Hi everyone, today I am going to talk about a subject that I get nothing but complaints about, it is the American copyright law. The problem I have with the copyright law is that the United States keeps expanding the damn thing.
Now before I go into anything, I want to make it clear that I completely respect the idea behind the copyright law and that the creators, owners and investors should have exclusive use to publish and expand on their works. I think that J.R.R. Tolkien is the only person who should profit off writing about his ring saga. I think that J.K. Rowling should be the only person who makes money off of Harry Potter. I have no problem with this, while the creators are alive.
The problem that I have with copyright is that they keep extending its expiry date after the creator has died. When modern copyright started, it was more like a patent where you had the exclusive rights to copy your work for 28 years, after this, the works would go into public domain and anyone could use them. Of course, creators wanting more time to finish their vision, and companies wanting a longer monopoly on their stories slowly lengthened the amount of time copyright was in effect. This eventually rose to being the life span of the author.
Now I am going to intrude again and say that here I am still all for this concept. If someone has created something artistic, they should have the span of their lifetime to reinvent and polish their work so that they can get leave the world with the legacy they deserve.
My complaint with US copyright law goes beyond that, the law jumped to the lifespan plus 50 years. That means that people will have to pay for recreating the book, or modelling characters after those created less than fifty years ago. To make matters worse, the law is unclear of what we can and cannot copy. If I do a parody that is clearly a parody, I can get away with using a character that is almost the exact same as long as you lightly change the name and appearance. But if you do a subtle parody, where the changes aren’t as noticeable, you can potentially be charged with copyright infringement. You could also show copyrighted material in small doses to analyse or review it, but how much you can show is still left up for debate.
So by 1976, the United States passed a copyright law explaining that they would be supporting the lifespan +50 years. And they allowed the bill to accommodate all copyright changes from common law disputes and state laws. Now, I personally believe that 50 years after someone’s death is too long for a brilliant idea to be untouched or just controlled by a select few, but I can’t really fault the bill for the compromises it made and what it tried to do. In fact, it was pretty successful as simplifying many copyright terms.
Now the next part is where things start to get wrong. Shortly after the new Millennium Mickey Mouse was about to go into public domain. Walt Disney wasn’t about to let this happen, so in 1998, they successfully lobbied to have an extension passed to the copyright laws. What it did was freeze everything that came after 1923 from being released into public domain until 2019 or later.
On top of this, anything created after 1978 is protected until 2047. Meaning that we still have to pay out to a bunch of greedy bastards for work that should be free for anyone to use. Now to add insult to injury, archival footage can now also be copyrighted and refused to be by the owners. This means that footage of Martin Luthor Jr.’s speeches can be lost forever because a studio wants a monopoly over it.
Now this is just dangerous for accurately recording history. If a newspaper was the only one to report on an event that had some influence to anything, after publishing the piece once, it could refuse to ever archive it or release the articles to the public again. And if someone had a clipping that they pasted in a book, that book could be recalled and destroyed because they didn’t get the papers permission to publish it. This gives the paper unprecedented power to pick and choose what history should be shown.
Other times, the intent of the artist is overshadowed by the publishers, who take the meaning of the work and twist it for their own means. Mostly this applies to musicians that encouraged their fans to play and remix their music, but because corporations bought out their music from a smaller organization and forbid it. Even music sampling that used to be legal is now forbidden because of the newer laws.
Another interesting problem that has come up in America because of the copyright changes is that the laws are now copyrighted by the government, and in some cases, it refuses to let other post the law. Such an event happened in Oregon, where some websites and newspapers posted the copyright laws up as a public service for people to read. Those posts were ordered removed by the states legislative council who claimed ownership of the bill.
What?! Yup, it is actually breaking copyright laws to make the states copyright laws publically accessible so that we know what is legal and what isn’t. Now, under the current rules, this can be done with all existing bills. So posting a bill can now be illegal under US Law.
