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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> How many movies or pieces of software do you know of
> that took over 20 years to produce a profit?
I think there are lots of books that took more than 20 years to turn into
movies. :-)
> I guess I'm missing the point you were making.
I think you're missing that I'm agreeing with you. I'm just offering
additional bits of information to consider.
>> I don't think 8 years is a long time.
>
> In an absolute sense, no. But given the usual cycle for Star Trek
> movies, and given the end of all the series, it was worrisome.
I don't think 8 years is particularly long to *make* a movie, start to
finish, if you count getting the idea, writing the script, shopping it
around, finding actors, etc. I just thing "OMG, 8 years between Star Trek
movies!" isn't very compelling. There are probably a lot better examples.
> Not saying copyright should be that short - just pointing out the
> real concern that Star Trek would die, and copyright would prevent it
> from being resurrected.
Sure. And that's why I advocate a liveness criterion for copyright
equivalent to the one for trademark.
>>> In other words, the burden is on you to explain why they should be
>>> allowed to benefit from it. Specifically, why do you even think there
>>> should be copyright?
>>
>> So that one piece of information that costs a great deal to be developed
>> can have the cost of developing it recovered by spreading that cost
>> amongst many buyers.
>
> Yes, but that's a short term reason. The bigger and main reason is
> to benefit society and further the discipline.
No, that's the point you're missing. Assuming the movie, book, or computer
program is of value at all, it would be impossible to produce in the first
place without copyright. It's not "rewarding" the author any more than the
commodities markets "reward" the farmers and miners.
> Put another way, what you say makes sense for products like software
> that has lots of utility. But movies? There's no obvious reason that
> society needs movies.
I'll respectfully disagree. I think without large-scale shared cultural
artifacts like movies and books, you have a hard time keeping together a
society too large for everyone to personally know each other.
<bulls__t> That's why in societies without writing stayed tribal until
civilizations with writing conquered them. </bulls__t>
> I'm all cool with that. I just can't go from there to 80+ years of
> copyright. If ever someone wanted to create something that society would
> benefit from that *would* take that long to recover the costs, then I
> wouldn't oppose it.
Fully agreed. I'm not even sure a time limit as such is appropriate. Since
the copyright is a financial incentive, it should be tied to financial
goals, not clocks.
> Actually, I take that back. I could settle for "as long as the
> product remains available and people benefit from it". The money thing
> will follow. I could also settle for "whichever comes last". If they
> haven't made enough out of it in 20 years, but are still selling it,
> then extend it until they stop. If they make heaps of it in the first 5
> years, then they stop selling, I'd still give them the extra 15 years,
> but no more.
Yes, that was my thought. Especially since some of that 15 years might be
necessary to produce or market the next version of the thing. As in, I write
a book, now I want to make a movie... Or I write a wonderful screenplay
that takes me 30 years to sell.
> However, if we'll have that, we need to codify a sane criterion for
> what constitutes the amount of money or "product remaining available for
> society". It'd be different for a piece of software compared to a movie.
> That may be quite challenging.
It's definitely challenging. I'd guess about as challenging as talking about
"non-obvious" patents and such.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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