Hard News: "Rubbish" is putting it politely
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Yes, Matthew, the right to inherit is unique to artists.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the right to a person's national superannuation die with them in this country? I'm pretty sure it's not a transferable income stream.
Yup. Artists also labour under this oppressive law as well.
If I run a business and die, my next-of-kin inherit my business, which might be worth quite a bit of money.
If I'm a writer my only assets are my rights over my intellectual property.
If copyright could not be passed on after the death of the creator, then any work that was created shortly before death would be immediately in the public domain, and reprinted without royalties. You'd be actively encouraging people not to produce work near the end of their life.
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If I run a business and die, my next-of-kin inherit my business, which might be worth quite a bit of money.
And if you're a wage slave your family gets nothing. The business is also only worth something if it's kept running. It's either a once-off gain (possibly with a short-to-medium term income stream if there's goodwill) from its sale, or there's an ongoing commitment by the family to keep it running. They don't get something for nothing for decades to come.
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Ok, Matthew, what about shares?
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Yes, Matthew, the right to inherit is unique to artists.
Oh, very good.
To summarise the points presented thus far: The families of artists who earn very little from their work are more important than the families of other low-income earners, and this justifies the imposition of a statutory monopoly on an expression, far in excess of a human lifetime. That about right?
Consider that the House of Lords decided a couple of centuries ago that copyright isn't a natural right.
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Keir, what about shares?
I've talked repeatedly about financial (mis)management. If you've got shares that you can will to your dependants, then you've obviously taken some steps to ensure future financial security. You're not relying on the work you did today to give them security, you've turned the rewards from that work into another income stream. There's nothing to stop a creator from doing the exact same thing. I seriously doubt that J.K. Rowling or John Grisham will have estates composed solely of the rights to income from their published works, and, indeed, if they do then they've got grossly incompetent financial advisers.
The family of a doctor who pioneers some breakthrough technique cannot rest on that particular laurel once that doctor passes on. If that doctor hasn't turned their income into a durable asset, their family is out in the cold. Without putting too fine a point on it, as much as I value literature and art I value medicine a whole hell of a lot more. But the arguments presented thus far say that the family of the doctor is of less import than the family of the writer or the painter.
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If that's the take on Mozart that you're content with, hey, don't worry, be happy.
I'm quite happy for pop culture to teach me everything I need to know. Ahhh, television: teacher, mother, secret lover.
And thanks for asking.
Rich, the argument espoused to justify copyright is that if there's no money in it people won't create. I'm calling bullshit. You'll point to a Mozart, who had a rich patron (but still got shafted in the end). I'll point to a Van Gough, who survived on his brother's charity, and it's only now, long after his death, that his works change hands for sums that could pay off the national debt of a small African nation.
I wouldn't actually argue otherwise - I think we're agreeing more than we disagree.
I know a few artistic types (they're generally harmless, but I don't ever make the mistake of turning my back on them :) ). They are driven to 'do it' for the love of doing it, in a way I'll never understand.
But...They do still need to put food on the table and a roof over their heads - as you've pointed out, Van Gough basically sponged off his brother so he could live the life he wanted to/was driven to.
So are we arguing whether copyright should exist at all, or are we arguing about duration?
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Consider that the House of Lords decided a couple of centuries ago that copyright isn't a natural right.
Oh, so the aristocracy has no respect for the rights of labour? What a surprise.
The families of artists who earn very little from their work are more important than the families of other low-income earners,
I don't think anybody said that; you may want to check your sources. Further, actually, yes, the families of successful artists are more deserving of inheriting dosh than the families of a McDonalds worker, inasmuch as money and/or inheritance are legitimate. Unless you're advocating giving all your money away to the poor rather than your descendants, this one's incoherent.
and this justifies the imposition of a statutory monopoly on an expression,
Well, that's the way we've decided to go -- would you prefer lump sum payments on the creation of works?
far in excess of a human lifetime
20 years isn't very far in excess -- that's about long enough to put a child through college.
In fact, what I am arguing is that art is a professional activity, a very highly skilled one in most cases, and deserves to be compensated like any other. Further, if you want to have art, you must provide for the living of artists. To do otherwise, especially if you claim that artists will do it out of love, and thus for free, is utterly despicable. The way that we currently pay for art is through copyright.
I'd also argue that further it's strange to have some forms of property that continue beyond death and others that don't, when the only distinction is between money and the promise of money.
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3410,
Matthew, your arguments are rather confused. Case in point:
__A more appropriate comparison might be building a house. If you decide to do that, and then rent it out, you would expect to continue receiving benefit for that, essentially forever.__
Yes, you would. But the supply of land is finite.
The point is that if you create a house or an artwork, you should, normally, be able to retain the income from it. The Supply of land has as much to do with this as does the supply of pencils.
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Artists would surrender control of their work to the state in exchange for a steady income....
Discuss...
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So are we arguing whether copyright should exist at all, or are we arguing about duration?