It gets worst. Turnitin.com is making money off of peoples essays. Now starting an account says that they get non-exclusive rights to post and archive whatever you post without having to give you a cent or taking down your essay after a certain amount of time. The problem is that many students aren’t given the option not to post their work. In some cases, you post your document or fail the assignment. Now to the University students, you can always choose to flunk out of your class, and lose all your investment, so the law is on their side anyways. But there was a case in the USA were pre-adult highschoolers were forced to post their assignments up or fail the class. Now, these were minorities, by law, they had to attend school and do the assignments. They weren’t given an option. They signed the agreement, but once they asked the site to remove their work, the site refused, claimed that they signed the contract. They went to court and the judge sided with the site. Now, under law, non-adult students can legally be asked to sign over their work so a company can profit and have no legal protection for themselves. I don’t care who you are, that’s not right, and it sets a dangerous precedence for future rulings.
On top of that, the rulings are always twisted to help the corporations over the rights of the owners and their families. Take the example of Superman, when the creators were teenagers, they sold the rights of the character to what is now known as DC Comics. The families recently moved to get the rights back to the character finding a little used clause that said that twenty five years after the creator’s death, the family has the option to get the rights back despite what previous contracts say. The judge allowed this, but DC responded with saying that the Superman that exists today is not the same Superman that was sold to them. The judge agreed, giving an advantage to the corporation over the families.
This also favouring of corporations over the individuals applies to movies, where screen writers, who have claimed studios stole their copyrighted script. Even if the individual has copyrighted the work before the studio, he is responsible to prove not only that he made the idea first, but the studio new about his work and purposely copied it without his permission.
Then there are different dates that the copyrights expire, the original Night of the Living Dead is now in public domain because the creators got into ownership issues and were not able to renew the copyright. Some of Hitchcock’s films are now in public domain because the owners forgot to renew them. But then there are ones that its unclear what the status was. It’s a Wonderful Life was put into public domain, but taken back out of it, when the whole studios found out that they could expand the amount of time that they could control copyright could be extended if they just re-coloured old black and white films.
China had only implemented copyright rules in the early eighties, but they didn’t start nationwide knowledge of the laws until the mid-nineties. The expiry date of copyright is still unsure. In fact its different in countries copyrights still expire in different times. Right now in Russia, you can legally view old Mickey Mouse cartoons for free, and use his image. However in Europe, some classical artwork is still under copyright but is available in America for all to use and see without paying the owners.
I think that currently Australia has the best system, forty years after you die, the work belongs in public domain, no exceptions. It’s simple and to the point. And clear what is copyrighted and what is not.
Now all these copyright laws were passed before the internet became as powerful as it now is, so watching things in one country may be legal and while watching it in another could get you sued.
For an example, I would like to point out Robert E. Howard’s Conan Saga. Under Canadian law, the work should be (to the best of my knowledge) in public domain. However, it is still protected by copyright in America, so if a Canadian posted the whole text on a website and promoted it, would the American owners be able to sue him or take the material down? So far I have not found any of his work in public domain on the internet, but have come across high priced books giving mere samples of his literature at franchised bookstores. It’s things like this that the law never intended for.
The people who keep extending the copyright laws are the owners, not the creators or average people. Most aren’t even taught the basics of copyright laws in school, they’re just told they can use some objects and not others. Some have kept being extended to the point were it is almost comedic. H.G. Wells The Invisible Man was published in 1897, but is still copyrighted in the United States. This is longer than anyone could have intended for a book to last by a group of owners and should be let into public domain so the work can be freely shared, discussed and tributed by fans and scholars alike.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of current copyright laws and the problems they are causing. People are trying to copyright important figures, trying to prevent academics from making presentations, stop students from photocopying. It’s just limiting academic and artistic freedoms. Chances are, Disney or some other huge corporation will ask for another extension and extend the law even further.
Imagine a culture where people were never allowed to teach religious works, Shakespeare, textbooks, or analyse news reels because of an ever expanding copyright period. I can imagine such as culture, and that culture is crap.
