I know it's not public domain per-say, but for me, the thing that's most exciting is that in 2025, the last remaining patents on the h.264 (AVC) video codec will expire [1].<p>Now if only HEVC wasn't such a hot patent / licensing mess.<p>[1] <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_MPEG-4_AVC_expired_yet%3F" rel="nofollow">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_M...</a>
Just thought you might want to know - it's "per se" not "per say"/variations thereof.
That's incredible. With MP3 already completely patent-free as well, we have an extraordinary free set of audio and video codecs for the next couple of decade, at least until HEVC becomes free.
One of the primary reasons why AV1 exists is because HEVC is such a hot mess.
In the link it seems the last patent in US go as long as 2027?<p>If the patents really expire in 2025, is there an already open source library written either in C or C++ one could use for reading h.264?
Thanks to the retroactive extension here in Canada, absolutely nothing.
It's advent calendar-style, so <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_in_public_domain" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_in_public_domain</a>> might be more informative.
<i>Red Harvest</i> is in there? You can be sure that number of film and TV writers, and perhaps directors and producers, have set their alarm clocks for that one. <a href="https://crimereads.com/the-strange-cinematic-afterlife-of-red-harvest/" rel="nofollow">https://crimereads.com/the-strange-cinematic-afterlife-of-re...</a>
You may be interested to know that the story for The Maltese Falcon, not listed, will also be entering public domain because it was published in monthly installments in Black Mask magazine before it was published as a novel. (Any changes between the publication in Black Mask and those made for the novelization, if significant enough, will of course still be under copyright and so the novelization proper still won't be entering public domain for another 13 months.)<p>We have had difficulty getting our hands on these issues, though (or scans of them).<p>It's interesting that AMC just launched a series featuring Sam Spade this year, the year <i>before</i> the character goes into the public domain…
No notable wroters, except one: Pär Lagerkvist
Previous civilizations were able to own their cultural myths. Modern civilization's cultural myths are controlled by giant faceless corporations with legions of lawyers. No one can tell a new story about Han, Luke, and Leia without permission from the House of Mouse.
I agree that the way things were along time ago was more natural and definitely more creative. Things today though are way different though. A huge difference is that media wasn’t an industry back then. Most people couldn’t even read. The retelling of myths would mostly happen in the form of poetry or drama performed publicly, and the performance schedule was tightly controlled in the form of contests and festivals to honor various things across the calendar. There’s not really analogue to that now. We are truly in uncharted territory, and that was the case since the printing press. Throw in the invention of the internet and it’s a giant mess. I’m optimistic though that we can resolve it and pave a way forward.
Or a Tor onion service.
Unfortunately, public domain isn't everything. There are lots of works that we know of and that we should be able to share with one another, but it's hard to come by copies. To give one example:<p>The novel Red Harvest from 1929 is listed as entering the public domain next month. But the thing is that prior to being published as a novel, it was serialized in Black Mask magazine, and since all installments were published pre-1929, they're all already in the public domain.<p>The trouble, though, is that despite being public domain, actually getting your hands on these issues, whether in real life or figuratively as scans is something that poses a challenge—we simply don't have easy access to this material.<p>And that goes for lots of other stuff that we know about but don't have copies at hand.
Also all the sites that post scans of old books or magazines but claim various usage restrictions or/and copyrights on the scans.<p>That effectively keeps public domain works copyrighted, for most purposes, for most of us. Most libraries for instance have some EULA that says you can only use scans you order from them for non-commercial purposes, even if they scan from a public domain book. I do not know if that can be enforced in general, but it would not be fun to have to find out in court.
If it’s in the public domain, you can make legal derivative works even without the source material, can’t you?<p>Or can you?
If the serialized one is in the public domain and a book isn't, then your work might be seen as derivative of the book anyway.<p>For instance the recent Wicked movie (and book, and play, etc) can't use ruby red slippers, because that was a detail only in the relativley more recent movie, so even though the original wizard of oz book has been in the public domain a while, some details are siloed off. I think the Holmes stories had disputes like this for a while too, where if you mentioned certain side characters it might infringe a more recent adaptation or etc.
The Holmes situation was even sillier than that: they were arguing that certain <i>personality traits</i> of Sherlock were still under copyright: <a href="https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/conan-doyle-estate-sues-netflix-enola-holmes/" rel="nofollow">https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/conan-doyle-estate-sues-net...</a>
I can see how having the public domain source material might be necessary to defend yourself against claims of infringement of the non-public domain works. That makes sense to me.
In May 1998, before the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act went into effect, there was an amusing Tom the Dancing Bug comic regarding characters falling out of copyright. <a href="https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/1998/05/17" rel="nofollow">https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/1998/05/17</a><p>In that vein, similar to the Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh horror movies that have been released in recent years, Popeye will be entering the public domain next year and people are working on a horror movie based on that.
Even as someone who isn't really into horror much as a genre, it's hard not to appreciate how one of the first instincts we have as a society when freeing some IP is "We should make a creepy version of this!".
