It's worth watching this video in general, but I've linked to a specific point (if the video doesn't start at 16:24, then skip forward to there) where they present some really surprising data: in general, book publishers stop publishing books after between 10 and 20 years. What this means is that if you want to find a book published 20-40 years ago, you're probably not going to find it unless it's one of the few books that either was made into a movie or is required for some college coursework. Want to find William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic? Sure, that had some big budget actors in the film adaptation, but Connie Willis's Fire Watch? Yeah so, how about a Kindle version? And that's the lucky ones that are available as ebooks! Many are simply lost.
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Copyright again: 15 years may be the sweet spot
It's worth watching this video in general, but I've linked to a specific point (if the video doesn't start at 16:24, then skip forward to there) where they present some really surprising data: in general, book publishers stop publishing books after between 10 and 20 years. What this means is that if you want to find a book published 20-40 years ago, you're probably not going to find it unless it's one of the few books that either was made into a movie or is required for some college coursework. Want to find William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic? Sure, that had some big budget actors in the film adaptation, but Connie Willis's Fire Watch? Yeah so, how about a Kindle version? And that's the lucky ones that are available as ebooks! Many are simply lost.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Obamacare has to go
I think most Americans will agree with me that Obamacare needs to go. It's a dangerous and uncertain plan that looms over American businesses at a time when this country needs growth in order to extract itself from a terrible financial crisis. However, I also think that the majority of Americans understand that the status quo in healthcare isn't working, and we need to fix it. Thankfully, we don't need anything as radical as Obamacare in order to fix it.
The problem with our current health care system is that it pretends not to be a universal health care solution, but it actually tries to function as one. Medicare acts as a catch-all, paying for those who cannot afford health care when they are brought to an emergency room. Sounds reasonable, since that's a life-or-death decision, but in reality, people who can't afford coverage wait until their conditions are life threatening, and then the go to the emergency room, there to be covered by Medicare. They don't do this because they want to live off of the public dole, but because it's the only option they have.
So we end up paying far more in emergency room expenses than we would otherwise (vastly more) because these patients can't afford the cheaper coverage before hand that would let them see an out-patient doctor for an infection or broken bone.
Obamacare tries to patch this up by intruding into people's lives with a giant government plan. Instead, what we need is to involve the free market. Open up options to people to allow them to subscribe to the plan of their choice where they can afford it and to provide some kind of market-sourced solution, not a giant government bureaucracy, when they can't. To help individuals to work together to get costs down, we can leverage employers by having larger employers who can already afford insurance, subscribe to the plan of their choice from the provider of their choice. Again, the market will solve an awful lot of these problems for us.
For smaller employers, we need to remain hands-off so that they have the chance to grow and flourish to become the Googles or the Amazons of tomorrow!
There are some other concerns. No matter what side of the abortion issue you're on, I think it's fair to say that Americans are divided enough that our national health care strategy should't go to pay for it. Resolving contentious issues should never be done through giant bureaucracies!
Also, the existing Medicare system should be modified to work more closely with this new, market-driven plan. That allows the government to save a substantial amount of money on Medicare and transition those services to the lower-overhead system.
To everyone who's giving me an "amen" on this anti-Obamacare rant, I'd just like to say one thing: I kind of lied. The above is a description of the Obama Health Care Plan. All of the cries of "uncertainty" and "government takeover of health care" are basically just a smoke screen to prevent you from thinking rationally about what is really the only rational solution for a country that is so heavily invested in the idea of the free market. If that were not the case, we could cut costs and improve quality of care by going to a Canadian or British single-payer model, but there's no sense pushing such a model in the U.S. right now.
The limitation of the Obama plan is that it doesn't really address many of the outstanding issues with Medicare and Medicaid coverage, but that makes it an incomplete plan, not a useless one.
If you want to understand the Obamacare plan better, and really have a handle on where it does and doesn't live up to what we should expect, see my previous article about the bill before it became law.
The problem with our current health care system is that it pretends not to be a universal health care solution, but it actually tries to function as one. Medicare acts as a catch-all, paying for those who cannot afford health care when they are brought to an emergency room. Sounds reasonable, since that's a life-or-death decision, but in reality, people who can't afford coverage wait until their conditions are life threatening, and then the go to the emergency room, there to be covered by Medicare. They don't do this because they want to live off of the public dole, but because it's the only option they have.
So we end up paying far more in emergency room expenses than we would otherwise (vastly more) because these patients can't afford the cheaper coverage before hand that would let them see an out-patient doctor for an infection or broken bone.
Obamacare tries to patch this up by intruding into people's lives with a giant government plan. Instead, what we need is to involve the free market. Open up options to people to allow them to subscribe to the plan of their choice where they can afford it and to provide some kind of market-sourced solution, not a giant government bureaucracy, when they can't. To help individuals to work together to get costs down, we can leverage employers by having larger employers who can already afford insurance, subscribe to the plan of their choice from the provider of their choice. Again, the market will solve an awful lot of these problems for us.
For smaller employers, we need to remain hands-off so that they have the chance to grow and flourish to become the Googles or the Amazons of tomorrow!
There are some other concerns. No matter what side of the abortion issue you're on, I think it's fair to say that Americans are divided enough that our national health care strategy should't go to pay for it. Resolving contentious issues should never be done through giant bureaucracies!