Now, this is one of the most controversial subjects I’ve ever brought up with people. I’ve argued for hours over the fairness of copyright laws with co-workers and friends. I’ve been shocked at just how many people support the extensions to the copyright law. So I want to know what the visitors to this site think about these. Would you support my idea to limit and simplify the American’s copyright act, or are you for keeping it in its current form or maybe even extending it? Let me know.
Edit: A few of this site's readers have brought this clip to my attention, and after showing it to a few people, I was told I should post it on here. So here it is:
Hey Terminaadventurer, I should be complaining about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but I don't know enough about it. From what I can tell, it is an attempt to harmonize copyright laws around the world and countries will volunteer to join it. This is actually a good idea, to unite the acts, and if it simplifies to copyright code, I can see some good coming out of it. But it is doomed to fail, because China and Russia will never agree to the terms. Heck, most the countries supporting it can't agree to any of the terms. The only thing I find unnerving about it is the boarder checks, those can be used as a blank slate to do whatever.
I do believe in fairness and having things freely available to the public after a certain amount of time has past. If it were up to me, the copyright expiry date would be like this:
Movies: 65 years, than public domain Books: Authors' life span, than 20 years Poems: 40 years Epic Poems: Same as books Video games: 35 years, than public domain TV Shows: 65 years from first cancellation News Articles: 35 years, than public domain Religious/Philosophical text: Decade, than public domain Political documents and laws: Instant public domain Music: 20 years after artists death than public domain
All dates are from the public release, not the creation time. No extensions would be given.
Heck, if the ACTA were to come to that conclusion, I'd support it.
ACTA scares the living hell out of me. I would compare it to Orwell's 1984, but I'd be in violation of copyrights here in the USA 8-| and an aside, TurnItIn bbeing required by a teacher should be fought with the schoolboard or in court.
'ACTA scares the living hell out of me. I would compare it to Orwell's 1984, but I'd be in violation of copyrights here in the USA 8-|
and an aside, TurnItIn being required by a teacher should be fought with the schoolboard or in court.'
Ha, 1984, nice response. Ya, despite doing a lot of research on copyright, I only came across ACTA twice and didn't really bother to look it up. I'll apologize now for not making a bigger deal out of it.
However, I really wish that more people would take time to look into copyright and other issues that effected them.
Imagine a world where instead of looking up Tom Cruise or Angelina Jolie's latest antics, people payed attention to issues that mattered and responded against acts that over time, limit their freedom. It was subjects like this that I wanted Crap Culture to inform people about when I started it.
I just hope that I'm bringing this to some people's attentions and making them think about it.
Edit: I think that Australia's copyright code changed a few years back, and it is now 50 years after an author's death before something goes into public domain. Not 40 like I originally claimed.
Hey, one of the subjects I mentioned in here was the legal battle over Superman, it looks like it's mostly over with, and the family's won.
IGN wrote an article on it here:
http://movies.ign.com/articles/101/1014092p1.html
The guys who made the character got a bum deal out of it, so I'm somewhat happy to hear this. However, I'll be even happier once all this stuff goes into public domain, and anyone can reprint and remake this stuff freely.
I agree that US copyrights have gotten out of control. But using the artist's death as an automatic public-domain trigger has some problems.
1. If the artist died young and he was planning on doing things with the royalties, such as putting his kids through college, I wouldn't want to cut those off immediately.
2. The death clause gives an incentive to murder artists so their work can be appropriated.
I think the original 28-years-after-publication idea was the right way to go, but I'd lengthen the time to the average adult lifespan (73-18=55). The first 55 years after publication, you or your estate owns it, after that it's public.
You make some very good points, I thought about those problems too, but I'm an optimist (not that you could ever tell by my stuff on this site) and hope that people would give some leniency in those situations.
You make a good compromise, it's sensible, realistic and simple. So of course it's doomed to fail.