I am curious how the long tail and changing of media consumption habits has devalued many of these characters. Mickey is Mickey and there's an entire company built on it of course, but my kids have literally no clue who Popeye is. They have never seen a Popeye cartoon and probably never will. When I was younger we didn't have nearly as much choice (2-3 channels with limited times for cartoons) - rather than Netflix or Youtube which effectively offers unlimited/fragmented options.<p>Additionally the main plot line of Popeye is effectively Popeye protecting Olive Oil from being assaulted by Bluto - not exactly modern cartoon material.
I think some things were a product of their time, and weren't popular/profitable enough to keep marketing or update or modernize. (whether they didn't maintain peoples' attention, or had issues like the Popeye one you mentioned) Another not-as-popular character that's entering the public domain in 2026, for example, is Betty Boop.<p>On the other hand, Superman and Batman enter the public domain in 2034 and 2035 respectively, so that should be interesting. Though like Mickey Mouse/Steamboat Willie, I expect that it's only the original version/costume that goes public domain.
As is usual there is quite a bit of discussion here on copyright reform, which is mostly just suggestions to change the term of copyright.<p>I think it would be interesting to consider other reforms.<p>Note that copyright is not just a single right. It is a bundle of rights. In the US those are the copying right, the derivative work right, the distribution right, the performance right, the display right, and some others. The bundle of rights might be different in other jurisdictions but in most it is similar. In the rest of this comment I'll only be consideringd US copyright.<p>First, I don't see why all of those rights should all have the same term. I see no reason to believe that the optimal term for say the copying right and the optimal term for the derivative work right would be the same.<p>Second, how about adding more compulsory licenses? US copyright law already has some compulsory licenses (also called mechanical licenses), such as for cover songs. Briefly, a federal agency called the Copyright Royalty Board sets the terms and rates for these licenses, and anyone can obtain the license according to those rates and terms, regardless of whether or not the copyright owner wants to license the work to them.<p>For example suppose we made it so that the copying and distribution rights have a three phase lifetime instead of the current two phases (which are an exclusive phase tied to the author's lifetime followed by public domain). The three phase lifetime could be (1) an exclusive phase of a fixed number of years, followed by (2) a compulsory license phase, followed by (3) public domain.<p>The derivative work right is the hard one. On the one hand a short term allows others to play in an author's universe. I've seen some really good and really well written fan fiction that is not currently technically legal, especially crossover fan fiction that merges the story universes of different authors. Encouraging this would be good.<p>On the other hand some things would be ruined if they became public domain too quickly. I'm quite pleased that Bill Watterson still gets to decide who can make "Calvin & Hobbes" derivative works. If copyright was only 14 or 21 years (terms people often suggest), I've no doubt that every character from "Calvin & Hobbes" would have started appearing in ads as soon as the copyright expired.
Most are still books in that list. But there is no readable version of it, just photos :)<p>Next year it will be a link to a tiktok movie?
handpicked selection of notables:<p>- Frida Kahlo<p>- Henri Matisse<p>- Alan Turing<p>i guess the Chrysler Building is public domain now? what can you do with a buidling?
There was some crank that once C&D'd a minecraft server for reproducing copyrighted buildings. I dont think he had the guts to take it to court though.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2IiZvg1xQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2IiZvg1xQ</a>
Kind of a niche, but the open world Spiderman video games stopped including the Chrysler Building due to licensing issues after it was bought by new owners in ~2019
> i guess the Chrysler Building is public domain now? what can you do with a buidling?<p>I guess maybe the design of the building, if anything? If that will become public domain, expect it to appear in Macau in a year or less, and probably other places :)
You wouldn't download a building.
Also the writer Pär Lagerkvist, nobel award winner
I'd love to know! Too bad this website only gives a small selection of what those items are, despite the entire lists already being published elsewhere! Very useful, thanks Hacker News!
I, for one, am looking forward to <i>A Farewell to Arms and Zombies</i>, inevitably coming out soon.
How do people typically make money from these new things
Oh hey look Crowley.<p>It's fascinating to me that like 95% of what anglos see as "occult" or "magic" is directly descended from that very recent grifter.<p>Also see vampires and Stoker (though that's not as intentional).
70 years feels so long for movie or book.<p>I get it’s important to protect the right of authors and companies but damn it’s 3 generations. Something my grand grand father may have seen, that’s insane.<p>25 year, a single generation would make sense. I’d argue that by then all the money would have been made and you would allow new generation to grow up with the greatest art from previous generation, it would be like a virtuous circle. Next generation would improve based on previous one And so on.
I'm going to designate this as the obligatory "copyright is far too long" subthread.<p>In my opinion, the ideal length (if we are to have copyright) is between 10 and 15 years, at least if a work is already monetarily successful. If a work has yet to be monetarily successful, then we can allow up to 25 years for it in particular.
European patents have an interesting fee structure that increases exponentially (IIRC doubling every ~3 years), with a 20 year limit. I think this (plus mandatory registration if you want to enforce) is a great solution to copyrights, too, even if you let it run unbounded. If the registration fee is $1000, a registration 30 years later is $1000000 and if you want 60 years you have to pay $1000000000 over the life of the copyright.<p>Any excess revenue could, theoretically, be redistribute as grants for the arts.
