
Senate passes copyright bill to end 140-year protection for old songs - clear_dg
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/senate-passes-copyright-bill-to-end-140-year-protection-for-old-songs/
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pianoben
It's a telling indictment of the current state of intellectual-property
regulation that public-domain activists consider a 100-year copyright to be a
"victory".

It's hard to imagine that this term won't be extended again before 2067!

~~~
35719385638
As bad as it is, I'd consider it something of a victory considering the only
reason I clicked the HN link to this discussion was my cognitive expectation
in yet another defeat for copyright law pessimistically substituted "end" with
"extend," and evoked a defeatist reaction that I might come here to bathe in
sorrow.

Once I started reading the article and comments I was really confused until I
reread the title very slowly to catch my mistake in perception. I guess we
really do see the world through our own predecided lenses of reality and
choose how an internal narrative will match any evidence in support or censor
in defense.

Or rather, that's only me. And I hope to overcome that with (un)learning. :D

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throwaway77384
Had the same reaction :)

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cbanek
I can only imagine the kids asking, "why don't old TV shows have the happy
birthday song in there?" I'm wondering what other songs might come into TV and
other popular media now that they are public domain.

Note: Both the music and lyrics are in public domain in both the European
Union and United States. The copyright expired in the European Union on
January 1, 2017. In the United States, a federal court ruled in 2016 that
Warner/Chappell's copyright claim was invalid and there was no other claim to
copyright.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You)

~~~
bo1024
> I can only imagine the kids asking, "why don't old TV shows have the happy
> birthday song in there?"

There must be some response here about the likelihood of kids getting the
chance to watch old TV shows, given the current state of copyright law....

~~~
flukus
> There must be some response here about the likelihood of kids getting the
> chance to watch old TV shows, given the current state of copyright law

I'm starting to think this might be one of the drivers of current copyright
laws, the biggest competitor for media companies is gradually becoming there
own back catalogs. When you've got 50 years of classics to watch or rewatch
you're less willing to spend money on new content.

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swebs
Wow, from 140 years to 110 years.

For comparison, patents only last 20 years.

~~~
Spivak
The goal of copyright is not to put works into the public domain, it's to
allow the creator to extract all the possible value from their work. This has
been the basis for every copyright extension and the courts have agreed seeing
little value in letting works go public domain.

~~~
telchar
Presumably you're speaking cynically about how copyright is treated. For the
official, stated reason:

Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent and Copyright Clause of the
Constitution. [The Congress shall have 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
discoveries.”[0]

[0] [https://fairuse.stanford.edu/law/us-
constitution/](https://fairuse.stanford.edu/law/us-constitution/)

~~~
TangoTrotFox
So the goal is to enable _authors and inventors_ to have exclusive rights to
_their_ respective writings and discoveries? Out of curiosity, how many
authors and inventors do you think live 110 years after their writing or
discovery?

And of course this is securing for a limited time _to_ authors and inventors.
In other words, it should be limited relative to the life of these authors --
not even life long, let alone long after they're deceased.

~~~
PeterisP
As the constitution clause states, it's not _the goal_ to have these exclusive
rights; these exclusive rights are the means(motivation) by which to
facilitate the creation and publication of such works.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
You're absolutely right, but what you're saying suggests an even more limited
ability of congress. The whole point of the United State's political design
was to strictly limit the ability of congress except to what was allowed. For
instance the right to free speech does not grant citizens the right to free
speech -- that is already inherent. It prohibits the government from being
able to take that inherent right away.

The constitution is not a guideline to unlimited powers, but constraints to
limited powers. If congress is passing various copyright laws for reasons
other than to "promote the progress of science and useful arts" then it would
be unconstitutional. In other words passing laws to enhance profits rather
than to ensure _creator_ motivation would be unconstitutional, yet that's
unambiguously the motivation for nearly all modern copyright law. Nobody is
deterred from creating a work because they would only own the rights to it for
e.g. 30 years, let alone 110 years.

~~~
telchar
That's a good point, although unfortunately I could see them getting away with
extra power due to the interstate commerce clause that they use to justify so
much else.

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cocacola1
14 years of copyright + another 14 years if the author was alive and renewed
was already a solid amount to begin with. This is absolutely ridiculous.

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zerocheeses
Article gets it backwards. There is currently no copyright on sound recordings
made before 1972. Under the new legislation, such sound recordings would
disappear from the public domain and retroactively get a 95-year copyright
term.

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buboard
100 years that's insane. The world needs to catch up with the times. copyright
needs to be down to a few (<10) years Max. The main reason being that you can
monetize it more efficiently and much faster today.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Under 10 sounds just as insane as a century.

There are countless artists and authors who go undiscovered for years before
having a breakthrough and becoming popular. There's a lot of non-fiction books
that are slow but steady sellers for years. Some of that non-fiction needed
years of research.

Drop copyright to say 5 years and you hurt all of those creators, potentially
quite badly. The Disney's, George Martin's and JK Rowling's of the world would
be hurt vastly less as so many of their sales are right around release.

If I had to throw a number out I'd go with something like 20 years, and upto 5
or 10 years beyond death - to cover those writing an autobiography or creating
something in their final years.

~~~
imglorp
Agree with these ideas of limits, but I'd also add limits to transfer. It
seems where we get into trouble is artists transferring the rights to
corporations--which seems okay--but then the corporation can use substantial
political power to fight for them forever, long after the artist has expired.
You might want something like "until artist dies, or if sold to another party,
10 years for that party."

We see the same sort of thing with patent trolls - if all you do is buy up IP
and then sue someone, that's not a model that furthers humanity or IP
creators.

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Only the person who created a work should get copyright. It shouldn't be
transferable at all. Something like:

Individual copyright: 25 years or date of death + 10 years.

Corporate copyright: 25 years.

