Comment by gwbas1c

Comment by gwbas1c a day ago

I think we should mix in some compulsory licensing: IE, the copyright holder has exclusive rights for a period of time, and then afterwards there is a formula that's used to allow anyone to re-publish.

It will help handle abandonware where the rightsholder can't be bothered to publish something; tries to limit where something is published; or otherwise tries to hold the fee artificially high.

(This could be used, for example, to force a luddite to publish a book in electronic form, force a show that's locked into a single app to print a bluray, ect, ect. A copyright holder shouldn't have exclusive control over which media and stores sell their work.)

ssl-3 a day ago

Let's work through this statutory licensing concept.

A work is published. Sometime later, the entity that created it falls off the face of the earth. The work is thus very much abandoned, and it remains copyrighted anyway.

But tomorrow, that work will enter the timeframe where anyone can pay to license and publish it however they wish. And it just so happens that you wish to license this work and publish it as an ebook because you're feeling trite or something.

Who do you pay? How do you pay them?

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ghssds 20 hours ago

>Who do you pay? How do you pay them?
Create a non-government copyright collective[0] that manage copyright unrelated to music (musicians already have their).
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective

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- ssl-3 20 hours ago
  
  That's somewhat hilarious.
  Last time I looked into trying to get pricing from ASCAP and BMI so I could legally stream some music for a small number of people, I found the following to be true:
  1. There is no public pricing. (Why? Because fuck you, that's why!)
  2. If I insisted, then the simplest way to get a price is to stream whatever I want and wait for a nasty letter from one or more lawyers that will most assuredly tell me how much I owe.
  3. The only safe way to proceed is not to play the game at all.
  That's gonna be a "no" on the cartels for me, boss. We might as well just throw all of the money and all of the copyrighted stuff into the memory hole for all the good they do.
  
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  gwbas1c 19 hours ago
  
  See if the scheme that BMG / Columbia house still works. (Apparently they would send a check to the rightsholder, and if they cashed it, it was considered payment.)
  (But don't quote me, I'm not an expert.)
  
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gwbas1c 21 hours ago

That's a good question. IMO:
1: The formula dictates what you pay.
2: The money goes into a government-controlled escrow account.
At that point, the rights holder has a reasonable amount of time (years) to claim the money. Otherwise, if the rightsholder doesn't come forward, the money is forfeited.
(What happens to the money at that point? I think this is a great thing for people to argue about while the rest of us get the kind of copyright reform we need.)
(Likewise, what happens if the money gets refunded to someone impersonating the rights holder? That's also a wonderful thing to let people argue about while we get the kind of copyright reform we need.)

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- ssl-3 20 hours ago
  
  Those are great answers.
  I'd like to propose the following additions to help tie it all together:
  Copyright must be registered. Registration requires sending a digital copy to some officious government body, such as the Library of Congress, for preservation. (It used to be ~about this way; it can be this way again. Disk is cheap. Git and email both exist. It can be figured out.)
  This registration will be open and publicly-available to query (online, of course, but also by phone, and mail, and just by walking in the front door and asking), so the question of "Who to pay" is always easily answered.
  All forfeited money from licensing goes to help pay for the preservation of the collected works, and for the ongoing expense of providing the registration database. It won't be nearly enough to cover those expenses, and that's fine: This means that the balance always has a place to land.
  Copyright should not span generations. It should still time out completely, and do so after a period that is shorter than a normal human lifespan.
  If a person saw a film when they were 5 that they really enjoyed, and if they manage to live long enough, then they should eventually be able to walk into the Library of Congress, give them some money, and walk out with a physical copy of it, and be able to freely upload that copy of it to YouCloud for their great, great grandchildren (and indeed, the world) to see, and be able to do all of this without becoming a criminal.
  (How much money? Something in the realm of 15 Big Macs worth of dollars sounds about right.)
  