Also, the existing Medicare system should be modified to work more closely with this new, market-driven plan. That allows the government to save a substantial amount of money on Medicare and transition those services to the lower-overhead system.
To everyone who's giving me an "amen" on this anti-Obamacare rant, I'd just like to say one thing: I kind of lied. The above is a description of the Obama Health Care Plan. All of the cries of "uncertainty" and "government takeover of health care" are basically just a smoke screen to prevent you from thinking rationally about what is really the only rational solution for a country that is so heavily invested in the idea of the free market. If that were not the case, we could cut costs and improve quality of care by going to a Canadian or British single-payer model, but there's no sense pushing such a model in the U.S. right now.
The limitation of the Obama plan is that it doesn't really address many of the outstanding issues with Medicare and Medicaid coverage, but that makes it an incomplete plan, not a useless one.
If you want to understand the Obamacare plan better, and really have a handle on where it does and doesn't live up to what we should expect, see my previous article about the bill before it became law.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The public domain and why it's important
I've been thinking a lot about the public domain ever since I wrote my proposal for a reform of copyright law in the United States. In that proposal I discussed the value of allowing works to expire (I set a time frame of 30 years, but that number is arbitrary; the important element is the expiration), but I continue to hear corporations who own copyrights "explain" how their business will be in ruin, should their works expire, fueling the continued extension of copyright terms each time they are about to expire. But, this fails to explain why the public domain was considered valuable enough to enrich with expired works in the first place. What is it that we, the public and the creators of new works derive from copyright expiration and the public domain?
When we discuss the public domain today, it can be difficult to understand its true value because so few works expire today. However, the works which have already expired have had a deep impact on our modern culture. One need look no further than Walt Disney Corporation's success in adapting public domain works such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland, and The Jungle Book. How is it, then, that we continue to argue that copyright terms must be extended in order to protect our cultural heritage? Is it possible that such examples are just outliers and the public domain doesn't actually benefit the public and our culture? Hardly. In order to illustrate that point, let me provide a few examples:
It's likely impossible to fully account for the impact of William Shakespeare in modern culture. Hamlet, alone, has spawned dozens of adaptations for film and television, not to mention its continued performances and adaptations on stage. Film alone accounts for over fifty adaptations of the play! Overall, there are over 400 adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, just in film.
Since the copyright expired in 1956 there have been over 40 adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and related books and characters in film, television and stage.
The script for Braveheart was based mainly on Blind Harry's 15th century epic poem, The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace.
The 1985 film, Ran, by Akira Kurosawa is based on legends of the daimyo Mōri Motonari, as well as on the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear.
The 1959 film, Ben-Hur, was the third film version of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, though I have not been able to determine if, in fact, the novel's copyright had expired by 1959, it does seem likely that it had.
The Wizard of Oz, Braveheart, Ran and Ben-Hur are all listed in the Internet Movie Database top 250 films of all time. How could it be that our popular culture could be so influenced from the public domain and yet we continue to argue that enriching the public domain by allowing works to expire is harmful?
The simple fact is that corporations fear losing any source of income, regardless of how much they might ultimately benefit from a copyright system that enriches the pool of works upon which they might draw. This is understandable, but should not be the basis on which we form our laws.
When we discuss the public domain today, it can be difficult to understand its true value because so few works expire today. However, the works which have already expired have had a deep impact on our modern culture. One need look no further than Walt Disney Corporation's success in adapting public domain works such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland, and The Jungle Book. How is it, then, that we continue to argue that copyright terms must be extended in order to protect our cultural heritage? Is it possible that such examples are just outliers and the public domain doesn't actually benefit the public and our culture? Hardly. In order to illustrate that point, let me provide a few examples:
It's likely impossible to fully account for the impact of William Shakespeare in modern culture. Hamlet, alone, has spawned dozens of adaptations for film and television, not to mention its continued performances and adaptations on stage. Film alone accounts for over fifty adaptations of the play! Overall, there are over 400 adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, just in film.
Since the copyright expired in 1956 there have been over 40 adaptations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and related books and characters in film, television and stage.
The script for Braveheart was based mainly on Blind Harry's 15th century epic poem, The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace.
The 1985 film, Ran, by Akira Kurosawa is based on legends of the daimyo Mōri Motonari, as well as on the Shakespearean tragedy King Lear.
The 1959 film, Ben-Hur, was the third film version of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, though I have not been able to determine if, in fact, the novel's copyright had expired by 1959, it does seem likely that it had.
The Wizard of Oz, Braveheart, Ran and Ben-Hur are all listed in the Internet Movie Database top 250 films of all time. How could it be that our popular culture could be so influenced from the public domain and yet we continue to argue that enriching the public domain by allowing works to expire is harmful?
The simple fact is that corporations fear losing any source of income, regardless of how much they might ultimately benefit from a copyright system that enriches the pool of works upon which they might draw. This is understandable, but should not be the basis on which we form our laws.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Peter Watts: An author to check out
Peter Watts was an interesting author before he became national news. But in light of his treatment at the hands of U.S. Border Police and subsequent conviction on a charge which is as absurdly broad as it is injust, I'd suggest that looking into his work now is probably the easiest way to say, "asking a police officer why you're being detained and searched should not be a felony."
