Belarus Legalizes Piracy of Movies, Music and Software of 'Unfriendly' Nations (torrentfreak.com) 198
AmiMoJo writes: Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has signed a new law that legalizes piracy of movies, music, TV shows and software owned by rightsholders from 'unfriendly countries'. The law also allows goods protected by intellectual property law to be imported from any country without obtaining permission from rightsholders.
Lukashenko's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to new sanctions being imposed by the EU, U.S. and other countries. In common with Russia, Belarus relies on intellectual property owned by foreign rightsholders that are currently unable or unwilling to supply and/or license it. So, to ensure legal access to pirated movies, music, TV shows and software, the government drafted a new law to restrict intellectual property rights.
Lukashenko's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to new sanctions being imposed by the EU, U.S. and other countries. In common with Russia, Belarus relies on intellectual property owned by foreign rightsholders that are currently unable or unwilling to supply and/or license it. So, to ensure legal access to pirated movies, music, TV shows and software, the government drafted a new law to restrict intellectual property rights.
Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Oh no! (Score:2)
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Re: Oh no! (Score:2)
Simple - the RIAA will hire hitmen to stop it.
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20 years before anything enters the public domain here (Canada) thanks to Trump, DMCA like law thanks to Bush Jr. Seems like it is generally an American thing with Americans acting like toddlers with their finger pointing.
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Yes, and Bush pushed it on other countries, and one of the few upgrades to NAFTA re:Canada, pushed by Trump was intellectual property expansion, originally pharmaceutical along with copyright, the copyright stayed in the CUSMA and our government snuck it into a budget bill and as of Jan 1st, copyright is now 70 years after the death of the author instead of the too long 50 years.
You're doing the finger pointing again when it's something all the American government agrees with and as the American government
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What was their country code again ? (Score:3)
Asking for a friend.
Re: What was their country code again ? (Score:3)
Depends on what you refer to.
Telephone: +375
Internet: BY
Ham radio: EU, EV or EW
Hope They Are Annexed by Ukraine (Score:5, Insightful)
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That would be some nice Karma, not so much for the piracy, but for helping launch the war against the Ukraine.
It's not 'the Ukraine', it's simply Ukraine. Saying it the other way would be like saying the Germany or the France.
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To be fair, it *was* "the Ukraine" when Ukraine was a territory within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When they gained their independence, it just became "Ukraine".
There's old cold-warriors that are still stuck in that 1980s rut though.
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No it wasn't. That was just an English mis-translation. It was always just Ukraine because Slavic languages don't have articles. But since Ukraine means "borderlands" some English speakers incorrectly put "the" in front of it.
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No. There may be a few wannabe cold-warriors out there. But for the vast majority of people; it just means that they are old enough that their geography classes called it The Ukraine, just like Yakko Warner's Nations of the World still mentions Czechoslovakia as being a thing. In no way does a reflexive and accidental use of an obsolete name mean that someone is a "cold-warrior" who wants a return to that shit. It just means that every 2-3 years during K-12 it was drilled into our heads and we were test
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Tell that to Californians who always add "the" in front of highway numbers...
Not just preference (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not 'the Ukraine'? [bbc.com]
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Neither is wrong or right, it's a matter of preference.
No it's not. You don't get to choose whether you're a proper noun or a plain noun*. "The United States" are "The United States" because it's article + adjective + noun. It's not "The North America" because America is a proper noun.
While Ukraine is a noun in their native language it ceases being one when translated and thus the article is dropped.
*I am fully aware of the irony of my username.
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We're talking about names, which are always proper nouns
No it's not arbitrary at all. Grammar dictates the article precedes the names of countries which also contain common nouns or countries named after features. In fact there are only two countries in the world with articles included in their names as proper nouns and they are The Gambia and The Bahamas.
For many others, grammatical rules dictate the use of an article.
The United States of America. The United Kingdom. The Dominican Republic. The Democratic Republic of Congo. They contain adjectives so grammatica
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At this point it looks more like Russia is heading that way. Or rather "after the break-away of (insert list of newly independent countries that don't want to shoulder the burden of the reparation payments here), the rest was Russia".
I have a deja-vu of the aftermath of WW1 when Austria-Hungary broke apart.
