The future of copyright

[urdestan]

It has been an issue that kind of gets me the most when it comes to the future.

The current copyright system is in favour of corporations (i.e. Disney) and are ridiculously long. Europe basically has a life + 70 year term for each author (while also topping film copyright's length with writers, cinematographers and directors; which is why Metropolis won't be public domain until 2047 in Germany for example) while the US has 95 years for copyrighted works from 1926 to 1978. After around 2073, that becomes life + 70 years for authors but the 95 year term stays with corporate published works, if I can get my copyright laws right at least. We won't be seeing a copyright extension act in the US like in the 1990s very soon, so Steamboat Willie will be public domain in three years from now, but its impact remains to this day.

However, as more people are living longer lives and if anti-ageing treatments and technology becomes mainstream and assuming that they become immortal, the current copyright terms become an issue in the long-term, especially say, a century or two from now. If people live forever and they still publish their work as-is, then the copyright term will essentially be indefinite, making this a loophole in how the copyright system works. Of course, they could waiver their copyright to the public domain at one point (something Tom Lehrer did with his music last year), but I doubt that it'll be the case, especially with corporations willing to go lengths to keep it in their right.

The obvious thing is to abolish it. Copyright is essentially an artificial concept that's invented to initially protect a creator's work and indicating them that it's theirs, holding them the right to do what they want with their work. However, not a lot of works published become valuable after 10 years or so since they're published. In a world where synthetic media has become the norm instead of mainly human-made works, I think it'd be necessary. I'm literally in favour of it, so...

However, I can't see abolition happening, since you know... corporations be corporations. Also the fact that there are some who are very protective of their work for a few years and want to do things around. I think reverting the system to 13 years for the initial protection plus a 13 year renewal (like in the original) is the most optimistic if we had to keep copyright around. Then again, I can't see how it would fit into a world where synthetic media could be the norm. Rather than having a virtually indefinite term with the case of today, you'd instead have 26 years at most to basically do what you want before putting it into public domain. I think there's a lot more convenience with the internet to create a copyright database for looking into certain works like literature compared to the past, especially in the US where renewal is a thing and people have to search if the work has failed to renew for works between 1926-78. It would benefit creators in the long run who wish to make some derivative of that work and archiving it would be easier.

Then there's also synthetic media itself. Personally, synthetic media shouldn't be copyrighted at all, it is not created by a human (although the code that makes it would fall under that case), although it is kind of a grey zone that I don't think we have explored yet. I guess it can be copyrighted if the user has some form of input, especially if its a detailed one, but for me, I don't think it should be the case. Even if they made a detailed input of something they want, I think the way it is generated or done shouldn't be necessarily copyrighted, they haven't done much aside from say, write an input. If the principle of 'sweat of the brow' is used, it'd probably make any AI work that is not purely random (i.e. had some direction) copyrightable, as the user has some form of work to create it and if its copyrighted, then it could be attributed to theirs or the original coder/person who created it. But I'm not sure about this field (don't ask me about this), but I'm kind of certain that the current copyright system will become redundant eventually or be used in a way that would benefit companies in the long-term than regular creators if life extension/anti-ageing treatments were to be mainstream.

It got extremely rambly but this is something that no-one has discussed probably except for me.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

NFTs are one attempt to retain copyright. I'm sure there will be others as time goes on to try to solve this issue on the internet.

[urdestan]

NFTs are one attempt to retain copyright. I'm sure there will be others as time goes on to try to solve this issue on the internet.

Unfortunately, NFTs have become the antithesis of what it claims to stand. I've seen instances and articles where artists who don't want to be part of the NFT trend get their works ripped off by copyright trolls on NFT platforms like OpenSea. Some are also taking advantage of the NFT trend by using open source programs without really attributing them to their work.

Of course someone will make a different system, but for now, NFTs are easily abusable.

[Doozer]

Oh boy, the public domain is gonna get VERY interesting over the next 20 years. This year, we saw both the original printed works of Winnie the Pooh by A.A Milne and Bambi by Felix Salten break free from the shackles of copyright. That's just a sample of what's to come... Here's a list of IPs that will cease being copyrighted in the near future :

2023 : films from 1927 including Metropolis (silent film), The Jazz Singer and Margaret Wise Brown's Good Night Moon.

2024 : Both of the first two officially released Mickey Mouse shorts including Steamboat Willie and The Galloping Gaucho. The Final A.A Milne Winnie the Pooh book, House on Pooh Corner, which included the debut of Tigger goes PD.

2025 : Popeye The Sailor

2026 : The original Universal horror classics, Frankenstein and Dracula from 1931. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

2027 : Robert E. Howard's Conan The Barbarian

2028 : King Kong (1933 film)

2029 : Flash Gordon, Donald Duck

That's all I have for now. I look forward to seeing what thoughts you have.