European Patent Office fee list: <a href="https://my.epoline.org/epoline-portal/classic/epoline.Scheduleoffees" rel="nofollow">https://my.epoline.org/epoline-portal/classic/epoline.Schedu...</a><p>has 4 pages of prices
I think it should be proportionate (& increasing exponentially) to the revenue(not profit because hollywood accounting).<p>Big coporations like Disney can hold on to the material and pay the sum with profits from other ip if it's fixed.
> Big coporations like Disney can hold on to the material and pay the sum with profits from other ip if it's fixed.<p>I think that's okay, Disney has lots of money but they aren't stupid, i.e. they won't spend money unless they expect a return on investment.<p>What you really want to prevent are orphan works which are copyrighted but no one can get a copy of.
Assuming fee based renewal, proportionate to revenue is problematic for works that fall out of publishing.<p>There's lots of works from when I was young that nobody is interested in publishing, even though I would like to see them again. They make zero revenue now (and probably didn't make much before), so I suspect the rights holders would abandon them if they had to pay any fee, especially an escalating fee.<p>I'm personally less worried about works that remain in print.
> I suspect the rights holders would abandon them if they had to pay any fee<p>Wouldn’t that just put the works in the public domain, allowing others to legally publish the works? What would be the downside?
Couldn't you print it yourself? If it's that obscure and that important to you to own a hard copy.
Print them how? Am I supposed to type up all the pages of that falling apart book - book scanning helps but still requires extensive effort? What about the page that got ripped out and is missing, how do I recreate that?<p>While it is likely legal for me to go through all that effort for myself, it isn't legal for me to share the fruits of my effort with someone else who wants a copy so they need to do it themself. Even if they have a worn out copy themself it isn't clear that I can print them a new copy. If I want to share this work with someone else who might want it I'm stuck - I can only do the above for personal use.
Why complicate things and allow for even more creative accounting? Elevating flat fees give you a term that is inversely proportional to revenue. With flat exponential fees, term is logarithmic in revenue.
I completely disagree. The previous comment's idea is better: just charge fees. The government shouldn't be worried about exactly how profitable something is, because you can argue that too many ways (see Hollywood accounting). It's too easy for large corporations to invent "creative accounting" tricks, and just basing things on revenue penalizes any company that invests larger amounts of money in ventures that have lower profit margins (e.g. doing high-quality movie production with physical models, on-location shooting, etc. instead of just using some crappy AI to generate everything).<p>With exponentially increasing fees, the copyright holder can decide for themselves if it's economically worthwhile to pay the renewal fees or release it into the public domain. If the cost to extend copyright another 5 years after 50+ years is $1B, for instance, very few copyright holders will bother with that unless it's a highly profitable property.
The problem with "just charge fees" is that it wastes an excellent opportunity to make the copyright system more useful for individual authors and artists, and instead strengthens the status quo with even more incentives to consolidate copyright powers under mega-corporations. Long before the fees got high enough to incentivize a corporation to abandon a work's copyright to the public domain, they would force authors to sell out to a corporation in return for a share of future earnings, rather than accept an immediate loss of all royalties.
Presumably you could set up "just charge fees" to have a grace period of 3-5 years to register your copyright (and pay any back fees) if you happen to want to enforce the copyright after that time.<p>It's also possible that you could set up a smaller fee for a news article, etc.<p>There are lots of implementation details that make "just charge fees" work.
Return ownership of IP to humans only. You'll solve basically all of the issues currently faced that way.
How would that apply in the case of, say, Peter Jackson's 2003, $281 million "The Lord of the Rings" film series?<p>Does Jackson own the IP? Do actors own part of the IP for every scene they're in? What does Jackson offer to investors, to get the backing he needs to hire loads of horse riders or whatever? Do we do it Star Citizen style, giving Jackson a few hundred million upfront with no obligation to deliver anything?
You make an excellent point. Companies could eg. have 25yrs to make a profit.<p>On the other hand: if an artist produces something that slumbers in anonymity for decades before it suddenly explodes into popularity and becomes part of the cultural canon, then I'd want the artist to reap whatever benefits possible. That is: if anyone is making big bucks off of that, it first and foremost should be the artist, for as long as they're alive.
> The government shouldn't be worried about exactly how profitable something is, because you can argue that too many ways (see Hollywood accounting). It's too easy for large corporations to invent "creative accounting" tricks<p>This is also the <i>core</i> reason why tax systems should be simplified simplified simplified.
Surely the point of copyright is to allow a person to have sole rights to commercialise a thing before it goes to the public domain.<p>If so, if they havent done that in the first 10/15 years, why should they get an extra 10/15 years?<p>Further, another issue of very long copyrights is preserving things you don't really have a right to preserve.<p>that successful videogame may still be around in 25 years. the one that wasn't so popular has much less chance of surviving.<p>And then you have the added complication of what was successful? a fixed term means you know when something is in the public domain.<p>personally, I think there should be registration and fees attached. if you want copyright protection for the first 5 years, pay a nominal fee. if you want more than that, pay exponentially more for each year.<p>If companies want to pay that tax, they can. if it isn't worth it, then it can go in the public domain.<p>Either way, at least you have a register of what is in, and out of copyright.
