Copyright Extension has been upheld
Donna Hill
would get overturned.
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court today upheld lengthier copyrights
protecting the profits of songs, books and cartoon characters - a huge
victory for Disney and other companies.
The 7-2 ruling, while not unexpected, was a blow to Internet
publishers and others who wanted to make old books available online
and use the likenesses of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and other old
creations without paying high royalties.
Hundreds of thousands of books, movies and songs were close to being
released into the public domain when Congress extended the copyright
by 20 years in 1998.
Justices said the copyright extension, named for the late Rep. Sonny
Bono, R-Calif., was neither unconstitutional overreaching by Congress,
nor a violation of constitutional free-speech rights.
Walt Disney with a friend
Walt Disney Company
The Constitution ``gives Congress wide leeway to prescribe `limited
times' for copyright protection and allows Congress to secure the same
level and duration of protection for all copyright holders, present
and future,'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said from the bench.
A contrary ruling would have cost entertainment giants like The Walt
Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner Inc. hundreds of millions of dollars.
AOL Time Warner had said that would threaten copyrights for such
movies as ``Casablanca,'' ``The Wizard of Oz'' and ``Gone With the
Wind.''
Also at risk of expiration was protection for the version of Mickey
Mouse portrayed in Disney's earliest films, such as 1928's ``Steamboat
Willie.''
The ruling will affect movie studios and heirs of authors and
composers. It will also affect small music publishers, orchestras and
church choirs that must pay royalties to perform some pieces.
The Bush administration defended the extension, telling the court that
while justices may personally disagree with the latest extension,
Congress had the authority to pass it.
Congress passed the copyright law after heavy lobbying from companies
with lucrative copyrights.
The Constitution allows Congress to give authors and inventors the
exclusive right to their works for a ``limited'' time, and during oral
arguments in the case in October some justices seemed to question
whether the extension fit that requirements.
The majority in today's ruling, however, ultimately found that
Congress was within its rights.
``We find that the (extension) is a rational enactment; we are not at
liberty to second-guess congressional determinations and policy
judgments of this order, however debatable or arguably unwise they may
be,'' the court said.
Congress has repeatedly lengthened the terms of copyrights over the
years. Copyrights lasted only 14 years in 1790. With the challenged
1998 extension, the period is now 70 years after the death of the
creator. Works owned by corporations are now protected for 95 years.
Eric Eldred challenged the copyright extension, which he said unfairly
limits what he can make available on a public web library he runs.
The extension ``protects authors' original expression from
unrestricted exploitation,'' Ginsburg wrote in rejecting Eldred's
free-speech claims. ``Protection of that order does not raise the free
speech concerns present when government compels or burdens the
communication of particular facts or ideas.''
Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer disagreed with their
colleagues.
Stevens wrote that the court was ``failing to protect the public
interest in free access to the products of inventive and artistic
genius.''
The case is Eldred v. Ashcroft, 01-618.
Andrew R.
END OF LINE
Tommie Hicks, Jr.
extentions had made their fortunes off of public domain entities like
Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The
Three Little Pigs?
Oh well, I'll guess I'll have to sit on my print of HATS OFF until
2022 :)
Tommie Hicks
Precode
> I am most depressed by this turn of events. Silly me, I had hoped it
> would get overturned.
>
Given the decidedly pro-business bent of a Supreme Court that has
seven GOP appointees, you had a better chance of winning the lottery.
Mike S.
Ken Winokur
Does this mean that they have extended the copywrite retroactively
(everything after 1903 is in copywrite)?
Or is it that anything after 1923 will stay in copywrite for 95 years?
Ken W.
Mile Films
(everything after 1903 is in copywrite)?
Or is it that anything after 1923 will stay in copywrite for 95 years? >>
Ken, don't worry. It's just everything after 1923 that was previously under
copyright. Everything before that year, and everything American that was public
domain, remains so.
(From one who has mixed feelings about the ruling, but happy that he'll make
his money back on the very expensive transfer of CHANG I did last week.)
Dennis Doros
Milestone Film & Video
email: Mile...@aol.com
website: www.milestonefilms.com
Rodney Sauer
> As users/re-users of artistic material, I totally understand your
> position. Damn, you wanted to get your hands on that stuff! Cash in in
> your own way. Hmmm...
>
> But as a creator of intellectual property, I cheered the decision. For
> creators, creating a work of art (music, animation, a silly litttle
> mouse with big ears) is like building a house. It should go to our
> heirs. It's what we did (do) to make a living.
>
> Someday you may get to live in that house "for free" but the heirs
> (Disney Corp., MGM, whomever we designate...usually because they paid
> us well while we were alive!) get to live there.
>
> Why don't some folks get that? I'm glad the Supreme Court did.
Well, we could argue this forever, but 75 years is plenty of time to
make money on a work, and I believe that artworks do eventually belong
to the public. The guy who designed the empire state building was an
artist, but isn't being paid by the people who want to use it today.
(News flash! Shakespeare's heirs sell his complete works to Disney for
$45 million. Disney announces plans to license HAMLET and MACBETH for
dramatic companies interested in performing the play at $5 per seat
sold. OTHELLO and TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA will be re-edited to remove
ethnic slurs, unedited versions will be considered unauthorized. Due to
low demand that is unlikely to cover legal fees, CYMBELINE and KING JOHN
will no longer be available for performance...)
The problem is that none of the people who made these movies can
possibly benefit that the copyright was extended, it doesn't encourage
THEM to do more or better work back in 1923, it just takes a work that
they knew was going to be public domain eventually and allows it to (a)
in a few cases make more money for people who were never involved in the
film's creation, or (b) in most cases prevents the film from ever being
released on video, or in some cases, even screened by those who wish to
see it.
I also am a musician. Seventy-five years from now, anyone can have the
stuff I did this year. I'll be touched if anyone remembers. I hope I'll
have something new by then.
Rodney Sauer
rod...@mont-alto.com
The Mont Alto Ragtime and Tango Orchestra
and The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
http://www.mont-alto.com/
Precode
> As users/re-users of artistic material, I totally understand your
> position. Damn, you wanted to get your hands on that stuff! Cash in in
> your own way. Hmmm...
>
> But as a creator of intellectual property, I cheered the decision. For
> creators, creating a work of art (music, animation, a silly litttle
> mouse with big ears) is like building a house. It should go to our
> heirs. It's what we did (do) to make a living.
>
> Someday you may get to live in that house "for free" but the heirs
> (Disney Corp., MGM, whomever we designate...usually because they paid
> us well while we were alive!) get to live there.
>
> Why don't some folks get that? I'm glad the Supreme Court did.
>
>
Because it's a license to let stuff rot. Jon Mirsalis has the right
idea: a copyright can only be extended if the work in question is made
available to the public (in the case of film, via video or broadcast).
Non-use of this product would default it to P.D., as a kind of "orphan
drug." Who can argue with that?
