The history of Copyright.

[StevOz]

Here's an interesting read I came across today...

http://torrentfreak.com/nothing-new-under-the-copyright-eclipsed-sun-110218/

Well worth the read and I personally believe it is high time copyright laws were rewritten and limited to a reasonable period of time, say 5 years or so. Any worthy creation should make it's creator money enough in 5 years and after this all of society can benefit.

 

[mrschultz]

5 is a bit short, authors and artists depend on royalties to live (and create new work). And movies cost so much to make now 5 would be too short for most movies to make a profit.

I'd say something like 15 or 20 would be reasonable, not the multi-generational time it has gotten to. There's no way it will be changed, it's driven by the big corporations that want to be able to sell the stuff for the next 100 years, and the government is thoroughly controlled by the money that flows from them.

 

[sleepy]

it's driven by the big corporations that want to be able to sell the stuff for the next 100 years

Oh, mrschultz...you mean Disney?
The current multi-generational copyright laws are, in recent times, defended by The Mickey Mouse Argument, even though Mickey is a Trademark of the company, not a copyright.

There is also a justifiable loophole regarding hyper-extended copyrights and patents, and that is when the creator of the material or invention is a Minor or is otherwise deprived of his/her Right to own his/her work within the normal time cycle of patent and copyrights.
In the States, the time cycle of Rights to a Patent or Copyright does not commence until the Rightful Owner has been given lawful possession of his/her property. As a child inventor, this can take years to commence.
At that rate, there are some high and mighty tricky families, old money, who take full advantage of this loophole.

Also, in the States, patents and copyrights are not granted for materials and inventions which require the non-consensual participation of others in order for the item to work.
Patents and copyrights Stateside are granted on the condition of the requirement to serve the public. When the owner refuses to serve the public interest (buyer beware!), or otherwise abuses others by his/her possession of Rights, the patent or copyright can be revoked.

 

[tiltjlp]

Actually, individual copyright needs to be better defined, and separated from corporate copyright/trademark. As long as I'm alive, no one should have the right to use anything I've written without my permission. And once I'm gone, my family should retain control of my work for a reasonable period, say 10-15 years. This should apply to both fiction, non-fiction, and songwriting. And yes, I have have some work of mine used without my permission.

 

[sleepy]

You are talking about the game that you created, John?
I can't remember if you mentioned discussing the issue with 'The Borrowers' or not.
Did they give you the "it's not what you know, it's what you can prove" line of bullshit?
Living where I do, I know that one by heart very well.

...Hi Mickey!

 

[tiltjlp]

Yes, the boxing bookshelf game is just one of the times I've been ripped off. I also had several articles that I'd written reprinted without my permission, with someone else's name as the author. There's not much you can do about that sort of thing if you can't afford to hire a lawyer.

As for the boxing game, I don't doubt the toy company was working on a similar game. But I doubt that they would have came up with the exact same concept and presentation as my friend and I did. But the person we sent the game to, the father of a mutual friend, was unwilling to speak up for us. Guess he was afraid that he would lose not only his job but his pension.

 

[mrschultz]

Oh, mrschultz...you mean Disney?

All the movie and music studios really.

When thinking about Disney I think more of their rabid pursuit of trademark infringement, that's different from copyright. You renew trademarks every few years and there's no limit as long as you keep actively protecting them.

And yea, it would be a good idea to separate personal and corporate copyright, a person should have the right to control their work as long as they are alive, should a corporation have the same right when they can theoretically stay in business forever?

 

[StevOz]

Actually, individual copyright needs to be better defined, and separated from corporate copyright/trademark. As long as I'm alive, no one should have the right to use anything I've writtrn without my permission. And once I'm gone, my family should retain control of my work for a reasonable period, say 10-15 years. This should apply to both fiction, non-fiction, and songwriting. And yes, I have have some work of mine used without my permission.

Oh look I just quoted you without permission.

 

[tiltjlp]

Oh look I just quoted you without permission.

No problem this time Steve, but do't make a habit of it!

 

[StevOz]

Onto the history lesson.

The First U.S. Copyright Law

Signed in Script Type by George Washington
Appearing in The Columbian Centinel
of July 17, 1790

Abstract

<table style="display: block; float: right; clear: right; margin: 14px 0pt 18px 18px;"><tbody><tr><td>
</td></tr></tbody></table> An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.
This was the first Copyright Act to protect books, maps and other original materials. Rights were granted only to citizens of the United States, a policy which continued until 1891. Passage was due mainly to Noah Webster who worked unceasingly on its behalf.
The Act appearing on page 1 of The Columbian Centinel provides that "the author and authors of any map, chart, book or books already printed within these United States, being a citizen or citizens thereof....shall have the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending such map, chart, book or books...."
The law also applies to maps, books or charts already completed but not yet published.
The Copyright Act gave protection for a period of 14 years, with the right of renewal for another 14 years.
According to the Act violators of the new law "shall forfeit all and every copy....and all and every sheet....to the author or proprietor....who shall forthwith destroy the same."
In addition "offenders shall also forfeit and pay the sum of fifty cents for every sheet which shall be found in his or her possession...." And owners whose rights have been violated can file suit "....in any court of record in the United States....within one year after the cause of action...."
The Act was signed by the Speaker and the President of the Senate on May 25, 1790. It was signed by George Washington on May 31, 1790, shown in this issue of The Centinel with his signature printed in script type.

Source:


http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/copyright/centinel.html

So 14 years + a possible 14 year extension was considered reasonable, so why has that changed, might I suggest greed and corruption.