Has anyone done a study on when copyrighted works make their money? I'm guessing that the vast majority of the income is made in the first decade after creation. Timeless classics are by far the exception. And for those, does it really benefit society for their fortunate authors to sit back and get rich resting on their laurels? The creation that copyright was supposed to incentivize already happened. At that point society benefits when works go into the public domain so derivatives can flourish.
> does it really benefit society for their fortunate authors to sit back and get rich resting on their laurels?<p>In my opinion, it doesn't. In creative and entertainment industries, the idea of practically indefinite royalties has been normalized, but no other industries has this*. For example, it would be strange to continue paying a construction company after your home has been built.<p>*As far as I can remember. I'm open to correction here.
I don't understand the analogy. We don't continue to pay authors after we buy their book. We do pay construction companies again if we want a second house - even if the design is the same.<p>Probably floorplans would be a closer comparison - and I believe they are licensed IP?
>We do pay construction companies again if we want a second house - even if the design is the same.<p>You might pay the construction company again for the identical 2nd house, but you're not going to pay the <i>architect</i> again.
Why not? The US, for example, recognizes a copyright in architecture. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_in_architecture_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_in_architecture_in_t...</a>
Dépends. If the 2nd house location requires review by an architect because of ground issues or regulation. If contractual provisions require an architect fee. If small adjustments that may have structural impacts are needed. You won’t pay the same amount, but still something.
I believe the analogy is as follows:<p>Imagine that you've paid the construction company after it finished building your house. You then go and live in it. One year later you get an invoice because you're living in the house they built.<p>That's what doesn't happen and what (I think) GP means with indefinite royalties: the person who owns the house has to keep paying the company which built the house.<p>The problem with that analogy is of course that royalties are based off profits, but there are ways to consider a home to have its own sense of profit (like the Belgian legal term 'cadastral income':<p>> <i>Cadastral income is not an actual income. It is a notional value that we determine for an immovable property (building or land). This corresponds to the average annual net rental income you would receive in 1975 for your leased out property.</i><p>).
> We don't continue to pay authors after we buy their book.<p>Libraries certainly do in basically every country in the world apart from the US.
any subscription service that doesn't deliver new value each day or month, like the Adobe suite(s)
In the case of Adobe, you're paying for continuous updates and their added cloud services (or other functionality which requires their servers). Also Adobe's subscription pricing (per-month) is significantly less than the retail cost for a one-time purchase of their software without future updates.<p>Meanwhile one does not pay for continuous updates to a particular novel or a movie. Even if they do pay for new installments in a series, they do so separately.
Adobe presumably also fixes bugs, so hopefully you are getting something better over time. I've in the past wore out a favorite book and since it was in print bought a new copy - and found the same typos that were in the previous copy.
> Also Adobe's subscription pricing (per-month) is significantly less than the retail cost for a one-time purchase of their software without future updates.<p>And the per-second pricing is even less!
My guess is that authors have relatively long-term returns on their books, while movies are known to generally make almost all their money in the first year.
> while movies are known to generally make almost all their money in the first year.<p>That hasn't been true for fifteen years.
Generally yes, significant revenue (for books but also movies and music) may happen several years after the first release/publication. Because… reasons you don’t always control.
Some people would say that the fortunate authors have already benefitted society, and that the potential of winning this lottery ticket was part of their incentive to do so. We could equally ask "does it benefit society to enrich tech founders with billion-dollar acquisitions?"<p>That said, I believe the security of UBI to be a stronger enabler for creativity than gambling you'll write the next great American novel in-between shifts at the fish cannery.
The original copyright law (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne</a>) got it right IMO: 14 years.
I'd go with something like the Sony Spiderman deal.<p>Unless they release new IP with that character every X years, the rights revert back go Marvel (Now Disney).<p>Same with books. If you have an ongoing series for 20 years, the first books shouldn't enter public domain.<p>But a book series or TV show with no new content for 15+ years? Public domain.
That gets really murky really fast.<p>Is <i>10 Cloverfield Lane</i> a sequel to <i>Cloverfield</i>? They decided to throw the Cloverfield name onto it shortly before release for marketing reasons, the actual movie has nothing to do with the events and story of the original <i>Cloverfield</i>.<p>Is the video game <i>Nier</i> a sequel to <i>Drakengard</i>? Technically yes, but the connection is vague and distant. And there's also <i>Drakengard 2</i> which is the sequel to a different ending for the original game.<p>How would you count <i>Fear the Walking Dead</i>, the spin-off series of <i>The Walking Dead</i>, itself and adaptation of a comic book series. Do the shows continue to get copyright protection so long as the comics are still being published? Or vice versa?
The only part that feels weird about a shorter duration like that is tv/movie adaptations of books. The game of thrones show came out 15 years after the first book, does that mean they would have been able to make it without licensing it from the author?