Mike S.
Bill Coleman
a copyright after a certain period of time. That way Disney, who will
actually
do something with their stuff (I just picked up the Mickey Mouse in B&W DVD
set,
and it's great) can renew their rights until the cows come home, and
Paramount can
let all the Raymond Griffiths expire, because they will make no money on
them.
The fees that are paid could go to preservation.
Bill Coleman
======================
"Precode" <michael_s...@spe.sony.com> wrote in message
news:9e5627eb.03011...@posting.google.com...
Rodney Sauer
> Because it's a license to let stuff rot. Jon Mirsalis has the right
> idea: a copyright can only be extended if the work in question is made
> available to the public (in the case of film, via video or broadcast).
> Non-use of this product would default it to P.D., as a kind of "orphan
> drug." Who can argue with that?
I think that could lead to litigation about the meaning of "available to
the public." "Any researcher who's got a contract to write a book can
come in and watch it our our Steenbeck. That's public, isn't it?"
I'm in favor of a market-driven solution, something the GoP could get
into -- after 75 years, the copyright can be extended by paying $5,000
per title, per year. Disney would ante up gladly, and they get to keep
Snow White. The publishers of the obscure musical compositions of Irenee
Berge probably wouldn't, because there's no money in it, and Paramount
would have to decide whether to try to earn money off their silent
films, let them be a constant drag on profits, or just let them go into
the public domain with the other great works of the past, purely as a
business decision.
Part of the money would help fund a government web site that lists all
of the extended titles so that people can find out what's not in the
public domain.
But, of course, it's still cheaper to buy congress in the long run, so
we'll probably get the "Senator Snoop Doggy Dogg copyright extension" in
2018.
Dr. Giraud
position. Damn, you wanted to get your hands on that stuff! Cash in in
your own way. Hmmm... >>
What you mean "cash in?" Who gets rich off silent movies? Like if the extension
were overturned, someone would be salivating at the prospect of making big
money off Barbed Wire or So This is Paris or even The Man Who Laughs.
Copyright was not intended as an inheritence--it was intended to spur the
original creator to continue creating without fear of being ripped off. Why
should George Gershwin's descendents make money off his work forever? The
Supremes decided that Congress was given great latitude to decide the length of
time--as much time, it would seem, as Disney & Jack Valenti can buy . . .
Shawn Stone
ChaneyFan
make money on a work
For an individual artist it is *way* longer than 75 years. I'm not sure why
Michael is complaining. A composition he wrote and copyrighted when he was 30
years old will stay under copyright until 70 years after his death. Under the
old rule it was 50 years, so if he lives to 80, he will get 50+50 = 100 years
of copyright protection. Under the new law it's 120 years. Do you really need
more than that?
Nevertheless, I have no problem with giving extended rights to individual
artists, provided we limit them for corporations. Give the Gershwin estate 100
years after death if necessary, but it's silly that Fox Films (a company that
ceased to exist in 1934) should retain rights for SUNRISE for decades after the
studio, the director, and every artist involved is dead and buried. Also note
that none of the artists who worked on SUNRISE received *any* benefit after the
film was released as they were paid for their participation and have no
subsequent ownership. All the profit goes to the corporation, or in this case
the company that acquired the corporation that paid the artists to make the
film. This is silly but, alas, there's nothing we can do about it. In about
15 years expect The Copyright Reextension Act of 2018 that will make the term
115 years for corporations. Disney is never going to permit STEAMBOAT WILLIE
to go into the public domain, and as long as politicians can be bought (which
will be forever), it isn't going to happen.
===============================
Jon Mirsalis
e-mail: Chan...@aol.com
Lon Chaney Home Page: http://members.aol.com/ChaneyFan
Jon's Film Sites: http://members.aol.com/ChaneyFan/jonfilm.htm
Steven Rowe
years --- even most bestsellers and most hit songs fall out of print as styles
change.
and has we constantly note here - many silent films dont get distributed to the
public, because the copyright owner thinks it is not economical prudent to
release such slow selling material.
thus the only folks benefiting will be bootleggers .......
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
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.
Karen Alters
have to say that Justice Stevens' dissension makes an outstanding case
for its viewpoint based on the constitutional factors -- which the
majority really doesn't address, or makes a poor rebuttal to. I have
the feeling the majority KNEW they were making a bad decision that was
bought and paid for by those powerful lobbyists for Disney and AOL
Time Warner, and tried to dress it up. Although I'm not a law student,
I understood a lot more than I expected from reading the opinions. My
conclusion: it's all about the money and control from the big guns.
Not a very original conclusion I admit -- we all knew this was behind
the Sonny Bono extension.
I believe the lobbyists who threw millions behind the effort to keep
the copyright extension had no thought except for deliberately
misleading the idea on the amount of income they would be losing if
the copyright extension was eliminated. For the sake of the threat of
Mickey Mouse passing into Public Domain, they have also locked up
countless works of literature and music whose use under Public Domain
in reality would have amounted to an extremely small piece of the
profit pie. The Corporations would have survived -- there's always new
creative fodder coming along.
I believe in limited Copyright Protection, as the framers of the
Constitution implied. If Congress has chosen over the years to extend
that original term, I think the most they were entitled to do so was
for what could reasonably be called the lifetime of the author.
Anything beyond 75 years looks to be excessive of that reasoning. And
I agree with Jon that it should be limited to the actual author, not
when the copyright is passed to a corporation. As for the court's
interpretation of "limited times" -- who's to say that in a couple of
years when Mickey Mouse or "Gone With The Wind" are nearing the end of
their extension terms, the corporations won't launch another effort to
extend that "limited times" -- so where does it end ? (and indeed, I
have just discovered that my thought echoes the dissenting opinion of
Judge Stevens:
"More importantly, as the House of Lords recognized when it refused to
amend the Statute of Anne in 1735, unless the Clause is construed to
embody such a catagorical rule, Congress may extend existing monoply
priviledges ad infinitum under the majority's analysis".).
For anyone interested in reading the court's opinions, check out this
link:
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=824
-Karen
Brent Walker
>
> > Well, we could argue this forever, but 75 years is plenty of time to
> > make money on a work, and I believe that artworks do eventually belong
> > to the public. The guy who designed the empire state building was an
> > artist, but isn't being paid by the people who want to use it today.
> >
>
> own the land?
>
> But I assure you, whoever DID own it did not allow it to be used
> "free" (or did you think rent was free in that building?) They SOLD
> their PROPERTY and passed it on to their assignee.
>
> So let's say I create a work in 1975 at the age of 25. Never makes a
> penny, I never promote it. But I copyright it... Then, at age 75, I
> have (or adopt) a child. Just before I die at the age of 105, the work
> is a hit. (Figures!)
