
Another Expansion of Copyright - pmoriarty
https://act.eff.org/action/stop-another-expansion-of-copyright-tell-the-senate-to-vote-no-on-s-2823
======
dreamling
It's not just about 'yay free music', though it would absolutely impact
streaming services.

This would have a huge impact on remixers, hip hop beat track artists,
original music creators, and people who cover old standards.

The way it is now, it's difficult enough for creative people to use the music
that falls under free use as it is.

For example, an animator used Annette Henshaw recordings from the 20s that
were no longer under US Copyright, and spent over 9,000 hours creating
animation that synced up to the music, only to still end up in a copyright
battle over the recordings.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita_Sings_the_Blues#Copyright...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita_Sings_the_Blues#Copyright_problems)

Check out the movie, it's pretty fab,
[https://archive.org/details/Sita_Sings_the_Blues](https://archive.org/details/Sita_Sings_the_Blues)
, but would it exist under the new CLASSICS act? I doubt it.

Youtube already removes ad revenue/or the music for videos that use some
recordings of music from the 30s and 40s using the Content ID system of
ownership (not copyright).

and that doesn't even cover how passing this act would affect companies,
artists, people who've been using these works as the basis of their work for
years.

Will they have to get multiple retroactive mechanical licenses?
[https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_li...](https://www.harryfox.com/license_music/what_is_mechanical_license.html)

Or will the record companies just claim their works/revenue from the works?

~~~
mariushn
See also The Right to Read: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)

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mikelward
There are 23 Democratic cosponsors, including California's Senators Feinstein
and Harris, and 22 Republican cosponsors.

[https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-
bill/282...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-
bill/2823/cosponsors)

~~~
cmurf
People should be more suspicious of bipartisanship, and increase scrutiny. It
annoys me to no end as student of political science that people think
bipartisanship is inherently good, and that aggressive ideological battle
diminishes the conversation. All good things in politics come from vociferous
arguing, and only later comes some sense of compromise. This bill and its
bipartisan sponsorship is not the result of debate followed by compromise.

~~~
TooBrokeToBeg
> All good things in politics come from vociferous arguing

I would hope you recognize the opposite. The natural inclination is to
increase aggression to try again when battles are fought viciously and lost.
The idea of losing as commonplace and safe is not reinforced enough. While I
don't trust a single representative (very bad sign), I also don't think the
arguments should be full of frothing.

~~~
cmurf
Actually I'm far more suspicious of the opposite. Sure it can happen that
there is dispassionate lawmaking that benefits most people and harms almost no
one. But I'll continue to argue that this is only due to many prior frothing
arguments, which distill out the crap, and leave only the salient arguments,
and the skilled arguers.

Watch a debate in the British Parliament and then watch a U.S. Senate hearing.
It's difficult to take the U.S. Senate or House seriously because there is so
little frothing. It's docile, servile, and subservient, and their master is
the dollar.

In self-rule, ultimately the buck stops with the citizens. Not only voters,
but all of the citizens. The state of affairs is due to the combined effect of
action and inaction. The blame ultimately rests with them, same as the buck
rests with the shareholders of a company.

~~~
TooBrokeToBeg
> The blame ultimately rests with them,

This sort of rhetoric, specifically has hurt democratic culture. If something
you dislike happens, it's because you didn't do ENOUGH instead of the intended
realization that everything is impermanent and open to revision.

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DanielBMarkham
I did a quick search on the Senator who sponsored this bill and was unable to
find a recent news article where he explained his support for it.

I don't know enough about how the Senate interacts with the news media to
determine if that's unusual or not, but it sure seems weird to me. If you're
going to propose legislation with such a broad impact, why not speak up about
it? This is something that a lot of folks want to talk about.