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  shagie 20 hours ago
  
  > Copyright must be registered.
  https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm
  Members shall comply with Articles 1 through 21 of the Berne Convention (1971) and the Appendix thereto. However, Members shall not have rights or obligations under this Agreement in respect of the rights conferred under Article 6bis of that Convention or of the rights derived therefrom.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention
  Author's rights under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is prohibited to require formal registration.
  This would require the country to back out of the Berne Convention and TRIPS (and by implication the WTO). Protection of copyright is automatic and does not require registration.
  Just because I haven't sent the latest batch of photographs to the Library of Congress for registration (so I can collect punitive damages rather than just compensatory damages) doesn't mean that the images that I have created are not copyrighted and protected.
  
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- shagie 20 hours ago
  
  Which government? Who controls the account?
  How do I claim it?
  How does this work across national boundaries? (e.g. how does someone in Wakanda license a work created by someone in the US? How does someone in the US license a work created by someone in Wakanda?)
  What happens if the government refuses to pay me (or return the money to me after the period of time has elapsed)?
  What happens if the government refuses to acknowledge the escrow and uses the money themselves?
  ---
  I would contend that this suggestion puts too much faith in governments and their handling of money, record keeping, and not using financial tools to penalize individuals and countries.
  
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  gwbas1c 20 hours ago
  
  > I would contend that this suggestion puts too much faith in governments
  Copyright only works if you have faith in your government to create and enforce laws.
  Otherwise, if you don't have faith in your government, you have bigger problems than a poor system of copyright.
  ---
  Anyway, all of your points are wonderful things to argue about while we get the kind of copyright reform we need. When we argue about details like this, we can assume that compulsory licensing is a good concept overall.
  
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[removed] 18 hours ago

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mrguyorama 18 hours ago

A reasonable copyright term makes abandonware not a thing

If copyright is hard stopped after 14 (or even 28) years, it doesn't matter whether the initial rightsholder dies or hates the world or refuses to do the legwork to make it accessible, they cannot stop anyone from distributing it anymore full stop.

Abandonware is only a thing because of copyright.

>A copyright holder shouldn't have exclusive control over which media and stores sell their work.

This is the entire point of copyright. Abandonware is an intentional right of copyright. A creative SHOULD be able to say "Actually I don't want to sell this anymore"... at least until their rights run out after a decade or two. Copyright is NOT about giving third generation descendants of a creative profit from something that was made a century ago. Copyright is NOT about preventing people from playing around with intellectual property of an entire previous generation.

Disney's existence is basically because of a formerly correct and right implementation of copyright. If Disney's copyright existed when they first started, they would have likely failed to be big. Large copyright timescales only hurt artists and the public.

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zenoprax 17 hours ago

I was about to respond to your comment yesterday about closed protocols but this is a better article!
> A copyright holder shouldn't have exclusive control over which media and stores sell their work. > This is the entire point of copyright.
Not only is the entire point, it is the thing that matters most when discussing "piracy" productively. Putting aside "you wouldn't download a car" jokes side, infringement on that exclusive right is only possible by distributing the media. "Consuming" intellectual property can never be piracy by definition because you are not providing anything.
If Netflix screws up their licensing agreements and provides too many seasons of a show and people watch it no one would be considered "pirates". Netflix is simply in violation of a licensing agreement. If they had no agreement whatsoever then they are directly infringing on the "IP holders exclusive right to control the distribution and sale".

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- mrguyorama 13 hours ago
  
  >Putting aside "you wouldn't download a car" jokes side, infringement on that exclusive right is only possible by distributing the media.
  I don't know if I go that far, since copyright is literally about the right of exclusive control over copies, and piracy is making a copy without authorization.
  However, the advent of computers limited the "literalness" of that interpretation, and my understanding is that even without such consideration, many countries do not consider copying for personal use to be a breach of law. I am not in violation of copyright when copying a program from my hard drive to ram, and I think that would be true even if the proper owner of the copyright insisted otherwise.
  
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