>
> It's now 2055. According to your plan, my copyright expired 5 years
> ago in 2050. I could die penniless. My child, now 30 years old still
> wants to go to college (or Hawaii, if it's still there). You saying he
> shouldn't inherit my hard work's payoff. (OK, it wasn't THAT hard
> work.)
>
> I think my heir SHOULD be entitled to make money on that. Just like if
> I had bought land (maybe the land the Empire State Building is on?)
> and wanted to have him/her live off that.
>
Except that making a film is completely unlike songwriting, book
writing, art, or other creative mediums where one (or two or three)
individuals who actually created the work hold the copyright (except
in a very few rare cases like Chaplin, Lloyd...or the likes of Russ
Meyer or Ray Dennis Steckler, and even then there were other creative
people involved). Usually, the copyright holder is a corporation and
not the actual creative individual(s)...and as often as not a
different corporation than the one under which the work was originally
created.
Otherwise, Ub Iwerks' relatives would have as much of a reason to
celebrate this Supreme Court decision as Michael Eisner does.
Brent Walker
Precode
> After actually reading both the majority and dissenting opinions, I
> have to say that Justice Stevens' dissension makes an outstanding case
> for its viewpoint based on the constitutional factors -- which the
> majority really doesn't address, or makes a poor rebuttal to. I have
> the feeling the majority KNEW they were making a bad decision that was
> bought and paid for by those powerful lobbyists for Disney and AOL
> Time Warner, and tried to dress it up. Although I'm not a law student,
> I understood a lot more than I expected from reading the opinions. My
> conclusion: it's all about the money and control from the big guns.
> Not a very original conclusion I admit -- we all knew this was behind
> the Sonny Bono extension.
>
> I believe the lobbyists who threw millions behind the effort to keep
> the copyright extension had no thought except for deliberately
> misleading the idea on the amount of income they would be losing if
> the copyright extension was eliminated. For the sake of the threat of
> Mickey Mouse passing into Public Domain, they have also locked up
> countless works of literature and music whose use under Public Domain
> in reality would have amounted to an extremely small piece of the
> profit pie. The Corporations would have survived -- there's always new
> creative fodder coming along.
And of course, the lie is that Mickey Mouse would himself fall into
the Public Domain. He's a trademarked character; he'll always be
protected. What would go P.D. would be the cartoons themselves--the
early, crude B&W ones at first. But of course, Disney would prefer
people didn't know that, since it grievously wounds their argument.
Mike S.
"Don't go to Pluto--it's a mickey-mouse planet."--Robert Donner on
MORK & MINDY
George Shelps
michael_s...@spe.sony.com (Precode) wrote:
>rud...@earthlink.net (Donna Hill) wrote
>in message
>>I am most depressed by this turn of
>>events. Silly me, I had hoped it would
>>get overturned.
>Given the decidedly pro-business bent of
>a Supreme Court that has seven GOP
>appointees, you had a better chance of
>winning the lottery.
Leave it to Mike S. to politicize this.
In fact, the constitutional issue turned on the authority of Congress to
write enabling legislation for the copyright clause in the Constitution.
I happen to think the extension was not a good idea, but I don't think
the Court could fail to uphold the right of Congress
to write the enabling copyright law.
The time to have worked to prevent this
was at the stage of Congressional hearings. Mike, you junket around the
country a lot on film business, why weren't you in DC testifying against
this?
(Is Sony happy with the decision, by the way?)
Shemp
news:20030117062013...@mb-fd.aol.com:
> the actual truth of this is that most copyright material is valueless
> after 50 years --- even most bestsellers and most hit songs fall out
> of print as styles change.
>
Gee....it's hard to believe that the first Beatle album came out 40 years
ago this year.........
Jon Parker
sleep with him for a million dollars. When she replies affirmatively, he
asks if she'll do it for $20.
"What do you think I am?" she asked.
"We've established that," he replied. "Now we're haggling over price."
No rational person can believe that copyright should be indefinite. Should
Beowulf fall under copyright? The Canterbury Tales? Hawthorne's novels? The
question is what constitutes a reasonable time.
Your argument is entirely specious. Even Disney didn't try to make the claim
that copyrights should last forever.
And having heard your music, you've yet to convince me that you're creating
anything worth paying for.
"Mike Mortilla" <m...@musicMman.com> wrote in message
news:b2b36885.03011...@posting.google.com...
> chan...@aol.com wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm not sure why Michael is complaining.
>
> Jon, I am not complaining at all. I am thrilled with the decision on
> copyrights. It's everyone else who is complaining. I am the dissenting
> voice here, but again, I have no complaints.
>
> And for all the views I have read here, no one has convinced me of why
> they should be entitled to use material that someone else created. At
> least for free. And that IS the bottom line.
Dr. Giraud
>
> And for all the views I have read here, no one has convinced me of why
> they should be entitled to use material that someone else created. At
> least for free. And that IS the bottom line.
You mean like works by Victor Hugo used by Disney? Or P.D. Chaplin
Mutuals?
Let me understand this. You don't think films will rot as a result of
the copyright extension being upheld, or you think that rotting films
are an acceptable cost of artists' and corporations' rights.
Please be clear.
Shawn Stone
ChaneyFan
they should be entitled to use material that someone else created. At
least for free. And that IS the bottom line.
Michael, I understand your viewpoint completely, and I trust you also
appreciate the views of those who feel that Paramount has no right to sit on
100s of silent films that they refuse to release yet lobby to keep them from
going into the public domain.
The original notion of copyright is that it would be for a finite period of
time. That creators would get a benefit for some period, then the works would
eventually revert to the public. With the current state of affairs, copyright
has in the past few decades been extended from 28+28 years to 75 years to 95
years. It is clear that the intent of corporations is to keep extending them
forever. In fact, I wouldn't have objected to the 95 year rule if Congress
also wrote in the law an amendment that would forbid Congress from ever
extending it again.
I also favor the notion of "use it or lose it." I'll give Disney 1,000 years
of copyright protection for STEAMBOAT WILLIE as long as they continually keep
it in print on home video and make it available for theatrical rental in 35mm.
The problem of course is that most stuff gets shelved forever and then no one
gets it. Disney is probably a bad example because they *do* recycle their
stuff (albeit, sometimes edited). Fox, Paramount, Universal, MGM are much
better examples.
Another compromise might be that you have to pay some fee...say $1000...every
20 years after the first 75 years to keep a work under copyright. Disney will
certainly pay the equivalent of $50/yr to keep SNOW WHITE forever, but If
Paramount has to shell out $1K to keep MANTRAP and Fox has to pay $1K to keep
PAID TO LOVE, they might decide to (a) release it or (b) let it go p.d.
Robert Miller
"ChaneyFan" <chan...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030119010707...@mb-cv.aol.com...
>
> I also favor the notion of "use it or lose it."
