Nate Anderson at Ars Technica is an excellent beat reporter. Here are a few of his most recent stories on copyright, if you’re interested in that kind of thing:
* We have Disney driving our copyright law, and the EU has the Beatles and other 60’s groups. When the copyright on 60’s hits was about to reach the 50 year copyright limit, the EU passed a 20 year extension that will gather a billion euros, mainly for record companies.
* There’s no shortage of bottom-feeding lawyers in the copyright game. Nate profiles one, Ken Ford, who has been running a scam for a porn company. Ken files thousands of John Doe subpoenas to intimidate possible illegitimate downloaders into settlements, even though he has no intention of pursuing those cases in court. He’s had mixed luck — a judge in his home state of West Virginia threw his cases out of court, but the DC circuit is slower to react, so he’s able to grift for a few months until the judges there catch on.
* In some good news, copyright troll Righthaven, the group that bought the right to sue from Las Vegas papers and went after bloggers who quoted a few words from news stories, is on the verge of having their assets seized after losing a case and being assigned legal fees.
* In some mixed news, the RIAA is finally getting some of its judgments adjusted. In a recent case, a $675,000 jury verdict ($22,500 per song) against a file sharer was cut down to $67,500, though that judgment was stayed pending appeal overturned on appeal and is being appealed again.
The EFF and Public Citizen have been working with defendants in these cases and could use a few of your spare dollars.
Ranger 3
First. All rights reserved.
ornery
Then there is the massive copyright fraud by Google in scanning millions of books without permission … copyright is very, very, very serious unless there’s money to be made ignoring it:
http://techland.time.com/2011/03/23/explaining-the-google-books-case-saga/
R. Porrofatto
In 1864 a 20 year-old author writes a novel about the Civil War. He lives to be 96 and dies in 1940. Were current law in effect back then, his book would still be under copyright now, and his descendants (who probably never heard of him), or more likely some faceless corporation, would still be reaping any profit the book might earn for another 4 years, until 2015 if my math is correct.
Alternate scenario. Instead of writing a novel, the 20 year-old invents a machine that’s considered the most magnificent contribution to humankind since the wheel. He patents his invention in 1864. The patent expires in 1881 (1884 if under current law). That’s it. No profits in perpetuity thank you Sonny Bono.
WTF©?
Walker
@ornery:
The real scandal is the fact that the Author’s Guild (which represents the other side) is suing Universities for digitally archiving orphaned books. These are books for which the copyright holder cannot be contacted or found after extensive searching.
Walker
@R. Porrofatto:
Which is unlikely. Most books do not earn any real profit that far out. Which is why proposals for pay-to-renew-copyright are the way to go. If the book is valuable, you will pay to renew that copyright. Otherwise, if you fail to pay (or the book is orphaned) the book promptly goes into the public domain where it belongs.
Emma
@Walker: Thank you for this clarification. As a librarian I am amazed at these people suing libraries. The majority of those books never made it to bestsellerdom or even recognition. For every Dickens there were a thousand Smiths, but they deserve their teeny tiny bit of immortality, and until recently only libraries were interested but had little money. Enter Google, hich yes, not perfect blessing, but they’re putting their money where everyone’s mouth is.
ornery
@Walker: Actually, Walker, Author Guild sided with Google in the infringement suit which lost on appeal. As the article says, “Google partnered with many libraries at US universities in order to gain access to the works it wants to digitize.”
And then, Google opened up an online bookstore.
The lie is that it was only ‘orphan’ works; I know because I’m a writer and my first book was scanned within months of publication … then Google/AuthorsGuild set up a fraudulent ‘Book Settlement’ in which I had to specifically use legal representation to OPT OUT. It is unbelievable, and it is an attack on the notion of individual rights in favor of corporate hegemony.
Google and it’s enabling libraries took up the word ‘orphan’ for all works it digitized, WITHOUT attempting to get permission from authors. Again, I’m one, and there are many, many others. The attempt was to redefine the idea that copryright requires specific permission, if Google/AuthorsGuild does it. Google made a play to own all out-of-copyright works, the world’s literature.
deep cap
This is still why getting your work registered with the US Copyright even though technically it is not necessary under the law.
Yes, all authors are given copyright the second they start writing, but you want to make sure that EVERYONE is on notice when you publish otherwise you get abuses like what Google was doing.
