Why I think a 10 year copyright term is too short

[martinbudden]

One of the main reasons for reducing the length of copyright is to redress the imbalance between the media companies on the one hand and the artists and the general public on the other.

Shortening copyright does indeed help correct this imbalance, but if copyright is too short it takes power away from the artists and hands it straight to the media companies.

Shortening copyright enables media companies to exert great power over artists by delaying or threatening to delay. It means the author of a book may get none of the monies from the film of the book (or indeed none of the monies from the increased sales of the book after the film is released). It means songwriters may get none of the monies from the use of their songs on TV, in advertising or in films. It means songwriters may not even be able to stop their songs being used in advertising by companies they disapprove of. It means that open source software looses its protection and has to be dealt with as a special case. It even means the general public may not be able to stop newspapers, magazines and other media using the photos they have posted online.

I'll give some real examples to illustrate the point.

"The Shawshank Redemption", a 1994 film based on the 1982 Stephen King novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption".
It won no oscars, got mixed reviews and brought in a paltry $28.3 million at the box office. "The Shawshank Redemption" was not an instant hit; it gradually rose in popularity over time. It was not in the AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies list in 1998, but achieved 72nd position in the AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) in 2007. In 2006 The Shawshank Redemption was ranked greatest movie of all time in Empire magazine's reader polls.

Under a ten year copyright term, none of the money from the film would have gone to the author of the novella, Stephen King. Under a ten year copyright term much of the money from the film (everything made after 2004) would not have gone to the people who took the artistic and financial risk of making the film.

Now you might argue this doesn't matter: Stephen King was rich anyway by the time he wrote "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption". I don't agree. He might have been a lesser author. This might have been his big break.

Let's look at another 1994 film, "Forrest Gump". This was based on the 1986 novel by Winston Groom. Until the movie was made the novel was little known and had few sales. Under a ten year copyright term the movie company could have easily delayed production of the film by two years and avoided paying anything to the author of the book (no one else was going to snap up the movie rights for such an obscure book). Under a ten year copyright term much of the monies from the increased sales of the book would not have gone to the author.

Let's take the novel "The Catcher in the Rye" by recently deceased author J D Salinger. This was published in 1951, but was not immediately popular. It gained popularity over time, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. Under a ten year copyright the vast majority of the monies from the sale of the book would not have gone to the author. Salinger has also refused anyone the right to make a film of the book. Under a ten year copyright he would not have been able to prevent anyone making a film.

There is the issue of open source software. The Pirate Party has recognised for some time that a shorter copyright will pose problems for open source software (especially software released under licenses such as the GPL), and has proposed special rules for dealing with software. I think this is the wrong approach. In my view, when you start introducing special cases it means there is an underlying problem that has not been addressed. In my view that underlying problem is that a ten year copyright term is too short.

There have been recent cases of media companies using peoples photos without permission. For example, the BBC used two photos from Jared Earle's blog (see: http://blog.23x.net/296/bbc-munchy-box- ... ement.html ). The Independent used one of Pete Zab's photos without permission (see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/petezab/4276745361/ ). ESPN used one of Sherry Martin's photos without permission (see: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site ... ewsLang=en ). Now all of these are recent photos. But with a ten year copyright term it wouldn't be long before newspapers and magazine could legitimately use the older photos that people posted on their blogs and on photo sharing sites.

Copyright protects the "good guys" and the "bad guys". Currently it is too long and gives too much protection to the "bad guys". But make copyright too short and the "good guys" loose their protection as well.

[samgower]

Why should book authors have control over the creation of a film simply because it presents similar ideas? "Because it will make them more money" is not a good enough answer; the authors could have tried to sell the film rights within ten years of publications, but didn't. A shorter copyright length may have persuaded them to act sooner in that regard anyway.

Also, I think your argument regarding OSS is a non-issue. Most OSS projects release (i.e. publish) very often: many projects even release new versions on a daily basis (sometimes known as nightly builds). As I understand it, each release is covered under a new copyright. And the very nature of the GPL and other open source licenses (case in point, the MIT license) is copyleft anyway.

[scuzzmonkey]

i agree with this in a sense of books converted to films - purely because it really isn't fair if some multi-national film studio scalps some authors work.

[cc]

I agree with Martin's assessment.

I would add that copyright is meant as a means for content creators to capitalise on their work, which gives them a monetary incentive to create in the first place. If copyright becomes too long, creators have no reason to create as they keep making money on existing works, and conversely if it becomes too short they have no reason to create as they will think it's not worth their effort.

Could the problems you mention be solved by using different copyright lengths for movies/binaries vs books/movie scripts/source code?

[martinbudden]

@samgower:

If you don't believe that a book author should have any rights over a film based on that book then my arguments about films are, of course, irrelevant. I don't share your point of view.

