
Why does Amazon have more books from the 1880s than the 1980s? Blame copyright - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/07/31/why-does-amazon-have-more-books-from-the-1880s-than-the-1980s-blame-copyright/?tid=rssfeed
======
300bps
Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution spells out the Enumerated Powers
of Congress:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers)

Therein lies the Copyright Clause:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause)

Which states:

 _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._

The key phrase here is "securing for limited Times". Limited.

For all intents and purposes, we have made copyright unlimited. If you
disagree, ask yourself... when Mickey Mouse is up for the public domain again
in 6 years do you really believe it won't be extended again? As the article
states, the original copyright term was 14 years in the Copyright Act of 1790
unless the copyright holder was still alive after 14 years in which case they
could renew for another 14 years:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1790](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1790)

As it stands now, it's until the life of the author + 70 years. Although it's
hard to say that with a straight face since anytime Mickey Mouse has been up
for public domain it has gotten extended and will likely continue to be
extended.

Biggest irony? Many of Disney's biggest works are based on public domain
works. Some of them would not have been in the public domain had copyright
been as long as Disney has made it to protect their own characters from going
into the public domain.

~~~
Afforess
I disagree. The real key phrase is _To promote the Progress of Science and
useful Arts_

Copyrights don't exist for the benefit of the owner, they exist to benefit
society. Today's laws are a perverse misinterpretation of copyright's original
intent.

~~~
austenallred
Yes, the goal is _" To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts_." But
the means to that end is to incentivize creators by granting them exclusive
rights to the things that they create for a certain period of time.

------
Simple1234
The thing that is not talked about enough, and not mentioned in the article,
is the underlying reason. That reason, of course, is Mickey Mouse. Every time
Mickey Mouse is about to fall into the public domain the Disney lobby has
congress extend the copyright expiration.

~~~
runn1ng
I don't think Mickey Mouse itself is the main reason for Disney to lobby on
prolongation of copyright.

If it was just Mickey, Disney would survive that somehow, but well, Hollywood
started to be relevant in about 1920's, and Mickey was created in 1928, so it
coincides very well.

~~~
benologist
Sonny Bono also played a part.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act)

"also known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or
as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act"

------
mapgrep
Look, I'm all for limiting copyright but let's think about exactly what you're
looking at vs what's in the original study
([http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2295085_code...](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2295085_code227781.pdf?abstractid=2290181&mirid=2)).

The WaPo chart is for _editions_ , not _titles_. If you list by decade for
titles -- actual original works of creativity -- the 2000s utterly demolish
each prior decade within this sample, and the 1990s surpass most, by the study
author's own estimate (rather than manually identify duplicate titles, the
author seems to havbe looked at some subsample and divided the whole public
domain batch by 4).

See Figure 2 in the study.

It makes sense that public domain books have way more editions than titles; it
is a market of duplication and redundancy, where you differentiate yourself
using packaging and SEO type tactics. A spammy market, in other words.
Printing a public domain book mainly involves some scanning, layout work using
widely available software, and sending it off to the printer ("These tasks can
be performed in less than a day," says the study). Oh, except you don't even
need to scan anything for one of the many works already online, and you don't
need to print anything if you use a print-on-demand service. So a lot of the
"editions" in the WaPo chart are simply crap duplication garbage angling for a
few pennies profit.

Now you can still make a case against lengthy copyright with this data, but
it's trickier (because it's more honest). You can point out the population has
grown tremendously and also as the study states: "In a world without
copyright, one would expect a fairly smoothly downward sloping curve from the
decade 2000-2010 to the decade of 1800-1810... Instead, the curve declines
sharply and quickly, and then rebounds significantly for books currently in
the public domain initially published before 1923."

The WaPo includes a paragraph summarizing this but the chart used is not the
more honest Figure 2 but the misleading Figure 1.