Emma
@ornery: this is the first case I’ve heard about that involved someone whose book was within recent copyright. The ones I’ve heard about, and the copyright issues I was involved years ago all dealt with “orphaned” books, meaning books where an author either (1)had no heirs at all or (2)neither author nor heirs could be found. I will say that as far as out-of-copyright books are concerned, Google cannot “own” them. They digitized them and they may have opened a bookstore, but if you go to the Hathi Trust or the Internet Archive, you are likely to find it there, for free. I know because I just made an extensive survey of travel books written by women up to the 1890s and got most of them free from IA or Google.
I’m going to check into this, Ornery. Thank you for bringing a new perspective.
stormhit
@Walker:
Except when the authors can be easily found and contacted by a simple internet search, causing UofM to put the project on hold a couple days ago because of the “number of errors, some of them serious.”
ornery
@Emma: Emma, the people now suing the libraries for digitization are the same parties that fraudulently digitized books, millions of them, and lost their Settlement (ie, AuthorsGuild)
This is a ploy, the idea is to lose and then use that decision to escape legal responsibility for the infringement they were party to. It’s kept convoluted enough to make it hard to see the issues.
It is quite possible to set up a registry of works to keep them available online, without handing them over to a private corporation. Libraries should get the funding to do so, I agree. But public domain works must remain in the public domain, and copyright law for individuals must be protected. Google and AuthorsGuild are being anything but honest players here.
If they were, why did Google not request permission from ANY authors whose work was scanned into their servers?
As for AuthorsGuild, they originally filed suit to stop the infringement, then rec’d a cash advance from Google in the millions to set up the Book Settlement and signed on as partners.
Emma
@ornery: But public domain works must remain in the public domain, and copyright law for individuals must be protected. Well, the second part definitely, but the first part is a given. As I said, I got the books I wanted for free. They were all out of copyright and available in many versions, both from Google and the IA.
Like I said, I’ll check into it. And I’m not surprised UofM put a stop to it. Universities don’t like lawsuits. Well, I suppose if this goes on, the majority of the world’s not-so-great literature will disappear.
mike in dc
In 2019, the works protected by the 1998 CTEA will begin to enter the public domain(and Steamboat Willie will enter PD in 2024), unless there is a further extension passed. We need to make this an issue in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, and also in the mid-terms. Set Mickey Free! We probably can’t rollback copyright terms, but at least we can keep them from getting any longer.
ornery
@deep cap: This is still why getting your work registered with the US Copyright even though technically it is not necessary under the law.
Absolutely! Btw, my work was properly registered with the US Copyright office (and Library of Congress) … Google and the libraries didn’t even try to seek author permission, and egregiously broke the law.
Here’s an author, Ursula K. Le Guin, writing in protest about the original attempted Book Settlement, that outlines the case and the issues: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/GS-Petition.html
R. Porrofatto
@Walker: I wasn’t saying anything about the likelihood of a book that old making money, just that it’s ridiculous that any work could still be under copyright a hundred and fifty years after it was written, especially when such ridiculous privileges aren’t afforded patents. If I remember correctly, pre-Disney lobbybucks, copyright used to be 28 years with one possible extension. That seems more than reasonable to me, but now that corporate greed has its talons so deeply embedded in the issue, we ain’t ever going to revert to anything like it, viz. the Euro example in this post.
Fourten
Why all the concern about copyright extensions? Why not just go create something original instead of waiting to cannibalize someone else’s work for your own profit?
If you really can’t tell your story without a 60+ year old cartoon mouse, then try licensing it.
Walker
@ornery:
I am not talking about Google. I am talking about the lawsuit against independent repositories at Universities.
KCinDC
@Fourten, so how much is Disney paying in royalties to the estates of Victor Hugo and the anonymous folks who created Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and so on? Disney benefits from the public domain but doesn’t want its own creations to be subject to the same rules.
Retroactive extension of copyright doesn’t incentivize creation of new works, which supposed to be the purpose of copyright. You can’t encourage creation of works that have already been created.
deep cap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4&feature=colike
David Fud
@Mistermix:
You need to update your RIAA case. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the entire $675,000 fine after the defendant appealed to overturn the penalty.
31 songs. $675,000. You do the math.
http://www.wbur.org/2011/09/19/student-illegal-downloads
mistermix
@David Fud: You’re right, I fixed it. Thanks.
Fourten
@KCinDC Those descendants, who did not create those fairytales, are more worthy than the company that put resources into them to make them popular again?
Maybe I misunderstand (really) but copyright and copyright extension does increase the incentive to create original content, it makes it even more valuable.
