Songs for Saturday: Copying Is Not Theft

[mdlbear]

This wonderful little video came in by way of Google+ this morning, and I figured I'd share it: Copying Is Not Theft - YouTube

It comes from QuestionCopyright.org | A Clearinghouse For New Ideas About Copyright. Here's another: Credit is Due (The Attribution Song) | QuestionCopyright.org. Just because copying isn't theft, it

Comments

[elfwreck]

I want copyright lengths to be variable by the amount of value the creator assigns to them--indicated by paying for the right to keep a monopoly on distribution.

15 years: free, no registration required. Take photos, write songs, publish a book of college essays among your friends without fear that some mega-corporation will snatch them away because you caught the pulse of popularity. Start an art business. Make digital movies & post them online under Creative Commons; find out how marketable the art is. Do research & publish results while looking for career options. And so on.

After 15 years: Pay $100 to register copyright for another decade. Sell book for profit. Sell movie rights. Sort through college newspaper articles & figure out which ones are worth compiling in a "best stories of the 90's" ebook. Convert PhD paper into a layman's book; sell 600 copies and be ecstatic. Allows small businesses to register their publications without making them go broke.

26-35 years: Pay $1000 to keep registration. If it's still profitable

[mdlbear]

I don't like this at all -- it means that cultural icons like the Mouse would be permanently off limits.

Part of the original idea behind copyright, and it still applies to patents, is that works move rather quickly into the public domain, after the original creator has had a chance to exploit them during their few most profitable years. Once in the public domain, other people can build on them.

[elfwreck]

While I don't like The Mouse being perpetually off-limits, I have my doubts that Disney would pay $66,100 per cartoon to keep them out of the public reach for the current length of copyright, much less another $50k for every 25 year block after that.

Every movie. Every individual cartoon. Every book. Every themed set of valentine cards. Every figurine. Each individual work would have to be renewed and paid for. I suspect that a lot of the backlist would immediately be released into the public domain, because even Disney doesn't have pockets deep enough to pay tens of thousands of dollars per artistic work just to prevent other people from copying or making derivatives

[idea_fairy]

I agree that copying is not theft (if it were, destruction would be a null action) but it can sometimes be unfair competition

[slweippert]

There is a big difference between making a copy for yourself, copy a song onto your MP3 to play in your car, and copying for someone else to play in their car. You paid for it. They didn't.

[osewalrus]

I highly recommend Nina's stuff, including her cartoon collections.

yagcica (yatica)

[thnidu]

one way or another

sigh