conuly

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https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/05/18/2321253/congress-is-looking-to-extend-copyright-protection-term-to-144-years

Write to your congresscritters and tell them no deal. This is ridiculous.

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From:

alexseanchai

Senator Coons, what the ever-loving fuck?

From:

alexseanchai

Concerning Senate Bill 2393, designed to extend the term of copyright another twenty years past the death of the artist or inventor.

Please note that it does NOT promote the progress of science and useful arts to secure the exclusive right to artistic and inventive creations, for terms that are limited by the letter of the law--but, since the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act was almost exactly twenty years ago, clearly NOT its spirit--to particular people who are not, in fact, the artists and inventors in question, seeing as those artists and inventors are DEAD. The purpose of the Constitution's Copyright Clause was to ensure that no one could legally steal the profits from a piece of art or an invention for a couple of decades, so that the original artist or inventor could use those profits and create more artworks and inventions! The creators of Disney's Steamboat Willie will NOT be creating more art now, a good century later, because of the securing of a copyright extension such that the Disney company can continue to prosecute artists who mimic early Mickey.

Senator Coons, as an artist who knows that ALL ART is derivative of earlier art in SOME manner or other (though admittedly some are more blatantly so than others), and as an artist who knows that so much art that dates to after 1923 is impossible to legally archive and preserve because the copyright holder cannot be contacted to give their blessing, and as an artist who knows that Disney couldn't make most of its movies in the first place without stories that are in the public domain, the exact place they're determined not to let Steamboat Willie be:

Senator Coons, YOU are sponsoring this bill? Senator Coons, I am APPALLED.

If you want to protect artists, do something about how indie artists find their art ripped off for T-shirts without permission granted or compensation received. If you want to protect artists, do something about how indie artists trying to sell fanworks--definitionally transformative works, invariably fair use, and never filling economic niches that the original works' owners are interested in producing things to fill--get sued by the original works' owners. If you want to protect artists, do something about how it costs megabucks to quote song lyrics in a literary work--and hardly a penny of that money goes to the songwriters, musicians, or singers!

If you want to protect big business at the expense of the public domain, the scientific and artistic communities, and the public itself, carry right on as you're going--and while I will never vote Republican, this is my single issue vote. Do not expect me to vote for anyone who thinks extending copyright to an even more ludicrous term is a good idea.

Edited Date: 2018-06-09 11:34 pm (UTC)

From:

conuly

Thanks for the boilerplate :)

From:

redbird

I just wrote to both my senators on this; neither of them is down as a co-sponsor, and I'm not an artist, so my letter is quite a bit shorter.

From:

kengr

When the *last* extension got appealed to the Supreme Court, the opinions noted that they didn't agree with the plaintiffs argument that the terms would just keep getting extended.

Now there's *proof* that that "unlikely" argument was correct.

So if it *does* (shudder) get passed, this time the USSC might just roll things back for not just this one, but the previous one as well. (we can hope)

From:

conuly

Somewhere, somehow, we've got to include the phrase "We told you so!" in our argument.

From:

kengr

If it was up to me, I'd roll it back to the old "28 years, renewable for a second 28 years" rules.

Anybody whose copyright under the current rules would be expired or would be expired in less than 5 years would get (up to) 5 years to make adjustments to their business plans for the fact that they didn't have as long as they'd thought to exploit things.

I suspect that we could also use something to make sure the copyright owners for stuff like films and videos didn't "accidentally" destroy the masters.

From:

alexseanchai

Yes

From:

conuly

Seriously, if you can't remember to renew your copyright, how important can it be?

From:

thewayne

Yup, that's why I posted about it when it came out. If it passes, Congress will embed it in every treaty and trade deal and try to force every country to pass similar rules.