There is an undercurrent in this overall discussion that there is a finite amount of creativity in the world, and that seems cynical. There are plenty of reasons to dislike corporate influences in lawmaking, but this is not a good one.
gorillagogo
I will never understand how this doesn’t constitute an “excessive fine” under the Eighth Amendment
Brian S
@KCinDC: The thing is that Disney doesn’t own the rights to Snow White as a character or as a concept–they only own the rights to “Disney’s Snow White.” Anyone who wants to can repackage the original Snow White story and sell it, just like Disney did.
mike in dc
@Fourten:
The key issue here is a compromise between private incentive to create, and a public interest in a common culture/freely available ideas. At the outset of the US, copyright was for 14 years, renewable for another 14 year term. Then, in the early 20th century, it was upgraded to 28 years, renewable for another 28 year term. So, for the first 100+ years of the republic, 28 years was sufficient incentive. It’s only in the past 35 years that term extensions went a little berserk. The longer you extend the term of copyright, the more material you exclude from entering the public domain.
The most recent extension was challenged by the head of Project Gutenberg, Eric Eldred(RIP), in Eldred v. Ashcroft:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft
There aren’t a finite number of ideas, but consider if copyright were infinite in duration, and applied retroactively–could we ever see “West Side Story” or, for that matter, most of Shakespeare’s plays(which, after all, were frequently based on the previous creative work of someone else)?
mike in dc
@Brian S:
LULZ, yeah, good luck with that. If you happen to try to make a children’s animated feature about Snow White, complete with singing and dwarves, even if the dialogue and designs and music are different, may FSM have mercy on your soul, because no power on earth will save you from the shitstorm of litigation you will face.
Villago Delenda Est
@mike in dc:
“Ricky Raus”, “Monald Muck”
…and Sherry Bobbins!
KCinDC
@Fourten, no, they’re not. Just as the descendants of other authors are not more valuable than people who want to use their creations to create new works. It is right that Victor Hugo’s works have entered the public domain, and Walt Disney’s works should do so as well.
My point about copyright extension, as it applies to existing works, is that those works have already been created. Extending their copyrights does nothing to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”, because those authors, who are dead, aren’t going to create more works because of the extension. It just enriches the corporations that lobbied for it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Fourten:
That involves having creative talent.
Something that MBAs lack.
Brian S
@mike in dc: The concept is still viable as a vehiclenfor films, however, as is shown by three different companies–Disney one of them–with Snow White films in various stages of production right now. They’re live-action, not animated, but they’re all based on the core concept of the Snow White story, and all three companies can do that because the core story is public domain. dwarves singing “heigh ho”? Yeah, Disney owns that. But not Snow White.
ornery
@Walker: I am not talking about Google. I am talking about the lawsuit against independent repositories at Universities.
The parties bringing lawsuit are the *same* interests that joined the Google copyright infringement, suing now over the same issue in an attempt to create a more friendly precedent.
Google’s partner in the infringement, AuthorsGuild, is bringing suit. Google’s name isn’t in the lawsuit but their fingerprints are all over it.
Brian S
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m all for crapping on MBAs, especially since I’m one of those creative types, but let’s also acknowledge that the public isn’t exactly clamoring for original work. If they were, Michael Bay wouldn’t have a job.
Maude
@Brian S:
What about Harry Potter? It’s considered an original work.
Stefan
@Fourten:
Why all the concern about copyright extensions? Why not just go create something original instead of waiting to cannibalize someone else’s work for your own profit?
Pretty much anything Shakespeare ever wrote cannibalized someone else’s work for his own profit. To say nothing of Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus”, Goethe’s “Faust,” James Joyce’s “Ulysses” and “Finnegan’s Wake”, Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”, Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, Pink Floyd’s “Animals”, most everything Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones wrote, most jazz, all of modern hip-hop, etc., etc., etc.
There are very few, if any, truly creative people who create works full-sprung from their own minds; most everyone else builds on and works off of what was done before.
And that’s fine, it’s the way things are done in science, technology, engineering, architecture, etc. There no one demands that creators re-invent the wheel every time and come up with something wholly original; why should it be otherwise for art?
Stefan
@KCinDC:
Retroactive extension of copyright doesn’t incentivize creation of new works, which supposed to be the purpose of copyright. You can’t encourage creation of works that have already been created.
But surely that 20 year old author in R. Porofatto’s example in #3 above wouldn’t have written his novel in 1864 had he not been assured that his great-great grandchildren would still have been able to reap the benefits of his copyright in 2011….