It does mean that, and I think that's just something that would have to be accepted. Disney's empire is built on adaptations of public domain stories, after all.
Disney is about to be faced with a landscape where anybody can make Pixar films from home. They're in for a world of hurt in the new regime where thought moves faster than IP.<p>Film studios only existed because (1) distribution used to be hard and (2) films were financially and logistically difficult to make. Netflix and YouTube slayed the first challenge, and now GenAI will fell the latter and give indie directors the same kind of platform that indie game and indie music folks currently have: true one person studios.
Hm, also at 10 years out how likely is the author to be able to convince someone to do a TV adaptation, knowing that by the time they're done someone else will be able to release their own versions (sans royalty even)?
Apparently the TV series Game of Thrones cost just under $600m to produce[1], and George R. R. Martin earnt something like $100m from royalties as its original author[2]. Although access to the author for advice and publicity must be valuable, that is nonetheless a very large proportion of the profits that I'm sure many studios would rather not have to share!<p>[1]: <a href="https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/100996" rel="nofollow">https://movies.stackexchange.com/a/100996</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6182197" rel="nofollow">https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-6182197</a>
Many things are only popular for a relatively short period of time. If someone wants to wait until the copyright period is over to do an adaptation, the source material may no longer be that popular, and the adaptation, even without having paid a single royalty, will be unprofitable.
Ok but you’re gonna have a hard time convincing me that (morally) HBO should have been able to make game of thrones without cutting a check to the guy who created it
I'm not saying it'd be good for HBO to do that, only that they could. Regardless of whether or not they should, edge cases like GoT's success should not control the outcome for everyone and everything else.
The reality is that almost no adaptations happen until ten years after a book is published. Virtually never.
That can be fixed by limiting copyright to a certain duration <i>per medium</i>. You write a book - you have copyright on paper based books for 15 years. You publish it as Ebooks for desktop and mobile devices - get 15 years on that medium. Convert to visuals on Television &/or Films - 15 years on that medium. Virtual reality - another 15 years and so on ...
This is a remarkably salient point.<p>It can take a long time for certain works to find their wings or true market potential, especially books and music.<p>Some examples of music: "Take On Me", "Running Up That Hill", "Bohemian Rhapsody", or even bands, like Neutral Milk Hotel
> does that mean they would have been able to make it without licensing it from the author?<p>yes and it's possible someone could have done it even better, had they not been required to convince investors to purchase copyright. GoT was a masterpiece, don't get me wrong, but it's a fallacy to think it couldn't have been better, or that other book adaptations could have been as good or better, without copyright being in the way.<p>It's a minor issue in the grand scheme, but my pet peeve is with "synch licenses" (not sure if that's even the right term), but where sitcoms can't go to home video because of stupid disputes about shitty songs that happened to be included. Did anyone watch "Married With Children" <i>because</i> of Frank Sinatra's song "Love and Marriage" in the intro? It's a catchy song, and I'm sure it lured people in who might have otherwise changed the channel, so yes it has value. But it should only be a tiny fraction of the royalties for a full performance of the song. doubly so for home video releases. Would <i>anyone</i> buy even 1 season of MWC <i>just</i> to hear the Sinatra song? I say no. And therefore should not be required to pay any royalties.<p>I am watching "Murphy Brown" reruns from pirateflix because apparently it never went to home video because of license disputes about the 60's soul songs in the intro. They add character to the show, for sure. But they're not why I watch the show. I watch it for the story and the acting. In this case, actors (who worked extremely hard over 10 seasons of that show!) are being wrongfully deprived of royalties because record execs can't be reasonable about how much 10 seconds of a 60 -year-old song is worth.
It should definitely be short enough for creatives to engage directly with their influences from childhood and adolescence in middle age, and to take on and use the earlier works of their contemporaries in their later years.<p>So, probably not more than twenty years. Fifteen would be better.
If this was the case would we have enough interesting content (movies, music, etc.) to reduce demand for streaming services, etc.?<p>I think those indirect impacts probably incentivize more lobby groups to keep the status quo.
All the TRIPS agreement requires is 50 years. That can be from first publication, regardless of when the author dies.<p>The US should go with 50 years from first publication. It doesn't have significant financial effect for rights holders. Revenue on content over 50 years old is tiny. Maybe if you're still alive, the sole author, and own the rights yourself, you could apply for an extension for the rest of your life. But no more than that.<p>Someone with Trumpworld connections could push this, as a way of getting back at Hollywood.
> All the TRIPS agreement requires is 50 years. That can be from first publication, regardless of when the author dies.<p>TRIPS requires fifty years for features, but not for various bits of copyright that go into making a feature, where it requires life + 50. There are vanishingly small amounts of films that would be genuinely clear under the TRIPS terms, they'd basically just be performing arts pieces with no script or planning or music.
What it sounds like you’re saying is “this stuff is too old to be interesting” which is kind of the point.
I mean if everyone agree but a few big companies, how is it possible that it has not yet been changed by politicians.<p>I’m not saying specifically USA but also Europe, I can’t see common people fighting over the right of author to hold intellectual properties for 70 years.<p>Haven’t been trials to shorten it somewhere, either USA or any other developed countries where it’s actually enforced ?
