Author explains why book piracy is not a victimless crime

[Darth Richard II]

He's also a HuUUUGE fan of Peter Jackson

[C.T. Phipps]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

 What about the author's children? Should they not be able to benefit financially from their parent's legacy?

With the fifty year model, they have had fifty years to benefit from their work.

[Darth Richard II]

Damn kids. GET OFF MY LAWN

[TrackerNeil]

5 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Why should it? You know, the only people I ever see whining about the evils of copyright are people who don't create anything. Fuck those guys, especially the ones who say that copyright, in all it's forms, should be completely abolished. Intellectual property law is vital to so many aspects of our lives today. Without it, we'd be on a fast track back to the dark ages.

 

I don't think copyright should be abolished, no, but I think that the way copyright protection is extended often benefits not the creators but the distributors. Copyright should benefit artists and the public, not Disney and DC Comics. There's a balance that can be struck, I think. 

[C.T. Phipps]

11 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I don't think copyright should be abolished, no, but I think that the way copyright protection is extended often benefits not the creators but the distributors. Copyright should benefit artists and the public, not Disney and DC Comics. There's a balance that can be struck, I think. 

It gets ridiculous when you have the fact Conan the Barbarian was copyrighted for years by various people who had nothing to do with Robert E. Howard or his family but somehow owned his estate.

[Darth Richard II]

Hah yeah, Didn't marvel try to copyright Conan or sue the makers of the newer film..or something? Something just totally ridiculous.

[C.T. Phipps]

Which is one of the things about treating intellectual property as actual property property. Jack Kirby's kids getting a portion of his money makes perfect sense but you can have some asshat buy, say, the rights to Thor from them theoretically. Then you have some random guy 75 years later claiming he owns the rights to Asgard.

On my end, I wouldn't be averse to making it impossible to sell intellectual property. Authors should only be able to lease them or rent them.

Albeit, that does run into the problem of shared creations.

[Errant Bard]

3 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Which is one of the things about treating intellectual property as actual property property. Jack Kirby's kids getting a portion of his money makes perfect sense

It makes about as much sense as my company giving money to my kids after I die, that is to say none at all.

[C.T. Phipps]

8 minutes ago, Errant Bard said:

It makes about as much sense as my company giving money to my kids after I die, that is to say none at all.

If you invented plastic and your company makes plastic, then yes, your kids should be paid for it.

[The Marquis de Leech]

10 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Why should it? You know, the only people I ever see whining about the evils of copyright are people who don't create anything. Fuck those guys, especially the ones who say that copyright, in all it's forms, should be completely abolished. Intellectual property law is vital to so many aspects of our lives today. Without it, we'd be on a fast track back to the dark ages.

Shakespeare and Chaucer and the Beowulf poet operated just fine without copyright. So did Goethe. 

To illustrate the creeping attack on the public domain, Thomas Hughes (author of Tom Brown's Schooldays) died in 1896. George Macdonald Fraser's first Flashman book came out in 1969. Flashman would have barely passed twenty-first century Disney-era copyright.

And to be consistent, I'm putting a provision in my will that all my works will become public domain on my death. I'm the guy who created the stuff - my heirs didn't. They can create their own damn stuff.

[baxus]

20 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

If you invented plastic and your company makes plastic, then yes, your kids should be paid for it.

I'm no expert, but shouldn't inventions be under patents, not copyright?

[C.T. Phipps]

4 minutes ago, baxusz said:

I'm no expert, but shouldn't inventions be under patents, not copyright?

Yeah, I was just using it as an example.

Of course, this is under the assumption you actually leave your copyright to your heirs. I'm not sure how Robert E. Howard left anyone anything given the tragic circumstances of his death.

But Peter Pan is a good example of a non-biological heir willing of copyright.

Even then, it's been questioned.

https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2015/10/21/peter-pan-and-the-copyright-that-never-grew-up/

[Joe Abercrombie]

If you've had a successful copyright (or patent, for that matter) during your lifetime your kids will surely already have benefitted and will indeed inherit the money you've made from it. I'm not sure I see why they should inherit the patent or copyright themselves.

On the other hand I think there is a good argument for giving publishers or other investors of one kind or another, who might have made projects happen which were otherwise impossible, a fair chance to benefit from what they've been involved in. If the death of the author were to suddenly annul any copyright it would be a lot harder to get people to take chances on books by, say, old authors...

