The mind bending stupidity of copyright laws.

Damn.

And the best part is that the Supreme Court has ruled that as long as Congress keeps extending copyright terms to ever higher, but still finite values, it's perfectly valid in the Constitutional sense.

The Mickey Mouse Protection Act is alive and well.

As the cynics say, copyright in the US lasts X + 20 years, where X is the number of years since Steamboat Willie.

Whereas in Britain, I think you replace "Steamboat Willie" with "The Beatles."

~shrug~

I think copyright for works should last until the original creator's death, but characters aren't the same as works. Even if all the Mickey Mouse cartoons became public domain, I don't think the character should. I'm not really sure how to explain it, and the brain fart is annoying, but...

How dare a member of the creative class ask for the same rights as offered to scientists and engineers under patent laws.

I don't say this about many things as it's very crass, but copyright laws can eat a dick.

Unfortunately, most people on the board will not only agree with this statement on its face value, but also say that it shouldn't extend to scientists and engineers, too...

Patents expire in twenty years... Even though it used to be five and then seven, which were much more reasonable lengths.

Copyright doesn't expire until 70 years after the death of the author, which is profoundly retarded. Once the author is dead, subsidizing him any further won't get'im to churn out any more books.

I'm personally in favor of doing away with the whole monstrosity of IP law, except perhaps trademarks, which do serve an useful purpose (aka they let you know who you're buying from).

edited 9th Oct '11 10:33:50 AM by SavageHeathen

Well, that's going too far.

I was under the impression ti was 14 or 17 years.

The beneficiaries of copyright laws aren't the creative class, were never the creative class, and it's absolute bullshit that legislature like this keeps getting passed supposedly on their behalf.

Well, under the assumption that trademark =/= copyright or patent, it would make sense that patents don't last that long, because if you, say, invent a certain type of lawnmower, it makes sense that other people get to invent their own, slightly different versions of said lawnmower, because it's an interchangeable thing, with little in the way of uniqueness value.

Intellectual concepts like stories... don't work like that, though.

20 years from the date of filing. By the time the product comes to market, it often is around 15 years.

@USAF: Trademarks have you covered, on the characters v. works issue. Trademarks last forever, assuming that the company is continuously using that character. Even though, for instance, some Bugs Bunny cartoons might be in the public domain, Mr. Bunny himself is not and will likely not be for quite some time.

edited 9th Oct '11 10:36:00 AM by DarkConfidant

Except when they do.

edited 9th Oct '11 10:36:14 AM by KitsuneInferno

Yeah, trademark was what I was looking for before.

It makes sense that a specific cartoon, for example, goes into the public domain to be distributed at will, but the character shouldn't.

Tropes don't make intellectual concepts interchangeable.

You haven't perused the Writer's Block section much, have you?

Oh the irony...

Yes, I have. That still doesn't make intellectual concepts like stories interchangeable. If you want to argue that they can be broadly similar (and, at the worst, stolen), then fine, but they still aren't interchangeable like machinery or other physical goods.

I can replace a lawnmower with another lawnmower. It's just a lawnmower. I can't replace one book with another book, though. Well... the physical object is similar. The words inside are not.

You sure about that? Some writers are quite derivative.

Yes, they are, but if you'd like to propose a way of getting around it that isn't censorship (and I imagine you hate censorship)...

There is nothing new under the sun, when it comes to stories, but unique isn't the same as original.

edited 9th Oct '11 11:11:20 AM by USAF713

Getting around that??? You've surely gone crazy!

Derivativeness, for good or ill, enables a whole lotta knockoffs of good sci-fi to exist... And feed our habits when we finish watching the good ones!

The people's right to be derivative shall not be infringed.

edited 9th Oct '11 11:16:49 AM by SavageHeathen

Well, sure, but there's a difference between "my show is broadly similar to yours in a suspicious fashion, but at least attempts to be a little different" and "I'm just using your characters, setting, and story elements."

Five years. No extensions. Final Destination.

I think it makes a difference whether or not you're getting paid for a derivative work. I mean, I like AMVs, but I would be against any attempt to monetize them.

edited 9th Oct '11 6:29:53 PM by feotakahari

In that case, there's probably also a difference between a free derivative work like an AMV, and straight up piracy.

The problem is that the two camps in the debate dont give a shit about the creative class either way.

Anti-copyright types want copyriught utterly destroyed. Pro copyruight types want it extended infinitely for profit. Either way, creators lose.

I wouldn't mind seeing the publishing industry die in general. Overall costs go down, and more money goes to the people who actually do shit. Keep the editors, though. Gotta have them.