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How Much We're Missing From The Public Domain
from the the-public-domain-ain't-so-public dept
This one is from a few months back, but I think it's an interesting topic that deserves some discussion. Rufus Pollock decided to look at how many books would be in the public domain today if we'd either kept copyright law at its original 14 years (plus the possibility of a 14 year renewal) or if we had copyright set at 15 years flat (a number that a recent research project suggested was the optimal length for copyright (pdf). Not surprisingly, he found that a hell of a lot more works would be in the public domain.
Rather than 19% of all books being in the public domain -- as the situation is today -- we'd have 52% of books being in the public domain under the 14+14 scenario and 75% of works being in the public domain under the 15 yr copyright scenario. As he notes, that latter number is comparable to the percentage of works in the public domain in 1795, in the early days of copyright law in the US. This is important to note, because if you actually understand the history of copyright law, you would know that it's true purpose was to expand the public domain, and thus it seems worthy to look at how it may be doing the exact opposite of that. In the past century, copyright law in the US has only expanded -- with the single exception of recognizing that federal documents (mostly) don't deserve copyright. Nothing new has entered the public domain through copyright expiring in quite some time, and nothing new will do so for many years as well (and don't be surprised if we get another attempt at copyright extension soon...).
Now, there are a few problems with Pollock's back-of-the-envelope calculation here. The biggest is that it's using a bit of the fallacy of the pre-determined outcome in that it assumes that the number of works produced would remain constant, no matter what the copyright law. That seems unlikely. I would imagine that supporters of stronger copyright laws would argue that fewer books would be produced with weaker copyright laws, but I doubt they could muster up much evidence to support that. Since we've seen repeatedly that when you compare like situations where there is strong copyright and weak copyright, generally there's greater output with weak or no copyright, I think a strong case could be made for greater output, if copyright terms were much lower.
After all, authors would still want to write, and most would still get the same overall benefit -- since very, very, very, very few books have much of an economic life past their 15th year. In fact, if you look at the numbers back in the pre-1976 Copyright Act world, where copyright holders had to renew their works, when it came to books only 8% (according to Posner & Landes -- another study found the number closer to 11% -- still quite low) did so, suggesting that most authors got the monopoly rents out of copyright in the first few years. On top of that, it would enable people to build on works in the public domain, potentially inspiring interesting new and different works that aren't possible with works in copyright today. Either way, it's interesting to see how little of our culture's books are found in the public domain today.
Rather than 19% of all books being in the public domain -- as the situation is today -- we'd have 52% of books being in the public domain under the 14+14 scenario and 75% of works being in the public domain under the 15 yr copyright scenario. As he notes, that latter number is comparable to the percentage of works in the public domain in 1795, in the early days of copyright law in the US. This is important to note, because if you actually understand the history of copyright law, you would know that it's true purpose was to expand the public domain, and thus it seems worthy to look at how it may be doing the exact opposite of that. In the past century, copyright law in the US has only expanded -- with the single exception of recognizing that federal documents (mostly) don't deserve copyright. Nothing new has entered the public domain through copyright expiring in quite some time, and nothing new will do so for many years as well (and don't be surprised if we get another attempt at copyright extension soon...).
| Today | 1795 (14+14) | Today (14+14) | Today (15y) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Items | 3.46m | 179k | 3.46m | 3.46m |
| No. Public Domain | 657k | 140k | 1.2m | 2.59m |
| %tage Public Domain | 19 | 78 | 52 | 75 |
After all, authors would still want to write, and most would still get the same overall benefit -- since very, very, very, very few books have much of an economic life past their 15th year. In fact, if you look at the numbers back in the pre-1976 Copyright Act world, where copyright holders had to renew their works, when it came to books only 8% (according to Posner & Landes -- another study found the number closer to 11% -- still quite low) did so, suggesting that most authors got the monopoly rents out of copyright in the first few years. On top of that, it would enable people to build on works in the public domain, potentially inspiring interesting new and different works that aren't possible with works in copyright today. Either way, it's interesting to see how little of our culture's books are found in the public domain today.
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-Entirely lacking in culture.
-Prudes, who have no problem with blood spattering explosions but raise a huge ruckus if there are titties.
-House-building idiots--Americans build their houses of Styrofoam and sticks and then, amazingly, get upset when a stiff breeze comes along and destroys their house.
...
The list goes on.
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americans are also ugly, fat, and stupid.
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Having said that, I love a good politically incorrect bit of slashing (but that's probably because, since I'm of Irish decent, I'm contantly a drunk ingrate), so by all means carry on!
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*fist bump*
; P
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Aw Contrary
Heck, the amount of work that is done IN SPITE OF the current regime is a strong counter-counter-argument. Imagine if all those fanfilms based on older properties could *sell* DVDs without hearing from a team of lawyers. You might just wind up with indie film industries instead of pure hobbieists.
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I would take that as a win!
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Either way, authors would no longer be sitting on their hands, idling expecting to collect royalty checks even after they're dead!
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For example, if Hamlet were under copyright, I would have to create my own version if I wanted total control over it. This may sound like creativity, but it's not - it's mimicry. If Hamlet were in the public domain, there would be no need for me to create another one. I already have total access to Hamlet. The goal would be to create something unique and different that would push culture in a new direction.
You can't measure art by quantity - i.e. how many jobs it produces. You measure it by quality. I would argue that with weaker copyright, the quality of art and culture would rise dramatically, even if there is less of it. Honestly, the world doesn't need more artists, and it's not a path one should take for monetary gain. It's a path one takes because they have something significant to contribute to the world, and copyright actually prevents them from contributing.
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A thought experiment
Picture an alternate universe which is identical to ours, except that it never had any copyright laws. All published works would be in the public domain.
Now, compare the number of works produced in that universe, with the number of works produced in ours.
Is the total number of works in that universe, less than the number of public domain works in ours?
If the answer is "no," then copyright law is not justified.
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