> Another compromise might be that you have to pay some fee...say
$1000...every
> 20 years after the first 75 years to keep a work under copyright
Well, Jon, the Stanford Law Professor who argued the losing side in the case
is suggesting that very thing, in an op-ed piece in Saturday's New York
Times, but he's suggesting a much more modest fee...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/opinion/18LESS.html?ex=1043470800&en=97d15
3dccaa9d220&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND
--Robert Miller
Neil Midkiff
>
> ...I am not complaining at all. I am thrilled with the decision on
> copyrights. It's everyone else who is complaining. I am the dissenting
>
> And for all the views I have read here, no one has convinced me of why
> they should be entitled to use material that someone else created. At
> least for free. And that IS the bottom line.
Since I haven't been part of this discussion before now, let me put it in
a different way to see if I can convince Michael what bothers me about the extensions.
I have no problem with Congress extending the copyright lifetime of newly
created works, although I don't think I would work much more or less
creatively depending on whether my creations are protected for 50 or 70
years past my death, and I really doubt if that distinction worries
Michael all that much either.
I am not convinced, however, that it's proper or fair to change the rules
on works that were created in the past. I don't get too worked up either
way when the rights have been retained by the author and passed down to
his or her heirs. There's sort of a sense of entitlement there that we
can all respect -- though most of us wouldn't say it should last in
perpetuity. As far as I am concerned Shakespeare's heirs, if he has any
remaining, can work for their own living.
But the vast majority of what we're talking about in this newsgroup is the
category of "works for hire" where the copyright owner is a corporation,
and the actual creative people were paid by that corporation under the
assumption that the rights would last 56 years only (the maximum term
under the 1909 Copyright Act, which was in force until superseded by the
1976 Act). After that, the expectation was that the public could enjoy
the work as part of our common cultural heritage.
The relevant Congressional power is granted in Article I, Section 8.8 of
the Constitution:
"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."
The first law to implement this, in 1790, had a copyright term of fourteen
years, if I remember correctly -- and yet this was considered sufficent to
promote the progress of the arts. Later copyright laws specified longer
periods -- but they only applied to new works, not existing ones.
In 1927, Fox paid Murnau for his work on SUNRISE based on the assumption
that they'd own the work through 1983 and then it would become public
domain. The 1976 Act changed the rules from 56 to 75 years for works for
hire, extending the copyright through 2002. Did Murnau get any more
productive as a result? No; he was dead already. Did his heirs, if any,
get any richer? No; Fox didn't have to compensate them in any way for the
increased value of their corporate asset. Fox got richer. This looks to
me like corporate welfare, granting something that would in the normal
course of events have become public to a private corporation. And when we
got near the expiration of copyrights that were perceived as even more
valuable (that is, talkies -- sorry, folks, but we have to realize that
we're a niche market in economic terms) the studios shoveled money at
Congress through their lobbyists and bought the "Sonny Bono" extension for
another twenty years of control of works that have already been created by
writers, actors, artists, composers, and other creative people who were
paid off long ago and won't see another dime.
Does this sound like the Constitutional grant of "limited times" to you?
Of course, you may think it right for copyrights to last forever. In that
case, Shakespeare's heirs are on velvet; Disney has some explaining to do
to the families of Collodi, Victor Hugo, and so forth; and you'd better
get a license from the Rouget de Lisle Foundation whenever you quote La
Marseillaise in a score. But the world never has worked that way, and it
seems a bit *ex post facto* to try to reach back in history to put
one-sided extensions on contracts that were negotiated under a different
set of rules.
-Neil Midkiff
Rick Levinson
THE COPYRIGHT RULING
Entertainment Industry Breathes Sigh of Relief Over Court Action
By David Streitfeld , Times Staff Writer
Suzanne Lloyd has spent the last four years refurbishing her legacy:
26 films made by her grandfather, silent film star Harold Lloyd. She
has spent millions on digitally restored prints and full
orchestrations.
Now, as a result of Wed- nesday's decision by the Supreme Court
reaffirming the current copyright law, she knows two things:
Her rights to these films are secure for two more decades.
And she'll have greater success protecting those rights.
"I've complained before to EBay about the auctions of pirated tapes,"
said Lloyd, whose offices are in Westwood. "Now they'll be more
receptive. This ruling puts a little more glue onto my ownership."
The court decided 7-2 to let stand a 1998 law that added 20 years to
the length of copyrights. No creative works will join Dickens,
Shakespeare and Twain in the public domain until 2019. At that point,
material from the Roaring '20s will start becoming available for free
nearly a century after it was published or filmed.
Because the court endorsed the status quo, the entertainment world
didn't gain anything. But it was thrilled not to lose. Defeat would
have put the industry on the moral and legal defensive in its
life-or-death fight against unauthorized downloading.
"It's a wonderful decision to have," said industry lawyer Carey Ramos.
"In the various lawsuits going on, there will now be citations that
the Supreme Court has endorsed copyright as the engine of free
expression and means of promoting creativity."
Many of those who had been responsible for challenging the law had
realistically expected to lose. Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig,
who filed the case and saw it through two lower court defeats, tried
to find some small consolation.
"It has often been said that movements gain by losing in the Supreme
Court," he wrote on his Web page. "Some feminists say it would have
been better to lose Roe because that would have built a movement in
response. I have often wondered whether it would ever be possible to
lose a case and yet smell victory in the defeat.
"I'm not yet convinced it's possible," he added. "But if there is any
good that might come from my loss, let it be the anger and passion
that now gets to swell against the unchecked power that the Supreme
Court has said Congress has."
The battleground for copyright now shifts to Congress, where the court
said it belongs.
"Any battles won in Congress to extend the scope of copyright will be
presumptively immune from constitutional challenge," said Stanford
University copyright expert Paul Goldstein.
The entertainment industry, having secured one flank with the victory,
can now concentrate on the greater copyright threat of unauthorized
downloading.
"It doesn't matter how long a copyright lasts for if it can't be
enforced," said Rep. Howard Berman (D-Van Nuys), principal author of
the Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention measure.
His bill would allow copyright owners to use technological measures to
impede the transfer of files on publicly accessible peer-to-peer
trading networks often used by pirates. Critics said the bill would
give movie studios and music companies too much latitude to interfere
with legitimate activities on file-sharing networks in their search
for unauthorized copying.
The Peer to Peer bill died at the end of the last congressional
session. Berman said he is retooling the measure and planned to
reintroduce it.
"I believe the rampant downloading and uploading of music files is a
violation of existing copyright law," Berman said. "Now that that law
has been upheld, it means more music copyrights are being violated
rather than less."
Activists and academics who had hoped to overturn the current law
spoke hopefully of arousing the masses.
"This ruling definitely will highlight to the public that Congress and
the courts don't care about their interests, and it's time for them to
get angry," said New York University professor Siva Vaidhyanathan.
"They'll understand this issue when schoolbooks cost more, when
textbooks only come in electronic form and they can't share them or
return them, when they find they can't put their music on a portable
CD player for the gym."
