On 12-7-2009 19:38, Warp wrote:
> somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
>> licensing it? I would suggest that copyright should be perpetual, rather
>> than an arbitrary number of years.
> 
>   That would not benefit the society as a whole.
> 
>   Historical pieces of art would be lost because it would be illegal for
> anyone to copy them in order to preserve them. There are *tons* of art
> out there who nodoby knows who owns currently the copyright (because the
> author has died and it's unclear who is currently the owner; even the
> legal owner himself may be completely unaware of the fact).
> 
>   Of course people who are dedicated to preserve historically important
> pieces of art could copy them anyways, but they would then be breaking the
> law. This might be something that respectable entities just can't afford
> to do, even if there were no consequences.
> 
>   I have no way of knowing for sure, but I estimate that way less than 1%
> of all existing art actually makes money for someone. Perpetual copyright
> of *all* art just for the sake of that less-than-1% makes no sense. It's
> detrimental.
> 
>   Also in the long run you end up in a situation where *everything* is
> copyrighted, and nothing new can be done anymore before breaking the law.
> Like technology (which is protected by time-limited patents), also art
> cannot move forward if every single piece of it is protected forever.

I think you also need to define more precise what is copyrightable and 
what not. E.g. is Mickey Mouse copyrightable as such or only the 
individual images that were made of him? For MM and DD it may be 
possible to define the individual, but can we ever again make an image 
of a clown fish after 'finding nemo' without breaking copyright?

What about painting my house. Painting it in a single color is not 
copyrightable, but when I use a recognizable set of colors (e.g. white 
and green, like our local tradition)? what if I add an even more 
elaborate scheme? At what point does it become impossible for future 
owners to repaint it differently without violating my copyright?

Your fear of everything becoming copyrighted seems a bit over the top, 
but when somebody does something for the first time it may be hard to 
see what is a copyright infringement and what is something in the same 
sort of style. I can imagine that if someone had build a stone house 
with windows and doors for the first time the second one might have been 
prosecutable as a copyright infringement under current law. Now that we 
have seen the multitude of variations we know better, but what if we 
never got that far?
What about the second one to use pointillism or cubism in a painting?
Or would that have to be covered with patent laws?

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andrel wrote:
> I think you also need to define more precise what is copyrightable and 
> what not. 

That is definitely part of the problem also. (Same with patents.)

The other part is that some things are cultural. Can the design of the 
Eiffel Tower or Washington Monument be copyrighted? If so, can you refuse to 
let tourists take pictures?  Etc.

I saw an interesting article about de facto "copyright" on public domain 
artwork. The example was the Sistine chapel, long out of copyright, but 
there's only one, and the Vatican doesn't let you take pictures. Hence, 
altho it's public domain, there are no copies available to the public.

> elaborate scheme? At what point does it become impossible for future 
> owners to repaint it differently without violating my copyright?

I don't think copyright gives you the right to prevent others from 
*destroying* your work. :-)

> What about the second one to use pointillism or cubism in a painting?
> Or would that have to be covered with patent laws?

These are all questions that would come up under current copyrights, 
regardless of the timeframe granted, really.

-- 
   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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On 07/12/09 11:48, Darren New wrote:
>> Not quite the topic at hand, but if the artists make money on their
>> work, the children will get that inheritance.
>
> And if the artist doesn't sell it before he dies, the kids get nothing.
> Not that that is necessarily *bad*, but saying "only the artist can have
> the copyright" has consequences you might not have thought about.

	20 years. If he/she dies within that period, he can be allowed to pass 
it on to someone. But not more than 20 years overall.

	I don't think I said only the artist should have it (which is perhaps 
why I started with "not quite the topic at hand"). I'm fine with a 
copyright holder giving away or selling his copyright. But I'd like to 
keep it 20 years overall.

>> The more I think about it, the more I feel that excessive copyright is
>> worse for society. What's excessive? Say over 20 years.
>
> I think that's about what it was to start with. I agree it's far too
> long these days.

