In addition to the internet having cut out the middleman, it has also revealed the huge inefficiencies, incredible profligacy, misappropriation of laws, in which certain entities have operated in the process, having laid waste to numerous industries in a wrenching manner, the sacrifice of which has made daily life, the economy much more efficient and productive.
The power of innovation also brings along with it the tremendous greed and megalomaniac proclivity to hold unto the benefits accrued as result of the protection bestowed upon the inventor, creator of any such innovation by governmental decree in the form of copyright protection.
Copyright protection was initially approved by Congress to bestow certain economic rights and benefits as incentive to encourage innovation and invention for the purpose of the public good, without which no one would sacrifice the huge investment in money and resources required to bring to fruition that which might prove to be of universal benefit.
When the Copyright Act was first enacted in the United States, the copyright duration was only 14 years. Today, Copyright duration can last over a century in some cases. Why such a drastic change? Some say it is all due to a cute little mouse named Mickey.
Copyright duration had some changes over the 125-years before Mickey Mouse. In the Copyright Act of 1790, the 14-year term was renewable for one additional 14-year term, if the author was alive at the end of the first 14 years. And it only applied to maps, charts and books. Registration and use of a copyright notice were also required. If you didn’t meet those requirements, the work immediately entered into the public domain. By 1831 it was changed to 28 years with a 14 year renewal and in 1909, copyright duration became 28 years with a 28 year renewal. Very few works actually maintained those copyright durations as only a small percentage of people even bothered to register copyrights in the first place, and of those that did, only a tiny fraction renewed them.
The internet has caused great upheaval within the music and entertainment industries by having offered a better, more efficient approach to distribution which has found itself in direct threat to the power and greed which originally was only intended to be a short term incentive by Congress has now spawned terrible circumstances against the public as means to extend the greed, inefficiency and concentrated power never intended by its original purpose.
And there's a problem: that essentially means that some work will never become public domain in the lifetime of its contemporaries.
Let's go back to the 14-year copyright, but drop the renewal altogether.
(Patents are a similar problem, but what's needed there is to reject software patents.)
As one who’s family income is largely from copyrighted works I’m all for this. When you get emails offering “free downloads” of your latest work — within hours of it being published, it’s kind of sickening. It is no different from walking into Target and slipping books and videos under your coat and walking off without paying. Shoplifters go to prison, so should copyright thieves.
Theft is theft. You should be able to kill someone to protect your property, so jailing them should be the least of the thief’s worries.
It would be a welcome change when/if the gubmint stands to protect property rights instead of infringing in the property owners’ rights.
For some years now I found my conservative beliefs in direct contrast with establishment politicians. They regularly kissed the boots of global corporations to the detriment of Americans and our national security.
I still see that (I love globalist corps) mentality from some conservatives but many are beginning to see the light that giving unfettered power to corporations with allegiance to China, along with a red phone to the White House, is not a good value in a democracy. That is more of a value to fascism. The people and the USA citizenry and small business need to rule the country, not global corporate interests.
Big business has lost its allegiance to the USA in the interest of global profits, and that is not good for the USA. Crony capitalism filled the void when honest capitalism was sent to China. Many of these big corporate interests such as Hollywood need to be banned from lobbying our government just as we ban China and other countries. Instead the SCOTUS said they can buy our government and call it free speech.
Hollywood’s latest...
“I own all you peasants!”
(actual quote)
Maybe Obama can use his Gulags to help out Hollywood ?
Few of those “authors” own their works anymore (and they are no longer around to seek to reclaim ownership in the courts).
The works (audio, film, etc.) are owned by a handful of monopoly corporations (e.g. Disney, Warner-Turner).
Extending copyright beyond the lifetime of the grandchildren does NOTHING to put a dime in the pockets of the heirs to the estate. But Big Media makes billions off the old works and it insulates them from financial ruin when they pump the marketplace with new works that the public rejects at the boxoffice via boycott or bad reviews.
The startups cannot compete with that “endowment” of cultural history (that was supposed to lapse into the public domain but is set to never ever expire).
“which originally was only intended to be a short term incentive by Congress”
Not quite. Congress is applying the specifically enumerated powers delegated by the Constitution. The intent to protect intellectual property rights came from the founders.
Essentially the purpose of these laws and treaties are to provide incentive to use our creative abilities to further the progress of science and technology in ways that benefit everyone. Without these laws, inventions and other creative works could only be protected by keeping them secret. Exploiting (in the good sense) inventions can also be helped by being first to market. IP laws are supposed to add to these advantages.
Unfortunately the laws and the application of them by courts often just prop up the monopolistic powers of big companies like Microsoft and stifle innovation rather than foster it.
When government implements impossible standards without the consent of the governed, people often resort to what is legally considered theft by copying software, movies, and other IP.
Who pays their salary? Do they really want to mess with citizens?
Or, at least, it shouldn't.
And the FCC, under Obama’s direction and control, is taking over the internet??? Coincidence?
brave new world comrades. Finally, the age of thinking is over. Commissioners will do that for you.
Live and learn.
The elites protecting themselves again.
People who hack systems for any reason, or create virus’s should be executed, no exceptions.
Tax the b-tards to the moon.
I wonder how left wing some techno-geeks will remain after Hollywood has them put in the hole?