Free Software? (Score:2)
There doesn't seem to be any mechanism for compensating authors of Free software for misuse of their works. The government will undoubtedly set the price of such software to 0, since that is the monetary cost outside of Belarus, and the only compensation seems to be reimbursement based on the amount users paid in to the government when they used the work.
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There doesn't seem to be any mechanism for compensating authors of Free software for misuse of their works.
Funny, I don't hear people complaining authors of non-free software not being compensated for misuse of their works. In fact, what we do hear is, "Steal it all! Fuck 'em! They don't need money!"
So which is it? Compensation for all, or compensation for none?
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There doesn't seem to be any mechanism for compensating authors of Free software for misuse of their works.
Funny, I don't hear people complaining authors of non-free software not being compensated for misuse of their works. In fact, what we do hear is, "Steal it all! Fuck 'em! They don't need money!"
So which is it? Compensation for all, or compensation for none?
Non-Free software is sypically sold for money, with DRM to prevent non-payers from using it. Assuming the Belarus government sets a reasonable price for each piece of software, and users who break the DRM pay that price to the government, the rights holders can apply to the government for a part of that payment. That may sound far-fetched, but at least there is a possibility of reimbursement.
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The text from the article says:
If these are from foreign countries “committing unfriendly actions” against Belarus, “which forbade or did not give consent” for lawfully published items of intellectual property to be used in Belarus, their exclusive rights relating to specified product classes will be limited.
The common Free Software licenses give consent to everyone, and do not have provisions to forbid consent to specific individuals. This ruling does not apply to free software under the most common license terms.
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The text from the article says:
If these are from foreign countries “committing unfriendly actions” against Belarus, “which forbade or did not give consent” for lawfully published items of intellectual property to be used in Belarus, their exclusive rights relating to specified product classes will be limited.
The common Free Software licenses give consent to everyone, and do not have provisions to forbid consent to specific individuals. This ruling does not apply to free software under the most common license terms.
You may be right, but consider this possibility: I write and publish some software and license it under the GPL. A company in Belarus includes that sofware in their proprietary product in a way that violates the license. I do not give them permission to do that. Doesn't this law permit them to ignore my license and misuse my software, with no compensation to me?
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If the disregarding of copyright laws is reciprocal, then it doesn't seem like there's much of an issue. If they make changes to the software and publish them, you can use their changes. True, they might not release their changes when they're legally required to, but that's hardly something new. Even if it's not reciprocal, there's the question of what a court in any jurisdiction other than Belarus is going to say if you incorporate their changes to the software into the original. I get the feeling most of
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If the disregarding of copyright laws is reciprocal, then it doesn't seem like there's much of an issue. If they make changes to the software and publish them, you can use their changes. True, they might not release their changes when they're legally required to, but that's hardly something new. Even if it's not reciprocal, there's the question of what a court in any jurisdiction other than Belarus is going to say if you incorporate their changes to the software into the original. I get the feeling most of them will uphold the license terms regardless. If not, it still doesn't seem like it would be a very big deal to most free software authors. As for the distribution of the proprietary product incorporating your code, it would only be inside Belarus. Outside Belarus, the courts would still uphold your copyright and license terms. Let's also consider that this is Belarus we're talking about. They're really just formalizing what the population has mostly been doing for years there anyway.
I wasn't assuming that the disregarding of copyright laws is reciprocal. I don't see anything in the article that says countries unfriendly to Belarus can ignore their copyrights.
I agree that courts outside of Belarus would uphold the license terms, but those courts do not have jurisdiction inside Belarus and so would only be able to prohibit the export of infringing software. I expect they would do the same for a Belaus movie that included large parts of a Hollywood movie without permission.
Does Belarus
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Does Belarus routinely ignore the license terms of Free software? I have not seen any evidence of that.
Yes and no. Most people who use it ignore the license terms of free software. They're usually not even aware that it's free and what that actually means. Most people just use it and don't care. Of course, with free software, that doesn't matter, they're free to use it, copy it, etc. Most people in Belarus ignore copyrights in general. It's very poor and basically a giant suburb of Russia.
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Does Belarus routinely ignore the license terms of Free software? I have not seen any evidence of that.
