House Judiciary Chairman Plans Comprehensive Review of US Copyright Law 142
SEWilco writes in with news that U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte plans on conducting "...a comprehensive review of US copyright law over the coming months.""In a speech given in celebration of World Intellectual Property Day at the Library of Congress today, Goodlatte mentioned a few examples of the sorts of problems that he hopes to address in such a review: 'The Internet has enabled copyright owners to make available their works to consumers around the world, but has also enabled others to do so without any compensation for copyright owners. Efforts to digitize our history so that all have access to it face questions about copyright ownership by those who are hard, if not impossible, to locate. There are concerns about statutory license and damage mechanisms. Federal judges are forced to make decisions using laws that are difficult to apply today. Even the Copyright Office itself faces challenges in meeting the growing needs of its customers - the American public.'"
Head fake. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Head fake. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think that the end result will be better, and not worse?
No, it will almost certainly be worse.
Re:Head fake. (Score:4, Insightful)
The end result will certainly be worse... Did the summary mention ANYTHING about people that buy and use Copyrighted works? It's going to be discussion on how to "lock it up" better.. Not produce more USEFUL WORKS.
Re:Head fake. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I used to live in Bob Goodlatte's district, it will be worse. Much, mcuh, much worse. Goodlatte got his start sucking up to Jerry Falwell in the Reagan era and has learned some high-level suction tricks since then: corporate suction, celebrity suction, christian rightist suction and now, I assume he sucks some tea party too.
Anything this guys touches will have some kind of sticky white stuff on it afterwards.
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Chairman Bob Goodlatte plans on conducting "...a comprehensive review of US copyright law over the coming months."
Copyright will be worse, but the coffee will be better.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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the American public
Translation: Big Content. It does not mean you or your neighbor. You the consumer are not a "customer" of the Copyright Office.
Seriously, when was the last time Congress ever did any big re-evaluation or restructure that actually helped the man in the street?
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holding my breath ;)
In other words... (Score:2)
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Informative)
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More like "what can we do for you to up your weekly payments?"
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Do you honestly think they are going to change it for the better? What did the media corporation's political donation check bounced?
That's a pretty lame excuse for leaving things as they are. What if Lincoln had taken that approach?
Big media already has a strangle hold on our freedoms, yet they don't vote.
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. What is wrong with enforcing the laws we have?
You mean like the DMCA and copyrights that last for a gazillion years?
This so-called "review of copyright law" is being conducted by the same people who work on behalf of the Media Cartel and created the DMCA and extended copyrights to last forever, along with other ridiculous laws.
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Very nice!
need to fix abandonware and older versions (Score:5, Insightful)
need to fix abandonware and older versions of software that are no longer sold (maybe limit that to vers needed for old hardware / os's)
I was looking for a older ver of this software and they where not selling it and there e-mails said that there older vers that where not up to our standards and also said it's not legal to just download the older ones they are not selling (but they ones they are selling don't work on the older hardware / os's)
Re:need to fix abandonware and older versions (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll be very surprised if he isn't more worried about the rights of large media corporations.
* Worried that their bribes might to somebody else...
How can I buy if you won't sell? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd happily pay $100 for a certain movie -- but the copyright owner won't sell! BigCorpInc has decided there isn't enough profit to be made so they won't make it available. But a core of diehard fans has been trying to track down remaining copies. I've had a worldwide ebay search running for years now and zero hits. A few copies are known to exist in the private collections of actors who were in the film -- but they don't want trouble from a potential future employer, so they won't make "illegal" copies for us fans.
Once the copyright owner no longer offers the product for sale, the law should allow fans to distribute copies for free. The owner is essentially saying "I can't figure out how to distribute this." Well, we can. So get in gear or get out of the way. It's not costing you lost sales when you refuse to sell.
also stuff that has no owner / a mistory owner (Score:1)
also stuff that has no owner any more / a unknown owner
Re:How can I buy if you won't sell? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that there need to be a few things which should be added to copyright law:
1. If you aren't making it commercially available it reverts to public domain.
(for a most 2x more than the average for the same mediatype. ie: $100,000 per copy shouldn't be considered making available. So a movie cannot be sold for more than $50 and still be considered available)
2. All copyrights must be registered, and rights must be defined by law and cannot be subdivided. The copyrights must be identifed as sold/transferred to a specific person. If the registry isn't updated within 5 years of the death of the person in the registry, it reverts to the public domain.
