BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Head Shop >

Supreme Court rules on Copyright duration

  
 
Jack Denfeld
17:43 / 15.01.03
A fellow named Outpost 2 made me aware of this.

The Associated Press is reporting the following...
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a law that retroactively extended copyrights protecting the profits of songs, books and cartoon characters. It was a huge victory for Disney and other companies.

The 7-2 ruling, while not unexpected, was a blow to Internet publishers and others who wanted to make old books available online and use the likenesses of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and other old creations without paying high royalties.

Hundreds of thousands of books, movies and songs were close to being released into the public domain when Congress extended the copyright by 20 years in 1998.

Justices said the copyright extension, named for the late Rep. Sonny Bono, R-Calif., was not unconstitutional.

The Constitution "gives Congress wide leeway to prescribe `limited times' for copyright protection and allows Congress to secure the same level and duration of protection for all copyright holders, present and future," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said from the bench.

A contrary ruling would have cost entertainment giants like The Walt Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner Inc. hundreds of millions of dollars. AOL Time Warner had said that would threaten copyrights for such movies as Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind.

Also at risk of expiration was protection for the version of Mickey Mouse portrayed in Disney's earliest films, such as 1928's Steamboat Willie.

Congress passed the copyright law after heavy lobbying from companies with lucrative copyrights.

During the argument in the case last October, some justices seemed bothered by the retroactive extension but they also were concerned about their standing to overturn it.

The Constitution allows Congress to give authors and inventors the exclusive right to their works for a "limited" time.

Congress has repeatedly lengthened the terms of copyrights over the years. Copyrights lasted only 14 years in 1790. With the challenged 1998 extension, the period is now 70 years after the death of the creator. Works owned by corporations are now protected for 95 years.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer disagreed with their colleagues.

Stevens wrote that the court was "failing to protect the public interest in free access to the products of inventive and artistic genius."
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:50 / 15.01.03
And your point is, Jack?
 
 
Jack Denfeld
17:57 / 15.01.03
My point being that information is for the people. That's how it was supposed to work in the United States of America, anyway. If copyright laws were forever than Disney would never have been able to make their classic cartoons like Snow White, or Cinderella. And they were the ones lobbying for the extension more than anyone.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:20 / 15.01.03
OK...

1) Information is not the same as copyright. Information is data. Copyright is legislation created to protect the entitlement of a specific individual or company to be recognised or recompensed for a very specific collection of data, assembled ina specific way. Thus, "Snow White" as a concept cannot be copyrighted. The specific look of the design associated with the Disney film "Snow White" can be copyrighted, in order to protect the right of Disney to profit from their labour in creating it.

2) Copyright on works created by and licensed to individuals expires in most countries a set time after their death. The problem with *corporate* copyright is that corporations do not necessairly have a lifespan in the traditionally understood sense. As such, 95 years seems arbitrary but the argument for it being evil needs a little more work than you have put in so far.

3) If you wrote a book or comic, or recorded an album, presumably you would like to be recognised as its creator, and profit from its popularity. However, by insisting on that you are keeping your work from the people - libraries have to charge you a fee to stock your book, individuals have to pay more for a copy in order that you can be compensated for the effort you put into creating it. In what sense is this keeping information "for the people"?
 
 
Jack Denfeld
01:37 / 16.01.03
The founding fathers recognized that everyone would benefit if creative people were encouraged to create new intellectual and artistic works. When the United States Constitution was written in 1787, the framers took care to include a copyright clause (Article I, Section 8) giving Congress the power to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" by passing laws that give creative artists (called "Authors" in the Constitution) the exclusive right to their own artistic works for a limited period of time.

How do we decide the limited period of time? My gut instinct tells me it should be as long as the creator lives. For example, how many stories about Dracula are out there? I should be able to tell a story about Superman as well, as the creators are dead. The Constitution of the United States clearly shows that eventually these ideas become public domain, so that's not even the argument. Hause, how long do you think copyrights should last? And what should be considered when deciding a time frame?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:36 / 16.01.03
Superman's an interesting case, because although Seigel and Schuster created the character, the actual copyright is owned by DC Comics. Now, I don't see DC comics *dying*, as such. But if it *had* gone bust, say in the 60s, would the copyright have reverted to Seigel and Schuster, or would it have been loosed onto the open market? You seem reluctant to address the issue of corporate copyrights; would they last as long as the lifespan of the individual who created them (in which case corporate interests would have no interest in paying people for ideas if those people were coming towards the end of their lives) or the lifespan of the corporation (in which case the copyright might extend for centuries).