There are a few reasons why copyright terms aren't shortened:<p>* International treaties make it difficult without buy-in from everyone, or at least the most important countries. The USA is probably the only country that could afford to unilaterally make such a change.<p>* Politicians are largely beholden to big companies now.<p>* The average person is distracted with other societal woes, and politicians and companies work hard to keep it that way.<p>* Some people have been convinced that excessive copyright is a moral good through propaganda.
I’m not sure where I stand on this, but is it possible that some people have been convinced that copyright is a moral evil by propaganda? I pause when I hear this line of argument, “I’m a free thinker and I have objective truth. Others are weak minded victims of propaganda.”
Of course. There's all kinds of propaganda (and depending on where you stand, some propaganda is good and other propaganda is bad), and not one person is immune. But for the sake of this discussion, there are some extra factors to consider:<p>* Those promoting copyright expansion or the status quo have significant amounts of money; those criticizing it mostly do not (counting groups with real principles, anyway)<p>* It is suspicious for people who have no personal interest in extended copyright to excessively favor it.
The benefits of a shorter term are diffuse. The benefits of a longer term are concentrated. This is a case where representative democracy often breaks down - policy A would be better for almost everyone, but not by enough for them to switch their vote on, whereas policy B is better by enough for a few people to make them single-issue voters. So we get policy B.
The length should be no more than would be required to maximize the creation of works and not a moment longer.<p>Long terms prevent the creation of derivative works which at an extreme could be reducing the number of works created as well as disincentivizing creators from creating new works if they've been especially successful early in their careers and decided to coast.
Absolutely.<p>There's also absolutely zero sense that if there's any term based on the lifetime of the authors, that it should extend a single day after their death.<p>I'd definitely prefer a 20-30 year fixed term, but if it was going to be based on lifetime then it should only be until the death of the author.
The problem with that is some ridiculous edge cases.<p>Young book author agrees to a profit share agreement with publisher and works most of the time.<p>Has an accidental death at launch party, his work is in public domain now, and the publisher & author's family are in trouble ?<p>Or it simply makes publishers reluctant to work with old authors and be biased towards healthy young writers.
I don't have particularly strong feelings on this particular issue, but I do take issue with worrying about edge cases. By definition, edge cases are infrequent and unlikely occurrences. Trying to account for every possibility is a way of making sure nothing ever changes. It's a form of perfect being the enemy of good.<p>For this particular scenario, I would tell publishers and authors to take out a life or accidental death insurance policy.
Yes that's why it shouldn't have any bearing at all on lifetime, and why I prefer a fixed term of 20-30 years.
><i>I'd argue that by then all the money would have been made</i><p>Not by a long shot. They're still milking famous books, movies, songs, from 50 years back and more.<p>But I'd argue that by 25 years all the money being made for the original owners should have been forced to stop. Similar as with patents.<p>Once concern is when a creator isn't making money (e.g. from a book), and the work takes off after the 25 years (say, it becomes viral).
Just for argument, if we set the limit at 25 years. The Fellowship of the Ring, published 29 July 1954, would have been out of copyright by 1981. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring</a>)<p>I would say that the bulk of the (for lack of a better term) fandom, occurred after the 1980. Frodo Lives!(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frodo_Lives" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frodo_Lives</a>!) notwithstanding.<p>I would also argue that corporations would have no qualms of waiting 25 years to capitalize and format shift a work of art, where as the 50 year term limit makes it more difficult for them to play off of nostalgia alone.
We'd just end up with Seinfeld and Friends reruns on every channel.
While I agree with you, I'm struggling to find a good argument why intellectual property should be treated differently from physical property
Reasoning about it from the perspective of something physical, one could argue that intellectual property doesn't exist at all, and we should only consider the books, movie media etc. to be property.<p>If we were to take the contents of a book or a movie for example, and copy it, you still have the physical source, and nothing is lost, your property is still yours. It's just that there is more of it due to the additional copy. That copy isn't yours, and from the moment it was created it still isn't yours. So in that line of thinking, the property that was created is not the same as the property it was copied from, which means two different properties exist.<p>We can make this even trickier, because if we were to reason about the physical property and the intellectual property separately, the story in a book, and the physical book itself would be two different properties. So when you create a copy, that book that started out blank was definitely not part of the property of someone else. So does the act of adding intellectual property now suddenly transfer the physical property to the source of the intellectual property?<p>In the current laws and practises around the world we have made all sorts of rules about this, but just reasoning about it before falling back on established practice already shows that it doesn't always turn out to be as easy as it seems.
