Copyrights
The basis for copyrights is laid down in the
Constitution , Article 1, Section
8:[Congress shall have the
power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for
limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and DiscoveriesWhen the
first copyright act was implemented, it gave the creator a monopoly on the
publishing right of their own work for 14 years, renewable for a second 14
years.Back then, 28 years wasn't all
that long. The number of copyrighted works being published was relatively
small, and the distribution methods were extremely slow. It might take years
for a book to become well known across the country. Still, after 28 years,
these works fell into the public domain, and could be republished free and used
as a basis for new creative
works.Copyright is a good thing. Lots
of great creative works cost money and effort, and people make them only because
they can make a profit doing so. As it turns out, the majority of their revenue
usually falls in the first months or years after publication. The revenue drops
off exponentially, and after a decade it's usually negligible. Each additional
year of copyright is less valuable than the year before
it.The goal for copyright law
initially was (and should still be) to reach a balance: To maximally encourage
new creation (via a temporary monopoly) while minimizing public cost. If you
have a short copyright term, the creator may not have enough incentive to create
a work, and if the term is indefinite, works may disappear (because it's illegal
to duplicate a work, but unprofitable to keep it in print), or they may
interfere (by overlap) with the creation of new work. Imagine if a character in
a book couldn't say, "A penny saved is a penny earned" without paying the heirs
of Benjamin Franklin whatever fee they
asked.The hard part has been figuring
out what the public cost is. In recent years, the value of the public domain --
that is, things that anybody can use for free -- has been defined essentially as
zero. Copyright terms have been extended again and again. In 1831 it went
from 28 to 42 years. In 1909 it went from 42 to 56. In 1970 it went from 56 to
75. In 1998 it went from 75 to 95.
These extensions were generally
retroactive -- that is, they extended the copyright for works that had already
been created -- even though it's obvious that extending the copyright for a work
that has already been created does not encourage its creation. It's already
made! So what? Let us imagine a
world in which every copyright expired after 28 years, in which everything
created before 1977 was in the public domain. You'd be able to download Jaws
for free. You could make your own copies of Charlotte's Web, The Other, and The
Legend of Hell House on DVD, and share them. (Not to mention longer
out-of-print classics, like Ben-Hur, The Magnificent Ambersons, and On the
Waterfront.) You could write your own sequels to those classics, and make
documentaries about them, and study them in
classrooms.This has a definite public
good. That is, I'd like it, and so would most of the public.
The cost is that somebody might not
make a new work: "I was going to write a book, but if my copyright would expire
in 2034 instead of 2101, it's just not worth it." Sounds a little farfetched to
me. But Disney wouldn't be able to charge $20 for their Snow White DVDs -- and
that's what Walt had in mind.Since
nobody makes money off the public domain (it's just a public benefit), no
particular person will spend to defend it, so it's disappearing. If things keep
up, by 2030 we'll have to pay $1 just to sing Happy Birthday to our grandkids.
(Seriously: Did you know that they don't sing "Happy Birthday" in chain
restaurants because they'd have to pay royalties if they did?
Crazy!)
Filed Tue - January 18, 2005, 04:33 PM in
Return to: |