(To avoid issues where Bob Author died, and his estate was divided equally among 10 children who then sold portions of odd bits of rights to different corporations in 10 different countries which were then subdivided 100 different ways again.)
3. Property tax must be paid on IP.
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This is actually exceedingly unfair, and plays into the hands of the major corporations.
If I create a work, it has no inherent value out of the gate. If a major corporation comes along and sees it and figures that it's worth $5 million to them, they could easily lowball me and offer $1 million. Since my work now has a publicly known value, I owe taxes that I can't possibly afford. Now I'm forced to sell my work to a company who can easily make more for it.
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It has just gone from worth nothing to you to worth $1million how is that low ball? Does a carpenter lowball Home Depot every time they pay $20 for a hammer because they are going to use it over the next year to make $40k+ building houses?
Valuation requires an agreement (Score:2)
If I create a work, it has no inherent value out of the gate. If a major corporation comes along and sees it and figures that it's worth $5 million to them, they could easily lowball me and offer $1 million. Since my work now has a publicly known value, I owe taxes that I can't possibly afford. Now I'm forced to sell my work to a company who can easily make more for it.
An offer to buy does not mean it is worth what is being offered unless you agree to the price. No sale = no objective valuation. You could offer me $2 for my DVD of Batman begins but that doesn't mean I will sell it to you for that amount or that it is worth that much in the broader market place. While there are taxes on assets they are not based on prices thrown out during negotiations.
Valuation of intangible property (Score:2)
3. Property tax must be paid on IP.
Sounds great in theory but in reality it is usually very difficult to do. You really can only tax a work if you can objectively value the patent or copyright. If the intangible property hasn't been sold or licensed it is usually nearly impossible to value it and many have limited market value by themselves. Without some sort of objective valuation you can't tax it in any way that makes sense. Things are only worth what others are willing to pay for them. If no one has ever bought it, you can't really s
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Re:How can I buy if you won't sell? (Score:4, Insightful)
So JayZ writes 12 songs for an album and decides to release 10, the other two are public domain? When do they become public domain? Everything he writes, even the smallest, worst, most ahead of its time has to be made available either commercially or it's public domain?
I write three novels and the first two are rejected by publishers. Now I have to find a way to make them commercially available, or I lose all rights to them? The third one is a bestseller, and now the publisher wants to release the first two, but won't because they've previously been made public domain due to your rule 1.
How is this helpful to anyone? It doesn't give me incentive to write more novels that I might or might not control.
Making something commercially available has its own costs which a penniless artist might not want to bear. Not to mention the impossibility of making creators declare "This is now finished, and I want to sell it", or have lawyers determine when a creation is finished and must be made available.
Copyright gives the creator exclusive rights for (what should be) a limited period of time. There's nothing wrong with the "exclusive" part of that, which includes excluding it from the public. It's the limited period part which has problems.
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An artist writes a song about their spouse. The spouse dies, and the artist out of respect removes the song from future versions of the albums (iTunes, Spotify, what have you). This rule would force the artist to sell at presumably some set price (else the artist would just say one BILLION dollars and the rule would be equally meaningless).
Do you really want to codify this into law? The founding fathers were pretty smart. Copyright is supposed to be an exclusive license for a limited period of time. Cr
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Wow, there are so many problems with that.
What about the photographer who took those pictures in Tiananmen Square? Is he required to have multiple Drobos and back up all his photos in multiple formats and update them periodically? Is there going to be a Public Domain Police Force to verify this?
What if the price for reproducing that photo, set by the artist, is one billion dollars. It effectively removes it from the market. Are you now going to legislate what art costs?
Are you going to legislate that Un
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That seems positively ripe for abuse.
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I read that idea in a Heinlein book; you assess your own property and anyone can purchase it for that price. You can (in response to the offer) raise your assessment to a level where nobody wants it, but then you owe 5 years back taxes on the new assessed value.
I wasn't aware it had actually been implemented anywhere, but I'd be interested in seeing the results.