> While I agree with you, I'm struggling to find a good argument why intellectual property should be treated differently from physical property<p>1) First reason, it is not physical property.<p>2) Second, many of the creators who lobbied for longer copyright terms benefited from a rich public domain when they did not have anything. In the case of Walt Disney, he made a film series based on Alice in Wonderland, which never had copyright protection in the US, and it's copyright expired in the UK in 1907.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney#Early_career:_1920%E2%80%931928" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney#Early_career:_1920...</a>
"Hey, I like that table, I'm going to commission somebody to build one for myself!"<p>Totally legal. No loss to first individual. The fact is that intellectual property IS treated differently, and was justified as being required to incentivize invention and creation NOT because there was any natural right to the product of one's thoughts to not be copied or expanded upon. Now that it arguably gets in the way of innovation and creation, what justification is there for these ADDITIONAL legal restrictions.
><i>NOT because there was any natural right to the product of one's thoughts to not be copied or expanded upon</i><p>grandma not sharing her best recipes, and children calling each other "copycat!" is an argument for a natural right. It is innately how humans feel, and there is a supporting argument that we don't want grandma's secret innovations dying with her, to incent sharing.
Where are you getting 70 years from? In the UK etc it's lifetime <i>plus</i> 70 years. These will be works whose authors died before my retired father was born.<p>It says authored 1929 for the US which seems to indicate 95 years? I've lost track of how long these ridiculous lengths are now.
I think that's too short. Lifetime of the author or a min. 50 years would make sense to me. Mark Twain, for example, was worried about providing for surviving daughters. I think that's reasonable.<p>The crazy long Disney thing, though, is what it is because of lobbying muscle.
> Mark Twain, for example, was worried about providing for surviving daughters. I think that's reasonable.<p>I don't think it's reasonable to expect to be able to continue to make money after you are dead. Earn enough during your lifetime to provide for your surviving daughters, sure, but I don't like the idea of someone being able to posthumously put a gag on people's ability to express themselves just so that their kids can get a nice inheritance.
Perhaps not, but the point of copyright is to provide incentive for creating work. Since earning beyond the grave is an incentive, there’s an argument to protect it (within limit).<p>Another example is Grant’s autobiography, which he wrote as he was dying of throat cancer. No way he would have done that without copyright.
> No way he would have done that without copyright.<p>Why not?<p>For centuries people wrote books so that they would have a legacy and be remembered. They wrote because they felt it was the right thing to do, or because they wanted to control the narrative around their lives. Do you have any specific reason to believe that Grant wrote his autobiography to provide for his successors, rather than just <i>to have written it</i>?<p>I understand the theory about incentivizing people to create, but honestly I'm not convinced that what we get from that deal is worth it. Too often it feels like extended copyright creates a similar set of incentives to advertising—sure, we get more works, but the best works would have been written even with a much shorter copyright because the author had something they wanted to say. The works that are being incentivized by long copyrights are the ones that we could do without.
Both Clemens and Grant wrote when copyright was 28 years + optional 14 year extension.<p>I'd much prefer that to the current life + 70 years or 95 years after publication.
> No way he would have done that without copyright.<p>Was his creation of his autobiography primarily motivated by money? I would assume not.
The problem that I see is not the Mark Twains but the vast majority of other authors.<p>Their works go out of print but they're still copyrighted so people can't legally reproduce them (for profit or otherwise).<p>My grandfather was a published author with some success but he's dead and his stuff is no longer in print.
No one in my family is going to see revenue from his work.
No one outside of his generation (when he was successful) will ever have a chance to read his books as they're impossible to find now.<p>Most books written in the 20th century are basically gone from public availability.[1][2]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-missing-20th-century-how-copyright-protection-makes-books-vanish/255282/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-m...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/How_Copyright_Keeps_Works_Disappeared_-_Paul_Heald.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/How_Copyright_Keeps_Works...</a>
Authors can provide for their children the same way the rest of us do. With the money they made while they were working.
I agree, with the caveat that a literary work can be seen as an asset that has value which pays out over time. It takes a large investment upfront and then pays out slowly.<p>So having a limited ability to pass on that asset if you die prematurely seems only fair—you'd have the same option if you were building something physical—but we shouldn't use inheritance as an argument for longer copyright. The question of how long someone should be allowed to earn money from a work should be orthogonal from the question of whether that right to earn money should be inheritable.<p>This is the flaw in life plus 70—it assumes that copyright should last indefinitely during one's lifetime <i>and then</i> provide for successors. I'd rather see a flat rate for how long we're comfortable locking up a work in copyright, successors or otherwise.
> It takes a large investment upfront and then pays out slowly<p>Does it really? Sure, timeless classics pay out over a long period of time but they are by far the exception. I'll wager that the vast majority of copyrighted works make the vast majority of their money in the first decade. So why do we need essentially perpetual copyright? (Essentially perpetual because almost none of the works created in my lifetime will ever pass out of copyright before I die)
I don't see why written things can't be an asset while other creations can. It just discriminates against writers.
All of us working in development of any kind create value well into the future with our work. The only question is whether you monetize immediately with wages or with ownership
Drug parents are only 10 - 20 years, and it works great. The creator gets to make enough money to finance their next drug, and the public gets cheaper generics after a decade or two.<p>There's no reason any other IP should be longer.
>Mark Twain, for example, was worried about providing for surviving daughters. I think that's reasonable.<p>Why is that reasonable? Why should someone's daughters get a free ride instead of having to work for a living like everyone else?
