Alternate System for US Copyright

[USS Triumphant]

This was almost a post in another thread related to the Axanar mess, but I didn't want to derail it with this tangent. The subject is an alternative system to the current copyright system used in the US.

To establish a copyright, you pay a filing fee of like $25 - something reasonable. After 10 years, you have to pay $2 to keep it. You then pay double the amount from the previous year, every year, to maintain it. After 20 years, that's about a grand - probably not too much for someone to manage, even a small business or individual that is making money off of it. After 30, it's around a million - so you'd better really be making dough off of it to want to keep it. And at 40 years, it's a billion - you've probably given up by then, but if you're still somehow making enough and want to keep it, go for it. When you stop paying, it goes into public domain.

Thoughts?

 

[Professor Zoom]

This was almost a post in another thread related to the Axanar mess, but I didn't want to derail it with this tangent. The subject is an alternative system to the current copyright system used in the US.

To establish a copyright, you pay a filing fee of like $25 - something reasonable. After 10 years, you have to pay $2 to keep it. You then pay double the amount from the previous year, every year, to maintain it. After 20 years, that's about a grand - probably not too much for someone to manage, even a small business or individual that is making money off of it. After 30, it's around a million - so you'd better really be making dough off of it to want to keep it. And at 40 years, it's a billion - you've probably given up by then, but if you're still somehow making enough and want to keep it, go for it. When you stop paying, it goes into public domain.

Thoughts?

Why?

Edited to add: Why should I have to pay for the right to have my property? And be able to administrate it?

 

[Taylirious]

If you are successful with your IP then you won't have to worry. I think keep creating and see what sticks unless you are just a flash in the pan.

It seems reasonable until it reaches a billion? I think people have a right to own their ideas unless they feel otherwise and they should consider where their legacy goes.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Hmm, I don't know. The more articles and stories I read/hear about copyright laws in the US, the more they seem broken and in need of fixing. But I honestly don't know what the fix should be.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Original copyright was 20 years. It has been extended to insane durations by legislation bought by the big content holders (Disney, etc). I could see it being extended to 30 years, because people are living longer, but that's it. Almost nothing entered into the public domain this January 1st. Something has to give. I might be in favor of some sort of system that would guarantee control to an author during the whole of his/her lifetime - IF we could make it non-transferable and not holdable by a company. We need the public domain.

 

[Taylirious]

Or people need to be more creative!

ETA: Pass the legacy on to whom ever you wish. It should never by default become "public".

ADD: There should be a fine line between parody, tribute & theft.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Hmm, I don't know. The more articles and stories I read/hear about copyright laws in the US, the more they seem broken and in need of fixing. But I honestly don't know what the fix should be.

what do you think is broken about it?

Original copyright was 20 years. It has been extended to insane durations by legislation bought by the big content holders (Disney, etc). I could see it being extended to 30 years, because people are living longer, but that's it. Almost nothing entered into the public domain this January 1st. Something has to give. I might be in favor of some sort of system that would guarantee control to an author during the whole of his/her lifetime - IF we could make it non-transferable and not holdable by a company. We need the public domain.

I think lifetime, absolutely. I also think a reasonable time afterwards. 25 years. It would be great to pass it on to my children. Then, public domain.

Not holdable by a company... that would be an interesting change of standards. As it stands, if you are writing for a studio, or selling your spec script to a studio, not only are they buying the words, they are buying your copyright (thus, they give you an enormous chunk of money.) This is unlike a novelist or a playwright, who license their scripts for publication or production. Those writers have a much greater control of what can and cannot happen to their work, unlike a screenwriter.

And then, there's also: what if I want to sell my copyright... It's a property, why can't I sell it if I choose?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Zoom, I mean you no disrespect because you are FAR from the only one, but you have a fundamentally flawed notion of what a copyright is. It is NOT a property. It is a license from the government for a monopoly of a set duration on a work of creativity. By default, ALL works (which are really ideas and can't be owned) are supposed to be in the public domain, but the government allows a licensed monopoly to encourage creativity and support a certain amount of commerce based on the works. Copyright holders never own anything other than the material they actually recorded their ideas onto.

Our copyright and patent laws have gotten to the point where people are forgetting that. It was much more apparent when the duration was only 20 years.

 

[FormerLurker]

It may be that the definition of public domain needs to change. I know of a website that has hundreds of scans of entire issues of comic books produced in the 1930s, 1940s, and even later that have fallen into public domain, but it is the comics themselves that are, not necessarily the characters. Meaning that somewhere, someone still owns the copyright to many of these characters, and even if the original comics can be reproduced and distributed with all new monies derived from their sale going to the new publisher, no new stories can be written or drawn with those characters without the permission of the copyright holder.

If, however, a new version of the character, with some slight redesign of the costume, or description of their powers or backstory were to be done, that is allowable. But why do they need to do that? Why can't they just use the original backstory and costume design? Because of the copyright still held somewhere. It makes it difficult to come up with something meaningful to do with the property without stepping on the toes of the holder.

