Ideal copyright law

[geni]

Ok so if you could pretty much start from scratch what would be the big features of your ideal copyright system?

Mine would be:

Internationaly consistant. One set of laws world wide.

Length

50 years from date of publication or life of the author plus 20 years whichever is longer. For unpublished works life of the author plus 50 years. For corporate works 50 years from date of publication or 70 years for unpublished works whichever is shorter.

Fair use, fair dealing and de minimis.

Probably pretty close to the US system although idealy with a better idea of what you can and can't do enshrined in law rather than established through legal precedence although I'm not sure how this should be done.

Copyright is automatic with no requirement for registation.

It should be imposible for creator of a building or a bit of public sculpture to claim copyright over photos of that object (basicaly german law in this area).

 

[Architect]

It should be imposible for creator of a building or a bit of public sculpture to claim copyright over photos of that object (basicaly german law in this area).

You'll find the same thing in the UK. But the design of the building or scuplture is copyrighted, so you can't actually produce a replica.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

50 years from date of publication or life of the author plus 20 years whichever is longer. For unpublished works life of the author plus 50 years. For corporate works 50 years from date of publication or 70 years for unpublished works whichever is shorter.

...snip...

I don't agree with copyright extending beyond the life of the copyright holder.

Do you hold with the idea that a corporation or company can hold copyright?

 

[Architect]

Do you hold with the idea that a corporation or company can hold copyright?

It has to, or else work which we produce in the course of our business would be unfairly disadvantaged.

 

[Darat]

It has to, or else work which we produce in the course of our business would be unfairly disadvantaged.

Why unfairly?

 

[Architect]

Why should a design for a building which my firm pays me to produce not be covered by copyright? Someone could just go and copy the plans (this actually happens, occasionally, to other architects).

If I write a technical guide for (say) steel cladding as part of an office project, why should that not be covered by copyright? And why should it not be office copyright, as they paid me to write it?

 

[geni]

I don't agree with copyright extending beyond the life of the copyright holder.

A guy creates a brilliant work and the next day gets run over by a bus. His family gets next to no money. We accept that people may pass propert onto their children. I see no reason not to extend this to IP to a degree

Frankly I find the idea that you could potentialy put a work into the public domain by killing people to be rather distateful. I also don't want to be reading todays obituaries to find out what has entered the public domian. For some reason I don't find the idea of reading 20 year old obituaries as bad.

Do you hold with the idea that a corporation or company can hold copyright?

They are a legal person. If a company has comissioned a work who else is going to hold the copyright?

 

[Architect]

A guy creates a brilliant work and the next day gets run over by a bus. His family gets next to no money. We accept that people may pass propert onto their children. I see no reason not to extend this to IP to a degree

Agreed.

 

[Darat]

A guy creates a brilliant work and the next day gets run over by a bus. His family gets next to no money. We accept that people may pass propert onto their children. I see no reason not to extend this to IP to a degree

...snip...

You asked about the "ideal" copyright law, since I believe inheritance should be scrapped an ideal copyright law shouldn't contain such a provision.

 

[geni]

You'll find the same thing in the UK. But the design of the building or scuplture is copyrighted, so you can't actually produce a replica.

However this is not the case in france and not the case with scuplture in the US.

 

[geni]

Oh the things I missed were a provision that copying an existing work does not create a new copyright (go for the option that therehas to be some form of creativity for copyright to exist) and I'd stick with the current 20 year copyright on typesetting.

 

[Darat]

I'm not saying by the way that a corporation or company should not be able to hold a copyright just that since we are talking about an ideal copyright law I think we have to examine some of the core principles that copyright law is meant to deal with. For me the core principle is about protecting the rights of individuals over what their work.

The idea that a company and not just an individual can hold copyright I think sites at least a bit uncomfortably with the key principle of copyright (actual examples of how they have repeatedly and in some cases successfully lobbied for extensions to copyright come to mind).

 

[Architect]

I'm not saying by the way that a corporation or company should not be able to hold a copyright just that since we are talking about an ideal copyright law I think we have to examine some of the core principles that copyright law is meant to deal with. For me the core principle is about protecting the rights of individuals over what their work.

