> Yeah, because I just can't stand to pay an enormous amount like $10 or $20 for that book or album I really have to have.
This isn't about listening to something or reading something. It's about the ability to remix and build upon it.
> I think it's unreasonable to expect people who make things to be able to profit from them for more than 5 years.
It doesn't matter, because most people don't profit from their works after 5 years, if they ever profit from it at all. The current law helps the Disneys and bestselling authors and has little to no effect on small, independent creators. I don't think we should optimize for corporations, I think we should optimize for everyone being able to reproduce, distribute and build upon their culture - with a period of potential financial motivation to kickstart the creation of new cultural artifacts. If you're still living off your work 5 years on, you're probably already rich.
Girl Talk's music is literally illegal because his instrument comes with a license agreement. What if Stratocasters had come with one?
> Hell, why don't we make all property expire after 5 or 10 years?
This makes no sense. At all. Physical property and my culture are not comparable.
"This isn't about listening to something or reading something. It's about the ability to remix and build upon it."
This kind of statement does not help your case at all.
Pirate Bay is not about remix culture. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Saying that it is just makes every single thing you say on the topic suspect.
I'm not in favor of the kind of restriction we see dicussed in this article. I'm against sopa/pipa/acta style approaches. But I also know that copying music and movies is 99.99% about getting something for free, not about remixing. So please. Be honest here.
Otherwise you just make the other side's arguments more powerful.
Copying is at least about 60% simplicity and convenience, and about 30% better quality and lack of commercial BS. Free is a nice bonus, but I have cheap tastes and more money than I need, so it's really not a driving force as long as the commercial stuff is reasonably priced. I really don't want to hunt through 4 websites/apps to find something. The fact that I know one will have something and no idea if one of the legal alternatives will is the crux of it - I don't have time for the results of their licensing games. It's the same reason I only shop Amazon with Prime.
There is nothing new under the sun. Nearly everything is a remix of older ideas. Even many of Shakespeare's plays were retellings of popular contemporary stories — we wouldn't have Romeo & Juliet if not for the less copyright-crazy era that he lived in. Your suggestion would work better if it were in response to "20 years isn't long enough for a copyright term."
Yes. But Romeo and Juliet apparently borrowed heavily from works from 1562 and 1582[1]. Since he wrote the play in 1591, both works would have been under today's copyright.
I hope this doesn't sound overly aggressive, but you don't seem to have a very firm understanding of how copyright law works. Derivative works are covered as well. You don't have to literally copy every piece of something with full fidelity to fall under it; borrowing heavily can be quite sufficient. For example, an unauthorized encyclopedia of the Harry Potter universe got stomped because it borrowed heavily from the Harry Potter books. It wasn't actually a copy of any book, but it took enough to get slapped down.
IANAL, but I personally have no doubt that Shakespeare would have been sued if today's copyright culture had existed then. He even copied the characters' names (and yes, characters can be covered by copyright), not to mention most of the major plot elements. It wasn't just "Oh, this general idea is kinda similar to that one."
It's the skill of Shakespeare's story telling that made him so great, not the stories themselves. But the stories are protected by copyright, not the skill.
There is nothing new under the sun. Nearly everything is a remix of older ideas.
Well, kind of. But when I suggest creating something "new", I'm not saying don't remix/use old ideas, I say don't remix/use actual previous existing artifacts.
And let's be clear here, the Pirate Bay is not about creating, it's about consuming.
It's sad that you get downvoted for disagreeing. You make a good point. All you have to do is look at their most popular downloads to see that it's a consumer culture. The majority, if not all, of the most popular downloads on Amy given day are all copyrighted music, movies, and software with the odd indie artist giving it out truly for free.
And you don't make a remix with an mp3. Seriously, that's just silly. If you're looking to remix music, which is what I'm mostly talking about, you need to separate tracks to manipulate them and it's damn near impossible to separate out the drums from the vocals from the keys, etc. if you're working from any listening format like mp3 and the like. Remix culture my foot.
It's not like it's unprecedented. Patents expire after 20 years. Many people and organizations get very good use out of that 20 year term.
I'm not sure why there's such a disparity between patents (which cost thousands of dollars and expire after 20 years), trademarks (which cost thousands of dollars, and have to be actively defended), and copyright (which costs nothing, is automatic, and expires after your grandchildren are dead).
Patents are applications of scientific discoveries. Other people are likely to make the same discoveries and want to apply them in a similar way, and that's legitimate.
Copyright covers things that are purely creations of the author. The author holding a copyright on something doesn't prevent or restrict anyone, except people who want to directly use the copyrighted work, which they wouldn't have come up with anyway (e.g. even if I write a novel about wizards, it would not be Harry Potter).
Most property has value without artificial legal limitations.
I agree that 5-10 years is probably too short of a period for intellectual property to be protected. Honestly, putting an arbitrary span of time on the duration is a suboptimal way of accomplishing the goals of copyright law. Why not protect an artist’s creation as long as he or she is alive, and then release it into the public domain upon his or her death? One of the main problems with the current system is that corporations (e.g. Disney) can monopolize culturally-significant works for decades after their creator’s death.
One of the main problems with the current system is that corporations (e.g. Disney) can monopolize culturally-significant works for decades after their creator’s death.
So? How is it a problem that Disney has a monopoly on Pocahontas or Aladdin?
> How is it a problem that Disney has a monopoly on Pocahontas or Aladdin?
Because if you try to tell any of those stories today, you'll have Disney's lawyers knocking on your door (if not the FBI knocking down your door). And don't forget those stories were already old when Walt Disney was a little boy.
It's actually quite interesting to think about with respect to real property. For example, many Native American tribes couldn't conceive of the idea that one person could own the land; it simply didn't match their mental model. As a result, they ended up ceding, practically, the entire lower 48 states to the European immigrants.
Understanding the Native Americans from an anthropological point of view indicated the Land owned them. The Land provided food, water, shelter, warmth, entertainment, animals, and other things.
The trade of Manhattan for wampum beads is a perfect example: The European thought he got a killer deal because an island was worth far more than those beads. The Native thought, 'the land will be here after he dies, as he belongs to the land'. The native got a better deal because it wasn't a trade.
Native Americans of all the tribes had a very strong sense of ownership. If that was not the case, the Natives would have not signed treaties indicating that this is "X's territory".
I think it's unreasonable to expect people who make things to be able to profit from them for more than 5 years.
Hell, why don't we make all property expire after 5 or 10 years?
Please don't take the sarcasm personally; it was just the best way to illustrate my point.