2 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

And to be consistent, I'm putting a provision in my will that all my works will become public domain on my death. I'm the guy who created the stuff - my heirs didn't. They can create their own damn stuff.

You may want to think carefully about this if you ever want to be traditionally published or sell rights for film or TV adaptation etc. Could be a serious problem for anyone taking a financial interest in your work.

I'd be for something like life of the author + 10-20 years.

[C.T. Phipps]

My general view is copyright should have a limited reasonable period (I said 50 years) and should be able to be passed down to children or institutions in the case of sudden death. However, I think there's some despicable misuses of this in RL. I also think the copyright limitation should expire on those passed down works as well.

[C.T. Phipps]

Oh, speaking of copyright, James Bond is in the public domain in Canada.

http://copyright.nova.edu/james-bond-public-domain/

[Altherion]

11 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Why should it? You know, the only people I ever see whining about the evils of copyright are people who don't create anything. Fuck those guys, especially the ones who say that copyright, in all it's forms, should be completely abolished. Intellectual property law is vital to so many aspects of our lives today. Without it, we'd be on a fast track back to the dark ages.

The most vocal and visible advocates for the reform of intellectual property (Doctorow, Stallman, etc.) are themselves creators and some of their creations are no less essential to the functioning of the world as we know it than any other "intellectual property." Copyright is an 18th century relic corrupted by centuries of influence from moneyed interests which had its flaws rendered plain for all to see by the advent of the internet. As I already said, we can't simply get rid of it without changing society in other ways, but it is worthwhile to think of how this could be done and it's certainly possible to at least trim back the corruption (although of course this is precisely the opposite of what our governments are currently doing).

[TrackerNeil]

7 hours ago, Joe Abercrombie said:

You may want to think carefully about this if you ever want to be traditionally published or sell rights for film or TV adaptation etc. Could be a serious problem for anyone taking a financial interest in your work.

It's a lot easier to change a will than to turn down an offer for movie/TV rights.

[Errant Bard]

8 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

If you invented plastic and your company makes plastic, then yes, your kids should be paid for it.

Why? I honestly do not understand why you seem to consider it self-explanatory: If I (invented plastic|wrote a book), then it is not my kids who did that: I did it, so I get rewarded for my work... I get the money, then of course I can redistribute it to my kids if I decide to do so, but this does not mean that my kids get their pocket money when I'm not here to give it.

Then of course there is the issue of copyright: In my country at least, it's not meant to be a lifelong rent, but a just reward for effort that ends at one point to promote innovation (or at least it's the stated intent): If I create one plastic basket, I get a fixed sum, and I need to produce new plastic backets to get additional money. So even if I invent stuff, I am pushed to invent again before my death, nevermind rewarding people who did not even invent anything. This is both just and good for humanity as a whole. The technical finer points about exclusive rights of exploitation by people who invested in you are details, in the end: this is something that happens in any venture: what happens if the company ou invest in goes suddenly bankrupt?

[JGP]

13 minutes ago, Errant Bard said:

Why? I honestly do not understand why you seem to consider it self-explanatory: If I (invented plastic|wrote a book), then it is not my kids who did that: I did it, so I get rewarded for my work... I get the money, then of course I can redistribute it to my kids if I decide to do so, but this does not mean that my kids get their pocket money when I'm not here to give it.

I find it strange when someone espouses an opinion that intellectual property should be deemed different somehow to other types of property. 

I buy some land, build a house, pay it off and leave it to my children-- so long as they maintain upkeep and pay their property taxes, it's theirs in perpetuity to do with as they will. 

I write a book [say for the sake of the argument say it's wildly successful] and while others will share in my success [publisher, agent, etc] the [intellectual] property is mine. Unless they were to sell their rights, why shouldn't the potential benefit stay with my children and children's children?

I really don't understand why there's so much resistance to the idea. 

[sologdin]

12 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Which is one of the things about treating intellectual property as actual property property. Jack Kirby's kids getting a portion of his money makes perfect sense but you can have some asshat buy, say, the rights to Thor from them theoretically. Then you have some random guy 75 years later claiming he owns the rights to Asgard.

On my end, I wouldn't be averse to making it impossible to sell intellectual property. Authors should only be able to lease them or rent them.

allodial title in IP is damned interesting, actually. 

as to the first point, though, it may be that the primary mechanism of author recompense will become the sale of all rights to third party developers who possess world enough and time to accomplish something.