On that basis do you dispute that companies should be able to secure patents?

Surely the purpose of copyright is to ensure that the investment - be it intellectual, financial or just in terms of time - in the work is protected and an equitable return provided. Why should a firm investing staff time and resources be different from an individual doing it themselves?

 

[Darat]

On that basis do you dispute that companies should be able to secure patents?

An interesting point but not too sure what's it got to do with the topic of this thread - "ideal copyright law".

Personally I think we need to look at the whole idea of "intellectual property", a lot of the legislation that has been enacted over the centuries about that concept came about when the world was very different and I think a ground up re-work would be a good idea (remember we are talking about ideal here not how we would achieve such a change).

Broadly I would say there are three related but currently separate categories that are the focus of legislation, copyright, trademarks and patents, perhaps before just trying to bolt on bits and pieces to the current legislated areas the best way to come up with an ideal copyright law is first principles, in other words what is it for?

 

[Architect]

Broadly I would say there are three related but currently separate categories that are the focus of legislation, copyright, trademarks and patents, perhaps before just trying to bolt on bits and pieces to the current legislated areas the best way to come up with an ideal copyright law is first principles, in other words what is it for?

Well in the case of copyright and patents, I'll stick with ensuring that the investment - be it intellectual, financial or just in terms of time - in the work is protected and an equitable return provided.

 

[geni]

I'm not saying by the way that a corporation or company should not be able to hold a copyright just that since we are talking about an ideal copyright law I think we have to examine some of the core principles that copyright law is meant to deal with. For me the core principle is about protecting the rights of individuals over what their work.

The idea that a company and not just an individual can hold copyright I think sites at least a bit uncomfortably with the key principle of copyright (actual examples of how they have repeatedly and in some cases successfully lobbied for extensions to copyright come to mind).

The extensions in the US probably had more to do with bringing US law inline with most of the rest of the world.

That aside if you want to treat it as the rights of indivduals then you view corporate copyright as the right of shareholders to protect their investment.

 

[geni]

Broadly I would say there are three related but currently separate categories that are the focus of legislation, copyright, trademarks and patents, perhaps before just trying to bolt on bits and pieces to the current legislated areas the best way to come up with an ideal copyright law is first principles, in other words what is it for?

Copyright and patents are to reward creativity. Trademark is to protect the consumer (in theory anyway).

Copyrights also have the secondary effect of forceing people to be original.

 

[Architect]

Why don't we suggest Lash or one of the other lawyers joins the thread? I don't know about you, but this isn't a core area of competence for me.

 

[fuelair]

Ok so if you could pretty much start from scratch what would be the big features of your ideal copyright system?

Mine would be:

Internationaly consistant. One set of laws world wide.

Length

50 years from date of publication or life of the author plus 20 years whichever is longer. For unpublished works life of the author plus 50 years. For corporate works 50 years from date of publication or 70 years for unpublished works whichever is shorter.

Fair use, fair dealing and de minimis.

Probably pretty close to the US system although idealy with a better idea of what you can and can't do enshrined in law rather than established through legal precedence although I'm not sure how this should be done.

Copyright is automatic with no requirement for registation.

It should be imposible for creator of a building or a bit of public sculpture to claim copyright over photos of that object (basicaly german law in this area).

My biggie. Copyright in any work is automatically withdrawn if that work is out of publication for 5 years unless that is a decision of the author of that work and 7 years if it is by the authors' decision.
This provision includes any work first (or only) initially provided as a limited edition.

 

[geni]

My biggie. Copyright in any work is automatically withdrawn if that work is out of publication for 5 years unless that is a decision of the author of that work and 7 years if it is by the authors' decision.
This provision includes any work first (or only) initially provided as a limited edition.

Define publication (btw the definetion I'm useing is the one that british libel law uses but that really wouldn't work for your approach)

The probalem with what you want to do is that it really favors the big guy over the little guy. The big guy (Major film makers, publishers, getty images, Major media companies) would be able to psudo-publish their entire cataloge every 5 years. The little guy not so much.