~~~
ianai
It’s Chris Coons, a D from Delaware. I don’t see much in his past to explain
bringing it forward - other than he campaigned for Reagan in the 80s and later
went D. I’m hoping this is some 3D chess move, but that seems doubtful. He’s
taken a great move to unearn people’s distrust.

~~~
SaltyBackendGuy
Well I could be paranoid but you could just follow the money.

His top campaign contributions come from lawyers[0]. What kind of layers you
ask? They do IP law[1]. BTW it possible I am missing something, this came from
5 minutes of google'ing. But the simplest solution is the most likely one IMO.

[0][https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-
congress/summary?cid=...](https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-
congress/summary?cid=N00031820&cycle=2018&type=C)

[1] [https://www.youngconaway.com/](https://www.youngconaway.com/) (scroll to
the 'Our Practice' section)

~~~
mariushn
I find it amazing how US managed to legalize bribes in the form of 'campaign
contributions' and 'lobbying'. And how this model spreads across the world,
because money is what matters most. Hence, extended copyrights, more expensive
health care, more policies driven by interests of money and not for the
masses...

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r3bl
Full text of the CLASSICS Act (since it's not referenced in the campaign
page): [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-
bill/239...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-
bill/2393/text)

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thesimon
Oh, Walt Disney copyright expiring again?

~~~
Mindwipe
This wouldn't touch any Disney content.

So no.

~~~
shp0ngle
I'm not sure if Disney doesn't own some record labels with old recordings
(music from Oz etc)

But yeah this has nothing to do with Steamboat Willie expiring

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al_ramich
Don't know much about No on S. 2823 but you would think that more focus should
be on enforcing what's there already than to add more restrictions and rules.

------
dotancohen
The fine article does not make a convincing argument to opposing the copyright
extension. They just whine that the record companies will "wring out more
money" from pre-1972 works. If that were the whole argument, then I would
actually be in favour.

It seems that the EFF position is "we want free music", and does absolutely
nothing to address culture and access to culture.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If you've not managed to recover a sufficient wage for your work in 1972 from
46 years of publicly enforced monopoly then I think the public should have a
right to cease offering you that monopoly. If you have, then why do you need
this protection?

20 years at most IMO, anything longer damages cultural progress.

Copyright is nothing like a natural right, so it's not really the EFF's place
to make a convincing argument against it, more the proponents should be
convincing the public to extend this favour.

~~~
anticensor
My proposal:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17463018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17463018)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
To me that's a bit hard, one needs to balance things so as not to
disproportionately harm individual inventors/creators.

It would be great IMO to link renewal to revenue, but too difficult in
practice (and too many potential loopholes).

One problem with early, high cost, renewal fees is that companies know they
can wait out an individual; you're not going to pay a £M renewal without
already having done serious revenue.

It can take a long time to get a new technology, or a new book, or whatever,
to market -- the IPR system needs to enable individual creators.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It would be great IMO to link renewal to revenue, but too difficult in
> practice (and too many potential loopholes).

Charge proportional to declared value, with the declared value also an offer
to accept payment from any combination of parties to buy the work into the
public domain at that price. (It's not _exactly_ based on revenue, but based
on value to the copyright holder, but that's close enough to the same thing.)

~~~
zyx321
* The incumbent can instantly kill any new competitors by buying their core technologies into the public domain.

* If you're creating something for the first time e.g. a small indie game, you need to know before you release it whether or not it will become the next minecraft.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The incumbent can instantly kill any new competitors by buying their core
> technologies into the public domain

By buying them out at a price set by the competitor involved, sure, and only
_after_ the first renewal is due, sure.

Of course, a monopolistic incumbent can have the public (instead of tolerating
monopoly rents) and prospective competition band toether to buy _it 's_
technology out into the public domain for competition to use, too.

> If you're creating something for the first time e.g. a small indie game, you
> need to know before you release it whether or not it will become the next
> minecraft.

Well, no, because we are talking about the method for setting a _renewal_ tax
for copyright, not an _initial_ one. So you have to have an idea of how
valuable it is to you before the first renewal.

(I like the 4-12 year granted period proposed upthread, but using the declared
value approach I would probably go with annual renewals with a long
limit—maybe even the current maximum—rather than 6mo renewal with a 21 year
cap.)

I might keep the idea of having an exponentially escalating fee by doing that
for a required _floor_ to declared value of a work (maybe even instead of a
maximum time limit.) Have a nominal floor at the first renewal (say, $1 in
today's money) and increasing by 50% each year, with the annual fee as 5% of
the declared value. Sure, you can keep renewing as long as you want, but after
50 years of renewals you're at a $32 million minimum renewal fee.

