One could claim that if an artist makes a song when they're 25, they're still entitled to some cut of any profits made on its sale when they're 75. I think that's fair, and the life + x years rule allows an artist to enjoy the full benefits of their work, and eventually handing it over to the public after they're gone.
OTOH, the "happy birthday" song is really, really, simple and short (the text contains five words, and the music is only slightly more complex). It's valued not because of any inherent value, but because of its "cultural attachment" (a phrase I just made up, don't shoot me...), which the author has had nothing to do with.
Intuitively it seems like something that's extremely simple should have less of a government-granted monopoly than something that's extremely long and complex ("War and Peace").
Five years for something like this, maybe? That lets ditty-writers cash in on any fortuitous fads they manage to stumble into, but doesn't bog down our culture in molasses...
I think this approach actually disregards the original purpose of copyrights. To judge its importance before it has the opportunity to realise any cultural impact would be a pretty biased approach; since word length, or duration, or simplicity of the music, doesn't necessary mean it won't have an impact, as "Happy Birthday" clearly shows.
But as I said, "cultural impact" in this case seems to really have little to with any inherent value in the song, and stems mostly from the actions of society rather than the song's author.
Why should the author reap the benefits, at the expense of society, when the author didn't actually contribute much?
What a ridiculous argument. The author contributed the tune, It's a cheesy tune, but it's clearly enormously popular. You're basically arguing that if enough people like something they should just get it for free.
Now copyright terms are a separate issue, I think they should be substantially abridged. I'm just pointing out that society hasn't taken any action that could be construed as authorship.
> The author contributed the tune, It's a cheesy tune, but it's clearly enormously popular. You're basically arguing that if enough people like something they should just get it for free.
I'm saying that the reason why it's popular doesn't obviously have much to with the tune itself. Popularity is often pretty arbitrary.
This sort of intellectual property law is intended to (1) provide incentive for people to put the work into being creative, because that benefits society, and (2) satisfy intuitive notions of fairness (if somebody puts a great deal of effort into something, people feel that he "deserves" some reward from that).
For trivial works, neither (1) nor (2) is really justified: There's no significant effort to reward, society does not benefit significantly from it (because in such cases popularity does not stem from the work itself, any other work would have served just as well), and intuitive notions of fairness do not tend to consider great reward from little effort as justified.
I don't see why a lifelong monopoly is required for the artist to receive the "full benefits" of their work. This discussion is about what legal options should be available to retain those benefits.
Here's the thing with copyright: it's a bargain between the public (IP consumers) and the authors (IP creators). The public wants new creative works and has recognized that some legal protection is needed to make these profitable, but when you share an idea and the public adopts it into their culture, it is no longer the author's thing. We grant a limited monopoly on copyrighted works so that authors can make a living and produce good stuff for us, and authors accept this aware that their publication will eventually into the public domain for free sharing, cultural commentary, etc.
First, it's important to recognize that a copyright is a monopoly. You don't technically need a copyright to make money -- it's just a temporary thing we provide to ensure that artists have ample time to recoup their investments. Original authors can continue to create products off of those IPs after the copyright has lapsed, and they can continue to sell and profit off of these; they just won't be able to stop anyone else from using the same IP.
Second, the need for authors to be profitable is well recognized today, but the other end of the bargain is neglected. Ideas are free and they do not belong to people. "Intellectual property" is really a misnomer -- ideas cannot be held or controlled like property can. They have a very different nature. If your creation gets any semblance of recognition, people will modify, alter, suggest, revise, expand, and otherwise build upon your ideas. When you publish something, it's not just yours anymore. Expansion and development and commentary are natural human activities that are impossible to prevent. Sharing and communication is everything to us, and copyrights restrict this free osmosis in a rather severe fashion.
Copyright is conceived to ensure an author can be profitable, so that more art comes out. Long copyright terms are seriously harmful because instead of encouraging new development from creative persons and/or those close to them, a successful copyright holder will be provided ample money for several lifetimes, and the monopolistic grasp that forces ALL revenue to go into their pockets propagates through the generations (right now, some copyrights could last 200+ years). Meanwhile, innocent parties attempting to expand on the copyrighted material and share in that natural human impulse for discussion and improvement, potentially contributing major social value to this cultural element, are hounded and threatened by aggressive lawyers. Does this promote useful progress in science and the arts? Does this represent the bargain that is meant to be recognized when a copyright is granted?