~~~
shakna
If it's non-transferrable...

a) That +10 years after holder death no longer makes sense

b) Corporations would be unable to posses copyright.

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NeedMoreTea
I think intent is pretty clear and legal types could fairly easily turn it
into precise enough legislation and find ways to prevent creative evasion.

a) Is a clear and simple exception, that permits inheritors to receive
proceeds of a work for a limited time. It would prevent the abusive control
some estates have over copyright decades after the creator's death.

b) Intent seems rather like the clauses for code copyright many of us have had
in contracts of employment. IANAL but I'm sure something could be drafted that
limits transfers but still allows design companies assigning copyright of the
customer's new logo. Perhaps the only transfer can be limited to the first
three months after creation or something.

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reaperducer
I'll be long dead before any of these changes matter.

I know I should be happy for future generations, but for some reason I can
actually feel why the big-name politicians don't care about this. Because it
will never even remotely affect them.

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cwkoss
I wonder what questionable language got slipped into this bill by lobbyists.

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swebs
Here you go:

[https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s2334/BILLS-115s2334is.pd...](https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/s2334/BILLS-115s2334is.pdf)

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syrrim
>just read all 109 pages of legaleze!

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mesozoic
Is there a list of the most popular music this will release?

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pas
This needs to pass the House and Trump too, no?

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CapitalistCartr
The House already did, so now its off to the Oval Office, but since it has
overwhelming votes, a Presidential veto would be pointless, as The Congress
has the votes to override.

~~~
tzs
> [...] but since it has overwhelming votes, a Presidential veto would be
> pointless, as The Congress has the votes to override.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I don't think it is going out on a limb to
predict that President Trump will not be happy about a veto of his being
overridden, and will be very vocal about that.

Has President Trump actually said anything about this issue? If he said he's
against it and Congress still overwhelmingly voted for it then you are
probably right--they would also vote to override a veto.

But if he has been silent on this and he vetoes it I would be shocked if a lot
of members of Congress do not decide that they only voted for it because they
thought the President was at least neutral on it and will realign their
positions to conform to his.

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moetech
I can't think of any good reason why music should even be copyrightable.

~~~
lucasmullens
So that musicians get fairly compensated when you use their song in a movie or
ad?

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moetech
Should we really be incentivizing making music as a career? And besides, I
don't think the bulk of music is being created by people being compensated for
it.

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rectang
Somewhere out there, there exists an alternate universe where musicians ponder
nonchalantly whether people should be compensated for software. "Can't they
just sell software logo t-shirts?"

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forapurpose
Music is art, to a significant extent. Rarely is software art.

~~~
hakfoo
But "art" isn't special.

As much as people may speak of art reflecting its creator, once it gets into
the outside world, it becomes an interaction with everyone it contacts. There
are a million new perspectives formed, and plenty that could be done to extend
the work.

I could imagine taking software principles and applying them to art in many
ways:

* Bugfixes-- from simple grammar flaws, to finishing dangled story threads, why aren't we patching and re-releasing novels?

* Technical improvements-- I could imagine, for example, a speaker manufacturer remixing songs so they sounded better on their hardware.

* Customization -- if you've made an attractive image or song, and it hasn't been repurposed to sell Diet Pepsi, you haven't really arrived.

The limit to these visions is that they run headlong both into the literal
principles of copyright law, and the philosophy that art is somehow sacred as-
is, rather than being a baseline for better and better things. Shorter
copyrights and mandatory licensing can make it happen.

~~~
veridies
> Bugfixes-- from simple grammar flaws, to finishing dangled story threads,
> why aren't we patching and re-releasing novels?

This is pretty similar to what’s happened with Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo.
He’s repeatedly reworked it, tweaking the production and verses and in one
case adding a whole new song.

> Customization -- if you've made an attractive image or song, and it hasn't
> been repurposed to sell Diet Pepsi, you haven't really arrived.

[https://youtu.be/zxyTk3ligAc](https://youtu.be/zxyTk3ligAc) – a band playing
a very close copy of their hit song Winchester Cathedral as a coke ad.

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hakfoo
>He’s repeatedly reworked it

"He" being the operative word. Third parties aren't doing their own custom
distributions. This becomes a big deal if you can't convince the original
creator that something needs fixed.

If you've got a big enough vision that you lock horns with Linus Torvalds on
the Linux kernel, you fork it and release anyway. If you have a different
vision than Kanye West for the album, good luck getting your version through
the courts.

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skookumchuck
It should be 20 years max.

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paulie_a
This is why I grew up with zero respect for copyrights. I simply ignore them
without consequence. Send me a dcma notification, it goes in the garbage. I
dont care, copyrights have become so insane it's easier to just disregard
them.

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BLKNSLVR
The only problem with this position is that it doesn't go any way to improving
things. It's a silent protest. This opinion is immediately excluded because
it's non-participatory.

It's a conundrum.

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paulie_a
I don't have a goal to "improve things" sometimes and in this particular case
I just don't care. it really isnt a conundrum and it's not a silent protest, I
just ignore the copyright without a thought and continue on with my day.