Another issue? All the book figures in the study are based on an undisclosed
set of subcategories of Amazon's "Literature and Fiction" category, a total of
7000 or so results later whittled down to 2317 based on a cross check with
library of congress. What happens when all categories, the full range of
textual creative expression, are included? We don't know.

If you want to make a convincing case that copyright terms are too long, use
convincing data. "Look, public domain means more heavily duplicated garbage
editions on Amazon!" is not particularly convincing.

~~~
WalterBright
I have several thousand books from the 80's and 90's. Very few are available.
Consider one example:

"Mastering The MFC for Windows 95 using Symantec C++" by Richard Parker
published by Thomson Computer Press.

It's long out of print, and I wished to make it available to my customers. I
contacted the author, he was all for it, but said he didn't have the rights,
I'd have to contact the publisher.

The publisher is out of business. I could find nothing on who owned the
rights. Dead ends everywhere I looked.

So everybody loses. The author, the publisher, me, and my customers.

BTW, there is one used copy for sale on amazon for $14,763.21:

[http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Mfc-Windows-Using-
Symantec/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Mfc-Windows-Using-
Symantec/dp/1850328501/)

~~~
mongol
Is there any aspect of that book that motivates that price?

~~~
ijk
Obscure used books on Amazon tend to get automatically bid up to astronomical
prices, as the repricing bots mistake the noise of an empty market for a
signal:
[http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358](http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358)

As of this moment, the most expensive book on Amazon is going for one
_billion_ dollars: [http://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A283155&field-is-available-
new...](http://www.amazon.com/s?rh=n%3A283155&field-is-available-
new=1&ie=UTF8#/ref=sr_st?qid=1303657895&rh=n%3A283155&sort=inversepricerank)

~~~
anigbrowl
There's an insurance scam just waiting to happen here.

------
pessimizer
It's also important to note how awesome books from the late-19th early-20th
century are. Lots of good Weird Fiction that is still secretly influential;
read more Arthur Machen
[http://books.google.com/books?id=Re4MAAAAYAAJ&dq=the%20great...](http://books.google.com/books?id=Re4MAAAAYAAJ&dq=the%20great%20god%20pan&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=the%20great%20god%20pan&f=false)

------
ucha
Copyrights are a deal passed between society and authors to encourage creative
production. If they create something new, they can live off it for sometime
until their copyright expires. Extending copyrights years after the author's
death may serve a corporation or their children that can live on that rent but
fails at establishing an incentive for creation.

This video by CGP Grey summaries the problem pretty well
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4))

~~~
Tycho
How do you know it fails?

------
otterley
The title and the premise of the article are misleading.

There were not more works created in the 1880s than the 1980s that Amazon can
sell -- that would suggest that human productivity per capita was
_significantly_ larger than it is today thanks to different copyright laws,
especially since the literary population was much smaller than it is today.

In fact, the article is referring to the number of works _multiplied by the
number of releases_. IOW, the same work is being counted multiple (or even
hundreds of) times.

------
walshemj
Well authors from the 80's are mostly still alive and would like to be able to
feed themselves, their partner and cats

~~~
potatolicious
At what point do we, as a society, say you should probably create new works in
order to feed yourself, your partner, and your cats?

Copyright, like patents, is an economic policy. By guaranteeing a limited-term
exclusivity you encourage the creation of new works. This cuts both ways: if
the term is too short creators are disincentivized, as anything they create
will shortly be copied before they can make substantial money from it; if the
term is too long you can just coast forever without creating more work.

There's a balancing point here. I don't think there's anything intrinsically
justifying that you should be able to make a living off a work you wrote 30+
years ago.

~~~
jmduke
_I don 't think there's anything intrinsically justifying that you should be
able to make a living off a work you wrote 30+ years ago_

Throwing away the whole publishing model for a second, why not? If someone's
willing to buy X and X came out in the 80's, shouldn't the creator of X get a
share?

Otherwise, I'd imagine we end up with the same planned obsolescence that
plagues the textbook industry: swap chapters six and eight, add a few new
problems, call it a new edition and charge another $20.

