First up, I agree with everything I have heard Lawrence Lessig say. I think Creative Commons is a great idea (remember I release lots of things under CC licenses, including this post and everything on this website that I can). I am also a realist however, and believe that the big companies / groups (RIAA / MPAA etc) will never go for it.
I think we need to try to reach a compromise with them, to increase the amount of public domain works. If we turn around and say everything must be Creative Commons, they will block us. We need to give them a reason to give up some work. Which would be an improvement.
To that end, I have put some thought into this. I discussed some of this on a Cranks episode a while back, but wanted to put out a post and start some discussion on it. I’m not claiming this is perfect. I’m not saying I’m right on these ideas. This is just currently what I think would be at least mildly interesting to all parties. Also I’m interested in your feedback. Just don’t say ‘its crap’ and leave it at that, please explain what you think needs improvement. The idea being we want something better then what we have, not something perfect. Then once we have something better, we can try to improve on that again and so on.
The number of years I list here I just picked a number for, basically. These can be changed based on the return. I know that most things that are released get most of their sales in the first few years, so the idea would be that this number of years would be where 99% of the return is.
- If you release a new work, unless otherwise stated (e.g. releasing it under a CC license), you get an immediate copyright for ten years.
- If you re-release something, unless it contains 51% or more new content, copyright is not extended. If it is something new, copyright is extended for another ten years. It must be in an equivalent form however.
- Fair use should be clarified for everyone. If you mash-up a song or use a song (e.g. in a YouTube video) you have to give attribution to the original creator, however if the income you make from that work is under a thousand dollars, it is fair use. All existing ‘fair use’ stuff stays!
- If another type of media creates a work based off of your copyrighted work (e.g. a movie is made from your book) then that extends your copyright on the book for ten years as long as the book is still under copyright.
The reasons for these, I mention below.
- This way things fall out of copyright faster, meaning more work in the public domain that people can use to create new works, just like everyone has done for ever. I’ll take this song someone made and put new lyrics on, or mash the music up etc. This is my ‘use it or lose it’ clause.
- This I dub the ‘Disney’ clause. This way, as long as Disney makes a new Mickey Mouse movie every decade (not just a rehash, hence the 51%) they get to keep copyright on it. Yes, this is probably a bad idea as they can have copyright forever on Mickey Mouse, however this way they should be on our side for this. Otherwise they will continue to press for longer and longer copyright so Mickey Mouse does not fall out of copyright. They can’t however just release a one minute Mickey cartoon to extend the copyright. It must be a series of 30 minutes cartoons, or a movie, like they have done in the past.
- I pick a thousand as I think some people will argue that it’s on YouTube or your website or whatever and you are getting ad revenue in therefore it is commercial. Picking a small amount of profit should avoid this, as long as it’s a small site and for ‘personal use’. If you have a huge site, you can’t just put other peoples stuff on there and make money off the ads!
- This one was after I heard about Forest Gump. The book didn’t do too well, but when the movie came out the book sold a ton more. Actually I have no idea if it was in the ‘ten years’ my ideas would make the copyright, but I feel we should allow this to try to increase ‘buy in’ as it were.
I’m sure I’m missing things in here. Would movie studios wait for ten years after a book is made to try to snap it up for free? Perhaps, but a rival studio could pick it up beforehand too.
I’m not sure how CDs would work. What if a band releases a ‘best of’ album. Should that extend the copyright on the work or not? I think it should, somehow. But we can’t just say a re-release extends copyright else you simply release a ‘new’ best of CD every 10 years and have perma-copyright. Anyone got a better idea?
I also like this ‘use it or lose it’ idea for patents. There are too many patent trolls around. If you are not using the patent actively then it should become public domain.
Email me, catch me in IRC, or phone me or whatever to let me know what you think. Again, just to repeat myself, constructive critisism please. I know this is not a perfect solution! But if you have ideas on how to improve these ideas, let me know. It has to be something that the RIAA / MPAA etc would go for, though and not just a ‘release everything under a CC’ license. Whilst I think that would be cool, Disney etc would not go for it.