the result. It just so happens that the "result" in this case was an error message output by the script.

Maybe it doesn't fit your philosophy about how things should be set up, but it's extremely common.
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Gwiz (profile), 8 Jun 2012 @ 8:51am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Maybe it doesn't fit your philosophy about how things should be set up, but it's extremely common.

TD: "It wasn't an error. It's how our website/database is designed to react in a certain situation."

AC: "No that's most definitely an error. I know, because that's not how my GeoCities webpage used to work."
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jun 2012 @ 9:21am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Nice job of putting words in my mouth.

Meanwhile, it remains true that web servers should not lie about what's at a given URL. Either they serve the page at that URL or they serve an error code. HTTP 500 is for temporarily-unable-to-complete-request conditions, and as such is applicable if the back end times out instead of returning data essential to correctly return the page requested.

It likewise remains true that claiming the Techdirt blog has zero articles rather than returning an error message because, though the articles assuredly exist, it isn't able to actually retrieve them, is broken behavior. This is akin to being told a file was deleted when the real situation is that the USB drive was unplugged. There should be a "no disk in drive M:" error or analogous, not a normal file not found message, in such an instance, and I would consider any software that failed to make that distinction when explaining why it couldn't open a file to be defective.

If Techdirt's web server fails to distinguish between no articles existing and the machine with the articles being inaccessible to it then it is likewise defective.
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Gwiz (profile), 8 Jun 2012 @ 9:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Wow dude.

Is it really that hard to grasp that the "No articles found" message IS the error message displayed to the user that all of the data was not retrieved? It's how Techdirt's site is designed - deal with it.

And actually, your analogy is not quite right. It's more along the lines of someone sending you a Word doc with an image linked (instead of embedded) and not sending the image also. The Word doc will load just fine, but where the image is supposed to be you get the broken link symbol.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 8 Jun 2012 @ 10:12am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
In other words, you have diagnosed a poorly written error message that we should probably clarify. Congratulations.

Now, could you please go lecture one of the other millions of PHP/SQL-driven sites on the internet for a while please? Because most of them behave the exact same way. You've got a long way to go before the internet looks the way you apparently want it to.
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hfbs (profile), 8 Jun 2012 @ 10:13am

Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
To be honest, I just picked the first web error that came to my head, which incidentally happened not to be vandalism by hacking. Replace 'server error' with 'making off-site backups' and my point stands anew - which was 'why attribute the errors to vandalism and not an entirely innocent reason?'
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jun 2012 @ 8:51pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Just because a lot of websites fail to correctly generate 500 errors instead of lying to the user, does not mean that that behavior is correct or should be accepted. (And a broken image symbol is not a good analogy. Better would be if Word just silently omitted the image with no indication that one should have been there, essentially claiming not that the image couldn't be loaded but that it never existed in the first place.)

I trust I've now made my point adequately.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jun 2012 @ 8:54pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Techdirt vandalized briefly
Because the server itself claimed it was vandalism (by claiming that http://www.techdirt.com/ was a page with no blog articles rather than claiming it was a page that it had had trouble generating and serving), and absent any evidence to the contrary at that time I took its claim at face value.
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