Yes and no. Most people who use it ignore the license terms of free software. They're usually not even aware that it's free and what that actually means. Most people just use it and don't care. Of course, with free software, that doesn't matter, they're free to use it, copy it, etc. Most people in Belarus ignore copyrights in general. It's very poor and basically a giant suburb of Russia.
As you point out, using and copying Free software does not violate the license. The license only gets restrictive when you try to make Free software non-Free. Do developers of commercial software in Belarus routinely do that?
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As you point out, using and copying Free software does not violate the license. The license only gets restrictive when you try to make Free software non-Free. Do developers of commercial software in Belarus routinely do that?
Well, developers all over the place, not just Belarus, do that quite routinely not even meeting the quite simple compliance requirements of the code. Most free software authors don't bother calling them on it though. Sometimes it happens. Generally, for free software, this is unlikely to create any significant change in the way free software is used in Belarus. People who respect the GPL and the concept of free software will share their changes and people who don't will not, which is probably exactly what t
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As you point out, using and copying Free software does not violate the license. The license only gets restrictive when you try to make Free software non-Free. Do developers of commercial software in Belarus routinely do that?
Well, developers all over the place, not just Belarus, do that quite routinely not even meeting the quite simple compliance requirements of the code. Most free software authors don't bother calling them on it though. Sometimes it happens. Generally, for free software, this is unlikely to create any significant change in the way free software is used in Belarus. People who respect the GPL and the concept of free software will share their changes and people who don't will not, which is probably exactly what they would do if Belarus wasn't officially disregarding copyright. The number of people who are going to say: "normally, I would share my changes as the GPL requires, but because my country is saying I can ignore copyrights, I'll just go ahead and not do that" is vanishingly small.
I hope you are right.
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Sure, but so does any other company across the world.
Almost all GPL software includes portions of software that are effectively public domain. If the rights holders of all your packages don't agree to sue, the license is practically moot.
I disagree. Certainly that is true for large projects like the Linux kernel, but I can write a subroutine package without any help from anyone else, and in that case I am the sole rights holder. In such a case, I think this law would shield a Bellarus violator of my copyright from liability: I would have to seek compensation from the government, which would have nothing to give me.
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Really? What language would you be using and which compiler? Are you planning to re-implement every built in function, or are you going to use the ones provided by the compiler? I ask, because while there are FOSS compilers, such as gcc, they're still copyrighted with highly permissive licenses.
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What I create is my work, no matter what tools I use. A photographer need not build his own cameras to have copyright on his pictures. Even though I call functions provided by the language's run-time library and the operating system, the work which contains those calls is still mine.
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That's not the point I was trying to make. If your program contains calls to functions/subroutines in libraries that come with the compiler, the executable will contain code from those libraries, which you didn't write, and are copyrighted by whoever created them. This means that you wouldn't be the sole creator, although it's unlikely that the copyright on those modules would prevent you from using them in a commercial product.
But I do not distribute the executable but only the source code, which the recipient can compile and run with his own compiler, run-time system and operating system. I am thus the sole author of what I distribute.
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Aha! Something new has been added! Up until now, you had simply stated that you were distributing your program, or making it available. Most of the time, when people do that it's in the form of an executable, so since you didn't stipulate that you were only providing source, it was reasonable for me to presume that that's what you were doing. And yes, I agree that if you're only providing source, you'd be the sole copyright holder.
But I did say that it was Free software, and everyone knows that distributions of Free software always include the source.
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Not always; sometimes it's only made available on request, such as with LibraOffice. And, even when it includes the source the executable is normally also part of the package. Providing only the source, to be compiled by the end user is fairly rare, unless you're specifically targeting Gentoo.
When I distribute Free software that I have written, I package it as a tarball using autotools [earthly.dev]. This is a widely-used distribution method in which the recipient unpacks the tarball, then types "./configure" and "make" to compile the software, and "make install" to install it.
If I am targeting Fedora Linux, I include a .spec file in the tarball and package the tarball as an SRPM file. I can then have the Fedora Copr facility distribute it for me.
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And they'll do so two ways. One will be an
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If I am targeting Fedora Linux, I include a .spec file in the tarball and package the tarball as an SRPM file. I can then have the Fedora Copr facility distribute it for me.