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I feel your pain.
Some shows simply don't get shown over here. No idea why, they just don't make it across the pond. Britain has some great shows that I would love to watch, yet no such luck.
Ok, one'd say, there's maybe not even a DVD set of it because, well, it just ran for a season or two (the old Simpsons joke about the longest running British sitcom with 4 episodes is actually pretty apt). Well, there IS. Great, I'd think, I'm in the EU, Britain is in the EU, it is trivial to order ... huh? Not deliverin
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I feel your pain.
Some shows simply don't get shown over here. No idea why, they just don't make it across the pond. Britain has some great shows that I would love to watch, yet no such luck.
Ok, one'd say, there's maybe not even a DVD set of it because, well, it just ran for a season or two (the old Simpsons joke about the longest running British sitcom with 4 episodes is actually pretty apt). Well, there IS. Great, I'd think, I'm in the EU, Britain is in the EU, it is trivial to order ... huh? Not delivering to your country? Why not? Because it didn't run here yet. I see, but nobody has any intent to do it.
I got a wordy reply that can be summed up in four words: "Sucks to be you".
Asking around with our networks I got replies along the lines of "doesn't fit into our lineup". It's not statistically significant since that was the ONLY reply I got out of 10 emails I sent. The rest couldn't even be assed to reply.
So I'm sitting here, screaming "STFU and take my money already!", but nobody wants to sell it to me.
You can, by the way, log into Amazon.co.uk and buy DVDs, etc. which will be shipped to your address in the States. Shipping is a tad high and you have to deal with the exchange rate, but it does work. Granted, it's a different story if the only place to get the DVD is directly from the producer (i.e. BBC) as they can refuse to sell it to you.
Two blood-curdling phrases (Score:5, Funny)
"Congress is looking into this issue."
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This could be a good thing (Score:2)
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lobby rational thought (Score:1)
Copyright is obsolete (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright in the digital age is ridiculous and unenforceable, but the same technology that troubles copyright nowadays has largely removed the disadvantages of patronage, as crowdfunding is becoming popular, why not just go back to patronage? it's not a tax on the public and it's a correct way of paying for the actual effort of producing media.
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This exercise is the middle-men trying to keep their leech-type jobs.
With copyright trying to create artificial scarcity, projects should be funded by donations or kickstater-like methods.
Anything else is playing little dutch boy:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=dutch+boy+finger+dam [google.ca]
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"Do as we say don't do as we do", in other words, business as usual.
Can help you out here (Score:2)
Re:Can help you out here (Score:5, Insightful)
So does disney owe royalties to the families of the writers of the books they base their movies on?
At some point ideas become part of the culture and are no longer owned by anyone person. I believe the founders had it right with a 14 year term and one 14 year extension. We should go back to that model, but the extension should cost enough to ensure that not every work is extended for the full term.
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they use public domains works and then create copyrighted movies based (sometimes loosely) on them.
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Using todays lengths those stories would not all have been in the public domain.
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I believe the idea of the extension was for the government to get payed back and in theory us, because it would lessen the burden of our taxes enforcing monopolies. Thus being a fairer form of monopoly for the sake of "forced advancement of the arts".
Re:Can help you out here (Score:5, Interesting)
You're on to the idea, but not quite there.
1) Shorten the term. It should be about 5 years. The first term is automatic and free. Subsequent terms require copyright-holder registration.
2) Require payment for the extension based on revenue generated in the current term. A copyright tax, essentially. And the amount of revenue should be worldwide gross, not local, not net, and certainly not open to loopholes and interpretation like other tax codes. The rate applied to it should be a flat percentage.
3) Do not limit extensions.
4) If you miss the extension deadline by even a day, it's public domain. No exceptions.
5) Public domain is permanent and irrevocable. No exceptions.
6) All transfers must be registered. A one-time filing fee may be charged. This does NOT reset the clock on the current term. Transfers during the first term are free, except for the filing fee.
7) Copyrights cannot be registered to non-entities (e.g. companies that went out of business) or foreign entities (e.g. foreign copyright havens) and retain copyright protection. This means that to retain a copyright in the US, a foreign entity must set up a local shell corporation to hold copyrights for them. Unregistered copyrights go to the public domain after the first term.