Meanwhile, on the lifespan copyright thing; let's go back to our creator of a book or comic. Let's say that s/he could have worked hard in a management consultancy for 5 years and made enough money to buy a house, which he rents out at a profit, or s/he could have spent those 5 years, as s/he did, writing the book or comic. When s/he dies, s/he could have passed on that house to his or her children, or, until now, have been confident that the entitlement of his or her estate to the rights of the book/comic that was produced in that time. You seem intent on penalising people for creating things rather than consuming things.
 
 
w1rebaby
13:27 / 16.01.03
The problem here for me comes from the fact the Supreme Court just seems to be extending the copyright period arbitrarily (and retroactively, as well) for no other reason than because it would lose corporations money.

If you accept that copyright should exist, but should expire after a while, then it would seem that there should be a fixed period during which it is "fair", then after that, public domain. That's open to debate, but what has changed over the past couple of centuries to so radically alter this decision? Copyrights have become a lot more valuable, that's all, to groups with political influence.

It's the political thing that disgusts me; this is corrupt.
 
 
sleazenation
15:57 / 16.01.03
There is an interesting side issue to the whole copyright issue these days, the creation of generic copies which are sometimes treated as copyrighted characters in their own right. The obvious example here would be Superman's double, Apollo. Quite how far generic copies will continue to be allowed to infringe on existing copyrights will be interesting to see.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
08:40 / 18.01.03
Actually it means 'cunt'. That's the point of the acronym.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:33 / 19.01.03
Done.

Innercircle - (moderator hat) the aim of the Head Shop is for people to respond intelligently and, generally, respectfully, to viewpoints, helping us all to learn more and think differently. In that context, reproducing lengthy and largely irrelevant text from elsewhere is against both the spirit and the letter of the forum. Your posts have been moved for deletion. Please do feel free to post again addressing the questions growing out of the topic title and abstract.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:39 / 19.01.03
The rest of you guys - mind if I delete your posts? We can smove this in another direction tomorrow, maybe...
 
 
SMS
23:57 / 19.01.03
One thing congress has to consider when determining the length of the copyright is what other countries are doing. If corporations can keep a copyright for an extra twenty years in Britain or Europe, then they might be better off in Britain or Europe. That could lose the US some considerable tax revenue in the long run. Of course, that depends on how copyrights work on international scales.

I'm sympathetic to the supreme court's ruling that this law is by right not within their power to overturn. The constitution says a limited time, and 96 years is still a limited time, so they probably made the right decision, despite the unease it causes me.
 
 
w1rebaby
01:00 / 20.01.03
Given the US insistence on implementing "intellectual property" laws that have no counterpart in other jurisdictions (DMCA et al - even though the EU is planning on its own version) I can't see this as valid justification. The "comparison" argument would have to go both ways.
 
 
SMS
03:00 / 20.01.03
I think it only goes one way. It just happens to work for more than one country.
 
 
w1rebaby
12:42 / 20.01.03
Well, my point is that the Supreme Court would I believe have no problem in implementing this regardless of the European position, and then let the corporations concerned lobby the EC to "standardise" and "provide a level playing field". It's an excuse but it doesn't lead me to believe it's their actual motive.

To be honest I didn't know that EC copyright length was 96 years.

The exact length of copyright doesn't really matter that much to me because I don't consider that copyright of any length is used in a fair way - it's routinely used to stifle creativity in derived works, and prevent parody/satire. So in its current form, one year is too long. I don't like to see this sort of blatant corporate lobbying being successful though.