I think that's still too long when copyright was originally supposed to be a compromise between society and the author, not a indefinite guarantee for an author. I understand the concern of providing for family, but keep in mind that the average person works continuously to provide for their family and has to be responsible enough to save money. It is not society's responsibility to ensure that; and alternatively if it is to be society's responsibility, there are better mechanisms than copyright.
Agreed. I think lifetime of the author, or moderate fixed term in the case of untimely death or corporate copyright, is perfectly reasonable. 10-20 years is way too short, it does not give enough consideration to the author's rights.
his daughters were in their mid to late 20’s - wtf does he need to support them from his grave
To be fair to him, this was an era where their ability to support themselves was limited—if not in practice at least by strong cultural stigma.<p>The same cannot be said of most people today, and I therefore agree that it's a bad argument for long copyright terms in a modern context.
The most important factor should be that if something isn't commercially available (not used, new), it should fall to Public Domain faster.<p>If you're not selling your game published in 2005, it should be free for everyone to grab - you clearly don't care about it anymore. If you did, you'd let people pay money for it.
I disagree entirely in that I believe government shouldn’t determine this but rather the market. The rights to an intellectual property should be transferable/sold in perpetuity and at some point the work will become less and less valuable as newer works outcompete for attention. This will differ depending on how great the work was as judged by the market but it’s still the commanding force.<p>Any particular time for transfer from market control to public domain is arbitrary. If it’s worth anything it should be traceable not stolen. Everything will eventually have too little demand to be defensible and control will be let go and at that point it becomes public domain because it became public domain.
If you want the market to determine then why do you need IP at all? That's just government intervention...
The government exists to protect the property of its citizens. You can’t have a reliable market without the threat of violence (prison, fines, etc) and judiciary from an authority and government is suitable for that purpose. It’s their main purpose in fact.
So no copyright then? How would "the market" prevent publishers freeloading the works of authors? Suggest you look up why copyright was invented (and all the other thousands of ways simplistic markets don't work the way we'd like them to).
Here's the full list, base64-encoded (since HN doesn't support spoilers...)<p><pre><code> 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</code></pre>
Stick a data: prefix in front and it'll decode in web browsers: data:text/plain;base64,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
In the spirit of nerd-sniping, it turns out that one needs to specify the encoding of those bytes, too, since it defaults to charset=us-ascii for some horrible reason <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Schemes/data#syntax" rel="nofollow">https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Schemes/dat...</a><p>data:text/plain;charset=utf-8;base64,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
Wow, that's amazing. I've recently been having some mild trouble with base64. Just put it in the address bar, of course!!
This does NOT work in Android/tablet version of Chrome (unless I'm doing something wrong). Gonna try it tomorrow on my computer.
For those on the lazy side: A pastebin link option<p><a href="https://pastebin.com/raw/9wfPfzT3" rel="nofollow">https://pastebin.com/raw/9wfPfzT3</a>
Surprised Gandhi is on that list, was he generally someone known to assert his intellectual property rights?
Copyright, at least in the U.S., is automatic.<p>He would have to actively assert that he was releasing it into the public domain (and IIRC, although my last discussion on the topic was ~20 years ago, such a release had not yet been tested in court).
> Copyright, at least in the U.S., is automatic.<p>It is now, but back then a work was public domain if released without a valid copyright notice.<p>Charade, a 1963 film, entered the public domain immediately on release.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charade_(1963_film)#Public-domain_status" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charade_(1963_film)#Public-dom...</a>
It wasn't automatic in the past, which notably led to Night of the Living Dead accidentally becoming public domain on release.
Having known of the man I would say copyright would have been, if at all, at somewhere in the bottom of bottom list of battles he was (and had to be) fighting.
Some amazing works of literature in that list.
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And if you can't read base64, a base16 encoded version below.<p><pre><code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code></pre>
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I think practically a lot more things are in the public domain because they were distributed via the internet to certain countries that until recently had a much lower bar than the Berne Convention standard and entered the public domain there.<p>Edit: or had at least one person make at least one copy there. If the law allowed everyone to make one copy for private use.<p>Or perhaps I’m misunderstanding ?<p>e.g. Ethiopia which only shifted to a quasi Berne standard midway through 2004.
Something going into the public domain in one country doesn't mean that it automatically enters the public domain in every country. It may make it easier to find a free copy on the internet, but it is still often under copyright in other countries. The article is about works that are going into the public domain legally, not just practically.
But they would be legally in the public domain for anyone in Ethiopia?<p>Ethiopian citizens, residents, etc., can clearly own a copy for each work.
It depends on your purpose. If you’re an American who wants to make movies for Americans, that are derivative of one of these works, this matters a lot.
It would still be infringing to bring a copy into some countries from Ethiopia. UK doesn't have fair use, for example.
Yes, but on the internet someone in the UK can just get a connection to some server in Ethiopia hosting this vast treasure trove of works. So maybe not de jure, but probably de facto.<p>Edit: And maybe it is de jure too for those on a ship on the high seas?