On the subject of OSS - it's not my argument. Richard Stallman has written on the issue: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html. The Pirate Party, as I mentioned, has recognised the issue, there are many threads discussing how to protect OSS, for example: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=402. OSS is certainly not a "non-issue".

[martinbudden]

Could the problems you mention be solved by using different copyright lengths for movies/binaries vs books/movie scripts/source code?

As I mentioned in my post, good law captures the underlying problem. If a law has special cases then it indicates that it has not captured the underlying issue. So no, I don't think the right way to solve the problem is to have differing copyright lengths for different media. (In this case there's also the practical issue of how to produce a comprehensive list that unambiguously deals with all existing and future media types.)

[rancidpunk]

Inferring that artists only create for the financial rewards offered is surely more likely to be the attitude of the company that is marketing the creation and stands to make most of the money, as opposed to artists creating art for arts sake?

The recent Christmas battle between the X factor winner, a product created by the media industry purely to make money, and RATM, their song written to protest against racism are good examples of the sort of thing I'm on about. I know that they both made money for the same company and that is part of the problem with the large companies owning artists copyrights. If we have to keep copyright why could it not be made non transferable from the original creator and then the media industry would have to work for the artist instead of seeing the works created as treated as a commodity to be squeezed for as much profit as possible before their monopoly runs out.

[cc]

Thinking about it now, a film derived from a novel may not be a matter of copyright, but more likely a matter of trademarks. No copies of the book are being made when it's adapted into a movie, but the movie will most likely infringe on a trademarked title, characters, etc. I'm no lawyer, so I might be wrong -- whatever the case, your points still stand.

As I mentioned in my post, good law captures the underlying problem. If a law has special cases then it indicates that it has not captured the underlying issue. So no, I don't think the right way to solve the problem is to have differing copyright lengths for different media. (In this case there's also the practical issue of how to produce a comprehensive list that unambiguously deals with all existing and future media types.)

One possible idea would be to suggest a "lifecycle" for content. e.g. a period of X years of traditional copyright or some other weakened version, followed by a period of Y years of copyrighted-for-commercial-purposes-only, and then public domain, where X is something like 5 to 15 and Y is possibly life-of-author.

[cc]

Inferring that artists only create for the financial rewards offered is surely more likely to be the attitude of the company that is marketing the creation and stands to make most of the money, as opposed to artists creating art for arts sake?

It's a good enough assumption, though. We live in a capitalist country, and I see nothing wrong with artists making money (and/or a living) off their art, don't you agree?

The recent Christmas battle between the X factor winner, a product created by the media industry purely to make money, and RATM, their song written to protest against racism are good examples of the sort of thing I'm on about. I know that they both made money for the same company and that is part of the problem with the large companies owning artists copyrights. If we have to keep copyright why could it not be made non transferable from the original creator and then the media industry would have to work for the artist instead of seeing the works created as treated as a commodity to be squeezed for as much profit as possible before their monopoly runs out.

I support that, and recommend we consider adding it to the manifesto (as well as other stuff from the Featured Artists' Coalition).

[samgower]

If you don't believe that a book author should have any rights over a film based on that book then my arguments about films are, of course, irrelevant. I don't share your point of view.

I can assure you that there are plenty of members who will adopt the "tough luck" approach to your argument. To develop your ideas into party policy, you will need to convince us.

On the subject of OSS - it's not my argument. Richard Stallman has written on the issue: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html. The Pirate Party, as I mentioned, has recognised the issue, there are many threads discussing how to protect OSS, for example: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=402. OSS is certainly not a "non-issue".

RMS's point isn't that 5 years of copyright is too short, it's that proprietary source code will not be released after this time. It would be a one-way street: proprietary developers could use previously copylefted code, but open source developers would not be able to use proprietary code.

So what would be the effect of terminating this program's copyright after 5 years? This would not require the developer to release source code, and presumably most will never do so. Users, still denied the source code, would still be unable to use the program in freedom. The program could even have a “time bomb” in it to make it stop working after 5 years, in which case the “public domain” copies would not run at all.

Thus, the Pirate Party's proposal would give proprietary software developers the use of GPL-covered source code after 5 years, but it would not give free software developers the use of proprietary source code, not after 5 years or even 50 years. The Free World would get the bad, but not the good. The difference between source code and object code and the practice of using EULAs would give proprietary software an effective exception from the general rule of 5-year copyright — one that free software does not share.

[...]

I could support a law that would make GPL-covered software's source code available in the public domain after 5 years, provided it has the same effect on proprietary software's source code. After all, copyleft is a means to an end (users' freedom), not an end in itself. And I'd rather not be an advocate for a stronger copyright.

So I proposed that the Pirate Party platform require proprietary software's source code to be put in escrow when the binaries are released. The escrowed source code would then be released in the public domain after 5 years. Rather than making free software an official exception to the 5-year copyright rule, this would eliminate proprietary software's unofficial exception. Either way, the result is fair.

