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What duration of time do you connect to intellectual property?

It’s one thing that copyright/IP is such a matter of debate in the creative world, but a whole new layer is added onto that when people say that it only matters for a certain amount of time. You may have read all those articles a few months ago, the same ones telling us about how Mickey Mouse (technically Steamboat Willy) is now up for grabs 95 years after his creation.

There are those who say “as long as it’s popular it shouldn’t be pirated”, those who say “as long as the creator is around”, those who don’t apply a set frame, etc. I’ve even seen people say they wouldn’t dare redistribute paleolithic paintings because it was their spark on the world. What philosophy of statutes of limitation make the most sense to you when it comes to creative work?

gamermanh ,
@gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I recall reading somewhere that less than 5 years is the average time it takes for most individual works to earn the majority of its value, tapering off from there

So I’d probably do a 2-tier system:

Tier 1: independent civilians. After 5 years any normal civvie can take your work and use it without your permission to do whatever they want with it

Tier 2: Companies. Life of the author. For as long as the original creator is alive no company can ever use their work without permission

10_0 ,

Life time of person who made it. Nothing more, nothing less

adam_y ,
@adam_y@lemmy.world avatar

What’s wild here is that when you talk about IP you are talking about entertainment and art and not lifesaving drugs and technologies on a global scale.

It’s a very privilidged western view of copyright and IP.

Fondots ,

I feel like there needs to be at least 2 separate sets of rules for copyright.

For independent artists, I think it’s pretty reasonable that copyright should last for their lifetime and maybe a little longer to make sure that their spouse, children, or other dependants can be cared for before the work goes public domain. We can quibble over exactly how long after death that should be, but that seems pretty fair to me (personally I’m tempted to say 18 years+9 months, so if hypothetically a male artist knocked up his wife immediately before kicking the bucket, that kid would still be able to receive something from their father’s works until they reached adulthood.) And if they don’t have any apparent next of kin, it just expires at death.

But when it’s not an independent artist, and it’s something like Disney, where that legal entity that owns the property could very well be around forever, I think it’s more appropriate to put a hard limit on it, maybe 50 years as long as they’re actively using the property- marketing it, selling merchandise, licensing it out, making it available on streaming, etc. and maybe 15 years if they aren’t doing anything with it (Again, we can quibble over the exact length of time, I picked 50 it’s a nice round number, and 15 because that’s how long a design patent lasts and it felt appropriate)

There’s of course going to be some interplay between those two categories, an independent artist who’s contracted to make something for Disney may retain some rights to that work, so what happens after 15 years? What if that artist is contracted to make something using IP that’s about to expire even sooner? What if an independent artist creates something insanely popular and builds a disney-like megacorporation around it with hundreds of other people all creating derivative works from that original thing, does the copyright stay with that original artist to expire when they die or does it become one of those corporate copyrights that expires in 50 years? And if the latter, does that happen automatically when the company hinsts a certain size or how would that happen?

I definitely don’t have all the answers to all those questions, but as a general framework that feels fair to me.

BarHocker ,

Why should the kid get anything from the patents achievements by law?

Nemo ,

Because it is the duty of parents to support their children, and this is desirable for the purposes of a stable society, and the purpise of law is to protect the stability of society?

Fondots , (edited )

An independent artist probably isn’t going to have an employer-sponsored retirement account like a 401k or a pension, etc. like many of us with “normal” jobs have, and are counting on to help our spouses, children, or other dependants should we die before them. Allowing them to retain the rights to an artists work for after death seems to me like it would help fill that same kind of role and also provides them a little protection, since not all artists are wildly successful and may not have been able to save much or anything for retirement/funeral expenses, etc. on their own. I don’t think it needs to last their whole life, their kid could potentially live 100 years which seems excessive and against the spirit of allowing things to go into the public domain, but I think seeing them into adulthood is fair.

Edit: I’m personally contributing to a pension at my job, my wife has never worked there but she still gets to collect that pension after I die, that’s a big part of our collective retirement plans. If we had kids, I’d want to make sure those kids are being provided for out of that pension at least until they’re old enough to live on their own. I think artists would also like to have that kind of safety net for their loved ones after they die.