Ramos mocked the idea that people would even notice the court
decision. "Millions of people are not going to say, 'Let's have a day
of protest where we stay home and download music.' It ain't going to
happen. If three people do it, I'll be shocked," he said.
Bruce Sterling, author of "The Hacker Crackdown" and a cyber-rights
activist, more or less agreed with Ramos, but from a different
perspective. "People aren't going to march on Washington for the right
to rip off Disney. They're just going to rip off Disney."
Joe Kraus, with the consumer group Digitalconsumer.org, said he hoped
the decision was "a rallying cry." But he acknowledged that "it will
be a long process."
As for Suzanne Lloyd, she's looking ahead to a different sort of
future. She's getting ready to make her grandfather's work available
on VHS and DVD.
As a result of the Supreme Court's decision, Lloyd not only is free of
any competing versions but will have legal control over anyone who
wants to adapt or reinterpret or extensively borrow from the
comedian's work. Her authority is complete.
For Lloyd, that's the way it should be.
"I'm happy that people won't be able to take his art and show it in a
way that would diminish or hurt it, or put it in a way that he
wouldn't have wanted," she said.
Jon Parker
m...@musicMman.com (Mike Mortilla) wrote:
> "Jon Parker" <jond...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> having heard your music, you've yet to convince me that you're creating
>> anything worth paying for.
>
> You reveal much about yourself in this comment. Mainly that you are
> incapable of intelligent discussion without resorting to personal
> insults when your argument fails. Additionally, you mis-state my
> position. I never said copyrights should last forever.
>
> On a person note, I doubt you have heard much of my music. I need not
> defend a single work out of the over 500 I have composed for
> professional producers over the past 30 years. I've made a good living
> (and continue to do so) composing.
Good for you. I've heard your scores for the Chaplin Mutuals and hated them.
It's not a personal insult; it's a professional insult. I don't like "funny"
scores for silent comedies. I've said so before on this newsgroup in other
contexts. Like it or not, when you release a work to the public marketplace,
you have to live with the fact that there are people who aren't going to
care for it. If you can't deal with that, you're in the wrong business.
> And just exactly what is YOUR legacy to the world? Nasty notes on
> insignificant chat room walls?
Now that's a personal insult. Since you ask, since I'm a technical writer in
the medical field, People's lives who quite literally depend on my doing my
job correctly. It's copyrighted by my employer.
> Maybe your "creative" use of others
> people's work?
Cute. I criticize your work based on my personal experience with it: you
make up stupid shit.
To get back on topic, you claim that you never said that copyright should
last forever. Still, you never offered a reasonable alternative to
continuing extensions. Others in this discussion have offered alternatives
that both allow a reasonable income to both the creator and heirs, and
ensure that films do not further rot in vaults. Who knows what movies will
remain unavailable, and perhaps be lost forever because of this destructive
piece of legislation? Is the loss of these films worth the $5 a year royalty
check that your great-grandchildren could possibly receive?
You've completely ignored every question regarding what you consider a
reasonable copyright term. I suppose there is a minute chance that there
could be a huge discovery of the musical genius of Mike Mortilla upon your
death, but the far more likely scenario is that your work, along with the
films that you supposedly care for, will be utterly forgotten as a direct
result of this extension.
j
--
"It could be your shallowness is your strength" -- The The
James Russell
>And just exactly what is YOUR legacy to the world? Nasty notes on
>insignificant chat room walls? Maybe your "creative" use of others
>people's work?
>I thought so. Take it somewhere else, buddy. Come back when you grow
>up.
"Oh I know you are but what am I?"
Can someone please invoke Hitler so this tedious pissing contest can end? Oh
wait, I think I just did...
James R.
--
Hot Buttered Death http://hotbuttereddeath.blogspot.com/
Celluloid Dreams: Wednesday, 8pm AEST, 2SER 107.3 FM http://www.2ser.com/
Mile Films
that they'd own the work through 1983 and then it would become public
domain. The 1976 Act changed the rules from 56 to 75 years for works for hire,
extending the copyright through 2002. Did Murnau get any more productive as a
result? No; he was dead already. Did his heirs, if any, get any richer? >>
See, there's the double-edged sword. His nieces don't see anything on Sunrise,
but they DO see a fairly decent income from Tabu. And they have done wonderful
work (though thanks to the UCLA/LOC discovery of the nitrate) to make sure that
it's seen around the world. And their uncle's papers which they've held on to
for 70 years are going to the archive in Berlin to be preserved and studied.
TRT96
shouting with glee for the copyright extensions. Somehow this musical schmuck
fails to realise the issue in this, what he calls an "insinificant" list, is
that although protected by copyright, these silent films fall into limbo, not
cost effective for the majors to pay to have released yet due to the extension,
prohibited from anyone else doing so. Yet he continues to press the issue that
some one is lurking, just waiting for them to fall into PD and get rich. Get
real. I agree with Mr. Parker, his lame musical legacy is zero, and his
attitute for being a member of this newsgroup is even less. Anyone who smugly
champions these works, that this list refers to (silent films) continue to be
locked up is no friend of silent film. No mater what he may bacwardly profess.
Tracy
Jon Parker
"James Russell" <jg...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3e2aa351...@news.ans.com.au...
> On 18 Jan 2003 20:16:24 -0800, m...@musicMman.com (Mike Mortilla) wrote:
>
> >And just exactly what is YOUR legacy to the world? Nasty notes on
> >insignificant chat room walls? Maybe your "creative" use of others
> >people's work?
> >I thought so. Take it somewhere else, buddy. Come back when you grow
> >up.
>
Well, I stated my opinion on his work, and I won't pursue the matter.
However, his opinion on this strikes me as being not only
anti-preservationist, but financially short-sighted.
Given that silent films are a limited market, there's only so much income to
go around. Money spent on royalties is money not spent on scores. Were more
films able to be preserved because of public domain status, Mr. Mortilla
would have more work and more income, which he could save or invest in such
a manner as to provide for his heirs in a far more comfortable manner than
by the passing on of royalties.
There's no point in owning the football if you're not willing to let anyone
else in the game.
Neil Midkiff
And why is there this distinction? Was Tabu not a "work for hire" like
Sunrise? Presumably not, since the nieces seem to have inherited some rights.
OK, then, you've agreed with the point I made in another part of my
message; there's some justification for "keeping the rights in the
family", at least for a limited time after death of the creator. But it
doesn't address my objections to the "corporate welfare" of extending the
rights on long-ago works for hire.
-Neil Midkiff
Eric Grayson
wrote:
>tr...@aol.com (TRT96) (et al) wrote:
>
>> What an arrogant ass this guy is...
>
>Clearly, anyone with a differing view in this discussion is to be flamed.
>
>Thank you for you opinions.
>
No, you have a reasonable opinion, Mike. Let me give an example of how
frustrating it is to play by the rules.