And they'll do so two ways. One will be an .rpm file with the executable and any needed support files and the other will be the .srpm file that you provided for anybody who wants or needs to compile it themselves.
Quite right. However, I am asserting copyright only over the source files. This lets me prosecute anyone who violates the license without needing permission from anyone else.
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but you didn't say it only included the source.
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Governments are immune to all liability. A government can choose to enter into arbitration but I think Belarus would be unwilling.
I wasn't thinking of the government of Belarus as being liable, but rather a private person in Belarus who would use this law as a shield against liability for violating my copyright. Because I do not sell my software for money, I would have no recourse.
This changes... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Pretty much this. Belarus already didn't give half a fuck about any complaints concerning copyright violations.
Re: This changes... (Score:3)
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You know that they're not sticking it to "da man" here, right? Lukashenko is more of "da man" than anyone in the US can even imagine.
Hah! (Score:5, Funny)
I will get my revenge by pirating all the uhh...cool...uhhh...Belarusian stuff...
hm...
Re:Hah! (Score:5, Funny)
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Now Lukashenko is gone... (Score:5, Funny)
He may play with UE, NATO or White House....
But Disney and Sony is another level - Lukashenko will be destroyed...
Re:Now Lukashenko is gone... (Score:4, Insightful)
Should have been the FP thread. (Or maybe the joke just before this one?) But the joke I was looking for was more along the lines of:
Great! Just the reason I was looking for to move to Belarus and enjoy true freedom of expression!
But I better add /s in light of our brave new Age of Poe's Law.
Getting ready before the sanctions (Score:3, Insightful)
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Belarus isn't putting troops into Ukraine, because Belarusians have already made it clear Lukashenko won't survive that scenario. Self-preservation is Lukashenko's one non-negotiable rule, and Putin would much rather have him there not helping than have another hostile neighbor.
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Belarus isn't putting troops into Ukraine, because Belarusians have already made it clear Lukashenko won't survive that scenario. Self-preservation is Lukashenko's one non-negotiable rule, and Putin would much rather have him there not helping than have another hostile neighbor.
Personally I think the whole situation is rather hilarious. Belarus is giving its equipment to Ruzzia while Russia is sending its troops and equipment to Belarus.
Expect any day now for Putler to announce the discovery of a Nazi infestation within Belarus and the yearning of its people for "liberation".
Re:Getting ready before the sanctions (Score:4, Interesting)
Belarus attacking Ukraine? Veeeeery unlikely scenario. For more than one reason.
First, he won't survive that at home. Lukashenko is already among his people as popular as foot fungus. He's propping himself on the army which, if used abroad, isn't available anymore to prop him up.
And second, he sees how the war is running. You don't exactly join someone on his way into the abyss.
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He hasn't been popular for decades. Didn't change shit. Even the protests a couple of years ago have been successfully suppressed - with Russian help, BTW.
With riot police actually. The army is busy training russian conscripts.
This may backfire... (Score:5, Insightful)
I get that they're trying to force concessions from "unfriendly" nations through MPAA bribes in those countries, but by making it easier for their population to pirate movies from a culture they dislike, their populace will be further indoctrinated into said culture.
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You really assume that Belarusians can access the internet like you and me?
Not the only kind of piracy (Score:2)
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IP like armored drones and other weapons technologies are all fine, I guess
Pirating movies and music is easy because they are publicly distributed. Last time I checked, this wasn't the case for Predator drone design documentation, which in any case is likely to be classified and thus non-copyrightable. As far as any unclassified information is concerned, US Export controls on weapons technologies are extremely restrictive and penalties for violations are draconian. The average citizen of Belarus is unlikely to get their hands on such material, and agents of the Belarus government
This is a non-issue. (Score:3)
20 Years Should Be Acceptable (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an admittedly emotional reason why I believe that a 20 year duration for copyright, as laid out in the Constitution, is reasonable. I might be in favor of 30, and I might be in favor of allowing extension purchases at exponentially increasing prices. But here's my reason for at least 20: Douglas Adams. This admittedly may be an "appeal to emotion" or some other logical fallacy. I don't care.
When Douglas passed away, he left behind his wife and a 6 year old daughter. His wife then developed cancer and suffered from it for several years before dying when their daughter was 17.