~~~
potatolicious
> _" If someone's willing to buy X and X came out in the 80's, shouldn't the
> creator of X get a share?"_

Maybe? For what reason?

I get where you're coming from - but the whole notion that the "creator should
get a share" comes only because of our current understanding of IP ownership.
It hasn't always been this way, and odds are it won't always be this way. It
may be the norm now, but is there an objectively good reason why it ought to
_remain_ the norm?

If I wrote a smash hit song when I was 20, should I get "a share" every time
someone plays it 30 years from now? 50? Should my children get a share? There
certainly isn't any notion of morality, in our society and most others, that
this should be the case.

Which leaves copyright as economic policy. At that point the notion of whether
or not we "should" do something is entirely based on the economic benefits it
generates for society. Would I create more work for the public to enjoy if the
copyright term was 10 years? 20? 30?

To take this example in a different direction - should the artist of a
painting get a cut when you sell the painting to someone else? They _did_
create it after all. People are still deriving value off of it, and even
willing to pay for it, so why should the creator not get a share? The notion
of whether or not someone _should_ get a cut of anything is incredibly
subjective, and is more related to the mores and standards of the time rather
than any objective (or even subjective) notions of fairness/justice.

~~~
jmduke
I think my ideal interpretation of how IP ownership should work would be that
if you -- the creator -- own the IP, you deserve a share of value derived from
it. But if you no longer own it (so, if you sell the painting, so to speak),
then you aren't.

 _The notion of whether or not someone should get a cut of anything is
incredibly subjective, and is more related to the mores and standards of the
time rather than any objective (or even subjective) notions of fairness
/justice._

I agree. I probably should have phrased my question better than using a vague
word like _should_ , since I meant it in more of a economic sense of
incentivizing valuable work than a moral sense.

~~~
potatolicious
> _" But if you no longer own it (so, if you sell the painting, so to speak),
> then you aren't."_

But that isn't IP. That's the creation of physical objects - and our
understanding of it fairly nuanced and not very controversial. IP by
definition cannot be "lost" by the creator, since it's about ideas and
knowledge rather than their physical manifestations of said ideas.

A painter may "lose" a painting when they sell it, that's not the point under
contention. The contention is, for example, if the painter should be
compensated if the new owner replicates it and beings selling copies.

IP ownership cannot go by a "you no longer own it, it's fair game" state,
because IP _by definition_ cannot be meaningfully removed from one person and
given to another.

See: music. I give you CD with my music on it - should I be compensated if you
distribute copies of this music? Should I be compensated if you perform this
composition on your own (i.e. a cover)? Who "owns" the music?

~~~
dragonwriter
> IP by definition cannot be "lost" by the creator

Yes, it can. "Property" is the right to control, not the subject of the
rights. IP is lost in the same way that physical property rights are lost -- I
can sell physical property and retain possession of the physical object that
is the subject of property rights, but still have lost the property _as such_.

~~~
paradoja
Calling it property is considered a misnomer by many (eg
[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/feb/21/intellectu...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/feb/21/intellectual.property)
) and in fact, in certain jurisdictions, there are certain intellectual
property rights that cannot be lost by the creator (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_%28copyright_law%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_%28copyright_law%29#Worldwide_situation)
).

~~~
dragonwriter
> Calling it property is considered a misnomer by many

Yes, and those people don't understand property.(The problem isn't their
understanding of IP -- most of what they say about the nature of IP is
correct; the problem is that they don't understand real property, tangible
personal property, and intangible personal property other than IP, because if
they did, they would understand that the contrasts they attempt to draw are
specious.)

------
jjindev
I love old books, and was amusing myself by reading a geology text from around
1880. It was my first exposure to that science. It amused as I started that I
might end up with a good education, a hundred years out of date. As I
continued I came to suspect that geology hasn't really changed all that much.

As much as I'd like ~50 year copyright on all classes of works, the good news
is that those 1880s texts really are very good. (See also the telegraphy love
story that just came across HN.)

------
Shivetya
One thing I love about Amazon, is many of these old classics are free on the
kindle. I have read so many books and that many more to go and all are free.
Yeah, if I wanted to I might be able to snag one at the library, but this is
just too easy.

Dickens, Doyle, and Wells, are the most obvious, but just searching for free
netted me people I never heard of.

So yes, while copyright does present issues that can be very troubling, there
is such a wealth of stuff available unburdened by it. The difficulty is
finding it.