You see, Watts was crossing back into Canada when he was pulled over for what has recently become a routine, random exit search. He made a mistake... a big one. He got out of his car and asked why he was being searched. What he didn't know was that getting out of your car is interpreted as a dangerous and hostile act by police. It's an unfortunate consequence of the adversarial relationship we have with our police force (and they with us) in the U.S. What happened then was a series of increasingly wrong decisions on everyone's part. Watts was ordered back in his car, which he did comply with. An officer got into his car and and punched Watts in the face. Watts was then ordered back out of his car. He asked again what was going on and why he was being treated this way. He was ordered to get down on the ground which is when he again asked why (I'm reminded of The Nightmare Before Christmas and the line, "you aren't comprehending the trouble that you're in.") This is when the police maced him with pepper spray.
In the end, Watts was charged with assault and failure to comply. The officers claimed that he struck first, but this was later refuted in court and different officers' stories were shown to diverge. Anyway, the bottom line is that he wasn't convicted of assault, but under current statutes, that failure to get down on the ground after being hit carries exactly the same penalties. That's right, he committed the same crime by inaction as by attacking a police officer.
So, on the one hand, I'd request that people please support this author. He acted in a way that certainly didn't help, but no one deserves to be hit, bullied and pepper sprayed just for (literally) getting out of line. That's not the kind of country we're supposed to be living in.
On the other hand, we clearly need to change this law. Police should be the first in line demanding that it be so. After all, under the current law, you have nothing to lose once you fail to comply with an officer. Getting physically abusive won't escalate the nature of your crime (at least in terms of the assault charge, there might be additional charges that would apply at that point)! That's just wrong, and police and average citizen alike should demand that failure to comply be separated out with a reduced penalty so that real criminals and people who are just slow to recover from being punched in the face aren't treated the same.
To those who are unsympathetic toward someone who is attacked in this way, keep in mind that purely for selfish reasons, the United States really can't afford to make every non-U.S. Citizen afraid to visit the U.S. Tourism and the sorts of business exchanges that require face-to-face meetings are essential to our continued economic growth. Incidents like this reduce the number of people coming to the U.S. which directly reduces the number of jobs in the U.S.
You see, Watts was crossing back into Canada when he was pulled over for what has recently become a routine, random exit search. He made a mistake... a big one. He got out of his car and asked why he was being searched. What he didn't know was that getting out of your car is interpreted as a dangerous and hostile act by police. It's an unfortunate consequence of the adversarial relationship we have with our police force (and they with us) in the U.S. What happened then was a series of increasingly wrong decisions on everyone's part. Watts was ordered back in his car, which he did comply with. An officer got into his car and and punched Watts in the face. Watts was then ordered back out of his car. He asked again what was going on and why he was being treated this way. He was ordered to get down on the ground which is when he again asked why (I'm reminded of The Nightmare Before Christmas and the line, "you aren't comprehending the trouble that you're in.") This is when the police maced him with pepper spray.
In the end, Watts was charged with assault and failure to comply. The officers claimed that he struck first, but this was later refuted in court and different officers' stories were shown to diverge. Anyway, the bottom line is that he wasn't convicted of assault, but under current statutes, that failure to get down on the ground after being hit carries exactly the same penalties. That's right, he committed the same crime by inaction as by attacking a police officer.
So, on the one hand, I'd request that people please support this author. He acted in a way that certainly didn't help, but no one deserves to be hit, bullied and pepper sprayed just for (literally) getting out of line. That's not the kind of country we're supposed to be living in.
On the other hand, we clearly need to change this law. Police should be the first in line demanding that it be so. After all, under the current law, you have nothing to lose once you fail to comply with an officer. Getting physically abusive won't escalate the nature of your crime (at least in terms of the assault charge, there might be additional charges that would apply at that point)! That's just wrong, and police and average citizen alike should demand that failure to comply be separated out with a reduced penalty so that real criminals and people who are just slow to recover from being punched in the face aren't treated the same.
To those who are unsympathetic toward someone who is attacked in this way, keep in mind that purely for selfish reasons, the United States really can't afford to make every non-U.S. Citizen afraid to visit the U.S. Tourism and the sorts of business exchanges that require face-to-face meetings are essential to our continued economic growth. Incidents like this reduce the number of people coming to the U.S. which directly reduces the number of jobs in the U.S.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Disclosure: Endorsements and the FTC
AJS.COM has two primary sources of revenue (neither of which is substantial, at this time): Google Ads and Amazon Associate links. In theory, either of these could generate substantial revenue, but they don't, due to a limited audience. I don't get samples or any other consideration from the companies whose products I review from time to time (such as my review of Dollhouse Season 1 on DVD), and the only kickback I get is from Amazon if someone buys these items through the image link. As for the Google Ads, I see around $10/mo. which isn't enough to pay for my home Internet connection.
So, while I understand where the FTC is going with these new guidelines, they don't really affect this site (or its AJS.COM sister sites) at all.
So, while I understand where the FTC is going with these new guidelines, they don't really affect this site (or its AJS.COM sister sites) at all.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Anti-Piracy Is a Strawman Argument
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Google's Design Patent on their Home Page
Google just got a design patent on their search home page. It's a patent that has the rank and file of the Internet tech world in an uproar. However, it's important to understand what's going on, here. For a really well written debunking of many first-impressions, I quote someone from the weblog site, Slashdot:
I'm reminded of an Emo Phillips joke that involved a man who was about to jump off a bridge. Emo confronts the man and asks him if he believes in God. The man says yes. He further asks him questions about what religion he's a member of, eventually narrowing down that the two of them are both from a particular denomination of Baptist Christians, but then finds that they're members of very slightly different subsets of that denomination at which point Emo pushes the man off the bridge.
