Techdirt Podcast Episode 321: There Are Both Smart & Dumb Ways To Improve Copyright
from the guess-which-one-Hawley's-is dept
The problems with copyright have been a subject of coverage here at Techdirt since the beginning, and for most of that time it has been largely a non-partisan subject. At the moment, however, that isn’t so much the case thanks to Josh Hawley’s war with Disney, which has created a situation where some copyright reform ideas that are conceptually good are mired in culture war issues, partisan politics, and unconstitutional nonsense. This week, we’re joined by the Niskanen Center’s Daniel Takash to discuss the problems with Hawley’s copyright bill and copyright law in general.
Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.
Filed Under: copyright, daniel takash, florida, josh hawley, podcast
Comments on “Techdirt Podcast Episode 321: There Are Both Smart & Dumb Ways To Improve Copyright”
Copyrights are dumb. You can try to “improve” copyrights by making it less dumb, but really there is only one smart way to improve copyrights… abolish it!
Re: In your world...
You know your copyright on your comment? Well, you did have a copyright on it once upon a time, but it’s since been abolished, so someone else can make a bundle on it without paying you one thin cent. And you call copyrights ‘dumb’. (-_Q)
Re: Re:
Fine with me. This comment is in the public domain. Let’s see how much money you can make from it.
Re: Re:
…What “bundle” do you think is going to be made here, considering that it was written by someone who’s assigned the basic pseudonym given to all who post anonymously and without identifiers?
Copyright and its enforcement is dumb, sure, but the suggestion that everything can be vaguely, potentially monetized is what got us into this IP-driven mess.
Re: Re: Re:
[The comment] was written by someone who’s assigned the basic pseudonym given to all who post anonymously and without identifiers…
Meaning the comment has a copyright until 2093 in the UK. You were saying?
Re: Re: Re:
Overweening enforcement of copyrights is dumb, sure, and big content companies’ ideas that everything can be vaguely, potentially monetized is what got us into this IP-driven mess.
FTFY. Autie has never suggested that absolutely everything can be (never mind should be) monetized. Stating the position of a copyright maximalist is not at all the same thing as being a copyright maximalist. If it were, then Karl Bode is a pro-lifer because he stated the positions of people that are against reproductive rights in his articles dealing (tangentially) with the subject.
Re: Re:
Only if they are much better at marketing that you are. If you cannot market your own work, then you will not make any money from it, even if with reasonable marketing, it would earn a fortune.
Re: Re: Re:
And as everyone knows, there are very few ways to market content, free online publishing not being a thing. /s
Re: Re: Re:2
Putting a work of a a web site is not marketing, and for creative works these days marketing involves engaging with fans or potential fans via social media, and on sites like patreon.
Re: Re: Re:3
Putting a work on a web site with a high volume of traffic is not marketing? Really?
Re: Re:
Do I care about someone making money on whatever I said without paying me one cent? No. I’m not materialistic like you. I’m not a fan of greed as a value which copyrights promote. Im in the Sharing is Caring moral club instead of the copyright cultists Copying is Theft moral club.
Re: Re: Re:
“Greed as a value which copyrights promote,” said those who use copyrights to stop big companies preventing their works being available for free to no one ever.
The only way to improve copyright is how you’d improve slavery- by abolishing it
Re:
Sorry, but the apple (slavery) doesn’t peel as well as the orange (copyright). Noce false equivalence otherwise, though.
Berne convention
I know you guys were pretty dismissive of Berne, and even spoke about the nuclear option of the US leaving Berne, but Daniel is wrong to say at 37.29 that the Berne Convention allows formalities. Article 5(2) expressly rejects formalities. The reason the USA gets around this currently is because the registration requirement only applies if a person wishes to commence a legal action in the Federal courts. The underlying copyright exists ab initio.
But that whole discussion of Berne missed the point that if the USA was to leave Berne (and by extension TRIPS and the WIPO Copyright Treaty) works produced in the US would no longer attract reciprocal protection outside the US unless bilateral treaties were created. Given the amount of time the USTR spends ensuring that international treaties come up to the level of protection demanded by Hollywood etc, I can’t see that working too well.
Re:
Which is exactly why we need to renegotiate Berne. Copyright being granted automatically means it’s really easy to infringe and creates a giant minefield, and we need to go back to a time where there were formalities, but make it such that it’s really cheap (like $1 or something) and mistakes could easily be corrected. Also, we need to make it such that a copyright in one country would be reciprocated everywhere there are signatories to a treaty.
Such a system would be far better than the “opt-out” system we have now.
Re: Re:
“Also, we need to make it such that a copyright in one country would be reciprocated everywhere there are signatories to a treaty.”
Samuel, I’m not clear what you mean by that sentence: that’s the exact position the USA is in currently by being a signatory to Berne, along with around 180 other nations.
The ‘no formalities’ concept originated with the European nations such as France whose version of copyright is entirely author-centric. There’s no way they are going to agree to re-negotiate Berne. You have only to look at the direction the EU is heading to see they want stronger copyright rather than less copyright.