I wanted to run some silent WC Fields films. Paramount, in large measure,
does not have projectable prints of these films. However, there were a
few that were printed in 16mm many years ago as rights changed hands. I
would LOVE to have paid Paramount a royalty on them to show them.
They denied owning them. It took a lot of work to convince them that they
actually owned them. They claimed that Universal owned them, but of
course, Universal didn't, and they didn't care much about getting called
about it.
The tempation is incredible to just cheat and run the films anyway.
Paramount obviously doesn't even care or know about the films. It's
absolutely astounding that you have to prove to them that they own their
own films.
I didn't cheat. But I eventually gave up. What's the point on this when
you have films that the owner cares so little about that they don't even do
their own homework on them?
It's sorta like letting a vintage car rot in your front lawn. I suppose
that's OK, but why would you want to do that when someone could get some
use out of it?
I guarantee that I could run WC Fields films 5-6 times a year to decent
audiences if I didn't have to jump through hoops to clear the rights for
them. And Paramount clearly doesn't much care about it. What good is the
copyright here? ZERO.
Eric
ChaneyFan
is suggesting that very thing, in an op-ed piece in Saturday's New York
Times, but he's suggesting a much more modest fee...
Interesting point Robert. Apparently great minds think alike! Here's is the
relevant paragraph from the Lessig article:
"Patent holders have to pay a fee every few years to maintain their patents.
The same principle could be applied to copyright. Imagine requiring copyright
holders to pay a tax 50 years after a work was published. The tax should be
very small, maybe $50 a work. And when the tax was paid, the government would
record that fact, including the name of the copyright holder paying the tax.
That way artists and others who want to use a work would continue to have an
easy way to identify the current copyright owner. But if a copyright owner
fails to pay the tax for three years in a row, then the work will enter the
public domain. Anyone would then be free to build upon and cultivate that part
of our culture as he sees fit."
If I'm reading this right, he would ask for $50/year...which is the same as I
proposed (except I suggested $1000 every 20 years to minimze the adminsitrative
cost of annual filings).
Also missing from this discussion is the fact that there are virtually no fees
associated with copyright filing and renewals, but the fees on patents are
horrendous. I know that my company has let patents go on promising drugs
because the fees, typically $150K for world-wide patent prosecution, were too
high.
So a life-saving drug can be kept off the market because of huge patent fees
and the probability that the patent will run out before you even recover your
costs, but the copyright on a $500M movie costs about $25-50 and gets worldwide
protection for 95 years. Somehow this strikes me as skewed logic.
James Russell
>tr...@aol.com (TRT96) (et al) wrote:
>
>> What an arrogant ass this guy is...
>
>Clearly, anyone with a differing view in this discussion is to be flamed.
Or asked "what have you done that's so great".
>Thank you for you opinions.
And you for yours, Mike.
Richard Lanham
Well, the last recognized widow of a US Civil War veteran just died....
If he had been a writer, he would have wanted her to benefit from his
work:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030120/ap_wo_en_po/n
a_gen_us_civil_war_widow_1
Rick
Robert Miller
that reproducible creative/artistic works are NOT like real estate or
precious metal, with a potentially unbroken chain of ownership, sale, and/or
inheritance for centuries. The "limited time" clause in the Constitution
provided, way back in 1789, for all books, plays, poems, songs, essays, etc.
to eventually belong to "the public," for unrestricted use and
re-interpretation/adaptation, forming a shared body of freely available
culture while inspiring later artists to continue the chain of creativity
via new works --- after a reasonable time had passed for the earlier
creators to control and profit from each of their published original works.
As I explain to my media-law students each semester, a similar principle
lies behind patent law, but an inherent time-scale difference between
"useful devices" and "creative works" (the material benefit to the public
from an ongoing process of IMPROVEMENT of existing inventions) has long been
recognized by lawmakers as justification for keeping initial patent terms to
less than twenty years. In other words, "If you want to continue profiting
from your (or your company's) invention in the next generation -- you'd
better make substantial IMPROVEMENTS on it and then file a patent on the new
version and market it to the public instead of your old version, which is
soon likely to become available more cheaply from other companies when your
old patent expires."
Although the patent system isn't perfect (think "orphan drugs") it does
provide strong motivation for useful devices to keep being improved --
because of a patent's strictly limited lifespan. Imagine the negative
social effects of an alternative legal environment in which no "useful
device" on the market was likely to be improved upon for 95 years after its
first marketing! Creative works, however, (at least those which gain a
substantial degree of public approval) can over time achieve "classic"
status and be widely revered for their esthetic accomplishment in a purely
"fixed state," with negligible public benefit likely to be sought or
achieved by ongoing revisions of the original. Re-makes, yes. Parodies,
yes. But the original version continues to stand on its own merit.
Then comes the regrettable situation of poorly justified, extremely lengthy
copyright extensions, which (as is particularly the case in regard to
movies) can have the de facto result of preventing many creative works of
the past from "continuing to stand on their own merit" because they have
become legally unavailable. Excessive copyright extension has now caused
the films' surviving, mega-corporate rights-holders to regard their aging
inventories of creative works, in direct contradiction of the Constitution's
"limited time" clause, as "real estate" after all.
Well... if plots of land are sorely neglected by their owners over time,
this nuisance-causing neglect can lead to government's exercising its
"imminent domain" powers and seizing the land in the name of the public.
"Use it or lose it!" might be a catchy ralllying cry for reform of the Sonny
Bono Copyright Extension Act. But if such punitive action against the
mega-corporations is highly unlikely, then Lawrence Lessig's (and Jon
Mirsalis') proposal for an annual copyright-retention fee seems a compelling
and utterly reasonable compromise.
--Robert Miller
Mile Films
there's some justification for "keeping the rights in the
family", at least for a limited time after death of the creator. But it
doesn't address my objections to the "corporate welfare" of extending the
rights on long-ago works for hire. >>
Tabu was actually paid for by Murnau when the money fell through with the
producers, so he licensed the rights for the film to Paramount for seven years.
After he died, the film rights went back to his brother in 1937. That's the
difference.
And of course, I'm agreeing with you! But I think what nobody wants to admit is
that there are two ways to look at almost anything and sometimes there's never
just one simple answer to a problem. Copyright is such a case. I would love to
distribute Seventh Heaven, but I couldn't afford to keep working on CHANG or
TABU if there was another version out there by Madacy for $5.95.
Jon's renewal idea is a good one and probably the best solution. It's the one
I'd vote for. On the other hand...
If you look at it from another point of view and from past history, it usually
punishes the individual artist who is least likely to know the law or remember
down the road to renew his or her license. (And don't tell me that artists
usually keep their same address for fifty years so their LOC can send them
reminders.) The license fee also would have to be fairly miminal since it would
probably be the same fee for a song as a movie (and anything considered
exorbitant would be lobbied down or struck down by the courts), so I'm sure the
corporations would certainly find a way to pay for everything just to protect
their asses.