That gives everyone what they want. Disney can keep Mickey locked up for a million years, as long as they don't run out of money. Abandonware is public domain within a term length. No more abandonware that doesn't have an identifiable owner. And no more congressional shenanigans due to treaty pressure pulling stuff into an undefined foreign copyright term after it's been in the public domain.
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You are an idiot. Ideas are not covered by copyright.
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You are a bigger idiot.
The Disney movie Alice in Wonderland is based off a book of the same name. Had modern copyright laws been in place Disney would have had to pay Lewis Carroll's decedents.
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You do realize that many of the "out of copyright" stuff were first put on paper by the Brothers Grimm in the early to mid 1800s?
Some 100-120 years later, Mickey Mouse was born in 1928.
Do you think Mickey be public domain in 15 years (2028)?
We're rapidly approaching the point we'll have to pay royalties to the decendants of Homer.
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Not sure, but disney will not care, they just will make sure it is no retroactive.
Re:Can help you out here (Score:4, Informative)
Alice in wonderland was 86 years.
It was published in 1865 and the movie came out in 1951. Lewis Carroll died in 1898, so using today's Life + 70 it would still have been in copyright.
The copyright actually expired in 1907. This means they have already done this.
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Even if you treat copyright as a natural right, modern copyright law goes way beyond that by extending the monopoly after the author's death and benefiting people, at great cost to the public, who are wholly unrelated to the author.
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If your write it down and it's an original work you own it! If you create it as an original work you own it! If it in anyway is a copy of someone else's work you owe them. ......Pretty simple review
Wait... so it's only if you write it down? So if I make up a story and tell someone verbally, and they make a movie out of it and make millions, I owe them if I attempt to tell the story again?
This concept of copyright completely hobbles the entire concept of "folk" -- folk tales, folk music, etc, where our society evolves through the creative retelling of traditional stories.
There are many movies that should have made it to folk status by now (in actual society, we use them this way -- words referring to
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If you create it as an original work you own it!
Mickey's copright must be expiring soon. (Score:3, Interesting)
Mickey's copright will expire in 2018. They are going to get at it early this time.
The only way we can stop this is to go after Disney shareholders.
Re:Mickey's copright must be expiring soon. (Score:4, Informative)
Mickey Mouse would still be firmly under TRADEMARK for a long time. That would mean you could copy early Mickey clips on YouTube all day, or use them for mashuos and such... but YOU couldn't MARKET "Mickey Mouse" stuff because he's still running Disney and making merchandise.
What the summary indicates is that "lost" INDIVIDUAL authors will soon LOSE protections... Because COMPANIES don't like a grandkid getting money at the 90 year mark. And "orphan" works will probably revert to publishers that last printed them... So most likely a bunch of PD stuff will get snatched back into "publisher/broadcaster" copyright.
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Orphan works belong in the public domain. How that is not blindingly obvious I do not know.
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Well, you put a dollar bill over the left eye and another dollar bill over the right eye... Ta-da! Your vision has been "corrected."
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I tried it. I don't know, it either makes me extremely short sighted or reasonably blind. Can't help but this corrected vision seems a bit like asking for disaster.
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I'm not entirely sure mickey mouse's character design can be trademarked. I'm sure disney would try to push that he is, but i just don't know how well they could apply his (potentially) public domain use as trademark infringement.
putting certain, specific images of him, on clothing or other products might be out, if those specific glyphs are trademarked; but releasing an animated version of the godfather with public domain disney characters should be ok (notwithstanding the mario puzo ip).
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My point is that copyright protects COPYING. Things like the character "Mickey Mouse" and his likeness have other protections if they remain in use.
I think being partly in public domain has worked out OK for Cthulhu. Part of the works "accidentally" fell into PD (darn Munchkin cultists) and the remaining works are owned by several different companies. Surely of the masters of Dark, Lawyering Arts can negotiate such terrain the Mouse's lawyers would be just fine.
Yet another reason to vote Cthulhu! Although
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Copying and repurposing. My point was trademark/dress is about PACKAGING. While I know companies try to assert as much control as possible over whatever they feel is their IP, and in the (potential) absence of copyright they will try to use trademark legislation. I'm just not sure the courts will be as flexible in steamrolling free speech over trademarks as they are with copyright.