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

Because the parents owned it, and it can be passed down like any other property.

That’s the whole point of the discussion.

xmunk ,

Fifteen years tops. Fifteen years is just under half of the average number of years you’ll be in the workforce and if you put your heart and soul into something amazing I feel like it enabling you to skate through at most half of your life is reasonable.

Erika3sis ,
@Erika3sis@hexbear.net avatar

I support complete abolition of intellectual property as a whole.

Say you want to write closed captions for a movie, or even film a sign language interpretation of it, such that d/Deaf people can enjoy the movie better, among other reasons — even if you don’t post the movie itself, you’re still creating a derivative work and hence violating copyright.

Or say you want to record an audio description such that blind people can enjoy the movie better, among other reasons — again, even if you release only the AD track, this is still a derivative work and hence violates copyright. This obviously also goes for audiobooks.

Or say you even want to make a full-on dub of a movie into an endangered language, to try to break the reliance of its dwindling speakers on dominant-language content — in this case, unless you’ve secured a deal with the rightsholders such that you have access to the original SFX and music tracks, your only choices are VO dubbing like is common in the Former Soviet Union, or painstakingly redoing all the sound effects and music, before you can add the dialog. In any case, without a license, you’re still violating copyright even if you only release the dub track.

Now obviously the fact that these things violate IPR doesn’t stop people from making these things anyways, but IPR does still end up greatly limiting volunteer work in scope and visibility, and creates an antagonism between the rightsholders and those volunteering to make the content more accessible. So intellectual property in practice then ends up being among other things yet another mechanism through which the sighted oppress the blind, the hearing oppress the d/Deaf, the settlers oppress the Natives, et cetera. There is no universe in which accessible media and intellectual property coexist: as long as there is intellectual property there is a profit motive, and profit motives will never prioritize accessibility.

And this is not to get into a greater discussion of how private property in general oppresses the working class, although I should disclose that I support the abolition of all private property and not only intellectual property by itself.

PumpkinSkink ,

Who does IP serve? It seems to me it serves very wealthy people who have the legal means to protect it. With that in mind, I think we should just get rid of it.

adam_y ,
@adam_y@lemmy.world avatar

As someone who makes minimum wage from my intellectual property, the IP laws (in the UK) have allowed me to prevent the very wealthy just taking my ideas and profiting from them.

And they have tried repeatedly.

It isn’t the law, but the corruption of the law that’s at issue. However, without that legal framework there would be no financial incentive for anyone but the wealthy to make IP.

Is that what you want? Entertainment by big corporations only, and art made solely by the upper middle classes?

Even_Adder ,

People already make memes and mods for free. Humans are a social species and will continue to create and share things until the end of time. Making money off of creation is a privilege for only a tiny few.

adam_y ,
@adam_y@lemmy.world avatar

So you think that because some people chose to make things for free there should be no legal protection for people that want to sell what they make?

The only people who can choose to make things for free are the privilidged few.

adam_y ,
@adam_y@lemmy.world avatar

I see you make art. What if I said to you, I’d like to give you some money for that art, for maybe a print of it. Not just so that I can own some but because I want to support you.

And then someone just copies your art and gives it to me free. You get no money for it.

Are you genuinely OK with that? Are you saying that everything you make is copyright free?

BitSound ,

Not the person you’re asking, but I’d say yes. Don’t bother charging for bits, except for something like the bandcamp model, i.e. “yes, i could pirate this but i want to support the creator and it’s really easy to do so”.

We have better funding models now that we’ve solved the problem of copying at zero cost. Patreon is a good and popular one, as well as kickstarters. You can’t pirate something that doesn’t get made, which is the perfect solution. Other art like music also makes money off of things like live performances that can’t be digitized.

Note that the one aspect of copyright that I like is attribution requirements. I think it’s perfectly fine to hand out information to anyone, as long as you say “here’s this cool thing, this is who created it, and this is how you can give them money”.

adam_y ,
@adam_y@lemmy.world avatar

I’m telling you this as someone that works in the arts, that’s just not true.

You can pirate digital material and repackage it. I see illustrators getting their designs ripped off by large scale clothing manufacturers all the time.