I thought I'd made it perfectly clear that my objection is not to the existence of copyright. For the third time, I accept that creators are entitled to be paid for their efforts. Rather, I object to the ridiculous terms currently provided by statute. My heart doesn't bleed for the "poor songwriters" of the UK who only get copyright in their lyrics for 50 years. If you can't make money off something when you've got a monopoly right over it for that long, what's going to have changed in 20 years' time?
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3410,
Copyright's not just about making money, but also about control of usage.
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The families of artists who earn very little from their work are more important than the families of other low-income earners,
I don't think anybody said that; you may want to check your sources.Not directly, no, but I've asked several times why the family of an artist should be entitled to this state-sanctioned income stream that isn't available to others who may be subsisting through their income-earning years. Since nobody's engaged on that point, I had to draw the conclusion that you think the families of cleaners and other minimum-wage earners are of less significance than the families of artists. After all, I don't see you demanding that Spotless Services have to keep paying the wages of any of their employees who die while in their employ just because their low incomes meant they couldn't provide for their family's future financial security.
far in excess of a human lifetime
20 years isn't very far in excessIt's not a 20-year monopoly, it's currently a life-plus-50-years monopoly, and if we sign an FTA with the US you can be sure it'll become life-plus-70 or such longer period as gets passed into US law the next time Mickey is on the verge of becoming public property. It hasn't been 20 years for quite a long time. 20 years is for patents, and most people think that's quite long enough. Which raises another question: why are artistic works of greater value than inventions? I'm not going to improve healthcare outcomes with a nice painting or a good book, but I might invent a new type of dressing (as has been done with manuka honey recently) or a better type of suture. Right now I only get 20 years to make money off those, then the world at large can use them and I'm not entitled to a cent. Do you want patent terms to be extended too, to match copyright terms?
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The point is that if you create a house or an artwork, you should, normally, be able to retain the income from it. The Supply of land has as much to do with this as does the supply of pencils.
If you want to try and conflate IP and real property, then go for your life. Me, I'm going to stick with arguing about one or t'other. Copyright lets you stop others from creating something like something that you've created, but in theory ideas and expressions should be limitless. Real property is a tangible, finite resource. Once I own a section of land, it's only available for your ownership if I'm prepared to sell it. That land's not going away, but there's no more to be made once all the land's used up, either (reclamation's hardly a sustainable alternative).
You cannot argue about one and then bring in the other. They're totally distinct concepts. Scarcity, etc, comes into play with real property because I cannot own something that you own, and vice versa. But ideas aren't constrained in the same way. If you really think you can bring real property laws into the IP realm, I'm just going to give up the argument. -
3410,
MP,
Well, whatever you like, but I can't see how physical scarcity has anything at all to do with this. Good ideas are also in short supply, and are therefore valuable.As far as life-plus-70 goes though, I agree; that's b.s.
I suspect we're a little bit at cross-purposes, and in fact not in as much disagreement as it appears. Anyway, thanks for the chat. :)
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Not directly, no, but I've asked several times why the family of an artist should be entitled to this state-sanctioned income stream that isn't available to others who may be subsisting through their income-earning years.
Because artists are denied the immediate lump sum payment corresponding to the long term advantage that society derives from their work. In exchange, artists are promised that society will pay when the work is used. The artist earned the money at the point of creation, and then receives that over the life-plus-50.
That's pretty well exactly equivalent to buying a bond and living off the interest -- society is given something of value and then repays over time. The artist earned that money and can thus bequeath it, whereas the cleaner hasn't and therefore can't.
It's not a 20-year monopoly, it's currently a life-plus-50-years monopoly, and if we sign an FTA with the US you can be sure it'll become life-plus-70 or such longer period as gets passed into US law the next time Mickey is on the verge of becoming public property. It hasn't been 20 years for quite a long time. 20 years is for patents, and most people think that's quite long enough.
Yet you bitched about a scenario where 20 years after the author was dead, there was still a copyright.
Which raises another question: why are artistic works of greater value than inventions?
This is meaningless, by the way. It's like walking into a room, and being told that there's a prize A for pulling the black marble out of a bag of four white or a prize B for picking the red marble out of eight yellows and then exclaiming that clearly prize A is the one to go for.
No, not until you know the value of prize A and B.
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Because artists are denied the immediate lump sum payment corresponding to the long term advantage that society derives from their work. In exchange, artists are promised that society will pay when the work is used. The artist earned the money at the point of creation, and then receives that over the life-plus-50.
But isn't part of the benefit that the work can be used as a base for future works? Plenty of material out there today has its genesis in works that have passed into the public domain. As I posited above, how much the poorer would society be if the works of Shakespeare and Mozart weren't available for all and sundry to build upon? If the sole benefit is the work's existence, then surely the second a book goes out of print, or a painting is sold, copyright should cease to exist? After all, the artist has now received as much money for the work as they ever will (I'll ignore the French system for art works), so why keep the monopoly around?
That's pretty well exactly equivalent to buying a bond and living off the interest -- society is given something of value and then repays over time. The artist earned that money and can thus bequeath it, whereas the cleaner hasn't and therefore can't.