So too do we attack Google, not for being opposed to the general views of the tech community. They are, in fact, one of our greatest champions, supporting FOSS, patent reform and providing alternatives to many monopolistic software suites. And yet, here we are, asking if they've been evil today.
There are a few other points to consider, but the one that really kills me is that it's Google's motto that hurts them the most in these situations. The first and most predictable reaction to any news about Google is to find a way to refer to it as "evil." Regardless of their clear intentions in an area (e.g. their relationship with the Open Invention Network and strong support patent reform), the motto slips into the argument and immediately becomes the centerpiece. Is Google becoming evil? Is this evil? How evil are they now?Design patent law is an area of great frustration for people. Design patents are relatively easy to obtain because of what they cover: essentially the identical design or any colorable imitation. As recently stated by the Fed. Cir., the test for design patent infringement is stated: "infringement will not be found unless the accused article 'embod[ies] the patented design or any colorable imitation thereof.'" Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc. Therefore, to invalidate, the design must either embody the prior art or merely be a colorable imitation. This is a tricky analysis.
For companies like Apple and Google, design patents are helpful in preventing knock-offs. In this respect, the line is blurred between trademark and design patent law. However, they are not useful for much else since many of the elements of a design are functional (and a good lawyer can make that argument) and are not merely composed of distinctive elements.
Reebmmm at the Sladshdot article, "Your Rights Online: Google Patents Its Home Page"
I'm reminded of an Emo Phillips joke that involved a man who was about to jump off a bridge. Emo confronts the man and asks him if he believes in God. The man says yes. He further asks him questions about what religion he's a member of, eventually narrowing down that the two of them are both from a particular denomination of Baptist Christians, but then finds that they're members of very slightly different subsets of that denomination at which point Emo pushes the man off the bridge.
So too do we attack Google, not for being opposed to the general views of the tech community. They are, in fact, one of our greatest champions, supporting FOSS, patent reform and providing alternatives to many monopolistic software suites. And yet, here we are, asking if they've been evil today.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Death Panels AKA Advanced Care Plan: I Finally Get It
For a long time, I really didn't understand the debate over so-called "death panels." I'd read the news. I'd read the text of the law. I'd gone back and forth, but never really got it. Now I see where the mistake was made, and why so many people are (incorrectly) upset. It's a subtle thing, but one that really can't be ignored. I finally got it when I read the recent FactCheck.org rebuttal to former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey's comments on The Daily Show.
Here's what the crux of it is: the law (as it stands today) says that doctors can (mind you, *can*) report on some quality metrics and receive some extra payment from Medicare, above and beyond the normal payment. This amounts to a small (2%) bump in what they get paid, and they get to determine what quality metrics to report. There's just a requirement that the report on a minimum number of them. One of the (again, existing) metrics is having discussed how you want issues such as life support dealt with. Right now, that's it. You just have to report on the percentage of patients that you've had the conversation with and who have then either created appropriate documents or signed a statement saying that they don't wish to.
The new law, built into the health care reform legislation, would add a new criteria: you would also report on the percentage of times that those wishes are carried out. Therein lies the rub...
You see, this has been mis-interpreted as saying that doctors will be penalized (e.g. won't get that extra 2%) if they allow you to change your mind. This is not what the legislation says. What it says is that the doctor has to report on their enacting of the conditions of your advance care planning wishes. If you are conscious and able to communicate your wishes, then advance care planning doesn't enter into play, and thus no reporting would ever be necessary, but the way it's being portrayed is exactly the opposite.
Now, there are some gotchas. For example, you might become lucid; say "don't unplug me;" and then go back under. What now? The doctor has to decide if they should honor your stated wishes in writing or your stated wishes in person. Today, doctors and next of kin make that choice together (or should... law or no, there are always abuses). Under this law, nothing would change except for the after-the-fact review which doctors could choose to participate in or not.
This is the "death panel." An optional reporting system which considers any choice by the patient to be equally valid (e.g. your advance care planning documents might well request that every effort be made to maintain your vital statistics, and there's nothing wrong with that). Not much of a "death panel" is it? Personally, I'm disappointed. I expected there to be real, substantive debate over this legislation, but instead we're reduced to blowing minor details out of proportion and then inventing imaginary scenarios under which they become literally life-or-death issues.
This isn't the fault of conservatives. This is the fault of a minority of conservatives who push an agenda of deception and "big lie" propaganda. Don't get me wrong; they're not alone. There are a minority of liberals who enjoy exactly the same tactics. The problem is that neither one of these groups represent the majority of Americans, and we really need to demand that they shut up and let us be heard over the din of their trial-by-shouting form of debate. There are some very smart people capable of propelling this debate forward in useful ways, but they don't get a chance to be heard because they say boring things like, "of course the U.S. should have a baseline of healthcare like every other developed nation in the world, but we need to decide if we want to model it on one of the dozen or so systems that are working out there today, or if we need something unique, and if so what. Then we need to get to work on the hard part: transitioning all of our spread-out healthcare programs into the new plan so that we don't just make the problem worse." See? That has no media "zing." It just doesn't sell. So instead, we have an ill-considered rush to push forward a single, probably flawed plan before anyone can build up enough shouting to get it stopped.
Sad.