~~~
falk
You might be interested in Project Gutenberg. They offer over 42,000 free
ebooks. Legally.

[http://www.gutenberg.org/](http://www.gutenberg.org/)

~~~
colomon
And it's pretty easy to move any of them over to the Kindle. (Or whatever
eBook platform you use, I assume -- the Kindle is just the one I have
experience with.)

------
noonespecial
Why will more books from the 1880s survive to be read 1000 years from now than
books from the 1980's?

You know the chorus, everybody sing along, ok!

~~~
warfangle
Because it was required that a copy be registered with the Library of Congress
back then, if you wanted to copyright something.

edit: not sure why the downvote. I'll expand a bit.

The Copyright Act of 1870 required two copies of a work to be deposited with
the Library of Congress in order to register the copyright -- creative works
were not automatically under copyright.

Once that work passed into the public domain, anyone could request a copy of
it from the Library of Congress (and then, if they wanted to, copy and
distribute themselves). This is pretty important, because it pretty much
guaranteed that people would have access to a work even after its copyright
expired and was no longer actively being printed by the publisher or author.

~~~
gergles
You're probably getting downvotes because you're still required to do that to
_register_ copyrights, which any remotely commercially-significant work will
do. (You can only sue for damages in copyright infringement cases if the
copyright is registered.)

------
Ologn
Some people here are supporting keeping works from 1923 on in copyright.
Before 2019, Congress will surely take up legislation to prevent works from
1923 from entering the public domain, and this legislation will surely pass.

The argument made in support of this is false though. I am politically
realistic about this, and from a perspective of political realism have no
problem with with Disney pushing the 1923 goalposts for its works out to 2039.
Or for the publishers of the Great Gatsby to push their copyright from 2021 to
2041. And so on. I realize this is political reality, as do most in this
fight.

However, there are many works from 1923 sitting on library shelves where
absolutely no one would re-register its copyright. They are orphaned,
gathering dust, the paper deteriorating. It would be nice if orphaned,
forgotten works no one will ever bother to re-register would enter the public
domain as the laws currently allows. Project Gutenberg can digitize them,
private publishers could even start reprinting them.

This is what the Public Domain Enhancement Act would have allowed for.
Hollywood and the MPAA fought it and killed it.

History tells us that many works of Archimedes, Aristotle, Euclid, Pythagoras
etc. have been lost. The same thing is happening now. Old books are sitting on
library shelves, deteriorating. These orphaned works will no one will ever re-
register will not be scanned, OCR'd and proofread by Project Gutenberg, will
not be distributed by print or electronically by independent publishers.

 _This_ is where the argument lies. Some proponents of the extension here are
talking about Disney and author compensation and so forth (although the
youngest author I can conceive of would be an 18-year-old publishing in the
last year, 1923 - and thus would be 114 when copyright goes out in 2019 - and
that would be the absolute youngest author. I should note only four people
currently living are verified to be 114 or over).

All of us know with 100% certainty that Congress will pass a law by 2019
keeping Disney works, The Great Gatsby etc. in copyright. This is political
reality, and is impossible to stop. What we want is for orphaned works which
no one would ever re-register to become public domain - as they are currently
supposed to. At this point all talk of author compensation etc. disappears.
Hollywood will keep making money on licensing The Great Gatsby, we will
prevent orphaned works from becoming the lost Aristotle works, the lost Euclid
works of the future.

Hollywood is fighting this, and will probably win, although if there was a
mass movement against it, we could win orphaned works. Because at the end of
the day Hollywood is not making licensing orphaned works.

But it shows how many of the arguments made here in support of extension are
bogus. Because the fight is over orphaned works. We know the Mickey Mouse and
Great Gatsby works will be kept by Hollywood. We just want abandoned, orphaned
works. And if we organize and fight to get those, we just might get them into
the public domain and preserve them.

