Our Copyright Laws=Utterly Broken
Copyright laws have essentially been hijacked by large corporations and Congress (with the silent approval of the Supreme Court). I think that the ridiculously long extensions for copyright protections (as opposed to the much more reasonable patent limitations) are driving a lot of the desire for illegal copying. Essentially Congress has granted billion dollar subsidies to the holders of valuable intellectual properties at the expense of the public domain, and therefore all of us.
The fact that the original incarnations of Disney characters, music from the 50's and 60's, and novels from the 1930's are not yet in the public domain is ludicrous. What I find hysterical is that Congress has repeatedly extended copyright protection for DECEASED creators. How, exactly, does that encourage creative works among the living?
Underlying the entire problem is the systematic gutting of the Public Domain by a misguided, lobbyist-loving Congress. People feel justified in downloading songs, but I imagine they can't put their finger on why. They just feel that "something is wrong", and that they are getting "ripped off". Well, to a certain extent I think we all are. I posit that the absurd copyright lengths we have in the U.S. are basically a form of corporate welfare. What's the limit on patents? Seven years? Copyrights extend over a hundred years, and even worse, many titles have received retroactive extensions and even been retroactively yanked from the public domain!
It is absolutely absurd that fifty year old songs are still copyrighted, particularly when the originators were long since deceased when the copyright terms were extended. It's not as though retroactively extending protections for dead musicians encourages their corpses to make more music. All we've done is provide a billion dollar windfall to the media conglomerates that buy up song rights for pennies. By locking up these rights in perpetutity, music clearing houses have little to no incentive to make what money they can, as quickly as they can, due to the time-constraints imposed by the eventual expiration of the copyright.
When a system is this screwed up, I'm not surprised that people give up, reject the entire framework, and download what they want. Imagine if we had a similar system for patents. People would invent something, and then sit on it for the next 100 years. Why bother trying to exploit it yourself, when you know you have your entire lifetime to gouge anybody else that wants to use your product? And if you decide to develop something yourself, and it's a piece of crap, who cares? Nobody will be able to make a better version for the indefinite future.
The logical fallacy of retroactive extensions has no good answer: how does expanding or extending I.P. protection for deceased individuals encourage them to produce more works (which is the Constitutional/legal reason for copyright protection in the first place)? Typically, the people who own copyrights, and fight to have the terms extended, aren't the creators of the work.
The fact that the original incarnations of Disney characters, music from the 50's and 60's, and novels from the 1930's are not yet in the public domain is ludicrous. What I find hysterical is that Congress has repeatedly extended copyright protection for DECEASED creators. How, exactly, does that encourage creative works among the living?
Underlying the entire problem is the systematic gutting of the Public Domain by a misguided, lobbyist-loving Congress. People feel justified in downloading songs, but I imagine they can't put their finger on why. They just feel that "something is wrong", and that they are getting "ripped off". Well, to a certain extent I think we all are. I posit that the absurd copyright lengths we have in the U.S. are basically a form of corporate welfare. What's the limit on patents? Seven years? Copyrights extend over a hundred years, and even worse, many titles have received retroactive extensions and even been retroactively yanked from the public domain!
It is absolutely absurd that fifty year old songs are still copyrighted, particularly when the originators were long since deceased when the copyright terms were extended. It's not as though retroactively extending protections for dead musicians encourages their corpses to make more music. All we've done is provide a billion dollar windfall to the media conglomerates that buy up song rights for pennies. By locking up these rights in perpetutity, music clearing houses have little to no incentive to make what money they can, as quickly as they can, due to the time-constraints imposed by the eventual expiration of the copyright.
When a system is this screwed up, I'm not surprised that people give up, reject the entire framework, and download what they want. Imagine if we had a similar system for patents. People would invent something, and then sit on it for the next 100 years. Why bother trying to exploit it yourself, when you know you have your entire lifetime to gouge anybody else that wants to use your product? And if you decide to develop something yourself, and it's a piece of crap, who cares? Nobody will be able to make a better version for the indefinite future.
The logical fallacy of retroactive extensions has no good answer: how does expanding or extending I.P. protection for deceased individuals encourage them to produce more works (which is the Constitutional/legal reason for copyright protection in the first place)? Typically, the people who own copyrights, and fight to have the terms extended, aren't the creators of the work.
posted by O.C. Mike at
8:52 AM
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