Re: Re: Re:
I’ll happily explain. See, the reason why Berne was crafted in the first place was because before Berne, if one were to copyright a book in France but not in the UK or Germany, the author would only receive royalties from French publishers and not from British or German publishers, as they would be in the public domain in those countries, and it would be a pain to copyright everywhere. Making © automatic was supposed to solve that pre-internet, but I think in the age of the internet, we could bring back formalities so in the same situation using my dream Berne-replacement convention treaty, if one were to copyright a book in France, Britain and Germany would automatically recognize the French copyright and the French author would receive royalties from the UK and Germany (if they were signatories to the treaty, that is).
I’m aware of that. But I can dream, can I? 😉
Re: Re: Re:2
We are going somewhat off topic here, but I still fail to see how your proposal that a work has to be first registered before it can gain international recognition is an improvement on what Berne (and the UCC, WIPO Copyright treaty etc) already achieves. Articles 3 and 5 of Berne specifically apply the kind of reciprocal protection, right to royalties etc that you advocate, without requiring pre-registration. Indeed a French (for example) author who finds one of their works is being infringed in the USA can file a claim in the US without first having to register their work with the US Copyright Office, unlike a US citizen who wants to bring a claim there. This is the result of the USA having to apply the no formalities requirement of Berne to non-US citizens.
As you know trademarks and patents continue to operate solely within individual national territorial limits in much the same way as copyright did pre-Berne, but despite the obvious commercial advantages of a worldwide treaty for mutual recognition of patents and trademarks, virtually nothing has been done to bring this about. It is doubtful if we were starting from scratch today whether the nations would be able to achieve for copyright what Berne currently does.
Re: Re: Re:3
This is an improvement because having to register a copyright instead of it being automatically granted returns copyright from an “opt-out” to an “opt-in” system, and people who don’t know whether something is copyrighted could easily look something up rather than risk a costly lawsuit. Having an “opt-out” system means that the liability of lawsuits are everywhere.
Re: Re: Re:4
Registration has a problem, in that building a system to deal with a significant fraction of self publishers would require a large data center, and full automation. Otherwise registration give advantage to traditional publishers, including probably keeping self published works from gaining commercial support, as there is no lever to stop copies crated from the non registered period of a works existence. Alternatively, registration removes previously assumed usage rights from a works non registered publication.
Re: Re: Re:5
We already have such a system where we could look up patents (such as with google). While creating such a database for © won’t be easy, that doesn’t mean it’s not feasible, and it’s not one of those things that are impossible such as good content moderation at a large scale.
Two things:
1. for such things as trade secrets and leaks, I suggest different mechanisms to deal with those in my dream IP agreement, such as outlawing the unauthorized publishing of prepublished material that is not in the public interest (such as for revealing crimes and scandals). That will remain illegal for my dream Berne replacement.
2. Registration in my dream Berne replacement would cost $1, £1, €1, or equivalent so even self-publishers could afford © protection.
Re: Re: Re:6
And even Google cannot keep up with self published works, and cannot detect copies. There are over a thousand new videos a minute posted just on YouTube, and tens of thousands across the Internet. Remember the Internet you can see is a pinch of salt from a salt mine.
If the registry does not have a copy of the registered work, it cannot tell that someone registered a work title to get a an early registration, and produces a copy of sometimes work latter when challenging first to register. If it has copies, it is an overly tempting target for criminal enterprises.
Re:
The US wasn’t in Berne until a few decades ago, and Hollywood seems to have worked just fine. The usual trick was to simultaneously publish in a Berne country, like Canada, to get Berne protections to apply.
That having been said, the problem is not simply the terrible minimum standards of Berne but also reciprocal copyright treaties. If the US believes that granting copyrights will advance public policy, we shouldn’t discriminate based on the nationality of the author or of the work. We should grant copyrights unilaterally to anyone in the world (subject possibly to economic sanctions from time to time) but they should be what the US seems appropriate for copyright.
That is to say, we need National treatment but not minimum standards. Formalities should definitely be required for any work from any source. The Copyright Office should try to make it as painless as possible, but if a foreign author doesn’t want to comply with our formalities they must not want a copyright here very much.
(The logistical issues for formalities are not a good reason not to have them, btw, and it’s not like bureaucrats are bad about setting up systems to accommodate them. But on the whole most copyright holders won’t bother, which is fine — it means their works would be in the public domain in the US.)
Re: Re: THANK YOU!!!!
Thank you for eloquently stating what I’ve been trying to state. I can’t thank you enough!
Re: Re:
The Copyright Office should try to make it as painless as possible, but if a foreign author doesn’t want to comply with our formalities they must not want a copyright here very much.
If a foreign citizen wants to commit theft in their own country, they must want to be charged with murder in the States. And before you claim “false equivalence”, Interpol.
VigRX Nitric Oxide For Men pills
VigRX Nitric Oxide For Men pills Substantiation is lacking formulti-ingredient herbal supplements claiming remedial effect in sexual dysfunction in men. We examined the safety and efficacity of VigRX Nitric Oxide (VXP) – a personal polyherbal medication for perfecting manly sexual function, in a double-eyeless, randomized placebo- controlled, resemblant groups,multi-center study. Leading Edge Health markets its VigRX Nitric as salutary supplements that reportedly help people with erectile dysfunction (ED) and those looking to increase sexual desire. Still, supplements may contain retired constituents that can interact with tradition medicines, and individualities need to exercise caution when using them. Click Here To More Details.
https://webgoodhealth.com/2022/03/24/vigrx-nitric-oxide/