<table style="display: block; float: right; clear: right; margin: 14px 0pt 18px 18px;"><tbody><tr><td>
</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

[sleepy]

Yes, greed and corruption.
It was the lady who wrote the ubiquitous song, "Happy Birthday (to You)". Well almost, but this is a typical background story to the extensions of copyright law.

Her sister retained the rights to the song in court by lawsuit after being mauled for decades by professional entertainers and the expanding Hollywood and broadcast entertainment industries in the 1930's who used the song without payment or acknowledgement.

That song continues to generate $2 Million dollars a year for its owners.
http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp

But the first extension of the law from 14 to 28 years + renewal was the work of Noah Webster (again):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1831

 

[sleepy]

But you know, the copyright laws are not enforced against Private Use. They are usually enforced against Commercial Use to recover royalties for story concepts and plots, songs, and literary authorship which amount to only a few percentage points off of the revenue generated by the user.
It is nothing that would break an honest artist given an honest business manager with an honest auditor...

...and an honest artist would not rip someone else's work to begin with.

I think where the copyright laws run afoul of common sense is when copyrights are abused by corporations in order to take over what is supposed to be a common object or concept, say a computer language, so that no one else can use that language as a tool to construct their own work.
When it works out that you cannot buy the hammer and use it to hit the nail without paying the toolmaker for each and every blow of the hammer, then that's wrong.

 

[tiltjlp]

Well, years ago when a friend and I had our boxing game stolen by a well-known company, we had proof that they had stolen it. We consulted a lawyer about taking the company to court, and wanted to, but we couldn't afford to. Besides, as the lawyer told us, the company might well have been working on a similar game, and could claim the similarities between the two games had to be expected, given the narrow scope of action in a boxing match. The fact that we also had proof we had shown the game to an employee of the company 4-6 months before they began to market their game prossibly would have won the case for us. But since the company had a team of lawyers and lots of capital to drag the case out with appeals, we had no chance of ever seeing a penny. The only nice thing about all of that was that our game was still better than the one that made the company a boatload of bucks.

 

[sleepy]

Was this a privately-owned company or was it "a public corporation"?

 

[tiltjlp]

Was this a privately-owned company or was it "a public corporation"?

A very well known public owned company. I'm pretty sure they're still in business, but don't know much about them nowadays.

 

[StevOz]

Yeah, but really was it a boatload of of bucks or just conjecture?

 

[tiltjlp]

Well, over several years they sold roughly 3 and a half million games, so we sure would have made something. Sure a lot more than we ended up with. The worst part of it all, my buddy and I stopped creating games, and haven't seen each other in years.

 

[StevOz]

Well, I'll take your word for it, still, either way it just goes to prove how flawed the current copyright law regime is, yes?

 

[tiltjlp]

Yes, although this happened 30-35 years ago. Actually, it might have ended up selling more than I mentioned. I do know the game was one of a series of sports games that were very popular. So popular the company set up a separate division just to produce and market these game, and even expanded to develop board based role playing games. I would imagine it's even harder to take action against a large company now than it was back then. I'm glad you're taking my word for it, since I would have no reason to make this all up. Every once in a while I wionder What If.

 

[sleepy]

The copyright law allows the creator to file, even when in dispute with someone who ripped it off and filed a copyright for themselves. When the creator is determined to be The Creator of the work, the bogus copyright is then voided by law, even if it was filed and approved before The Creator of the work files.

But of course, who would dare accuse a public corporation of intellectual property theft (stealing ideas). Not when they are so obviously successful at it.
It pisses me off how often people support successful thieves over the Rights of the creator (the victim), totally ignoring that if the company hadn't ripped off the idea, the rightful owner would be the successful one.
When I see that, I think there's Payola going on.

 

[tiltjlp]

Well, back then, either the early or mid 1970s, we didn't know much, and probably the lawyer we went to see didn't know a lot about copyright law. Our mistake was showing it to a friend's father who worked for rhe toy company. I can't believe now how foolish we were doing that. Oh well, I either was still drinking heavily then, or had just quit, so if we would have made money from the game I probably would have drank it away and never sobered up. And I'm having too much fun making tables to worry about what might have been. I'm so tempted to say what company it was, and the game they marketed, but it really doesn't much matter any more.

 

[sleepy]

Was this a plastic physical toy or a board game?

 

[faralos]

my but that sounds an awful lot like Activision! they are infamous for stealing ideas from people! Sorry to hear about that ripoff and your stopping of making games due to that.
I had no clue that Happy Birthday was a copyrighted song! I never really thought of it till that article. very interesting read, thanks!
it may be even easier now to sue then back then if only for the web! you can garner so much bad publicity against this company that they may be willing to settle to avoid the public eye glaring at them

 

[tiltjlp]

Was this a plastic physical toy or a board game?

The series were all board games. Our's used offensive and defensive cards which were drawn alternately until the offensive fighter missed a punch. Some of the other games used plastic pieces and dice. Besides the cards and a score chart, ours also had, in our home-made version, two viewed from above boxers that were moved about as the fight progressed. We charted every punch against every defense and awarded points based on the effectiveness of the punches. Points could be + or-.

 

[tiltjlp]

my but that sounds an awful lot like Activision! they are infamous for stealing ideas from people! Sorry to hear about that ripoff and your stopping of making games due to that.

I had no clue that Happy Birthday was a copyrighted song! I never really thought of it till that article. very interesting read, thanks!

it may be even easier now to sue then back then if only for the web! you can garner so much bad publicity against this company that they may be willing to settle to avoid the public eye glaring at them

Was Activision in business in the early to mid 1790s? I've never heard of them.