Here's what the crux of it is: the law (as it stands today) says that doctors can (mind you, *can*) report on some quality metrics and receive some extra payment from Medicare, above and beyond the normal payment. This amounts to a small (2%) bump in what they get paid, and they get to determine what quality metrics to report. There's just a requirement that the report on a minimum number of them. One of the (again, existing) metrics is having discussed how you want issues such as life support dealt with. Right now, that's it. You just have to report on the percentage of patients that you've had the conversation with and who have then either created appropriate documents or signed a statement saying that they don't wish to.
The new law, built into the health care reform legislation, would add a new criteria: you would also report on the percentage of times that those wishes are carried out. Therein lies the rub...
You see, this has been mis-interpreted as saying that doctors will be penalized (e.g. won't get that extra 2%) if they allow you to change your mind. This is not what the legislation says. What it says is that the doctor has to report on their enacting of the conditions of your advance care planning wishes. If you are conscious and able to communicate your wishes, then advance care planning doesn't enter into play, and thus no reporting would ever be necessary, but the way it's being portrayed is exactly the opposite.
Now, there are some gotchas. For example, you might become lucid; say "don't unplug me;" and then go back under. What now? The doctor has to decide if they should honor your stated wishes in writing or your stated wishes in person. Today, doctors and next of kin make that choice together (or should... law or no, there are always abuses). Under this law, nothing would change except for the after-the-fact review which doctors could choose to participate in or not.
This is the "death panel." An optional reporting system which considers any choice by the patient to be equally valid (e.g. your advance care planning documents might well request that every effort be made to maintain your vital statistics, and there's nothing wrong with that). Not much of a "death panel" is it? Personally, I'm disappointed. I expected there to be real, substantive debate over this legislation, but instead we're reduced to blowing minor details out of proportion and then inventing imaginary scenarios under which they become literally life-or-death issues.
This isn't the fault of conservatives. This is the fault of a minority of conservatives who push an agenda of deception and "big lie" propaganda. Don't get me wrong; they're not alone. There are a minority of liberals who enjoy exactly the same tactics. The problem is that neither one of these groups represent the majority of Americans, and we really need to demand that they shut up and let us be heard over the din of their trial-by-shouting form of debate. There are some very smart people capable of propelling this debate forward in useful ways, but they don't get a chance to be heard because they say boring things like, "of course the U.S. should have a baseline of healthcare like every other developed nation in the world, but we need to decide if we want to model it on one of the dozen or so systems that are working out there today, or if we need something unique, and if so what. Then we need to get to work on the hard part: transitioning all of our spread-out healthcare programs into the new plan so that we don't just make the problem worse." See? That has no media "zing." It just doesn't sell. So instead, we have an ill-considered rush to push forward a single, probably flawed plan before anyone can build up enough shouting to get it stopped.
Sad.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
A Plan for Copyright Reform
I've been following the recent loss of rights to Superman, and what it will mean for DC Comics AKA Time/Warner AKA one of the handful of legal owners of modern American culture. Copyright expiration's benefits should now be obvious to Time Warner whose vice-like grip on Superman lasted so long that even the most obscure flaw in their copyright was uncovered. If they had been forced to continuously update their portfolio, this would never have been an issue, as they would have long since transitioned their brand identification over to newer intellectual property, rather than being forced to suddenly surrender a large portion of their interest in it.
A while back, I wrote up this plan for copyright reform that addresses such issues and explains how copyright reform benefits consumers and producers of copyrighted content.
Copyright in the U.S. is a Constitutionally-mandated system that seeks to achieve a singular benefit: the enrichment of the public domain. It seeks to do this through providing creators of copyrightable works with a period of time when they can reap the benefits of their works exclusively, but in exchange they will eventually lose all protection and the work will enter the public domain.
So, in order to understand this fully, we need to understand what the public domain is. At its simplest, the public domain is our culture. It is the combination of symbols that we all understand, phrases that carry common meaning, works that we can all derive from or modify, etc. As an example, the works of Shakespeare are all in the public domain. There is no restriction on movie directors making a new version of Hamlet, nor are there any prohibitions against the creation of derivative works such as West Side Story (based on Romeo and Juliet) or Forbidden Planet (based on The Tempest). Because these works can be re-told in any form from a faithful reproduction to a radically different story told within the context of the original (such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead), our culture can continue to adapt their meaning in order to be relevant.
Copyright therefore, seeks to enrich the public domain by making the creation and publication of works profitable for a time in exchange for their eventual release. Discussion of the public domain, of course, can't exist without a discussion of fair use, and for that I direct you to an excellent fair use piece on the Google Public Policy Blog.
The real problem here, however, is that there is no set period of time that meets these criteria. A work might return its publication investment over the course of 10 years or it might return that investment over the course of the opening weekend of a popular film. Relevance is even harder to measure. A song that was relevant to a particular generation might maintain that relevance for 20 to 40 years while a painting that was relevant to a particular change in aesthetic style might conceivably maintain that relevance indefinitely. So it becomes very difficult to set a fixed duration for copyright protection.
It is clear that for many works a period between 10 and 30 years is ideal. Even as the pace of cultural change has increased, this time period has remained fixed because it represents the period of time over which major changes in a generations tastes and interests shift.