	Yes, my point. From what I can guess what it was about, the current 
system tends to limit the artistic output. It may still be better than 
_no_ copyright, but it's far, far from optimal, and gets worse as time 
goes on.


-- 
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright 
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little 
sign of breaking down in the near future.


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

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On 07/12/09 12:07, somebody wrote:
> Why?

	It's a fundamental difference I have. I don't believe in equating 
intangibles with property. I do believe in copyright, as an entity 
recognized and enforced by the government which gives the owner certain 
rights.

	And I believe in it for only one reason: Providing certain protections 
will promote the production of art and enrich (in a non-materialistic 
manner) the society and culture. I have no other reason to believe in 
it. Were it not for this, I'd move to abolish it.

	In particular, I do *not* believe that it is an individual right to 
have copyright (in the sense of universal human rights). The main idea 
is to benefit society, and not the individual. Copyright merely gives 
the individuals some privileges to further that goal. In the bigger 
picture, the individuals don't factor in.

	Taken straight from the US Constitution (or so some web site claims):

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for 
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their 
respective Writings and Discoveries".

	The stated goal is to progress science and the arts. Not to provide 
some arbitrary rights to people.

	To get to my point, when the copyright period is too long, then the 
incentive to promote the arts is greatly reduced. If you have lifetime 
copyright, then the person who produced a piece of art has a lot less 
incentive to produce more pieces of art.

	Take Star Trek. It almost disappeared. The series were all dead, and no 
movie had been made for what, 8 years? If they hadn't resurrected it, it 
would have vanished, despite there being a continual demand for Star 
Trek related material.

	On the flip side, a product (like Star Trek and James Bond) will be 
milked to ridiculous extremes, resulting in little incentives for proper 
innovation.

	Copyright hurts by protecting both possibilities.

 > What's the difference between someone toiling for decades to build a
> house and leaving it for their kids to benefit by renting it, and someone
> toiling for decades to build art and leaving it for their kids to benefit by

	The difference is that ownership of physical property is considered 
more or less a human right. Few disagree - not even communists really 
disagree with that. Intellectual property is not generally agreed upon 
to be a human right.

	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?

	Note that I'm not saying that individual works of art can't be owned 
and passed on after 20 years. Whoever owns the Mona Lisa still owns it, 
and it is still valuable. Copyright, though, is about copying and not 
ownership.

> licensing it? I would suggest that copyright should be perpetual, rather
> than an arbitrary number of years. Worth diminishes naturally anyway, be it
> of material or immaterial things, but that should come naturally, not
> through decree that the commercial worth of an artist's life work becomes
> zero at his deathbed, or after an arbitrary number of years since creation.

	You say "naturally". There's nothing natural about copyright. It's a 
contrived and relatively recent concept.

-- 
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright 
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little 
sign of breaking down in the near future.

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On 07/12/09 12:38, Warp wrote:
>    Historical pieces of art would be lost because it would be illegal for
> anyone to copy them in order to preserve them. There are *tons* of art
> out there who nodoby knows who owns currently the copyright (because the
> author has died and it's unclear who is currently the owner; even the
> legal owner himself may be completely unaware of the fact).

	Oh yes. Think vaporware. Lots and lots of games out there that people 
cherish and love, but that are protected by copyright and the 
people/companies who own that copyright aren't bothered to let people 
play those games legally.

	I could understand it if those companies were planning on marketing 
those games, or making remakes, etc. Then those older games would hurt 
sales. But in almost all cases that's just not how it is. The owners are 
often megacorps who, as a rule, just maintain the copyright.

	Anyone play the Sierra Quest games? King's Quest? Space Quest? Sierra 
stopped making such games in the 90's. I think the last one was in 1997 
or 1998. They then got bought. It was becoming clear they had no 
interest in those franchises (they didn't even before it got bought). 
Then it got bought again, ending up being owned by Vivendi. No plans 
whatsoever to continue the franchise. For a while, they contracted a 
company to make a new Space Quest, but that project collapsed (the last 
Space Quest game was released in 1995).

