I don't really have a good solution. My gut reaction is that having a system that rewards the same companies that pushed for infinite copyright duration, rather than removing their hold over our shared culture, isn't a good solution. That isn't the most pragmatic of me, but I'd rather not reward Disney for breaking the public domain.
I always feel like the right solution would be to have a significantly shorter copyright duration, but make it extendable for a large and increasing annual fee.
I don't care if Disney gets to keep the rights to Mickey Mouse. The real problem is all the other stuff that gets swept along in the bargain.
There are good solutions and even easy ones. The simplest I've heard is just make folks pay to extend the copyright. The longer the extension the more expensive it is. Everything else falls into public domain. if Disney wants Mickey copyrighted for a hundred years, they can pay a million or ten million or whatever a year for it. If it's not worth it to them, then it should be in the public domain.
Well I feel it's a compromise, large corporation like Disney will never yield, what I'm trying to avoid is them causing other works that are no longer in print or distributed from disappearing. I want to give a disincentive to keep things under copyright for ever.
"your system would basically keep out of the public domain important works that already benefited the content owners more than enough." While true the exponential rise in cost in my proposition would lead to ensuring that these things will go into the public domain at some point. As it is now, extensions apply to everything including things for which no one cares for anymore.
Let's not ignore that the current system is also biased towards large corporations anyway. The cost of enforcing copyright is prohibitively high for small creators. I also suggest in a previous post to have a open databases showing registration (paid for by the registration fees) that would make it easier to find and contact creators to license their things.
Revert copyright back to the original 28 years and Disney's increasing domination of the media market becomes less of a concern. Of course this probably won't happen because the US and other world governments exist to serve Disney and their shareholders, but it's the easiest way to fix this that doesn't involve a long and complicated antitrust case that the government might lose in the courts.
If you want to be even more daring and spend a little bit of public money, you could have a publicly financed streaming service with most major public domain works. You could make it available through the Library of Congress.
My proposition(probably not original at all) is that we let Disney(and anyone else) extend copyright on thing it wants at an ever increasing (exponential) rate. If they have to pay they will make sure to only keep things under copyright that are still bringing them value.
Also, we need to move towards a registration based copyright system. This post doesn't need copyright protection.
I'd actually prefer a use-it-or-lose-it system for copyright. Like paying a yearly fee of maybe $100 to keep it copyrighted after a particular time has passed. Let Disney keep all the shit they want but other works that aren't being monetized are free for the taking (and other monetization).
I wonder if a solution would be a payment to extend copyright.
I think the strongest argument in the article is about the disappearance of works, but, as pointed out, this doesn't really apply to Mickey Mouse. Instead of having a universal expiration, which is causing some works to die, have a shorter expiration but then allow those who are still monetizing their works to pay a portion to extend it. This would provide a less grey market alternative to lobbying and perhaps the revenue generated could be put back into the arts.
I think that politicians should just admit what they're doing, extend copyright only for Disney Corporation, and leave the rest to enter the public domain.
Simple, allow new copyrights on derivative works. Except wait, that's how it already is in America. I'm fine with them redesigning Mickey Mouse for new works. However, it's not cool for them to keep the public domain locked up so that their older works don't enter the public domain—heck, a lot of these are direct adaptations of stories in the public domain. They already have a trademark on Mickey Mouse so its not like other people would start stealing Mickey Mouse.
We can remove the arbitrary-but-keeps-getting-extended copyright length limit, and just make the payments scale up exponentially the longer you hold on to the copyright. Disney gets Mickey Mouse as long as it wants, so long as it feels the economic value is large enough.
We can even sell Disney on this by making it easier for them to keep Mickey Mouse under copyright for longer. I mean, they're going to keep it for a long time anyways, but this lets them do so cheaply and with little lobbying over the next ~30 years (depending on how the USG negotiates things). In return, we get sane copyright rules for the rest of the content that isn't that valuable.
The current copyright system is beyond messed up. Locking up IP for multiple generations is just downright pro-corporate nonsense, and we mostly have Disney to thank for it.
Unfair compromise suggestion: Exempt Disney from the law and shrink the public domain? Acknowledge reality and create competition for those who are beyond the law, instead of them destroying the law for all?
Then I think we are in violent agreement. People who say “copyright has gotten out of control” or “is the cost worth it to society” largely are complaining about the current state of copyright where it lasts generations in my experience. Nobody hates the creator of culture they love, the hate the lawyers strangling anyone’s ability to participate in that culture in any way other than as a consumer. If we turned back the clock to 1975 levels of protection, we would get a public domain again which is good for creators, and creators would still have long periods to profit off their labor. The next Disney could be born as the first Disney was, by remixing the rich public domain. Of course that wouldn’t be good for the current disney monopoly and so it’s unlikely to happen.
Frankly, I think the only plausible way to deal with this is to compete with it. That is part of what Creative Commons is about.
Culture is getting dull. As we continue to extend these copyrights to protect Mickey, we dilute our own creative potential.
And I'm not sure Mickey is worth it. Disney makes an empire out of the Brothers Grimm, and refuses to give back.
That's the problem.
People can't easily understand what is being lost either. That's the other problem.
Personally, I find myself less inclined to participate. Rehashes of the same stuff just doesn't appeal. But, many people are fine with it all, or they don't realize the difference in overall "vibrancy" possible.
Major companies think the current situation isn't anywhere extreme enough. Their customers have some rights, and some courts will even let them exercise them: that's unacceptable.
There's no chance Disney will be happy with any solution which involves losing any level of control over any copyright they currently own (or will own in the future).
Although they would, I'm sure, be happy for other people to have to pay to maintain their copyright, making it easier to plagiarise poorer creators.
The problem with the copyright lobbyism is that it affects not just Disney but everyone else. Right now nothing will ever reach the public domain through copyright expiration.
It would be okay if copyright law had a short duration like 10 years but a way to extend the copyright term by another 10 years for a flat fee that keeps up with inflation. It doesn't have to be an increasing fee. The point of this fee is to check whether a business can still extract money out of their IP. If they can't then release it to the public domain.
If Mickey Mouse is a cash cow that lasts forever then so be it.
How do you solve the Mickey Mouse problem? E.g., you have a character that has created an "empire" that an organization has the means (cultural/monetary) to prevent their creation from entering the public domain. You have to figure out what to do about those rare situations because they're the driving force for extending copyrights.
My ideal is like the old system (initial registration plus fixed term renewals). That actually worked well to balance interests and we should go back to it. Just make the renewals an increasing cost so that your 'Mickey Mouse' hits can continue to have effectively infinite protection while most won't renew and drop into the public domain.
I think this is a good solution. There are and will still be companies that want to protect and make money off of their old assets. I really don't want to see a market flooded with Mickey Mouse knock off garbage.
But if the creator is dead and nobody is making any money off their work, then put it in the public domain so it doesn't get lost in time.
This to me is the right answer: have an intellectual property tax which goes up every year. Disney can pay to keep Mickey locked up but all of the less popular IP shifts the calculation from “keep it, we might use it some day” to a more balanced calculation.
The other thing I’d like to add is some kind of requirement that works be available (e.g. it should cost a lot more if they want to hide it in a vault) but that would need care to avoid publishers screwing creators if there’s a dispute, as is not uncommon - you wouldn’t want the threat of putting something in the public domain to be used to force the creator to agree to unfavorable terms. Maybe something like all assignment contracts are unconditionally voided without compensation if the company chooses not to make an item available for sale/license at standard rates for more than n days in a 5 year period?
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