Althouse: "Earlier this year, we discussed that, thanks to shorter copyright terms in Canada, things like early Beatles recordings and James Bond had entered the public domain up north."

September 4, 2015

"Earlier this year, we discussed that, thanks to shorter copyright terms in Canada, things like early Beatles recordings and James Bond had entered the public domain up north."

"It was no secret that the recording industry was totally freaked out about this, and that resulted in the somewhat bizarre situation in which Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper single-handedly extended copyright on sound recordings for 20 years by sticking it into a budget update, without any public discussion or concern about the fact that he was simply wiping out twenty years of use of works that the public had been promised."

9 comments:

JackOfVA said...: Yet another example of the golden rule - "he who has the gold makes the rules."; 9/4/15, 5:54 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Last night we watched a movie by Jean-Luc Goddard, and I'm all, like, what the fuck, this movie was made MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS AGO!!!

That's kind of weird.; 9/4/15, 9:31 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: What I think the PM forgot is that the purpose (at least here in the US) of copyright law is to incentivize creation and public distribution of works containing original expression. Not to make the owners of copyrights richer. And, indeed, that should only be a side effect, and copyright should end when the incentive function becomes minimal.

I am reminded of this as I plan to spend much of the day in a meeting that includes a friend who was one of the drafters of the Sony Bono/Micky Mouse copyright term extension act. That last name was partially because it was pushed by Disney to keep the original Mickey Mouse cartoons under copyright, and partially because it was such ridiculous crony capitalism The long term incentive effects were near zero (which you can calculate by summing the expected present value of the future revenues for the newly protected years, whichreachout almost 100 years now). But, of course, the value was fairly high for the crony capitalists, like Disney, that were attempting to extend the copyright term of their works that had been created so many decades earlier. In the normal copyright quid pro quo, society got nothing, but rather gave up part of what they had originally bargained for. (These works going into the public domain after the term in effect at the time of creation ofthe work containing the original expression), in trade for political contributions to the legislators pushing the legislation.

So, no, I don't have sympathy here for the rights holders who panicked,and instead question the motivations ofthePM who did this unilaterally.; 9/4/15, 9:37 AM
JackOfVA said...: Care to place a wager that Mickey Mouse's copyright will be extended yet again when the current law comes close to putting MM into the public domain?; 9/4/15, 9:58 AM
Peter said...: Yes, but, if the purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of works then extending the term of copyright on existing works does not further that purpose.; 9/4/15, 10:02 AM
PB said...: if you don't want intellectual property out in the open, keep it private. of course, you have to patent/trademark/copyright it to protect it and make money from it, which is a catch-22 situation.; 9/4/15, 10:25 AM
saintrussell said...: Canadians are still much better off than we are in the USA, when it comes to sound recordings copyright. In the US, no sound recording has fallen into the public domain because of its age. Federal law does not cover pre-1972 recordings, but they're still subject to state and common-law protection. Under current law this won't change until 2067.; 9/4/15, 10:31 AM
Tim said...: Rule of law? Kind of like Obama and his phone and pen.; 9/4/15, 12:35 PM
Bill Peschel said...: Then there's "right of publicity" laws that can get you into trouble. Indiana has one that lasts as long as copyright (life+70), while Nebraska has one that lasts forever. One company threatened a small-town festival in California for using Mark Twain in its name based on these laws.; 9/5/15, 11:35 AM