I heard some radio guy bring up this point yesterday: Disney gets copyright extended to protect Mickey Mouse. Pharms companies are stuck with much shorter patent lengths. Ergo, Disney is a more powerful lobbyist than the pharms industry?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:20 / 20.01.03
That *is* an interesting question. in the UK, IIRC, a new pharmaceutical is copyright for eight years, before generics can be released onto the market. The intention is that the company can profit from the pharmaceutical in order to recoup the cost of researching and testuing the drug (see the music industry, where the cri de coeur has gone up for the last twenty years or so that the abiliuty to reduplicate music, by home taping, CD burning or factories on the Chinese coastline,will lead to no music being createdf, because it is impossible to make sure the money made by the consumption of the music goes back to the company that laid out the money to get it made), but after that the common good demands that generics can be produced to compete on the open market.

What this means is that the eight years is spent feverishly convincing doctors and HMOs of the virtue of the product, in the hope that they will stick with the brand name rather than a generic that may cost a fraction as much (if an anticoagulant as effective as Aspirin has just been invented, how much do you think it would sell for?). It also means that Africa, a continent ravaged by HIV and AIDS, is getting understandably pissed off about being stuck eight years behind the curve in terms of affordable treatments.

A way around that would perhaps involve the central funding of research by, say, the UN, which would then "buy" the rights to the products for a fraction of what might have been their market value over eight years, since the risk of the development process was offset by central funding....which seems pretty darn unlikely.

However, I think that the "common good" argument is a factor, as well as lobby strength (and the Pharma lobby is immensely powerful, but not necessarily united in their desire to protect copyrights in the same way). Metaphors aside, nobody is going to die for want of a £1 copy of a book whose author died in 1930.

On a related issue, I believe that publishing houses tried to force Amazon to give them a cut of any books by their authors sold second-hand through Amazon, yes? What were the ethics there, and what would the implications of *that* have been?
 
 
w1rebaby
16:08 / 20.01.03
convincing doctors and HMOs of the virtue of the product, in the hope that they will stick with the brand name rather than a generic

Or, in the US at least, more likely convincing patients and potential patients - this is the case with prescription and non-prescription medicines alike. It really is quite surreal coming from the UK and watching US pharms adverts. Particularly if the program you are watching has been targeted as having an old demographic. It's hard to appreciate the level of plugging and exploitation without experiencing it. Oh, and there's also the reclassifying of old drugs as treating new symptoms... but anyway.

What strikes me about the pharmaceuticals situation is that the arguments are stronger on both sides. It really is very expensive to develop new drugs, and it's hard to see, without the "good of humanity" UN-type funding Haus suggests (something I have thought about myself but which is not going to happen in my lifetime) how the existing research structure would actually work. The other alternative would be to entirely nationalise drug development (see Cuba) which has potential but is not directly linked to copyright issues.

If anyone would like to discuss the "how to best research pharms" issue please do say so, it's something I have a lot of interest in, but I think to go too far into it here would derail things.

Anyway, this can be contrasted with the "killing music" arguments from media corporations which to my mind are incredibly weak, since I consider that, regardless of copyright, people will always make music, and there will always be money to made from touring, merchandise and what CD sales or other distribution revenues you do still make. What the corporations mean is killing music marketing, and taking music revenues out of their hands.



I tend to think that the reason pharms corporations have been less successful than media corporations in extending patents is that the governments have more interest in their activities. Outside of the US at least, most first-world countries at some point will end up paying for some pharmaceuticals, through whatever socialised medicine they do have. Thus they not only implement short patent lives but also price controls. The US, almost uniquely, has no price controls, but even so still ends up funding some medication. Furthermore, electorally, healthcare is a very important topic, and this is only increasing with the combination of (a) aging populations and (b) increasing medicalisation of symptoms and often marketing-led reliance on pharmaceuticals... in a way the latter could be the pharms companies doing themselves in here. Governments have basically no financial interest in removing copyright legislation - perhaps for public school textbooks and for libraries, but in no other way I can think of.

So, really, I don't think the decision has been made on anything approaching ethical grounds. There are price caps within countries, but no price caps for exports.


Proposal: what about caps on the prices of media products, similar to caps on drug prices? Would it change anyone's opinion on copyright enforcement if you never had to pay more than a fiver for a CD or a hardback?
 
  
Add Your Reply