Holy shit https://mastodon.social/@ZachWeinersmith/113142605894704475
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Shannon Clarkreplied to Dave Rahardja (he/him) last edited by
@drahardja @ZachWeinersmith that went places I wasn’t fully expecting or to be honest all that prepared for
Sheesh
(Also - seriously an argument for stuff like the Peanuts to indeed enter the public domain while the fans of the work are still alive for works like this to be more common- that build upon our shared cultural touchstones)
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Dave Rahardja (he/him)replied to Shannon Clark last edited by
@Rycaut @ZachWeinersmith Copyright should have very short lifespans, so that new works enter the Public Domain many times during a person’s lifetime.
Works entering the Public Domain should be the norm. Creative works belong to all of us and enrich us all. People should be encouraged to remix and create derivative works, some of which will be distinctive enough to gain them their own copyright for a few years. Rinse and repeat.
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Shannon Clarkreplied to Dave Rahardja (he/him) last edited by
@drahardja @ZachWeinersmith I don’t disagree but it’s hard to see how we get back to anything close to that.
My personal proposal though it takes changing international treaties is to tie copyright extensions to registration (so free copyright from creation for a limited term 10 or 15 years?) then registration is required. First registration might be free (for say 10 more years) then subsequent renewals have a cost and might be for 5 years (or less) with a cost that increases exponentially
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Dave Rahardja (he/him)replied to Shannon Clark last edited by
@Rycaut @ZachWeinersmith I don’t like that, because small-time artists benefit greatly from the fact that copyright is automatically granted to all new works, and the onus is on the challenger to show that the work is derivative.
In the US, I think we need to continue to pressure congress to reduce the potency of copyright (and patents too, while we’re at it). I also hope that a more enlightened court will rule that the existing state of copyright and patent protections go against the intent of the Constitution (i.e. “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”), as it’s reasonable to conclude that reducing copyright and patents will promote *more* progress, not less.
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Shannon Clarkreplied to Dave Rahardja (he/him) last edited by
@drahardja @ZachWeinersmith my proposal wouldn’t change that. The work would still be copyrighted on creation. It just would have a short time limit (though not too short - 15 or even 20 years) during which the creator would have to register the work to extend that term to longer than 20 years. This is similar to how copyright used to work (though without the registration to get any copyright at all requirements we had for a while). So small creators would still be protected.
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@drahardja @ZachWeinersmith it is however unlikely to change much from the current regime because it has been embodied into international agreements in ways that make it difficult for one country to dramatically change how copyrights work (we couldn’t easily go back to registration required before a copyright was issued - and as I noted even my suggestion is probably difficult to make happen without new international agreements and a lot of negotiating
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Dave Rahardja (he/him)replied to Shannon Clark last edited by
@Rycaut @ZachWeinersmith Well, making it expensive to extend copyright means that only rich people can protect their property. I want corporations to contribute their share of public domain works.
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Shannon Clarkreplied to Dave Rahardja (he/him) last edited by
@drahardja @ZachWeinersmith sure but any proposal to change the current system would have to be a compromise.
1) making it free to register and low cost for the first couple of registrations mean 25-30 years likely of copyright for most creators (with some effort) that protects most during the likeliest time their work would have economic value
2) allowing additional renewals forces corporations, creators (and estates) to make choices and likely reduces dramatically the works kept private
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@drahardja @ZachWeinersmith also keep in mind that even small fees times a large volume of works would add up so even a big corporation likely would not renew every work they own (think every comic from a Marvel or DC) so over time corporations would likely choose to make fairly large portions of their back catalogs public domain (retaining however trademarks and some aspects of some characters)
(While an individual or their estate might have many fewer works. Unpublished content is trickier)