I literally owe Douglas Adams my life. The proceeds from his writings made sure that that little girl was well provided for, even with him gone, even through her mother's medical hardship and passing. I can't argue against that, not even a little.
Re: 20 Years Should Be Acceptable (Score:2)
I'd go with 30. It covers most of the working life of an author. It'll endure the author is likely to benefit if sales of older works spike due to a later interest in them. Given that we lose our right to copy a work, 30 years would make it far more likely we'd see that right returned within our lifetimes. This is important as copyright is neither natural nor a human right, and it takes from the majority for the few.
Copyright is not a retirement plan. Authors need adequate time to profit in order to invest
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I'd go with 30. It covers most of the working life of an author.
The Founding Fathers of the United States agreed with you. The first US copyright law was for a duration of 14 years with an optional, free (but paperwork mandated) extension of 14 years, for a total term of 28 years as long as the copyright owner was paying attention the year of the first expiration. Twenty eight years was reasonable. Time enough to profit, even in the era of the fastest interstate communication being Pony Express, and the fastest cargo transport being stage coach, yet short enough that
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I have an admittedly emotional reason why I believe that a 20 year duration for copyright, as laid out in the Constitution, is reasonable.
FWIW there is nothing in the constitution about copyright terms only enabling grant of authority. First copyright act in late 1700s carried a 14 year term that was later doubled to 28 years in the 1830s.
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and I might be in favor of allowing extension purchases at exponentially increasing prices
That is one way of ensuring copyright is only available to the rich. It's an incredibly bad idea.
The proceeds from his writings made sure that that little girl was well provided for, even with him gone, even through her mother's medical hardship and passing. I can't argue against that, not even a little.
I can argue against it. You found an edge case that saved one person while not addressing the underlying situation that needed to be overcome. Why should the daughter of an author be cared for while the daughter of a firefight or a truck driver not? If you want to campaign for social security to protect and provide for people who lose their parents, let's do that. I'm right there with you. But using one edge cas
Yo Ho! (Score:2)
Belarus is issuing digital letters of marque.
Makes sense. (Score:2)
link please (Score:2)
napster.by is not working, there must be a URL...
Re: Legal acess? (Score:3)
Re: Any copyright term longer than 5 years is a cr (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you write a book, or series of books you can only be paid for selling your books for 5 years? Or selling copies of your artwork?
Maybe end corporate ownership of copyright, but 5 years clock to sell your art kinda sucks, no? After that anyone can do anything they like to the characters you created, the series youâ(TM)re still writing?
Copyright should be used to protect the artist in their lifetime, and only limited once transferred or sold. I should be able to secure my IP when writing, but if I sell it to a corporation, then the IP clock starts.
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How many books sell many copies beyond the first 5 years of publication?
The copyright expiring on the first book in a series just allows people to print copies of the book and create derivative works, it doesn't stop you from producing more books in the series and those later books would each have their own separate copyright term. Having the earlier books freely available serves to advertise the new books. Someone might read a cheap copy of the original book, like it and go out to buy the latest instalment
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Short term copyrights would be completely untenable in numerous cases. Can you imagine if The Expanse had a 5 year copyright? Netflix/Amazon/whoever could have made it into a TV show royalty free, without any creative
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People would start seeking out original content with input from directors. Right now 'rightsholders' can do whatever they want with the IP, and often the rights aren't owned at ALL by the original author, or the contractual agreements don't allow for much input. That results in garbage movies which damage the original IP.
Without an extended copyright, the actual IP would retain a much higher quality and knockoffs would exist (as they do today). Besides the copyright, you still have trademark rights, so just
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Most classic books or literarily significant books sell much more in future years than in the first five. For example, The Giver
sorry, but that's not an example of "classic or literarily significant" no matter how whimsically you might imagine "literarily significant" to be. because i guess you wouldn't dare to call that a "classic".
you're not wrong, though, but the added "drama" of "classic or literarily significant" plays against you when it wasn't really necessary for your point, which has nothing to do with art or significance. actually, being in the public domain can only ever contribute to the significance of any idea or art s
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It's still required reading along with lord of the flies for many junior highs.
But I will agree with you and say that perhaps in this case it might be best to simply say this book was "commercially significant."
