"Taking Back Harry Potter" and Copyright (1 Viewer)

Steve R.

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One of my daughters sent the YouTube video below. It's an excellent copyright summary.
The issue of copyright periodically pops-up here in this forum. Below are some links to various threads which have have mentioned copyright in some manner.
While the video above, is focused on Harry Potter; it also dips into Disney's attempts to perpetually aggrandize the reach and scope of copyright. This video also covers a several aspects that tend to be "lost" in the most copyright discussions. One is the role of fandom, which could be considered a form of unpaid labor in generating support for an authors product. Another "lost" discussion, is that copyright provides "protection" for a content creator to generate new content in the future, yet copyright extends beyond the death of the creator. So how do they generate new content from the grave? The video hypothesizes that an optimum copyright period is approximately two years based on market dynamics.

 

The_Doc_Man

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As an amateur writer in the USA, I feel that copyrights - as currently implemented - are not that bad. Your suggested "two year" limit is WAY too short, and here is why: I have a series of characters that recur in my novels but it took me much more than two years to generate the first five novels. Without USA literary copyright being at 171/2 years (renewable once), it would have been possible for a knock-off writer to generate stories that claimed to be "canon" in my series yet would conflict with the broader sweep of my set of connected stories. Used to be 35 years renewable once, but the USA Copyright Law of 1975 cut that in half. The problem is "purity of product." I am writing stories with my characters doing what my imagination says they are doing. But with a shorter copyright protection period, some Johnny-come-lately could kill off one of my key characters and confuse my readership (ok... if I had any readers. Maybe one day?)

I once looked into writing Star Trek novels and also Star Wars novels. While such novels were permitted, the copyright rules were firmly in place and there were literally PAGES of rules (from the owning authorities) about what you could and could not do in those contexts. Again, looking towards purity of product. Which is why I finally picked my own fantasy venue and history for the settings of the stories I wanted to tell. If you can't protect the purity of your stories, you get the same result that you get now with knock-off jeans, fake brand-name purses, counterfeit watches, etc. No quality control whatsoever.

The idea that copyright protection continues after death of the writer is more about protecting the writer's estate from being watered down by a pile of unscrupulous copy-cats. Why have a longer copyright?
A. Protect my from someone interfering with my future creative process
B. Protect what is already written from someone trying to make a buck off of my work.

Granted - if I die, (A) goes away. But if I had lived, my family would have benefited indirectly under (B), and copyright laws allow those benefits to continue through my estate after I'm gone.

Thought you should hear a response from someone who actually is familiar with the process of creating literary works. And, for what it is worth, the music industry has similar setups.

One last comment, as a change of pace: Pirated software is also a copyright violation that cheats the original developers out of income. BUT there is a second facet to it. Pirated software, if identified, will not be serviced. Part of your purchase price for the fully licensed product indemnifies the vendor's service department.

That is one reason why the U.S. Navy absolutely required genuine supported versions of every software utility we didn't develop locally. They had a rule that we had to have SOMEONE whose feet could be held to a fire in order to assure that they would fix what was broken. (For the local stuff, they had us poor wage slaves to fix things.) That meant, among other things, that we needed special waivers for anything that was considered "Open Source" - and those waivers were harder to get than hen's teeth.
 

Steve R.

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Your suggested "two year" limit is WAY too short, and here is why: I have a series of characters that recur in my novels but it took me much more than two years to generate the first five novels.
I'm OK with the copyright period being restored to 14 years as originally implemented in 1790. I did not suggest a "two year" limit. I wrote: "The video hypothesizes that an optimum copyright period is approximately two years based on market dynamics." The basis for that two year copyright limit is that the effective monetary life of the content is around two years. I find that suggestion to be enticing and worthy of future consideration.

Granted - if I die, (A) goes away. But if I had lived, my family would have benefited indirectly under (B), and copyright laws allow those benefits to continue through my estate after I'm gone.
From Wikipedia:
Unfortunately, using copyright to protect one's estate is not a legitimate justification for extending the "life" of copyright. It also runs counter to the purpose of copyright which is to promote new creative content promoting art and culture. Convincing arguments have been made that excessive copyright actually hinders the creation of new innovative content.

Moreover, copyright is for a "limited time". The concept of "limited time" can be subjective, so one can argue about 2 years and 14 years; but it gets to be a bit absurd to allow copyright to extend beyond the death of the author since the author is no longer is a position to "create" and would stretch the concept of "limited time" to an unreasonable level.


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The_Doc_Man

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Unfortunately, using copyright to protect one's estate is not a legitimate justification for extending the "life" of copyright.

but it gets to be a bit absurd to allow copyright to extend beyond the death of the author since the author is no longer is a position to "create" and would stretch the concept of "limited time" to an unreasonable level.

If the concept of "estate" has any legal meaning whatsoever, then there is no absurdity except in your mind. And I'm not talking about extending it beyond the term it would have if I survive. I'm instead saying don't TRUNCATE it; just let it run its natural course. No extension; just no truncation.

If I live through the lifetime of the copyright, I and my family benefit financially from my intellectual property. If I don't, my family still gets to enjoy the benefits of items in my estate that return royalties or dividends - and that should include intellectual works as well as real estate and corporate stock. All can be legally owned and legally inherited. Or do you want to overturn property laws?

Look at the music industry. Now I'll give you one example that will probably frost your cookies. If you wanted to put on a play written by Gilbert and Sullivan from the 1890s, you STILL pay royalties to D'Oyly Carte (once a person's name; now a corporation) that owns their international copyrights. You do the math on duration of copyright.
 

Steve R.

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I will reiterate, copyright is meant to exist for a finite period of time to provide the content creator with a limited monopoly to make a few $$ before the content falls into the public domain. There is no suggestion that the copyright privilege would extend beyond the author/inventor. It is in the national interest that content eventually enters the public domain. It is not a perpetual property right.

U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8).
 

The_Doc_Man

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And I reiterate that I wasn't suggesting infinite copyright duration. I simply do not think there is a need to terminate copyright on the death of the work's creator. Let it run its course. Then, OF COURSE it would enter public domain. I don't give a rat's patoot what any article says about the effective lifetime of copyright effectiveness. THAT idea is just corporate greed trying to cash in on someone else's work. I'll have nothing to do with such an obviously self-serving idea.

(Do you get the hint that I feel strongly about this?)
 

The_Doc_Man

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This usually results in a cat who proves who owns the house and whose presence is merely tolerated.
 

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