~~~
ghaff
It isn't just Hollywood and the MPAA. Although I don't agree with them, other
organizations representing content creators such as photographers have also
been very active in fighting just about any orphan works legislation.
[http://asmp.org/articles/orphan-
works.html#.UflfMmRATsk](http://asmp.org/articles/orphan-
works.html#.UflfMmRATsk)

Their general position, as I understand it, is that a lot of the proposed
orphaned works legislation would make it too easy for works to accidentally
fall out of copyright and too burdensome for individuals to make sure their
works stay registered.

~~~
Ologn
> too burdensome for individuals to make sure their works stay registered.

Four people in the world are currently verified to be 114 years old are older.
An eighteen-year-old taking a photograph in 1923 would be 114 in 2019 when
their 1923 photograph might accidentally go out of copyright if they don't re-
register it.

You use the language and arguments I am talking about. You say "individuals"
re-registering "their" 1923 photos might have the position that it is "too
burdensome for individuals to make sure their works stay registered." The
reality is that _no_ individuals are making sure _their_ works stay
registered. These people will all be dead - no one is going to see their works
become public domain in the moments before they die at the age of 114. You're
presenting a scenario which will not happen. No individuals protecting their
own works are involved.

What exists are Getty Images and other corporations which can re-register
their 1923 works if they had to. These companies will certainly re-register
their most valuable works.

"Too easy for works to accidentally fall out of copyright" \- does anyone
really think Disney is going to let Mickey Mouse fall out of copyright?
Anything of value is going to be re-registered. Only things which have so
little value that corporations don't bother to re-register them will become
public domain. Particularly orphaned works.

------
teeja
Old books and old movies don't sell at new media prices. They would cut into
potential profits for new works.

That might seem like a good thing for new authors, but old work is
predictable, whereas modern authors are -supposed- to be innovative ... a very
important part of the idea of copyright.

I'm afraid that Sonny Bono was not a good person to decide the future of US
copyright law or creative people. The limits on copyright tenure need to be
restored.

------
res0nat0r
> In contrast, works published since 1923 may still be under copyright
> protection, so publishers have to do legal research to find the copyright
> owner (if any) and negotiate a license. That’s a hassle, so works published
> after 1923 are much less likely to be republished once they’ve gone out of
> print.

This is about the weakest hand waving excuse for an argument relating to why
copyright is bad that I've seen in a while.

~~~
fader
Except that the whole point of copyright is to _enrich_ the public domain, not
keep works out of it. It grants creators a limited monopoly on the work, after
which it becomes part of our shared culture. Perpetual copyright and placing
the burden of researching and protecting it on those who want to use a piece
of culture has a chilling effect on future modification and creation.

Copyright was never intended to be perpetual or to enable large companies to
lock down culture so that only they are allowed to create and distribute it.

~~~
res0nat0r
Copyright isn't perpetual. I'm stating the above argument is weak and hand
waving because it is assuming these works are not available strictly _because_
of copyright. It isn't that black and white. How many of these works wouldn't
have ever been created if the author had no way to recoup his investment due
to copyright?

~~~
njharman
Copyright is relatively new. Music, writing, art and all the rest flourished
before it existed. What copyright added was the ability for non-creators
(publishers, producers, companies) to make money off of the creators.

~~~
res0nat0r
There isn't anything wrong with that. Authors still enter into these deals
willingly because it is beneficial for them to do so. I highly doubt JK
Rowling would be one of the richest people in the UK without help from her
publisher.

------
chris_mahan
Because books from the 1980s sucked?

------
mumbi
At least we can take solace in the fact that Amazon sells more quality content
than not.