And corporate welfare, of course, is a funny thing. Writers are saying "Disney"
profits, but there are millions of stockholders in the company. So yes, I'm
dreadfully against Michael Eisner seeing enormous paychecks, but most
corporations are owned by the public. (And god knows, there's been little
profit to be seen lately!)
Studios are enormously stupid about their history (except, ironically, Disney
in the past few years) and it's amazing what I've heard in meetings with them
in the past. ("The Leopard? Burt Lancaster? How do you spell his name? I'll
look up to see if we actually own it..." "How could you claim The Adventures of
Prince Achmed is the first animated feature, when we say it's Snow White?")
However, solutions in copyright are not so easy to come by.
Rodney Sauer
>>>>Well, Jon, the Stanford Law Professor who argued the losing side in the case
>>>
> is suggesting that very thing, in an op-ed piece in Saturday's New York
> Times, but he's suggesting a much more modest fee...
>
> Interesting point Robert. Apparently great minds think alike! Here's is the
> relevant paragraph from the Lessig article:
>
> "Patent holders have to pay a fee every few years to maintain their patents.
> The same principle could be applied to copyright. Imagine requiring copyright
> holders to pay a tax 50 years after a work was published. The tax should be
> very small, maybe $50 a work. And when the tax was paid, the government would
> record that fact, including the name of the copyright holder paying the tax.
> That way artists and others who want to use a work would continue to have an
> easy way to identify the current copyright owner. But if a copyright owner
> fails to pay the tax for three years in a row, then the work will enter the
> public domain. Anyone would then be free to build upon and cultivate that part
> of our culture as he sees fit."
This seems reasonable, except that if the law does not contain a sunset
provision -- a date past which it will become public domain no matter
how much is paid -- it would probably be unconstitutional because of the
copyright clause in the constitution!
But, as the supremes have pointed out, this could be set at 100,000 years...
Rodney Sauer
rod...@mont-alto.com
The Mont Alto Ragtime and Tango Orchestra
and The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
http://www.mont-alto.com/
Frederica
"Neil Midkiff" <nmid...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3E2A929D...@earthlink.net...
> Since I haven't been part of this discussion before now, let me put it in
> a different way to see if I can convince Michael what bothers me about the
extensions.
Why do you need to convince him? I'm not sure about what the problem is
here. Michael has his reasons, which are valid--other people have their
reasons, which are also valid. We should all be able to handle a
disagreement without getting our knickers twisted.
Frederica
Lincoln Spector
> penny, I never promote it. But I copyright it... Then, at age 75, I
> have (or adopt) a child. Just before I die at the age of 105, the work
> is a hit. (Figures!)
>
> It's now 2055. According to your plan, my copyright expired 5 years
> ago in 2050.
No, it didn't. The 75 year marking, now 95, is for works with a corporate
copyright. Copyrights originally held by an individual were good for that
individual's natural life plus 50 years--now 70 years.
Lincoln
Karen Alters
> I'd vote for.
> probably be the same fee for a song as a movie (and anything considered
> exorbitant would be lobbied down or struck down by the courts), so I'm sure the corporations would certainly find a way to pay for everything just to protect their asses.
>
issue that popped up on the MSNBC web site:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/861899.asp
This article discusses how US Copyright law is slowly moving into
dangerous waters as Directors assume "moral rights" -- a so-called
European idea -- exemplified in the recent Supremem Court decision on
the extension.
I particularly liked the author agreeing with my take on the Majority
opinion; he said it barely addressed the Constitutional First
Amendment issues and ignored the original framers intent, which was a
LIMITED Copyright term. Granted, the word "limited" is open for
interpretation, but that does seem to boil down to what side of the
fence you're sitting on -- especially if one is a corporation.
Karen Alters
Reel Drew
While I agree with those who maintain that Congress' 1998 extension of the
copyright law to 95 years and the Supreme Court's recent upholding of it are a
clear violation of the Constitution's original intent and an obvious victory
for the corporations, I question what real difference it makes to those of us
who are devoted to the silent cinema. The reason for my skepticism is
something which has not been discussed here at all in this context--the fact
that the vast majority of surviving public domain American silent films
produced prior to 1923 are, for all practical purposes, unavailable to the
public. Year after year, decade after decade, most of these films languish in
vaults across the United States and throughout Europe and are rarely seen by
anyone, save for a few specialists and on those infrequent occasions when they
are screened at specialized venues like Cinecon, the Stanford Theater, or the
archives themselves.
Some of the people here have expressed dismay that, to take one example, there
is no way video and DVD collectors will now be able to obtain copies of Raymond
Griffith's Paramount features since the studio retains the rights and is
apparently not interested in releasing the films to the public. But since
archives like the Eastman House and UCLA, which have the material on many of
the Raymond Griffith films, have not made available to the video-DVD public
p.d. films like the Norma and Constance Talmadge features or the Pearl White
serials, I don't see why they would suddenly become more compliant with the
post-1922 films in their collections. Until we have addressed the problem of
the continual lack of access to the overwhelming majority of extant pre-1923
silents, it seems to me that the new 95 year law really changes little.
One might even argue that the existence of copyrights has been, in many
respects, beneficial to film history. The core of the whole TCM network has
been their ownership of the rights to the Warners, MGM and RKO libraries, an
investment which has enabled them to show many of these films to a mass public
and even expand their base to include vintage films from many other sources.
Could we ever possibly have seen as many of these films, and in beautifully
restored copies, had there not been a large organization with a financial
interest in recycling them for later generations? And suppose the Supreme
Court had reinstated the 75 year law? In all likelihood, Kino would then rush
to put out on DVD King Vidor's classic, "The Crowd," which has just turned 75
this year. But it's highly unlikely that they would release it with Carl
Davis's beautiful score (any more than they have utilized Davis's excellent
score for "Intolerance"). It would probably come out with what many might
regard as a much less appropriate or pleasing score. And in any case, I
seriously doubt that Kino would release the lesser known MGM silents which have
had much less exposure in recent years (including TCM). They'd have put out a
Garbo series but not one with another luminous star, Barbara LaMarr in her
Metro films.
Had the 75 year copyright law been reinstated, then over the next decade, all
the American films of the Thirties would fall into the public domain. This
would not necessarily be a positive development. True, videos or DVDs of all
those duped, beat-up 16mm. TV copies of '30s films that have been circulating
for years anyway--it seems that, if you look carefully enough, you can get a
video copy of practically any American '30s film--could be purchased even more
openly from the smaller companies. But these videos and DVDs would probably
still come out in duped, third generation copies since, judging from their
record with respect to silents, the studios and archives wouldn't suddenly make
the original or prime material available to Grapevine and Videobrary. Kino and
Milestone, however, might end up diverting more of their resources to bringing
out newly mastered or remastered DVDs of the more famous sound film classics,
like Maurice Chevalier's Paramount films and Frank Capra's Columbia talkies.
