Copyright is supposed to "Promote the Progress of… useful Arts", not keep creative works inaccessible!
8:20 pm May 15th, 2008Article I of the US Constitution describes the purpose of copyright as follows:
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.
But as Lawrence Lessig argues in his fascinating, provocative, and well-researched text, Free Culture, the scope of copyright has changed drastically since the framers of the Constitution initially supported it. Now, copyright’s reach is much farther than it needs to be to promote the progress of the arts — in several ways, notably in the length of its term. When copyright was first established, a work was protected only if the author registered it as copyrighted — and then only for 14 years, with an option (that most copyright holders declined) to renew it for an additional 14 years. Now, all creative works are copyrighted by default — the only way to avoid it is to specifically release your work into the public domain or under another license. In 1973, when extending the term of your copyright was still an option, more than 85% of copyright holders didn’t renew past the initial term, and the average term of copyright was 32.2 years — in 1998, not only was the term of copyright extended to 95 years, but all current copyrights were retroactively renewed. That doesn’t sound like “limited Times” to me!
Copyright’s extension beyond the length that is useful in most cases leads to situations like this one, quoted from the FAQ of one of my favorite bands:
I really want a copy of Lolita Nation / Tinker to Evers to Chance / some other long out of print Game Theory album. Where can I get them, and will they ever be back in print?
This is the most frequently asked question of them all, and sadly, the answer is: the only way you’ll be able to get a copy of Lolita Nation nowadays is by paying lots of money for the CD on eBay, or by stumbling across one in a used record store (which may take incredible persistence, since they’re awfully scarce). [...] Since Scott Miller’s music has never exactly caught on with the general public, it’s unlikely there will be a full-scale reissue program in the future, but one never knows. (By the way, Scott Miller does not own the rights to Game Theory’s recordings, so it’s not up to him.)
In this case, the longevity of copyright is hurting everyone involved. The record company isn’t benefiting from holding the copyright, since the band isn’t popular enough for them to profit from a re-release; the artist is losing out, since they aren’t legally permitted to fill the small but substantial demand for their music; and I’m losing out, since I can’t legally purchase and listen to their albums.
Like Lessig, I don’t want to abolish copyright, and I agree that artists need to retain some rights to compensate them for their efforts and encourage them to produce more. But the current lengthy term of copyright is overkill. Most artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers would have plenty of incentive to keep producing creative work even if they only held the term of copyright for 10 or 20 years. Extending copyright by decades is profiting a few big franchises, but depriving the public of exactly the thing copyright is supposed to promote — access to creative work. A copyright term closer to the original would protect artists’ rights and profits while still allowing later archivists and derivative artists access to perpetuate the creative work’s legacy.
2 Comments to “Copyright is supposed to "Promote the Progress of… useful Arts", not keep creative works inaccessible!”
Gwendolyn says:
May 16th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
In the case of single-person art and small-group collaborations, it’s seems that the problem is not how long the copyright exists for, but who owns it.
It’s my opinion that the artist should ALWAYS own copyrights for their work. Then, they can sign an exclusive contact with a publishing/production company that’s designed to lapse once that company stops publishing/producing their work.
I don’t know what to do about movies, though.
Clara says:
May 16th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Yeah, having the artists own their own copyrights would definitely solve a lot of these issues. But I still think the default term should be short and the copyright owner should be responsible for renewing it; that way, if after 20 years the artist no longer feels like publishing/distributing the work for whatever reason it can still be accessed, but if it’s still profitable for them to hold the copyright they can renew it.
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