Point out exactly who and when the above terms were created and we can examine the copyright law (if one existed) at that time.
Okay, I think you need to take a second look at my position. Let me help.
I don't object to that. The law is the law. My motivation in bringing up why I thought current copyright law was bad law was the fact that several posters framed this as an absolute moral issue. Just because something's legal doesn't make it right.
I am not an infant. I do not lack understanding of object permanence. I am not engaging in an ontological debate over the existence of copyright law. I am arguing the
merit of copyright law.
If you think that the situation has changed and that the copyright laws two hundred years ago were appropriate then, and copyright laws now are appropriate now, explain the difference. If you think creators two hundred years ago were being screwed, and copyright laws now are far superior, explain how. If you don't really care about creative theory, the genetic recombination of ideas and concepts into new forms, and the theoretical underpinnings of copyright law and just like it when Uncle Harlan sticks it to the man (or, worse, you're under the impression that there's a special class of people like Ellison who have magical original idea elves visit them in the night, and then there's low down, thieving hacks ranging from James Cameron to Ansel Hsiao who can't cope with their lack of creative drive and so steal from the first group and deserve to have their own work confiscated by their inspirations, and finally a proletariat class that's satisfied with their lack of original thought and don't steal ideas), then say that outright.
Just don't make sweeping moral judgements about theft and unoriginality, and then say right and wrong all depends on what the law happens to be at a given time. You are a free, thinking individual, and you can absolutely give a reasoned opinion on how things should be.
So we agree in principle! Excellent. Now we can build a consensus.
As I said earlier, intellectual property is distinct from physical property in that it is designed to be shared. If I make a chair and keep it for myself, it does not negatively affect the value and usability of the chair. However, if I write a story and never show it to anyone, the story's value and usability is reduced to whatever immediate emotional reward I got from writing it. Value of intellectual property increases with the size of the audience. The thing is, though, it's
intellectual. Once it's read, it becomes a part of the reader's mind, their body of experience. Everything they ever say or do for the rest of their lives will, in some small way, be influenced by that story. If the story is popular, it'll become shared cultural currency, like the example I keep coming back to of the words and sayings that Shakespeare originated. Eventually, those ideas, which were once the sole providence of the author, leave the nest and take roost in everyone else's head. This is not a bad thing. This is where culture and art and new ideas come from. I strongly recommend watching
"Everything is a Remix" and reading
"How to Steal Like an Artist."
By extending copyright into perpetuity, it allows copyright holders to effectively censor future generations. It protects past (and, increasingly often, dead) artists while stifling living ones.
Let me give you another example. Election season is coming up. Imagine if Harlan Ellison wrote some compelling argument for a policy you support, and you later used a similar argument in a piece you wrote advocating the same policy. You weren't trying to rip him off, but once you heard it, it seems obvious in hindsight, and why tie your hands because the germ of the idea came from someone else. The germ of every idea comes from something else. Let's say Ellison caught wind of this and filed an injunction and got your piece pulled and required you to pay damages. That's limiting your self-expression and diminishing the culture.
(I apologize, there are actually two related arguments going on here that are being conflated, and I know it's confusing. There's the question of whether Ellison is excessively sensitive to elements that remind him of his own work causing him to allege criminal infringement, and the question of how long copyright protection should last. I'm focusing more on the second one, because in this case, it renders the first irrelevant, and the first is difficult to discuss anyway since much of "smoking gun" material isn't available publicly, so it's all hearsay and conjecture. Copyright law in general is something we can all talk about on an even field, and Ellison makes a convenient example for why it should or should not be indefinite.)
Time is all that matters, in this case. Copyright law is social engineering. A means of leveling the playing field, by allowing creators a limited monopoly over their ideas in order to exploit them monetarily. Eventually, these ideas will spread into the mainstream and lose their exclusive cache. When copyright significantly outlasts that, it's stifling on future expression.
It was new at one point. Current trends in copyright point towards infinite renewal. It is likely that nothing created in the last fifty years will ever enter the public domain unless there's a top-to-bottom reform of copyright, patent, and trademark law (fingers crossed). In the inspiration for this very thread, we have a man alleging infringement in part because of the use of a clock-themed villain called "the Timekeeper." In an environment like that, if "assassination" or "a pound of flesh" or what have you was coined today, it's entirely possible someone would be attempting to argue for their exclusive use by the original author.
Why do you think he supports INFINITE copyright? Knee jerk reaction much?
Because nothing he says implies copyright should be limited. He specifically and repeatedly compares it to physical property. It doesn't become okay to break into someone's house and walk away with our hypothetical heirloom chair seventy years after the death of the carpenter.
Well. Elves, Goblins and Wizards are in your much beloved public domain. Hobbits are an original creation. Halflings, I would imagine, are ALSO in the public domain, or maybe they are Gygax's, don't know. But, at some point, all of it will enter into the public domain.
Why is this so HARD to understand?
What's hard to understand is how the concept of the public domain fits into the kind of moralistic framework of "theft" and "not capitalizing others' hard work" and so on that's been offered as explanation for copyright law. In the framework you've been giving, there is no coherent justification whatsoever for the public domain, much less why works should enter it at any arbitrary time, especially if that time is any time after the author's death.
I'm arguing the opposite theory, that the public domain is the natural order of things, and copyright protections are a way to temporarily counteract that to ensure that artists have an opportunity to benefit from their work. I think the original period of fourteen years was plenty of time to make an initial sale, collect royalties and residuals, and create something new to live on subsequently. I'm open to discussing lengthier periods of protection, up to the lifetime of the artist, but sooner or later, it's going to belong to everyone, same as the language, and the law should reflect that. The law needs to serve the audience just as much as it does the artist, because they're both essential to the process.