But what if public domain meant that while the new publisher could write any new story they want, with the original backstory and costume, and could reap all the monies for themselves(and to pay their creative talent, of course), the government could step in and provide a stipend to the original copyright holder or their declared heirs as long as new stories were being written? Use of the original character, their original backstory and costume means not using them to deconstruct their nature, or to present them as less than their original intent, thereby satisfying the copyright holder's concerns about how their characters are portrayed, even after death. Could such a system even work?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Copyrights, specific to characters and settings, etc. should last forever. Come up with something new, your own thing, rather than trying to redo what has come before.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Zoom, I mean you no disrespect because you are FAR from the only one, but you have a fundamentally flawed notion of what a copyright is.

Sorry to disagree with you chum, but, I know what copyright is. I'm a writer and I worked with an organization that dealt with copyright and IP. So, yeah, I know what it is.

It is NOT a property.

It is treated like such. You own it. You can sell it. You can license it. You can control your your property.

It is a license from the government for a monopoly of a set duration on a work of creativity. By default, ALL works (which are really ideas and can't be owned) are supposed to be in the public domain,

Just a point of order: Ideas aren't copyrightable. An idea and a novel are two different things. So, actually, what you mean to say: ideas ARE in the public domain, your novel isn't.

but the government allows a licensed monopoly to encourage creativity and support a certain amount of commerce based on the works. Copyright holders never own anything other than the material they actually recorded their ideas onto.

They own the fixed expression of their creation. Be it a novel, a painting, a play.

Our copyright and patent laws have gotten to the point where people are forgetting that. It was much more apparent when the duration was only 20 years.

People aren't forgetting it, it's because you are wrong.

The only point that you are correct on, you are given copyright protection for a certain amount of time, as it has been agreed Public Domain is good for a society.

Copyright is used to foster creativity, because it protects the creator from people infringing on their creation--like coming into their house and taking their property.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Get rid of the DMCA and NET Act, reduce copyright term to average life expectancy for human owners and 50 years for non-human legal fictions.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Get rid of the DMCA and NET Act, reduce copyright term to average life expectancy for human owners and 50 years for non-human legal fictions.

Say it's around 80 years, life expectancy. In your proposal, is the the copyright the life span of the creator? Or, 80 years from the moment something is created. For example, if I write a novel at 75, does the copyright period you are suggesting go for 80 years following that?

Or conversely, if you are suggesting the life span of the creator, if I write something at 75, and die 5 years later, does that book go into public domain immediately, while older work has enjoyed 50 years of copyright protection?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Get rid of the DMCA and NET Act, reduce copyright term to average life expectancy for human owners and 50 years for non-human legal fictions.

Say it's around 80 years, life expectancy. In your proposal, is the the copyright the life span of the creator? Or, 80 years from the moment something is created. For example, if I write a novel at 75, does the copyright period you are suggesting go for 80 years following that?

Or conversely, if you are suggesting the life span of the creator, if I write something at 75, and die 5 years later, does that book go into public domain immediately, while older work has enjoyed 50 years of copyright protection?

Let's make it from the moment of creation, so if you happen to die shortly after making something that's super bankable, at least your heirs will be able to have a go.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Get rid of the DMCA and NET Act, reduce copyright term to average life expectancy for human owners and 50 years for non-human legal fictions.

Say it's around 80 years, life expectancy. In your proposal, is the the copyright the life span of the creator? Or, 80 years from the moment something is created. For example, if I write a novel at 75, does the copyright period you are suggesting go for 80 years following that?

Or conversely, if you are suggesting the life span of the creator, if I write something at 75, and die 5 years later, does that book go into public domain immediately, while older work has enjoyed 50 years of copyright protection?

Let's make it from the moment of creation, so if you happen to die shortly after making something that's super bankable, at least your heirs will be able to have a go.

I agree with that.

The created thing is not the author. It's copyright life time shouldn't live and die with the person who created it.

 

[RoJoHen]

Does the copyright only begin from the moment of the initial creation, or does it get extended if the author does more with it? If they write a sequel using the same property, does the copyright start over?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Does the copyright only begin from the moment of the initial creation, or does it get extended if the author does more with it? If they write a sequel using the same property, does the copyright start over?

Why would it be extended?

If I write Book A in 2015, and then its sequel Book B in 2020, Book A shouldn't have its copyright extended 5 more years. It's an independent work, sequels or no sequels. Once Book A goes into the public domain, people could do anything they want with it. We're talking about a long time into the future anyway.

 

[RoJoHen]

I guess I'm making an argument that it would be considered part of a series. Is it only an individual work that has the copyright, or can you copyright the whole series? Novel A would then be considered part of a larger piece of work.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I guess I'm making an argument that it would be considered part of a series. Is it only an individual work that has the copyright, or can you copyright the whole series? Novel A would then be considered part of a larger piece of work.

Only individual works are copyrighted.

But if you took all the books in a series and republished them as a new, single volume, that would have its own new copyright... it just doesn't do anything to the originally published versions.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I guess I'm making an argument that it would be considered part of a series. Is it only an individual work that has the copyright, or can you copyright the whole series? Novel A would then be considered part of a larger piece of work.

Copyright also only happens when it is in a fixed form. So, a series in progress wouldn't be able to be copyrighted--specifically the material yet to be written.