	Then some guys made a VGA remake of King's Quest 1 in about 2001.

http://www.agdinteractive.com/

	They then made a remake of King's Quest 2. Released in late 2002.

	Then they started making a remake of Quest For Glory 2.
	
	Then Vivendi's lawyers descended upon them. I don't know what 
transpired, but I think they made an agreement that Vivendi would own 
the copyright and the games were not allowed to be sold - only given 
away (which was the original plan any way).

	Another group was working on "King's Quest 9" - and unlike the above 3, 
they were working on a "high quality" (i.e. good graphics) game.

http://www.tsl-game.com/

	In 2006 or so, Vivendi descended upon them. The project came really 
close to being shut down. They fought hard and finally got permission. I 
forget the terms - wouldn't surprise me if Vivendi secured the rights to 
those as well.

	Finally, the bad news: Another group was working on Space Quest 7 (SQ7) 
- also meant to be of high quality. They'd been working on it since at 
least 2002. In 2007 or 2008, Vivendi went after them.

	Now I must point out that all of these groups were not doing anything 
in secret, and I believe had even informed (at times repeatedly) Vivendi 
of their project. Vivendi rarely acknowledged, and their responses were 
always noncommittal - not giving permission, but not forbidding the work 
either. The projects all knew the risks.

	They succeeded in getting SQ7 shut down. They wanted to own the 
copyright, but unfortunately some of the people who had contributed to 
the project had done so on the condition that the copyright will not be 
transferred to Vivendi.

	The SQ7 folks tried everything. They were willing to sell it and give 
Vivendi all the profits. They were willing to make many other 
compromises. But Vivendi just insisted on the copyright.

	Vivendi has no plans to make a Quest game. They don't even make 
anything remotely similar. There doesn't seem to be any hint of a plan 
that they'll ever get into this market. They also have nothing against 
those games - it's not like they have a reason to prevent people from 
playing. From the lawyer's perspective, Vivendi owns the copyright, and 
there's always a nonzero probability that *one day* Vivendi may want to 
make such a game, and SQ7's existence *may* dig into their profits.

	Now the SQ7 developers don't really have any complaints. They knew the 
risks, and they felt it was worth it to try. They're taking it well.

	But of course, all the fans of the franchise aren't. This is a clear 
case of "copyright abuse" - in the sense that it works against the 
stated purpose of copyright. It's using copyright to stifle art, not 
promote it.

	And of course, because of these cases, no doubt other groups will be 
less likely to produce works of art.


-- 
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright 
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little 
sign of breaking down in the near future.


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

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On 07/12/09 13:36, andrel wrote:
> I think you also need to define more precise what is copyrightable and
> what not. E.g. is Mickey Mouse copyrightable as such or only the
> individual images that were made of him? For MM and DD it may be
> possible to define the individual, but can we ever again make an image
> of a clown fish after 'finding nemo' without breaking copyright?

	Stuff like this can get ridiculous:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita_Sings_The_Blues#Copyright_problems

	The movie is an animated musical. The director used songs from the 
1920's that were in the public domain. However, it was deemed that 
syncing the songs with elements in the movie was a copyright violation. 
Apparently, it's OK for me to play the songs on the radio, but if I sing 
the songs, I'm violating copyright.


-- 
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright 
ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little 
sign of breaking down in the near future.


                     /\  /\               /\  /
                    /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                        >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                    anl

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"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:4a5a48f1$1@news.povray.org...

>[...]
>
> The stated goal is to progress science and the arts. Not to provide
> some arbitrary rights to people.

That, may be, but there's always the very real possibility that a handful of
people who lived and died centuries ago may not have laid down the best and
only feasible set of thoughts and laws, however godlike we may think of
them.

> To get to my point, when the copyright period is too long, then the
> incentive to promote the arts is greatly reduced. If you have lifetime
> copyright, then the person who produced a piece of art has a lot less
> incentive to produce more pieces of art.