Similarly, I know some acts that have heard their music on adverts and films and haven’t been paid. It seems like it is being stolen if you ask me.

There needs to be protection or the creation of art becomes a luxury for those that can afford to not make money from it.

BitSound ,

I respect that you work in the arts. However, I think too many people worried about copyright think that things would look similar to the way they are today, but the situation would be radically different without copyright. For example, Disney wouldn’t exist. You wouldn’t have large corporations taking and not giving back, because those large corporations wouldn’t exist like they do now in the first place.

Even_Adder ,

I do not make art, I just post it here on lemmy. I’d be OK with that. People freely create, copy, and iterate on memes, and they are the greatest cultural touchstones we have. First and foremost, people create because they have something to say.

adam_y ,
@adam_y@lemmy.world avatar

And as I said in my comment, it isn’t my customers that want stuff for free, often they want to pay to support me. Those laws stop big multinational corporations from taking my work and selling it on their t-shirts.

We are social creatures, but fuck me, we need to eat and pay rent.

AbouBenAdhem ,

Trademarks should be good as long as the company is in business.

Patents should be determined by weighing two factors: 1) how much sooner will the invention be produced than it would have been without the incentive of a patent, and how much will the public benefit from that earlier introduction; and 2) how much will the public be harmed by the monopoly resulting from the patent? The patent should then expire before the second factor outweighs the first.

Copyrights have been a scam since they were first introduced: the original intention (when printing was first introduced) was to police the printing of politically or morally objectionable works, but the authority appointed to do so abused the power to sell monopolies on printing specific works. Authors were originally opposed to this practice, and actually got it overturned for a time—the idea that copyrights are needed so publishers can compensate authors was a post-hoc justification publishers came up with to get authors to withdraw their objections. But it’s never been a good deal for the actual creators.

So copyright needs to be re-thought from the ground up—the amount of time that works remain under copyright is a secondary issue.

BitSound ,

I’d be fine with copyright going away altogether. People sometimes object to this on the grounds of “But Disney will just steal your ideas and make money off of them”. If their works don’t have copyright though, you can do the same right back to them.

This is also one reason that I appreciate generative AI. Short-term, yes it will help Disney and the like. Slightly longer-term, why would anyone give Disney money if you can generate your own Marvel movie yourself?

The genie also isn’t going back in the bottle. Copyright is a dead man walking. If you dislike what large companies like Disney are doing/going to do with generative AI, push for anyone training a model to be forced to let anyone whose work went into that model for free.

AbouBenAdhem ,

Yeah, “generating your own Marvel movie” was considered high art for most human cultures before copyright: from traditional epics to Greek dramas and even Shakespeare’s “serious” plays, audiences were already familiar with the characters and stories and valued the art of the re-telling. Novels (so-called because the characters and stories were “new”) were considered low-brow trash for people unfamiliar with the myths and stories that “real” literature was based on.

Now, that primal human urge to build on and re-tell familiar stories is relegated to unlicensed fan-fiction and to franchises like Marvel who only permit certain sanctioned creators to build on their “property”.

shalafi ,

I’d be down for copyright extending 10-years past the creator’s death, 20 at most. This is plenty of time to resolve complex legal affairs, fighting relatives, etc.

Cowbee ,
@Cowbee@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m in favor of abolishing IP altogether, along with all Private Property.

BitSound , (edited )

The original duration in the U.S. was 14 years, plus the option of a renewal for another 14. IMO we should move back to something close to that. One idea I’ve seen is that there’s an initial cost of however much for 7 years, and then the price doubles for every 7 year extension beyond that. Not even Disney can beat exponential growth, and it would force them to pick what they actually care about.

I’d also prefer explicit registration. We’re losing too many works because nobody’s sure who owns the copyright, and nobody knows if it’s safe to archive them.

I’d say that the original Star Wars trilogy should be public domain by now, for a concrete example. Disney can make new stories and characters in the universe and make money off of them, but everyone else should be able to as well.

Also as an aside, here’s Richard Stallman on why the term “intellectual property” shouldn’t be used. It’s an umbrella term that doesn’t really make sense, and more explicit terms like copyright or patents or trademark should be used.

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