There is also the problem of "orphaned" works. These are works that remain under copyright protection, but are not being published or performed actively, effectively removing them from the cultural landscape. In this case, copyright protection benefits no one, and therefore a means should be found to remove such protections. Typically suggestions for solving this problem have focused on the renewal of copyright after a certain period of time, which serves to neatly resolve the issue, but might create a new sort of problem where publishers simple mass-renew all works for which they hold rights without any intention of further publication.
As with the current system, copyright for the first 10 years would be automatic. That is, there is no need to file to protect copyright of a work until it is 10 years old.
Culturally significant works would be protected by the same system. However, each year a panel of experts, appointees and other interested parties would meet to determine which (if any) expiring works have both become culturally significant and have benefited their authors and publishers far beyond the norm. For example, a movie which has earned many times its original costs and which is still widely popular and involved in the culture might qualify. These culturally significant works are not renewed (either at the 10 or 20 year renewal), as it is assumed that they have both benefited their creators substantially and have rapidly ingrained themselves upon the cultural landscape. What's more, most such works will have already spurred the creation of follow-on works which are still protected.
As an example of this final category, let us use the 1977 film, Star Wars. In this extraordinary case, the studio responsible for publishing the film, within three weeks of the film's release saw their stock price doubled to a record high. It would be difficult to argue, 10 years later in 1987 with two sequels one of which made $538 million worldwide, that 20th Century Fox had not reaped the rewards of this film. It is also unarguably the case that Star Wars had entered into the cultural language. The film spawned a generation of explosive growth in the science fiction film industry, a revival in science fiction writing and no end of fan films, parody and homage, not just in film but in song, art and other media which continues to this day. Removing copyright protection from this film would have left George Lucas an multi-millionaire in charge of one of the most successful special effects studios in the world among other roles, and 20th Century Fox would have had a decade to re-invest the rich proceeds that the film netted them.
The goal is not to remove protections from works which are hitting the zenith of their potential returns, but rather to slide the scale back to account for those rare works which so rapidly integrate themselves into our culture that they have already achieved that zenith long before comparable works would have.
It is also important to note that different media have different metrics for success. Comparisons between media should never be made in absolute terms (where obviously, film dominates the equation).
The first impact would be to films released in 1998. Here is a list of some films that would likely be renewed and continue to be covered by copyright, sorted by worldwide box-office returns:
1988 on the other hand, saw the release of Rain Man, a film whose cultural impact was quite significant and whose financial success far outstripped its mere $25 million budget. It might well not be renewed, but again, this is a difficult call and all renewals might well be approved.
Films from 1978 would expire into the public domain this year. These would include:
There are problems with this simple plan, however. First of all, it would lead to a massive inflow of renewal applications 10 years after the laws were changed. That would place a large burden on the U.S. Patent and Trademark offices. Further, it would be very difficult to identify the most culturally significant and successful works from most of a century all at once.
To ease the transition, works could be staggered by decade. Those works produced in the late 1920s would be up for renewal in 10 years after the laws were changed. The next year, works from the 1930s would be up for renewal. The next year, works from the 1940s and so on. In this way, works produced in the 1990s would actually have as much as 37 years of protection, and the surge of old works requiring renewal would increase each year for 8 years (or 9 depending on when such laws were enacted) and then the cycle would begin anew with the 20th anniversary of the law and the second renewal. This would also give the public domain interests (libraries, archives and universities for the most part) time to absorb these newly released works.
Another interesting side-effect would be the change in the relationship between print and film. Today, most works of fiction printed by major publishers are immediately "optioned" for film rights regardless of the likelihood that a film will actually be made. If copyright expired after 10 years on works which the publisher saw no value in renewing then this optioning process might become secondary to finding untapped wells of quality fiction in books which had not caught the public attention. In one sense this is an excellent benefit to the culture, as orphaned works would be revived and renewed. In another sense, authors and publishers might see fewer optioning agreements for works which were ultimately not likely to become films. Since it was never the purpose of copyright law to provide this sort of arbitrage over the potential value of works transitioning from one media to another, it does not seem as if contracting that market would alter the value of copyright law, but it is one more item to consider.
More generally, these changes would result in an explosion in the depth and breadth of the works available to the public domain. What impact that will have is difficult to predict, but certainly that is more in line with the original intent of the Constitution than the current system that the U.S. has.
While this plan would be likely to produce useful results, any number of alternatives have been proposed. The key elements of sustainable and enforceable copyright law are:
A while back, I wrote up this plan for copyright reform that addresses such issues and explains how copyright reform benefits consumers and producers of copyrighted content.
Executive summary for those in a hurry:
- Copyrights should expire after 10 years, but be renewable up to twice.
- Those works which return dramatically well on their investment, and become significant to the culture should be denied renewal in order to free up our cultural touchstones for derivative works, ease of access and so forth (examples are given that demonstrate how this would benefit producers and consumers).
- A phased approach should gradually ease the system into place to avoid administrative bottlenecks.
Copyright in the U.S. is a Constitutionally-mandated system that seeks to achieve a singular benefit: the enrichment of the public domain. It seeks to do this through providing creators of copyrightable works with a period of time when they can reap the benefits of their works exclusively, but in exchange they will eventually lose all protection and the work will enter the public domain.
