A different idea for copyright
A lot of fuss has been made over the years, culminating with my finding today of this little gem. To be clear, I don't like the idea of a strict 10 year maximum on copyright, but in the same token, I don't like the current system of what amounts to $YOUR_LIFE + $SOMEONE_ELSES_LIFE + $THEIR_KIDS_REACHING_ADULTHOOD terms which seem to be the norm these days in many jurisdictions around the world that respect copyright.
I had a chat with David Downey (web: ddd.github.com) on Twitter today about the issue, and I want to boil down with a summary of what we discussed. I think it a good idea, though time limits are definitely up for discussion.
When you create a work of art, some code, an article for a newspaper or otherwise, you get automatic copyright assigned to your work. That is crucial, because it protects your work when you create it.
Automatic copyright must only extend a fixed term. A term that is short enough to dissuade copyright trolling (more on this in a bit), and a term that is long enough to allow full products to come to fruition. I think a reasonable term limit here might be in the neighbourhood of 15 years, then your copyright claims expire.
But what if you forget about the deadline? You haven't been informed it's going to expire, so what do you do? Well, we should give you a grace period to file for a retroactive extension, for a penalty of course. This leads me intoâŚ
When your automatic copyright expires, or you file the appropriate paperwork with the relevant copyright authority, you have now registered your copyright with your relevant copyright authority. From this point on, you have legal paperwork stating your right to your claim from the relevant authority.
In order to file for a copyright with CIPO, or the US Patent and Trademark Office, for instance, you should pay a fee. Let's say that fee is $100. This affords you the protections of a registered copyright, for a fixed term; let's call that another 15 years. At which point, you have to file a statement of intent for extending your copyright a final 10 year period, bringing your total to 40 years of protection. This statement of intent is optional, you can file for a renewal instead. But in cases where someone has forgot, and only realized a month before the copyright is about to expire, such a statement of intent should be able to buy you the time needed to have your application processed while not losing your copyright.
While copyright trolling gets less attention now than patent trolling does, it's still a problem. We aim to limit that with short terms for renewal. 15 years may be too much, I'll leave that to people who know better than I to pick a term. However, the whole point of forced renewals is to make it more difficult for a troll to enact their nonsense.
Now thus far, there's not much to dissuade a copyright troll at all. They'll just file for an extension like everyone else. That's a problem. So what can we do about that?
My suggestion is to require for any successful extension of your copyright, your product to be actively distributed in the market throughout your previous term (if applicable; there would have to be an exception here for first filing). If you have committed to the costs of distributing your work, then that can be seen as a good faith belief that you will continue to do so.
A lot of copyrights are transferred to corporations, either through "Work for Hire" legislation, or otherwise. There would need to be specific rules about this as well. If the copyright is purchased from an individual, I believe the entity who purchased it must file a transfer of copyright application from that individual to that entity within 180 days, or some other relatively short term. This would then provide a maximum of 20 years of protections, provided the individual has not applied and been granted an second extension of their copyright. If that is the case, whatever time is remaining on the individuals copyright protections would be transferred to the entity, be that 3 years, or 3 Â days.
In the case where the copyright was transferred to the company under "Work for Hire" or equivalent legislation, then the company would have similar rules as an individual. 15 year term limits, up to a maximum of 45 years.
We must also have exceptions for derivative works!
A derivative work for the purposes of this discussion, is when a change occurs to something already under copyright. For instance, let's assume you have a cartoon mouse. If you change the style of the ears of the mouse from perfect circles, to say, ellipsoids in the shape of an egg, for instance, that would constitute a derivative work. I have an idea for dealing with these as well.
Simply put, if you want to create a new work derived from some other work, you are not allowed to extend the copyright at all. You'd get a single 20 year term, after which, finality ensues. This system is chosen to avoid situations where an entity may change the style of said cartoon mouse many times over the years just slightly and claim a new work with each change. It avoids abuse.
Eventually, all copyrights must expire. When they do, that's it; no more extensions.
When an individual dies, this is a contentious point. What if I die tomorrow? I hold many copyrights over my work. What does my family get? If I've filed the proper paperwork and have 7 years left on my copyright extension (first filing, second filing or otherwise), then that should transfer to my estate. My estate WILL NOT be able to extend that further, whether the law would permit me to or not, if I were still alive.
Any sale of the asset to some other entity would as such, transfer the remaining time available on the copyright and no more.
For businesses, they go bankrupt or otherwise suffer liquidation events all the time. What happens there? For this, I'm less clear on, but let's spitball.
What if the purchasing entity bought a copyright with 5 years left on its term. Maybe we allow that entity to extend that copyright under a special provision for 5 more years, 10 tops. I honestly don't have this answer, but I think that is probably a good place to start from.
Let's get one thing straight, copyright itself isn't really broken; but the length applied to it definitely is outdated.
Send me a message on Twitter or app.net if you want to talk about this a bit more.
