Red Mosquito

Are you pro-IP? Anti? Let's talk about it.

With Public Domain probably being frozen forever, fuck Disney.

Though this video says Hollywood might give up on trying to keep their copyrights. I have my doubts.


I wonder what radically abandoning IP law would look like. China basically already operates this way, which puts us at a huge disadvantage.




This post is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

BurtReynolds wrote:Are you pro-IP? Anti? Let's talk about it.

Yep, I have plenty of thoughts on this.

BurtReynolds wrote:Though this video says Hollywood might give up on trying to keep their copyrights. I have my doubts.

I'm not going to watch that video, but it is notable that Big IP has failed to get another copyright extension in place before last year. That's because the bullshit Sonny Bono extension, going effective in 1998, was for 20 years. I doubt, as you do, that it failed because Big IP doesn't care anymore. I think it failed because we finally have another big counterforce out there: Big Content (Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that really wants the free flow of otherwise copyrightable works in order to further their business goals. They were integral in getting SOPA/PIPA shot down a few years back, and if they existed or were powerful in 1998 they might have very well derailed the Sonny Bono extension.

Anyway, here are my views that are sadly quite radical in today's environment.

Eldred v. Ashcroft is one of the worst Supreme Court opinions ever that rarely gets talked about. It basically said that Congress can extend copyright as much as it wants as long as it's not in perpetuity. I think that's a terrible reading of the Constitution's Copyright Clause, which is as follows:

The Constitution wrote: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

I would read the Copyright Clause as giving Congress the power to offer copyright only to the "Authors and Inventors" of "their respective Writings and Discoveries". In other words, I would hold that posthumous copyright protection is unconstitutional. Once you die, your works go in the public domain, period. None of this bullshit of enriching people who had no role in the creation of the work in question.

Now, this is clear enough for discrete works that just have easily identifiable author(s), like the words to a book, or the lyrics and tab of a song. For composite works that weave a bunch of discrete works together, like a recorded song or a movie, I would allow that work to remain subject to copyright until all the people credited with its creation are dead.

*reads thread title*

*checks to make sure*

Yup, this is a Burt thread.

I'm looking forward to putting out Scurry The Next Generation.

Bammer wrote:*reads thread title*

*checks to make sure*

Yup, this is a Burt thread.

Burt has ™ed the use of ™ on RM.

I view thread titles as works of art in themselves.

Green Habit wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:Are you pro-IP? Anti? Let's talk about it.

Yep, I have plenty of thoughts on this.

BurtReynolds wrote:Though this video says Hollywood might give up on trying to keep their copyrights. I have my doubts.

I'm not going to watch that video, but it is notable that Big IP has failed to get another copyright extension in place before last year. That's because the bullshit Sonny Bono extension, going effective in 1998, was for 20 years. I doubt, as you do, that it failed because Big IP doesn't care anymore. I think it failed because we finally have another big counterforce out there: Big Content (Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) that really wants the free flow of otherwise copyrightable works in order to further their business goals. They were integral in getting SOPA/PIPA shot down a few years back, and if they existed or were powerful in 1998 they might have very well derailed the Sonny Bono extension.

That makes sense. I wish the Sonny Bono extension could be cancelled, but I doubt that would ever happen.

I'll post more later...

bada wrote:I'm looking forward to putting out Skurry The Next Generation.

cease and desist.

Green Habit wrote:
I would read the Copyright Clause as giving Congress the power to offer copyright only to the "Authors and Inventors" of "their respective Writings and Discoveries". In other words, I would hold that posthumous copyright protection is unconstitutional. Once you die, your works go in the public domain, period. None of this bullshit of enriching people who had no role in the creation of the work in question.

Now, this is clear enough for discrete works that just have easily identifiable author(s), like the words to a book, or the lyrics and tab of a song. For composite works that weave a bunch of discrete works together, like a recorded song or a movie, I would allow that work to remain subject to copyright until all the people credited with its creation are dead.

That would create chaos for licensing, but I guess that's the point? A company could lose their entire investment because the creator dies in a car accident. It might even incentivize killing off the IP creator in extreme cases.

What about corporations creating IP? When would that expire? Or would the copyright be owned by the individuals in the company?

BurtReynolds wrote:That would create chaos for licensing, but I guess that's the point? A company could lose their entire investment because the creator dies in a car accident. It might even incentivize killing off the IP creator in extreme cases.

Yeah, kind of the point, since I think we should deviate pretty far from the status quo. A lot of bad, chaotic shit happens to people all the time when someone close to them dies suddenly, including financial adversity. And "kill an IP creator so the killer can freely use it" is pretty warped, but of course people can do warped things for all kinds of warped reasons.

BurtReynolds wrote:What about corporations creating IP? When would that expire? Or would the copyright be owned by the individuals in the company?

Sticking with my insufferable stance of "corporations are made up of people", I think any composite work can be broken down into discrete authors, as you would typically see in the credits of a movie or the names on an album. I'd be fine with keeping those works subject to copyright until all those discrete authors are dead. I suppose you could see some sort of perverse circumvention like casting a newborn in a movie and then hope that baby becomes a centenarian, but that's not too far off the current insanely long copyright lengths.

I thought basically nothing could enter into public domain for several more years since they kept extending the length of IP rights? This shit is so confusing.

I should get to work on a Pooh comic

Pooh meets Scurry: For All the Honey

Posted about my loathing of IP rights today on Facebook. If you want to get production artists/illustrators riled up, this is a good way to do it. They cling to copyright like a life preserver, not realizing that its the very thing that threw them overboard!

BurtReynolds wrote:Posted about my loathing of IP rights today on Facebook. If you want to get production artists/illustrators riled up, this is a good way to do it. They cling to copyright like a life preserver, not realizing that its the very thing that threw them overboard!

I mean, that's what you'd expect them to do, right? Without IP their careers are pretty fucked. I'm pretty sympathetic to the authors themselves. Where I'd get very rude, as I said when this thread was started, is when heirs to authors, or corporate purchasers of works from deceased authors, cling onto that life preserver.

Green Habit wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:Posted about my loathing of IP rights today on Facebook. If you want to get production artists/illustrators riled up, this is a good way to do it. They cling to copyright like a life preserver, not realizing that its the very thing that threw them overboard!

I mean, that's what you'd expect them to do, right? Without IP their careers are pretty fucked. I'm pretty sympathetic to the authors themselves. Where I'd get very rude, as I said when this thread was started, is when heirs to authors, or corporate purchasers of works from deceased authors, cling onto that life preserver.

What's the alternate model? Onlyfans or substack and you just hope no one reproduces your work in full?

I'm think interested in this thread but I don't know what IP is...explain to the curious please.

One day AI will produce all art and corporations can just keep that AI around on a tape drive somewhere in perpetuity.