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The current market capitalization of Disney is over $100 billion. I cant find any specific information on Disney but I would expect that the shareholding of Disney is the same as for many large blue-chip companies where significant chunks are owned by entities (index funds, hedge funds, pension funds and others) who are only interested in the short term share price or the next set of quarterly financial numbers.
Personally I think Google could do well to buy one of the big movie studios. (Warner might make a
Are we talking about expansion again already? (Score:1)
That's the issue.
I think most users of copyrighted works think copyright law has been broadened *WAY* too much, like ever-lengthening (effectively indefinite) copyright terms and making it technically illegal to circumvent DRM even for otherwise legitimate fair use. The DMCA made a perverse wreck out of copyright law, with all sorts of pathological side-effects. Yet even with the huge expansion over the last century through revision after revision, copyright holders still want more. They are afraid of th
Copyright sanity (Score:5, Insightful)
In a sane world, "a comprehensive review of copyright law" would lead to cutting copyright terms back drastically. Something on the order of 14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year extension. This would take care of abandoned works (after 14 or 28 years they'd be public domain) and would enable us to simplify copyright law. A sane world would also set different penalties for "non-commercial infringement" (you shared that movie on a P2P network for free) and "commercial infringement" (you burned that movie to a few dozen DVD discs and sold them for $5 each).
Of course, I don't think we live in a sane world. Instead, I'm sure we'll see proposals helpfully "guided" by the content industry. Perhaps terms will be lengthened. Maybe penalties will rise. Perhaps more criminal penalties will be enacted and law enforcement will be forced to take a bigger role in arresting individuals whose crime was installing a P2P program that shared out music files on their computer. (Because, you know, law enforcement has nothing better to do than help the RIAA/MPAA enforce their business model.)
I *really* hope that sanity will prevail, but I'm not holding my breath.
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Yeah, that's pretty much my feelings when I see anything to do with the US government and copyright. It's sad when the best you can hope for is that it doesn't get much worse.
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Disney will outright start shooting Congressmen before they let that happen.
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Disney will outright start shooting Congressmen before they let that happen.
Yup, they have to protect that 500,000% profit potential of Star Wars. Otherwise, all the money they paid Lucas for it has been wasted.
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Or, have the 14 years free, extension cost $x, then every 5-10 years after it would be $x^2 so as to exponentially increase the costs. Eventually there would be a trade off where it is no longer valuable to the current owner to continue the increase, while the public would get the benefit of additional tax revenue at the expense of not having the material in public domain.
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Since the law is never going to go back to the original 14 years intent, it's up to independent content creators to voluntarily release their work into PD after that time. The real question is how many of them are willing to let Disney sell their ideas once they are PD.
More like "Comprehensive Expansion" (Score:2)
That's what this sounds like based on the language...
Thew way forward (Score:5, Interesting)
" 'The Internet has enabled copyright owners to make available their works to consumers around the world, but has also enabled others to do so without any compensation for copyright owners"
I think we all know where this is going. Total extinction of any notion of "fair use" so that every image you ever did a right click-->save to file on will be an independent criminal act punishable by not more than 5 years in jail and a $50,000 fine.
Let me tell you what this industry fears the most. Let me tell you what makes the execs in this industry shit their pants and drink too much after work. The idea that you will chose to do something else with your time. The notion that you will choose to spend the half million of so waking hours you have over the course of your life doing something else.
If they can't get those away from you because your attention was directed elsewhere, doing something more engaging, then they're fucked. You want one of my precious hours to look at your Desperate Housewives / Jarhead crap ? You should be so lucky.
I used to just think that people who did mass downloading when they *could* have bought the stuff were total assholes who would just cheat any and all the systems of civil society which make things tolerable for everyone. I still sort of think that, but what I don't think is this represents a good application of our justice system and my tax dollars -
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/18/downloading-case-cant-pay/1997127/ [usatoday.com]
What I think is this is a sado-system designed to turn even the meekest and most law abiding of our citizens, the ones that get up every morning to got to their underpaid , dead end jobs just to keep their noses and their children's noses slightly above water, into criminals.