So, in order to understand this fully, we need to understand what the public domain is. At its simplest, the public domain is our culture. It is the combination of symbols that we all understand, phrases that carry common meaning, works that we can all derive from or modify, etc. As an example, the works of Shakespeare are all in the public domain. There is no restriction on movie directors making a new version of Hamlet, nor are there any prohibitions against the creation of derivative works such as West Side Story (based on Romeo and Juliet) or Forbidden Planet (based on The Tempest). Because these works can be re-told in any form from a faithful reproduction to a radically different story told within the context of the original (such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead), our culture can continue to adapt their meaning in order to be relevant.
Copyright therefore, seeks to enrich the public domain by making the creation and publication of works profitable for a time in exchange for their eventual release. Discussion of the public domain, of course, can't exist without a discussion of fair use, and for that I direct you to an excellent fair use piece on the Google Public Policy Blog.
How long should copyright last?
There are many ways to measure the period of time over which copyrighted works should be profitable. Certainly if a work were protected for less time than it takes, on average, to recoup its publication costs, then the system has failed. On the other end of the spectrum, a work which is no longer relevant which enters the public domain might well provide little or no benefit to the culture. Moreover, works which last a very long time and are still relevant typically retain their relevance by achieving the status of cultural icon. It can certainly be argued that this process is not wholly the author's or publisher's doing. The culture itself takes part in the establishment of its own icons, and when mere popularity gives way to the entrance of a work into the cultural language, it is difficult to justify continuing to assign the benefits to an individual rather than to the culture as a whole.The real problem here, however, is that there is no set period of time that meets these criteria. A work might return its publication investment over the course of 10 years or it might return that investment over the course of the opening weekend of a popular film. Relevance is even harder to measure. A song that was relevant to a particular generation might maintain that relevance for 20 to 40 years while a painting that was relevant to a particular change in aesthetic style might conceivably maintain that relevance indefinitely. So it becomes very difficult to set a fixed duration for copyright protection.
It is clear that for many works a period between 10 and 30 years is ideal. Even as the pace of cultural change has increased, this time period has remained fixed because it represents the period of time over which major changes in a generations tastes and interests shift.
There is also the problem of "orphaned" works. These are works that remain under copyright protection, but are not being published or performed actively, effectively removing them from the cultural landscape. In this case, copyright protection benefits no one, and therefore a means should be found to remove such protections. Typically suggestions for solving this problem have focused on the renewal of copyright after a certain period of time, which serves to neatly resolve the issue, but might create a new sort of problem where publishers simple mass-renew all works for which they hold rights without any intention of further publication.
Multiple durations
Instead of assigning a single number to copyright term, this proposal seeks to benefit authors and publishers in multiple classes. These classes are:- Orphaned works
- Actively published works
- Culturally significant works
As with the current system, copyright for the first 10 years would be automatic. That is, there is no need to file to protect copyright of a work until it is 10 years old.
Culturally significant works would be protected by the same system. However, each year a panel of experts, appointees and other interested parties would meet to determine which (if any) expiring works have both become culturally significant and have benefited their authors and publishers far beyond the norm. For example, a movie which has earned many times its original costs and which is still widely popular and involved in the culture might qualify. These culturally significant works are not renewed (either at the 10 or 20 year renewal), as it is assumed that they have both benefited their creators substantially and have rapidly ingrained themselves upon the cultural landscape. What's more, most such works will have already spurred the creation of follow-on works which are still protected.
As an example of this final category, let us use the 1977 film, Star Wars. In this extraordinary case, the studio responsible for publishing the film, within three weeks of the film's release saw their stock price doubled to a record high. It would be difficult to argue, 10 years later in 1987 with two sequels one of which made $538 million worldwide, that 20th Century Fox had not reaped the rewards of this film. It is also unarguably the case that Star Wars had entered into the cultural language. The film spawned a generation of explosive growth in the science fiction film industry, a revival in science fiction writing and no end of fan films, parody and homage, not just in film but in song, art and other media which continues to this day. Removing copyright protection from this film would have left George Lucas an multi-millionaire in charge of one of the most successful special effects studios in the world among other roles, and 20th Century Fox would have had a decade to re-invest the rich proceeds that the film netted them.
The goal is not to remove protections from works which are hitting the zenith of their potential returns, but rather to slide the scale back to account for those rare works which so rapidly integrate themselves into our culture that they have already achieved that zenith long before comparable works would have.
It is also important to note that different media have different metrics for success. Comparisons between media should never be made in absolute terms (where obviously, film dominates the equation).
The short version
This plan therefore calls for:- 10 year copyright terms
- Ability to renew copyright term twice (total of 30 years)
- No requirement for registration for the first 10 years
- Registration required for subsequent renewals
- Renewal blocked for the most successful and culturally significant works
Examples
The year is currently 2008. Let's review what this might mean to our existing world of film this year (assuming no transition period, which would almost certainly exist, for sake of example). Films are used as an example, here, because they are a media format that most people are exposed to and which have relatively widely published revenue statistics from which to make a first-pass judgement of success.The first impact would be to films released in 1998. Here is a list of some films that would likely be renewed and continue to be covered by copyright, sorted by worldwide box-office returns:
- Armageddon
- Saving Private Ryan
- Godzilla
- There's Something About Mary
- A Bug's Life
- Deep Impact
- Mulan
1988 on the other hand, saw the release of Rain Man, a film whose cultural impact was quite significant and whose financial success far outstripped its mere $25 million budget. It might well not be renewed, but again, this is a difficult call and all renewals might well be approved.