I don't buy that. It's like saying that if the government does not take away
factories of a wealthy businessman after so many years and force him to
start from scratch, he will have no more incentive to work or innovate. Yes,
some people will stop working when they reach a certain financial security,
and some won't, but that's something you have to let individuals decide. I
don't see "witholding" (yes, the term is loaded if you don't believe
copyright should be a natural right) such security from the creative sector
is a good means to encourage continued output.

The flipside of your argument is that time limited copyright encourages a
series of mediocre works or sequels (now that you mention Star Trek and the
like) instead of magnum opuses. For if the "milking" period regularly
expires, it makes more economic sense for the artist to do the former. I
don't have a problem with someone being set for life and beyond if they can
produce such an excellent work that people keep wanting it for years on end.

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:4a5a1fab@news.povray.org...
> somebody <x### [at] ycom> wrote:

> > licensing it? I would suggest that copyright should be perpetual, rather
> > than an arbitrary number of years.

>   That would not benefit the society as a whole.
>
> [...]
>
>   Also in the long run you end up in a situation where *everything* is
> copyrighted, and nothing new can be done anymore before breaking the law.

I don't disregard your concerns, but similar objections could be raised for
inheritance of private property. That one can inherit property or land or
goods means we end up in a situation where *everything* is owned, but that
doesn't stiffle economic growth. We can certainly flourish as a society
where Smoke on Water is copyrighted. Why would it then be any more
disasterous if Marriage of Figaro were currently copyrighted as well? I
would think that the cost to society would be minimal, if any, on the whole.
It would, if anything, encourage more original or contemporary works. On a
practical matter, licence fees for older works would naturally decline in
time anyway, and many would voluntarily be donated to public domain. As for
art whose creator passes away without proper will, it can be handled the
same way as his material propeties, depending on the local legislature,
including rights being released to public domain or to museums... etc.

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>         Stuff like this can get ridiculous:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita_Sings_The_Blues#Copyright_problems

  It's sad that copyright is sometimes used properly to deter unscrupulous
criminals from stealing other people's hard work, but it's sometimes also
used in completely ridiculous situations.

  As an example of a *good* use of copyright (and trademarking), in many
countries knock-off pirate products are a real problem (and I'm not only
talking about music or movies, but actual objects). The main problem is
that they are made to look like the genuine thing, so people are fooled
and are actually buying pirate products unknowingly. Not only does the
money go to the wrong people, but the buyer usually gets an inferior
product (which in some cases could even be dangerous). In this case
copyright and trademark infringement truely hurts the original company,
and often hurts the customers as well (because they are deceived into
buying a product which has not the quality guarantees than they think).

  I think this is a good presentation on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQi-zQR03z8

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Neeum Zawan <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
>         Oh yes. Think vaporware. Lots and lots of games out there that people 
> cherish and love, but that are protected by copyright and the 
> people/companies who own that copyright aren't bothered to let people 
> play those games legally.

  I think you mean abandonware.

>         I could understand it if those companies were planning on marketing 
> those games, or making remakes, etc. Then those older games would hurt 
> sales. But in almost all cases that's just not how it is. The owners are 
> often megacorps who, as a rule, just maintain the copyright.

  Some companies are indeed real dicks about their copyrights, while other
companies don't care that much, and in fact embrace people's creativity on
top of their product.

  A good example of the latter would be Valve: Rather than being dicks about
people making mods for Half-Life, they actually embraced the best ones.
Counter Strike is the quintessential example: It was one of the most popular
Half-Life mods, and Valve basically bought it, and it became one of their
best-selling products.

  A good example of the former is Square Enix: A group of people had spent
years in a project to create a "sequel" to the game Chrono Trigger by
modding the original. Technically speaking the group didn't even break any
copyright: The only thing they shared in their website was the diff data
necessary to mod the original Chrono Trigger ROM data in order to get the
modified game. In other words, all the data they offered was their own
original creation. However, Square Enix issued a cease&desist order when
the project was something like 98% done. Even though the group knew they
were not breaking any laws, they were too afraid to not to comply. Square
Enix doesn't want to listen to the fans crying for a sequel, and they want
everything the group created removed from the internet.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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