Fourten
First, for that out of nowhere slam on MBAs, I’d crack back that business types are responsible for some serious creativity, just the kind that involves dollars and not singing elves. But as an MBA and a published writer myself, I don’t see them as being mutually exclusive.
Back on subject, if you think corporate types are stifling your creativity because you can’t ape a 500 (or so) year old story, you aren’t trying hard enough. To think that a new story of Snow White could only be of the kind that Disney made (one with singing dwarves, whose song is not part of the original material) is terribly narrow-minded and creatively bankrupt.
Take this example: ask a comics fan what they think about the new network TV dramas about fairytale characters in a modern setting and they’ll sing a different tune about the PD since they are “clearly a ‘rip-off’ of Fables.”
Also to argue that we wouldn’t have “West Side Story” or the like w/o the PD is a non-starter, since we can’t ever know what a world without it would be like. Similarly perhaps something that is beloved now, like Avatar: the Last Airbender (the cartoon version) wouldn’t exist because the creators would have instead made a Mickey Mouse re-imaging.
edit: spelling
Villago Delenda Est
@Brian S:
Hmm, point taken.
The thing is, Hollywood has always been about stealing someone else’s idea and reworking it just enough to avoid legal trouble.
Brian S
@Maude: Harry Potter is original in the sense that it’s those specific characters with their own universe, but it uses tropes that are thousands of years old. That’s why it’s successful–it’s familiar on some level. Look, I like Harry Potter–read all the books, seen all but the last movie (waiting for it to come out on DVD)–but it’s not particularly original, literarily speaking.
Maude
@Brian S:
There’s nothing new under the sun, I know that. You or I didn’t come up with the idea to have Harry go into wizard school and she did. That is original work.
Djur
@Fourten: Yeah, serious creativity. Just ask Ken Lay.
@ornery: Le Guin strikes the right balance on this issue for me. She’s opposed to Google’s blatant disregard for copyright, and she supports copyright as a worthwhile concept. But she’s opposed to the ridiculous extensions of copyright, and favors a return to the original model. The purpose of copyright is twofold: it encourages creative work by giving the creator exclusive rights to their product, and it enriches the public domain by ensuring that those rights are eventually transferred to the people as a whole.
Honestly, the current thought on copyright is clearly that it should be perpetual. I wish Congress would just admit that, instead of passing new extensions every time Steamboat Willie is at risk of entering the public domain.
ornery
@Djur: I completely agree that copyright is being extended ridiculously.
Corporations are both deforming the original purpose of copyright for their own ends and using their immortal resources to ‘punish’ violators … at the same time they are ignoring copyright law when it serves their purpose(the Google/AuthorsGuild case)
mike in dc
The Great Books and Harvard Classics are essentially collections of prominent works in the public domain. Without PD, it would be vastly more difficult(and more expensive) to assemble all the permissions needed to publish such series.
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/whyitmatters
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/EAFAQ.html
CarolDuhart
@Walker: I agree 100%. I would also add a clause that allows for reversion of rights sold back to the author and his/her heirs upon an expiration of time-and if no heirs/author can be found, or if the sum of the years involved add up to a century, the work immediately goes into the public domain.
The reality is,despite Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse, that most works only have real commercial value if created in the last 50-60 years. How many things created in 1941 have more than a nominal value commercially? Under my reversion of rights/orphan works idea, anything 50 years old with no known authors/heirs, any combination of 50 years plus possible age of author that adds up to a century, would make a work automatically public domain. The exceptions would have to make a claim or show further dissemination of the work under the 50 year mark to get an extension.
Example: a book published in 1940. No author is found, and the last copy was published in 1942. Immediately public domain. If the author is/was 20 years old, such an author would have to claim copyright in the next 10 years to retain the rights. Younger heirs can claim the work as long as the combination of their age and the age of the work comes under a century.
But it would have to be an active claim to keep it out of public domain. If there is no one to make an active claim after a reasonable amount of time for notice, a 50 year old work enters the public domain-conditionally for say, 10 years,and irrevocably after 20 years regardless of whether the author/publisher or other is living or not.
joeshabadoo
This is just in Europe.
Disney already did in any sane copyright law in the US a while ago.
When Mickey is back on the chopping block expect it to be extended yet again
Copyright laws stopped having a legitimate purpose ages ago.
As far as I’m concerned even the lifetime of the author is ridiculous and defeats the point of its original purpose which was to promote creativity.