In the process, the more unusual projects upon which they have embarked, such
as Milestone's Pickford series or the DeMille silents released by Kino, would
likely lose out in the battle for priorities.
Now I think the 95 year copyright law may indeed be disastrous with respect to
other media, such as books and music (both printed sheet music and recordings).
Ever since they came into existence, the publishing and the recording
industries have intended their products for individual consumers. But
commercial motion pictures for nearly a century were marketed, not to
individuals but rather to a mass audience and remained physically under the
direct control of a small number of people. Although from the 1920s to the
1970s, a limited number of theatrical films were made available to individual
consumers in such gauges as 8mm., 9.5mm. and 16mm., this remained very much a
tiny, fringe market. It was not until the late 1970s that the advent of home
video led to films becoming as easily available to individuals as books or
audio recordings.
Unfortunately, this revolution came too late for most of the silent films, even
the majority of the surviving ones. It seems to me that, with few exceptions,
most archives refuse to share their holdings with the public on video or DVD,
regardless of the copyright status of the film. In order to justify this
policy, many archivists recite the mantra that "a film should only be viewed in
celluloid on a big screen and any video or DVD copy is like a xerox of a great
painting." Such recourse to cinematic purism seems to indicate, as far as I'm
concerned, a convenient rationale for maintaining an anachronistic, elitist
policy of withholding from the public most of the nation's film heritage, even
if the rights on the films have long since expired.
I would very much like to hear from those who can suggest ways in which all of
the surviving pre-1923 silent films can at long last become available to the
public via video-DVD. I don't deny that the enactment of the 95 year law
violates the original intent of the Framers and shows the subservience of
Congress and the Supreme Court to the power of the Corporations. (So what else
is new?) But until the problem surrounding the lack of access to p.d. films in
archives is resolved, I can't see what real effect the new 95 year law will
have on film preservation and dissemination.
William M. Drew
Rodney Sauer
> While I agree with those who maintain that Congress' 1998 extension of the
> copyright law to 95 years and the Supreme Court's recent upholding of it are a
> clear violation of the Constitution's original intent and an obvious victory
> for the corporations, I question what real difference it makes to those of us
> who are devoted to the silent cinema. The reason for my skepticism is
> something which has not been discussed here at all in this context--the fact
> that the vast majority of surviving public domain American silent films
> produced prior to 1923 are, for all practical purposes, unavailable to the
> public.
Many of them are available in 16 mm for rental, but you do have to know
where to look. And really, quite a few are on video.
Part of the problem is that pre-1923 films tend to be more of an
acquired taste (when you get into the features -- I'm not talking about
Keaton or Chaplin shorts). The early Pickfords are just not as glorious
and beautiful to look at as SUNRISE or SEVENTH HEAVEN. But take two
examples of mid-1920s films that happened to fall into the public domain
-- THE GENERAL and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA -- is there any question that
these get more exposure than just about any other Keaton or Chaney
vehicle? Part of the appeal is that you can get a print and show it,
without having to track down the copyright owners.
Perhaps since we're in this copyright limbo, someone should get a grant
to set up a rival to Swank to deal with approvals for silent films,
since Swank really doesn't give a damn. Yeah, I know, there's no money
in it...
Precode
> michael_s...@spe.sony.com (Precode) wrote:
>
> >rud...@earthlink.net (Donna Hill) wrote
> >in message
>
> >>I am most depressed by this turn of
> >>events. Silly me, I had hoped it would
> >>get overturned.
>
> >Given the decidedly pro-business bent of
> >a Supreme Court that has seven GOP
> >appointees, you had a better chance of
> >winning the lottery.
>
>
> Leave it to Mike S. to politicize this.
I didn't politicize this; the Supreme Court did.
>
> In fact, the constitutional issue turned on the authority of Congress to
> write enabling legislation for the copyright clause in the Constitution.
>
> I happen to think the extension was not a good idea,
So we're in agreement, basically.
> but I don't think
> the Court could fail to uphold the right of Congress
> to write the enabling copyright law.
If Congress passed a law legalizing murder, would you want the SC to
uphold that, too? We're supposed to have checks and balances, not
rubber-stamping.
>
> The time to have worked to prevent this
> was at the stage of Congressional hearings. Mike, you junket around the
> country a lot on film business, why weren't you in DC testifying against
> this?
I don't junket anywhere. I sit at my desk and holler at people on the
phone.
> (Is Sony happy with the decision, by the way?)
In a broad sense, I'm sure we are, but in a practical sense, it's a
non-issue. The earliest film we have with any commercial value outside
the hard-core film buff is IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, which even under the
old system wouldn't have gone P.D. until 2009, plus in any event it
generates far less income than the average direct-to-video shoot-em-up
starring some B-list rapper.
George, count up the number of copyrighted silents available on DVD.
Now count up the number of P.D. silents available on DVD. Now count up
the number of copyrighted silents that are not now and/or never will
be on DVD. I'm fairly certain groups #2 & #3 will be significantly
larger than group #1. The copyright law was never intended to turn
works of art into orphan drugs. I agree with Lessig: you wanna extend
the copyright, pay a fee or set it free. Hey, I rhymed! Let's make
that our new slogan and put it on T-shirts: PAY A FEE OR SET IT FREE!
Mike S.
(where art and commerce collide)
George Shelps
>>I happen to think the extension was not
>>a good idea,
>So we're in agreement, basically.
Yes. In fact, I think the original two 28
year term law should not have been changed either.
>>but I don't think
>>the Court could fail to uphold the right of
>>Congress to write the enabling copyright
>>law.
>If Congress passed a law legalizing
>murder, would you want the SC to
>uphold that, too? We're supposed to
>have checks and balances, not
>rubber-stamping.
Don't be absurd. The Constitution clearly
states that Congress has the power to define the time-frame of copyright
protection. Just because you don't like
the time-frame they selected (neither do
I) and just because you're anti-business
are not sufficient grounds for ruling that the law is unconstitutional.
The Constitution is not a document designed to right every wrong and
cater
to every ideological whim.
Karen Alters
> states that Congress has the power to define the time-frame of copyright
> protection. Just because you don't like
> the time-frame they selected (neither do
> I) and just because you're anti-business
> are not sufficient grounds for ruling that the law is unconstitutional.
>
> The Constitution is not a document designed to right every wrong and
> cater to every ideological whim.
For anyone interested, there are two fascianting articles discussing
the recent decision and it's possible impact, especially as regards
the Internet.
In yesterday's Economist, an editorial suggesting that copyright
terms should be radically contracted in order to build a more robust
public domain. In exchange, the editorial suggests, intellectual
property activists should drop their opposition to digital rights
control technologies.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1547223
There are a number of other interesting pieces on this theme in the
issue, including:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1534271
Every time I think I've heard everything, new angles keep appearing !
-Karen