This 'escrow' idea was adopted by the copyright working group and their report was okayed by RMS himself, despite some suggestions (I believe the report/emails are available on the wiki/forum, respectively).

[rancidpunk]

It's a good enough assumption, though. We live in a capitalist country, and I see nothing wrong with artists making money (and/or a living) off their art, don't you agree?

I completely agree, further to that I feel that an artist should be allowed to grant the licence to market their work to as many companies as they see fit to and then each company would be subject to the same market forces that products are subject to in a capitalist country.

The company that produces the best value version of that product will make the most profit instead of one company being able to charge what they like for low quality product because nobody else is allowed to sell it.

We, the consumers, will benefit from such competition and the artist will reap the financial rewards. I can't help feeling that treating creative works the same as any other product is the way to go, as at present our arguments against copyright can be countered by the media industry with artistic arguments and commercial ones.

[cc]

I completely agree, further to that I feel that an artist should be allowed to grant the licence to market their work to as many companies as they see fit to and then each company would be subject to the same market forces that products are subject to in a capitalist country.

The company that produces the best value version of that product will make the most profit instead of one company being able to charge what they like for low quality product because nobody else is allowed to sell it.

We, the consumers, will benefit from such competition and the artist will reap the financial rewards. I can't help feeling that treating creative works the same as any other product is the way to go, as at present our arguments against copyright can be countered by the media industry with artistic arguments and commercial ones.

I agree, though I'm skeptical about having these companies promote the same content at the same time and place (the smaller labels will be completely out-marketed by giants like Warner music, for example).

I think they should compete for the attention of artists instead, and the artists should not sign away their rights, should be able to pull out of a contract they don't like at any time, and should not sign exclusive deals for a X number of albums.

[rancidpunk]

Conversely, a small company like Hellcat Records, which always manages to undercut the bigger labels on their cd's, could then sell mp3 downloads cheaper as well.

Wouldn't you just love to see a price war between the likes of Warner and Sony over the price of digital downloads? Could only be good for the customer and the artist.

[JohnB]

This 'escrow' idea was adopted by the copyright working group and their report was okayed by RMS himself, despite some suggestions (I believe the report/emails are available on the wiki/forum, respectively).

Yes, that's correct, and the history of discussion is available as described. However, the escrow idea was subsequently rejected by the Pirate membership (very valid reasons being posted in the threads on that), due to pragmatic, rather than principled, reasons.

Therefore the subsequent proposals focused on pragmatic approaches giving open source vs closed source a temporary advantage, not as "clean" in a principled sense, but also in accord with an alternative we would expect the FSF to endorse. We haven't, to my knowledge, had direct contact with RMS or the free software movement on that since, although that is not too difficult to achieve if we assign that task (pending manifesto completion) accordingly.

[DavidMWW]

I agree with Martin's post. 10 years is much too short. This policy will alienate artists.

To a novelist, a book is like a child. You can't take their child away from them at the age of 5 years, or 10, to do with what you want! It is an outrage. They will fight you tooth and nail.

If there was no reasonable length of copyright (and I don't think a lifetime is unreasonable), many creators would be literally afraid to publish their work. Years of sweat and pain only to have their baby thrown into the public domain? No thanks.

As far as money is concerned - it is a rare thing for someone to create something of beauty and lasting value to the world. Why shouldn't they continue to reap the benefits for as long as people derive pleasure from it?

I agree with just about everything else in the manifesto. But not this.

[cc]

If there was no reasonable length of copyright (and I don't think a lifetime is unreasonable), many creators would be literally afraid to publish their work. Years of sweat and pain only to have their baby thrown into the public domain? No thanks.

The essence of the entire debate is that there must be a balance between how long the authors can keep a monopoly on how their work is copied, and when it's fair to release it in the public domain for everyone to enjoy. I agree that 5 or 10 years is too short, but also believe anything >25 years to be too long.

Notice that the Pirate Party UK wants to reform copyright, but not trademarks. That is, authors will still be able to retain exclusivity on how their worlds and characters are used almost indefinitely (using trademarks), however the copyrights on the books themselves will eventually expire. This is to force creators to keep creating, rater than sit back and enjoy royalties without contributing anything new.

For example, J.K. Rowling will be able to have a trademark on Harry Potter, so no-one will be able to write a new for-profit Harry Potter book without her permission, however the books she's written will eventually enter the public domain. If she wants to keep making money off Harry Potter, she'll either need to license her characters to make movies etc, or she'll need to write more books.

As far as money is concerned - it is a rare thing for someone to create something of beauty and lasting value to the world. Why shouldn't they continue to reap the benefits for as long as people derive pleasure from it?