Yes, but the bond is used to finance something else again. It's not just goods-for-money, it's money-for-money-for-goods-and-or-services. The money raised by the bond goes into producing yet another asset, benefiting more people. This is part of where trying to conflate real and intellectual property breaks down, and why I won't argue on points that are basically "But it works this way for real property."
Yet you bitched about a scenario where 20 years after the author was dead, there was still a copyright.
So? That suddenly shortens the term from life-plus-50 to life-plus-20 just on my say-so? I was raising a random gripe, I wasn't trying to suggest a scenario that's based on the precise statutory situation.
As for your marbles, patents and copyrights are from the same family. They're a statute-granted monopoly on use of the product of an intellectual exercise. Comparing the terms is completely valid, since the only reason they exist at all is by action of the law. Inventions have a clear benefit to society, or at least that's the rationale behind protecting them through the patent monopoly. Works of art, literature and music also benefit society, through cultural enrichment, but if they remain (effectively) forever out of reach for others to make use of them, how much of their real benefit is realised? Copyright is so broad and restrictive, in its current form, that much of our popular culture is out of bounds to even our children.
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Good ideas are also in short supply, and are therefore valuable.
Yes, they are. But if you happen to have the good idea first, and I can't prove that I had it without being exposed to your work (and with the internet, that's a pretty tough ask), then you've got a monopoly on expressing the idea in the same way. If the idea happens to have been patented, then I cannot even use the independent discovery defence. If you've got copyright in a musical composition, I cannot use more than two or three bars, especially if they're vaguely distinctive, without infringing copyright. I cannot have that song playing recognisably in the background of a movie, even if it's just on in a shop that I walk past, without having to get permission. I cannot take a photo of your painting and publish it without your permission. If a certain Auckland sculptor gets his way, I won't be able to take photos of installed public sculptures (the thing that looks like part of a buried building, on Ponsonby Rd, is actually a sculpture) and then use those photos, that I took, without your permission. Well, not for another 50-or-more years, anyway.
So while good ideas may be in short supply, it doesn't necessarily justify locking them up for many decades. We should be thankful that it's not possible to copyright the formula for a story (be it a move, a play, or a novel), because then we'd really be in the poo.
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Okay, so there's a copyright law - how many artists sue for copyright infringement in NZ? I'm thinking small time stuff here - as an example, I saw fake paintings being sold at a market for about $50 each. These were photos of real paintings done by real artists, put onto sheet canvas, with a textured surface to make them look hand painted. I thought I recognised a couple as works by lesser known painters, but the signatures were other names entirely. And the canvases were all the same size... so I did some research when I got home & found what i thought was one of these paintings. I went back to the market but the sellers had gone. No identification or bizzo cards of course.
Now, the real artist would have to be extremely vigilant & waste lots of time checking that fakes weren't circulating. It wouldn't be worth the effort, nor would taking a case against cheapo ripoffs because lawyers cost & the rippers probably wouldn't have any $$ to pay up with anyway.
And does the public care, as long as they can buy cheap fakes, like the Chinese fakes industry that churns out masses of van gogh, monet etc etc replicas for lounge room walls?
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I should note that I'm using artist in the broad sense of any creative type, mainly.
(I'm ignoring folk art as being special, basically.)
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If the sole benefit is the work's existence, then surely the second a book goes out of print, or a painting is sold, copyright should cease to exist? After all, the artist has now received as much money for the work as they ever will
No, artists can continue to get financial benefit from their work for as long as they have copyright. If you want to reproduce a painting, you have to get the permission of the artist, no matter who owns the actual artwork. You most likely have to get the permission of the owner of the work as well.
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I, finally, got around to reading Trotters piece.
He is, totally, correct in his assumption of a which hunt on Peters as a smear on Labour and its supporters. Anyone that dissagrees with this is a gullable muppet.
Vote Labour, keep the faith. -
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If the sole benefit is the work's existence, then surely the second a book goes out of print, or a painting is sold, copyright should cease to exist? After all, the artist has now received as much money for the work as they ever will
No, artists can continue to get financial benefit from their work for as long as they have copyright. If you want to reproduce a painting, you have to get the permission of the artist, no matter who owns the actual artwork. You most likely have to get the permission of the owner of the work as well.
I was referring to the benefit to society, not the benefit to the artist (and like Keir I'm use "artist" in its broad sense, not the "fine arts" sense). Obviously there's potential benefit to the artist for as long as copyright is in effect, but I'm extremely leery about granting state-sanctioned monopolies that have no concomitant benefit to society as a whole. Which is, pretty much, the summation of my entire objection to a life-plus copyright term.
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I, finally, got around to reading Trotters piece.
He is, totally, correct in his assumption of a which hunt on Peters as a smear on Labour and its supporters. Anyone that dissagrees with this is a gullable muppet.
Vote Labour, keep the faith.The funny thing is, Steve, I'm never sure whether you're taking the piss or not. But don't forget that Winston was also subjected to the "political equivalent of gang-rape", and those cheeky darkies in the Maori Party should STFU and listen to Big Bwana Trotter who knows what's best.
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