This is a system run by the financial elite solely for their benefit . Elites whose mega-crimes go completely unpunished no matter how globally catastrophic their effects and how many people's lives are completely destroyed by their criminal actions. This is a system whose prosecutors look and look at those crimes but can't find anything but reasonable doubt, while the ordinary citizen can be assured they will be punished beyond any definition of reason and beyond all any definition justice for the even the meekest and most innocuous of infractions.
To the publishing houses and record companies and entertainment business and especially to Mickey Mouse and all the diseased and dysfunctional special interest politics he has come to represent to my generation I say this- we're going to take yoru out. We're going to decimate your industry and leave you with nothing- no customers, no interest, no money, and no power.
There's exactly nothing you can do to stop it, counter it, co-opt it or benefit from it. The future in no way includes you irrespective of how broadly you interpret the word "includes". You're all walking dead men, grotesque corpses staggering around, wailing for blood but finding none.
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To the publishing houses and record companies and entertainment business and especially to Mickey Mouse and all the diseased and dysfunctional special interest politics he has come to represent to my generation I say this- we're going to take yoru out. We're going to decimate your industry and leave you with nothing- no customers, no interest, no money, and no power.
I'm sure they're shaking in their boots. From laughter.
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You do realize that Disney owns copyright and trade marks on your name, correct?
In other words... (Score:2)
We've found some loop holes which entities like Droid TV are taking advantage of. And some recent court decisions did not side in favor with copyright holders.
So we're planning and discussing new legislation to fuck over the common people.
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What does "comprehensive" mean? (Score:2)
Apologies, but English is not my first language. Does that mean that he wants to change it so normal, sane people (as opposed to, say, copyright lawyers) can comprehend it?
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No, what he is saying is that he got a big campaign contribution from the *AA's and wants to pay them back by making things even worse for the public.
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What he is saying is that they will review all of copyright law, from infringement to fair use, to length of copyright and ownership. All aspects will be reviewed, within the context of modern technology.
There is no direct mention of what he believes or what he might recommend for revisions.
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Here's a simple rule-of-thumb to keep in mind: whenever a politician opens his or her mouth, things are about to get worse for common citizens.
The American public? (Score:1)
Comical.
Since when is the "American public" considered the customers being served by the Copyright Office. Methinks there is a much more narrow description of the customers served by the Copyright Office. But, hey, it reads a lot better when you the widest description possible.
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This is a Win, Win situation. (Score:2)
If by some miracle the copyright terms get shortened and abandoned works enter the public domain sooner, then we win.
What's more likely to happen is that they'll make the copyright laws even more restrictive with longer terms bigger fines for infringement, etc. Go down this road far enough and the common folk will start to feel pressure from the jackboot at their throat and actually do something about it.
In other words: Either they make it worse, and who gives a crap -- it really can't get much worse
Whatever They Do (Score:2)
you can be absolutely certain that it will
1. Benefit comapaign-contributor busnesses.
2. Cost consumers money.
3. Result in uneven, draconian enforcement.
4. Require a bigger burocracy to implement (3).
.
History repeats.... (Score:2)
U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte plans on conducting "...a comprehensive review of US copyright law over the coming months."
Guess he needs some money. Who knows where it will suddenly spring up from? Oh, my! The suspense!!
Goodbye Fair Use, Goodbye Open Access (Score:1)
Media corporations and publishers have been fighting "fair use" since it originated, and have systematically eroded it. But they want to get rid of the concept altogether.
And publishers went ballistic over the mandate that reports in scholarly journals pertaining to federally funded medical research must be made available free of charge to the public within one year after publication. The threat that the mandate will be broadened to include all federally-funded (non-classified) research is making them even
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My republican senators act like they represent Los Angeles rather than the red state that actually elected them.
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I think the majority of Los Angeles would disagree with you on that one.
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Here's my summary of what's frustrating about American politics:
Overall, Republicans represent most of my interests better than the Democrats, but dear lord can they be horrifyingly stupid and clueless on other issues, copyright and technology in general being big ones.
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Democrats are owned by the entertainment industry, so you know anything coming from that side of the fence will be to protect those dinosaurs' business models at the expense of the public.
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