Films from 1978 would expire into the public domain this year. These would include:
- Grease
- Superman
- Jaws 2
- Halloween
- Animal House
- The Deer Hunter
Transition plan
The easiest way to transition from the existing period of copyright to the new would be to consider all currently copyrighted works to have been newly released in the year the legislation changes are passed. This provides them with an additional 10 years of absolute protection and as much as 30 years in most cases. This quickly eliminates concerns that any existing business will be impacted immediately and even for the most iconic items of the last century which would be expired upon the first application for renewal, 10 years is more than sufficient time to make appropriate plans.There are problems with this simple plan, however. First of all, it would lead to a massive inflow of renewal applications 10 years after the laws were changed. That would place a large burden on the U.S. Patent and Trademark offices. Further, it would be very difficult to identify the most culturally significant and successful works from most of a century all at once.
To ease the transition, works could be staggered by decade. Those works produced in the late 1920s would be up for renewal in 10 years after the laws were changed. The next year, works from the 1930s would be up for renewal. The next year, works from the 1940s and so on. In this way, works produced in the 1990s would actually have as much as 37 years of protection, and the surge of old works requiring renewal would increase each year for 8 years (or 9 depending on when such laws were enacted) and then the cycle would begin anew with the 20th anniversary of the law and the second renewal. This would also give the public domain interests (libraries, archives and universities for the most part) time to absorb these newly released works.
Side effects
This plan has many side effects, some of which are foreseeable and some of which most likely are not. Of those that can be foreseen, the widest impact comes from the industry practices in print, film and other media which surround current copyright law. Royalties, for example, are a common compensation tool used to supplement payments to authors, artists and performers. These royalties have been calibrated over time based on expected returns and any change to the copyright system could impact those returns (though it should not be assumed that revenue related to a work whose copyright has expired would drop to zero). These side effects certainly argue for the careful transition from one implementation of copyright law to another, however, new royalties arrangements can easily be devised which accommodate the new system.Another interesting side-effect would be the change in the relationship between print and film. Today, most works of fiction printed by major publishers are immediately "optioned" for film rights regardless of the likelihood that a film will actually be made. If copyright expired after 10 years on works which the publisher saw no value in renewing then this optioning process might become secondary to finding untapped wells of quality fiction in books which had not caught the public attention. In one sense this is an excellent benefit to the culture, as orphaned works would be revived and renewed. In another sense, authors and publishers might see fewer optioning agreements for works which were ultimately not likely to become films. Since it was never the purpose of copyright law to provide this sort of arbitrage over the potential value of works transitioning from one media to another, it does not seem as if contracting that market would alter the value of copyright law, but it is one more item to consider.
More generally, these changes would result in an explosion in the depth and breadth of the works available to the public domain. What impact that will have is difficult to predict, but certainly that is more in line with the original intent of the Constitution than the current system that the U.S. has.
International ramifications
Internationally, the U.S. has signed treaties agreeing to extremely long-lived copyright terms. These treaties would have to be re-negotiated in order to move forward with a new copyright system. However, the effort required to accomplish this would be returned. Today copyright is routinely violated in some countries. However, if there were a rich well of relatively modern public domain works to draw on there would be radically less incentive to infringe on the remaining, shorter-term copyrights. This is a simple result of the change in cost-benefit. If you can duplicate decade-old DVDs of the most popular movies of the age without any risk, most of the businesses that infringe today would do so. Only a handful would continue to infringe on existing copyrights and those would be easier to police and contain as examples.Conclusions
Something must be done about copyright law. Today, the U.S. is working hard to extend copyright law as far as the U.S. Supreme Court will allow, and this will ultimately negate the benefit that the Constitution foresaw in granting copyright protection in the first place. Ultimately, these laws become a subsidy to the entertainment industry rather than a mutually beneficial relationship between producer and consumer of artistic work of all media.While this plan would be likely to produce useful results, any number of alternatives have been proposed. The key elements of sustainable and enforceable copyright law are:
- Expiration of copyright within a short number of decades
- Consideration of "orphaned" works
- Public access to expired works
Side issues and special cases
There are a number of additional issues which plague the current copyright system. I have not addressed many of them above, since the goal was to provide a concise plan to address the largest issues. However, it is worth noting some of these issues before moving on from the topic.Software
Computer software has been gathered up under copyright law, and yet it doesn't actually fit within the scope of the original concept of copyright. It may be that proper addressing of software might not be possible without also dealing with software patents and trade secrets. These three areas of protection should work in concert to provide sufficient protections to software authors and publishers without stifling innovation. What makes this even more complex, however, is the fact that open source software development's success has demonstrated that such protections may not be as strongly needed in the software field in order to spur innovation. Certainly the success of companies such as Google, Red Hat Software and even older players such as IBM in the open source model can be used as examples in crafting a form of protections that benefit all software developers and users.Audience participation in creation of new works
As technology fosters more and more of the creativity involved in the creation of copyrighted work to be collaborative, the line between publisher and consumer becomes less defined. In modern interactive art forms such as massively multiplayer video games (MMOs), increasingly the user is partaking in the development of the storyline associated with their avatar or character. This is a very complex and difficult relationship to understand under modern copyright law, which is why such interactive art forms tend to come with long and complex legal agreements which consumers must agree to before they are granted access. It is unclear if there is a way to modify copyright law to address these issues, but as games like Second Life have demonstrated, the lines between interactive fiction and financial markets may not be as thick as they once were, and if the law can ease this transition without imposing short-sighted expectations, then it should.
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