I don't think copyright should exceed 20 years. Ideally I'd like to see default 5-year terms with four optional 5-year extensions. This makes it so there is still plenty of opportunity to collect revenues that are beyond reasonable, but copyrighted material will lapse into the public domain sometime when someone still living will care about the contributions that others may make. It opens up a whole new world of cultural richness, encourages creativity in expansion of old properties and the development of new properties, allows the author to obtain huge financial benefit (which they can continue to compete for once the IP goes public domain), and is fair and courteous to the public's requirement that their culture not be held hostage by a bunch of suits (lawyers, executives).
Again, I don't see why we need to perpetuate the myth that one useful positive contribution should entitle the contributor to a lifetime of exclusive control and revenue. That is not fair.
when you share an idea and the public adopts it into their culture, it is no longer the author's thing
Yes it is, and one of the major failings of US copyright law is that it doesn't require the original author to be acknowledged.
a successful copyright holder will be provided ample money for several lifetimes
Most copyright holders don't enjoy anything like that degree of financial reward. You're basing your entire argument on the tiny percentage of artists that make it big and get very rich. What about the much larger percentage that just scrape by, or who don't enjoy any success for years before enjoying modest success? This is a far more common pattern in the arts.
>Yes it is, and one of the major failings of US copyright law is that it doesn't require the original author to be acknowledged.
This position does not make any sense to me at all. If you think something up, you deserve some credit, but all the thought and investment that others put in using that concept as a base or jumping off point is surely more extensive if you get any significant recognition. Why is the single concept of the author greater than anything it's capable of spawning? Why shouldn't those greater ideas be allowed to propagate and flow organically? Why is the author entitled to constant, perpetual control and flow over this work which they chose to publish publicly, aware of the human impulse to remix, experiment, and learn freely without artificial limitation? Giving the author a fair head start is great, but we need to be careful not to make the system too unnatural and one-sided here.
>What about the much larger percentage that just scrape by, or who don't enjoy any success for years before enjoying modest success? This is a far more common pattern in the arts.
What about them? If there is no demand for their work, a copyright won't do them much good. In fact, if their work enters the public domain it may get additional exposure, which in the long run may be more beneficial to their career than keeping each piece under lock and key for 100+ years from the date of publication.
Actually there are plenty of artists whose livelihood isn't about appealing to 100 million people and making fat cash. They release one work, and the 1000 or 10000 fans earn them $100 a month on that work. Then another work earns them another $100 a month. Eventually, after 20 years of carrying a day job to support their art, they're bringing in enough residuals that they can quit the day job and spend more time doing what they want to do.
These people are the long tail of the art/music/cinema worlds, and destroying their mechanism of compensation will make for a poorer world. Lifetime of author+0 is perfect. Protecting income sources for the children on the author doesn't encourage new art.
The original author will continue to be allowed to make money -- they will just no longer have a monopoly on doing so. The cold hard facts are that if you're not able to make something profitable within five years from its publication, you're not providing a service that the market finds adequately valuable. Do we keep startups with 1000 or 10,000 users/fans around to flounder until the proprietor has made enough startups that the small monthly residuals compound to a livable income?
Copyright is a gift which the public offers to encourage useful, meaningful art. To give it an extra, unnatural profit incentive at the expense of free culture, collaboration, and idea proliferation. We should be very careful re: how much of this we're willing to give away. Right now, we give entirely too much.
The original author will continue to be allowed to make money -- they will just no longer have a monopoly on doing so.
Tee hee, good luck with that business model.
The cold hard facts are that if you're not able to make something profitable within five years from its publication, you're not providing a service that the market finds adequately valuable.
And we all know that the market (especially in the arts) is always right, because no successful work has ever languished in obscurity for years before finding an audience, right?
Er, wrong. In the film industry, establishing your ownership of a screenplay means registering with the Writer's Guild of America and/or the Library of Congress copyright registrar - many production companies won't even look at an unregistered script because of the potential for costly litigation if a dispute arises over authorship. But it's quite common for scripts to bounce around Hollywood for a long time before getting turned into a movie, often over a decade. This is referred to in the industry as 'development hell' because it's frustrating and financially draining for everyone involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_hell
I'm pretty sure that similar problems exist in the music industry, the art world and so on. There's a truism that being an overnight success in the entertainment business takes at least 10 years, but under your proposal the copyright holder that finally makes it after years of trying is likely to find that they don't have any saleable rights in their prior work any more.