It is a rare thing indeed, and that's why we shouldn't lock it up behind a paywall! Everything created in the last 100 years cannot be accessed without paying someone a fee, and if the publishers have their way that'll become 1000 years. We have the technology to make all that culture available to everyone with a computer and an internet connection -- rich or poor -- at virtually no cost, and as far as I can see it's not the authors nor the commons who benefit from delaying it.

[philward]

Apologies for not reading through this whole discussion before replying. This is simply a reply to the title. A 10 year copyright is too long. While we are proposing a reformation rather than abolition of copyright, there are some of us in the party who view this as a compromise.
Ideally we would like to see the end of copyright altogether. If you think that's too extreme than have a look at this article:
What We Lose When We Embrace Copyright.

[philward]

Having spent some time to read this thread I feel I need to address some of the assumptions in the original post.

Firstly the author assumes that if a work is out of copyright then the author will no longer receive money for the work. This is just wrong. Free distribution does not necessarily mean no income. If you have a means of distributing your work in such a way that it is easy to obtain and those who receive it have an easy way to pay you for it then the money can keep rolling in perpetually. If Stephen King wants to make money from The Shawshank Redemption after a short copyright term has expired then he can arrange for showings of the movie which are followed by a sort lecture from himself about how the story came about. Fans would choose that showing of the movie over others. This is just one example of how enterprising creators can make money from their work, even if copyright does not exist on them. Authors who rest on their laurels and expect money to keep coming in can get stuffed. Money comes to those who work for it, not to those who do a small amount of work hoping that this will be the next big earner.

The author also mentions J.D. Salinger. He refused the right to make a movie out of the book. He has also successfully managed to squash a novel by Frederik Colting which is an unauthorised sequel to Catcher in the Rye.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/ ... ight-suit/
Squashing movies and sequels is not copyright protection. It is censorship. What right does Salinger have to tell me that I am not allowed to read Colting's book?

Copyright is the new slavery and our reduction of copyright is a step along the path to abolition. The world will be a better place without it.

[DavidMWW]

It is clear that current copyright law is out of control, and sorely in need of reform to keep up with new technology. Its scope needs to be limited, and insurances regarding fair use, copying and privacy need to be put in place.

However, the total abolition of copyright as advocated by Colligan in "What we lose.." strikes me as an extreme knee-jerk response prompted by the current mismatch of law and technology which threatens online freedom and privacy.

Yes online freedom and privacy are important - indeed, the raison d'etre of the Pirate Party - but so is art. And I detect a strong undercurrent of philistinism in the abolitionist case.

The abolitionists want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and then crack its nut with a sledgehammer.

Whatever the original reasons for the existence of copyright (and it is not clear what that is from Colligan's article, as he changes it to suit the argument he is using), the fact is that it is the best method we have ever devised to encourage and reward artists.

That is where the biggest gap in Colligan's article lies - how to reward art. His main answer is to point back to the 19th century and beyond. Not exactly progressive, is it? We should be able in the 21st century to devise a way to reward and encourage art without returning to the old system of patronage, or requiring artists to act as performing monkeys to earn a living.

An intelligently devised and fairly applied copyright rewards the artist in the most meritocratic way. It is only possible for him to "rest on his laurels" if his work is of good enough quality to allow that. If people stop buying it, he stops getting royalties. And if it rankles with a few nine-to-fivers that a person can make a living out of a single, brilliant work then tough - make a brilliant work yourself.

The Pirate Party's proposals to limit copyright to 5 or 10 years appears to be a compromise between the copyright revisionists and the "get a proper job" brigade. As such, it doesn't really satisfy anyone.

The ORG take a much more thoughtful and nuanced approach in their EU Copyright Reflection Paper. Something like this, combined with a promotion of the Creative Commons movement, seems to me to be the most sensible way for the PP to proceed.

It is all about how much value you place on art. We'll never get any support from artists by pushing an "all your work are belong to us" policy. Rightly so, imo.

Authors who rest on their laurels and expect money to keep coming in can get stuffed.

I do like this. Maybe it could be a slogan for the abolitionists?

[DavidMWW]

BTW, Copyright is the New Slavery is possibly the crassest piece of polemic I have ever read. Copyright = slave ownership? Jesus H Christ.

Read it and puke:

The very existence of institutionalized slavery in the U.S. goads us to question how it was possible, and ask ourselves how we would have behaved in a slave society. What would we have done if we had been slaves? Would we have risked our lives to gain freedom? What if we had owned slaves? Would we have freed them? Would we have risked our own safety to help the enslaved gain freedom? Or would we have labeled antislavery activists as extremists, as excessively sentimental, irrational, and emotional? Would we have maintained the status quo, or tried to change it? How much would we have been willing to risk to do the right thing? These questions should haunt us. We can't go back in time to find out, but we can look at ourselves today and wonder, How will the future judge us?

Somebody needs to get a bit of moral perspective.