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David Plunkert
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Posts: 536
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| Posted: 20 October 2012 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | 1
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Stephen King probably isn't too worked up that 75 years after he's dead his great great grand children will have to work on their resume.
No individual author expects that his heirs are going to hold the copyright to his work forever so why should the company that purchased Spider-man or Batman expect otherwise? and why should I care?
I care that copyright serves the purposes of an individual creator and his heirs. Corporations have the same protection and are better able to defend their copyrights.
A patent length is 20 years... can you imagine how far medicine would have not advanced if someone still held the patent for aspirin?
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Brett Wilson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 April 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 318
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 3:18am | IP Logged | 2
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The entire saga could have been handled better by both sides. The 2 creators were making huge money from the comic strip, but tried to secure full rights to the character. When DC won they were still bitter over the lawsuit and cut them off completely. Shuster famously ended up impoverished later on in life. Seems like they could have found some middle ground to work with.
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Lars Johansson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 June 2004
Location: Sweden
Posts: 6113
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 3:57am | IP Logged | 3
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Clifford, I agree that public domain has given us the entire Gutenberg site in a way. But copyright is there to give the copyright owners money. It soulnds on you like the 1 dollar DVD and Gutenberg are there by themselves. Somebody is paying. The dad of the young lad who produces the scans, the mother who gives him food, the nucelar power plant to keep him warm, somebody is always paying. In Fantastic Four, what "bothered" me a bit was the Karloff version of the monster. It could be seen as an homage or just a fun thing or Marvel could have asked which I don't know, but if we look at recent movies, the monster is never seen like that. In Sweden we can do many things, Superman, Marvel, even Star Wars on a poster as an homage are fine, but if somebody touches Disney or Star Trek it will not be too amusing.
Edited by Lars Johansson on 21 October 2012 at 3:58am
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 5:41am | IP Logged | 4
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Clifford, I agree that public domain has given us the entire Gutenberg site in a way. But copyright is there to give the copyright owners money.
Totally agree. The whole point of that digression was backing up my statement that the public domain was useful.
Had the Golden Age gone into public domain, it would not be a tragedy.
And the Copyright Extension Act is not a bad thing.
Things which are commercially viable are generally better served by the owners. The expense involved in getting the best possible scans means Archive Editions would only exist if the makers have an exclusive right. DC will not go the expense of cleaning up The Spirit if anyone with a scanner can publish their own cheaper version.
But there's far more stories which will never see the light of day again because there simply isn't enough interest in an Archive Edition. Such stories would very likely be better served by the public domain where enthusiasts happily scan and share their collections.
The public domain has its pros and cons. The nature of the discussion had me focusing on the pros.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133560
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 11:21am | IP Logged | 5
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No individual author expects that his heirs are going to hold the copyright to his work forever so why should the company that purchased Spider-man or Batman expect otherwise? and why should I care?•• Corporations are "immortal".
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | 6
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Googling this was fascinating reading. I did not know perpetual copyright is unconstitutional.
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David Plunkert
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 03 July 2012
Posts: 536
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | 7
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Corporations are "immortal".
iii
...all the more reason they shouldn't have perpetual copyright anymore than an individual.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | 8
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So, anyway, lots of fascinating reading today. No links because I was doing it on my phone, but I urge people to google "copyright termination" and "orphaned works" to find a wealth of articles on the subjects.
Such as, I was unaware that Copyright Termination is extended to anyone who signed away their copyrights after 35 years and that Jan. 1, 2013 is Judgement Day for all the people who created work after the law was created (so in no way retroactive), meaning that anyone can get their copyright back after 35 years (this is to protect people from predatory contracts), meaning that by the end of the decade Alan Moore could get back both Watchmen and V For Vendetta regardless of the crappy contracts he signed all those years ago.
So far, the only real defense for the companies is to plead "work-for-hire", although the Village People case hinges on the argument that a majority of the group must support the copyright termination. So unless the companies figure out a loop-hole that undermines the entire purpose of the law, expect to see a lot more Superman style cases in the years to come.
Orphaned Works is a really fascinating problem, because in Europe alone there are 200,000 films, 3 million books, and 21 million photos with unknown rights holders. The problem is the ever-increasing length of copyright ends up creating more and more of these orphaned works, all of which are potential lawsuits waiting to happen.
If, for example, a Holocaust documentary were to use one of these photos in their work, they'd be liable for penalties for copyright infringement if the owner came forward. The Holocaust Museum can't even digitize the photos for fear of lawsuits (I'm guessing this is why film restorers can't restore orphaned works). The U.S. Copyright Office, which is all about expanding copyrights as much as possible has even gotten into the act trying to fix the massive and growing problem.
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Joe Boster
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3160
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | 9
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Orphaned works is the major stumbling block to everything google books does too. They have digitized some untold number of orphaned books and did get sued for the effort. But have settled with one group and only have one more group to appease before making all this available to the public. So maybe they can do that in Europe next. ;)
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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4079
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | 10
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Orphaned works is problematic for a lot of reasons, including the fact that a person using copyrighted material only has to prove that a reasonable effort was made to find the copyright holder before making use of his material. That's all well and good for comics from the 1920s, but the way I understood it, you could find a Sergio Aragones drawing that's unsigned, do an inconclusive google search or two, then declare yourself the new publisher of his material. Too many easily exploited loopholes, and way too much burden placed on the artist to keep tabs on every possible illegal use of his artwork.
Not to spin this off into a piracy discussion, but there's got to be some middle ground between stopping people from scanning and distributing this Wednesday's releases the day they come out and not letting all of Sheldon Mayer's Scribbly comics sit in DC's vaults until the planets align in such a way that they'll finally decide to release a print collection of that work.
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Clifford Boudreaux
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2012
Posts: 443
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| Posted: 21 October 2012 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | 11
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The solutions I've seen involved a fair market price to be determined (by the courts if necessary), merely dropping the copyright infringement penalties so long as due diligence was exercised... and the works must be clearly marked as orphaned copyrights.
It just becomes an after-the-fact negotiation. I'm sure a few owners would be annoyed about such-and-such a use, but the whole system is such a mess that it's the best solution I've seen thus far.
And I'd love to see companies declare works as exploitable by secondary parties for free or with profit sharing. It would likely be an easy way for DC or Marvel to digitize their huge back catalogs. Let amateurs scan their own collections, give them the right to share/sell the works for a limited time, then assume the work for a Netflix style subscription service.
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Lars Johansson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 04 June 2004
Location: Sweden
Posts: 6113
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| Posted: 22 October 2012 at 7:08am | IP Logged | 12
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The problem is the ever-increasing length of copyright ends up creating more and more of these orphaned works, all of which are potential lawsuits waiting to happen...If, for example, a Holocaust documentary were to use one of these photos in their work, they'd be liable for penalties for copyright infringement if the owner came forward.
********
In Sweden, if the unknown copyright holder unexpectedly shows up, he has to prove that he has suffered because of the photos/movies being published to get money. He can demand that the photos are immediately removed since they are his, but that is about it.
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Topic Closed)