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They would have more motivation to continue, because after 5 years they would have to compete on the open market with anyone capable of printing copies of their existing books. The only way they could sell copies for significantly more than the printing cost, would be to produce new work.
Err no. Copyright of works goes far beyond the concept of printing a book and touches the fundamentals of the story and characters themselves. Nothing good comes of competition in this space. Copyright directly spurs the generation of more original ideas.
Also for every J.K.Rowling there are a million writers who spend a year writing a book that over 5 years barely generates a living wage.
On the other hand with long copyright terms, if they make enough money from the first book they can easily lose interest in making a second - especially if the income stream is continuing.
Err no, there's zero evidence for that happening. Authors don't write to make a million and retire, and authors who gener
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Game of Thrones books disagree.
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How many books sell many copies beyond the first 5 years of publication?
You know that the copyright is set from the date of creation, not the date of publication, right? That puts the entire discussion in another light.
Not all authors get their book published immediately when it is done, some try to get accepted by a publisher for years. When an author gets a literary award they usually see a huge spike in sales, even for works that are decades old as new readers discover the author. Works that may have very modest sales before.
Changing the entire concept to suit a few authors
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I agree with pretty much everything you've said. However...
You know that the copyright is set from the date of creation, not the date of publication, right? That puts the entire discussion in another light.
What defines the "date of creation"? Very few books get published without at least minor revision resulting from the editorial process. If the date of creation corresponds to the date of final revision prior to publication, then it doesn't really matter how long it took the author to complete the work or how long it took to get the work accepted for publication.
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How many books sell many copies beyond the first 5 years of publication?
Plenty of books which are part of trilogies or other larger world building efforts sell plenty of books past the five year mark. Any book that is picked up by a studio to make series / movies based on the work sell possibly most of their books after the five year mark. Plus they get money from the movie studios for their IP, which wouldn't happen if copyright expired after five years.
Re: Any copyright term longer than 5 years is a c (Score:3)
30 years would be more balanced. Five years would barely account for slow burn successes. Spikes of older books do occur, such as when a later work becomes very popular, also if an adaptation becomes a hit. It'd cover the bulk of a writer's career while making it likely copyright would lapse in the lifetime of the reader.
As I must lose my rights so the author can profit, it makes sense that this right may return to me during my life. Current copyright durations make that all but impossible.
Re: Any copyright term longer than 5 years is a cr (Score:4, Interesting)
So if you write a book, or series of books you can only be paid for selling your books for 5 years? ...no? After that anyone can do anything they like to the characters you created, the series youâ(TM)re still writing
If this was how things worked, someone would have stepped up and finished Game of Thrones :)
Also, think how helpful LordofWinterfell's plan is to Hollywood. They can wait 5 years after a book or script is published before making a movie and avoid paying the person who create the story.
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"After that anyone can do anything they like to the characters you created, the series youâ(TM)re still writing?"
Yes, and we call that "being creative".
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Actually, we call that "being derivative" and "profiting from someone else's creative work".
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And copyright terms should all be "for all eternity" to prevent these derivative bastards ever making anything.
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Thanks for an excellent example of reductio ad absurdem. I would expect nothing less.
Re: Any copyright term longer than 5 years is a cr (Score:2)
I could accept that it expires 5 years after the death of the creator. But copyrights must be held by a physical person and can't be transferred.
Re: Any copyright term longer than 5 years is a cr (Score:2)
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Information is not a luxury item, especially if a book is for education, i.e. required reading. Also the more books you read the more likely you are to write one of your own.
Having universities forcing you to spend hundreds of dollars on books and that now have a bit of online content that means each student has to buy a new one its just extortion. https://www.macleans.ca/educat... [macleans.ca]
And it doesn't have to be free just a reasonable price. People will pay and not care as long as its convenient and affordable.
Co
I'll wait 5 years (Score:2)
I can wait 5 years to read your book or see your movie or whatever. After 5 years I'll make my own copy of your work for almost nothing.
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I don't have any points today, but if I did, I'd consider it. 5 years is just completely hurt-in-the-brain, no clue how the industry works.
Re: Any copyright term longer than 5 years is a cr (Score:2)
Eat a turd, bitch
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You've not really been following the news lately, have you?
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"information wants to be free"
Please don't anthropomorphize information, it really hates that!