Copyright Laws

[Love As Arson]

It's long past time for a little reality check. Copyright dates back to 16th century Venice. It was a mechanism for allowing writers to profit from their work by giving them a state-enforced monopoly. It has continued since that time, with the state-granted monopoly being extended both in scope and duration. Copyrights now cover music, movies, video games, and a wide range of other material. The duration has also been repeatedly extended so that copyrights in the United States now persist for 95 years after the death of the author.

While copyrights do provide an incentive for creative work, they are an extremely inefficient mechanism for this end. It is most efficient when items are sold at their marginal cost. Economists generally get infuriated about the economic distortions that are created when tariffs of 10 percent or 20 percent are placed on items like steel or clothes. In the case of copyrights, material that could otherwise be transferred at zero cost, instead commands prices of $15 for CDs, $30 for movies, and even higher prices for other items, entirely because of the government-granted monopoly. For this reason, the economic distortions created by copyright dwarf the economic damage caused by other forms of trade protection.

There are many other mechanisms for supporting creative work, such as university funding (most professors are expected to publish in addition to their teaching), foundation funding, or direct public support. It is easy to design alternative mechanisms to expand this pool of non-copyright funding, such as the Artistic Freedom Voucher, which would give each person a small tax credit to support creative work of their choosing.

With the entertainment industry getting increasingly out of control, it is important that we start to develop better alternatives to copyright. We need to think of how we should support creative work in the 21st century and not let the entertainment industry drag us back into the 16th century.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=105&ItemID=13993

What are your thoughts on copyright laws? Are they outdated? Should artists seek out other methods to profit from their work?

[Villanova1L]

This merely says that we should do something different, it fails to answer what. I think copyrights/patents are the only way to protect the creative works of authors, musicians, artists, and other creative artists. If there is a better alternative I don't see it. To say it is going back to the 16th century is absurd, and the fact remains that cd sales are garbage because of the markup on cds not the copyrights protecting them.

[aminorthreat55]

Copyright laws were originally instituted to give rights to the authors of work, however they have been bastardized to simply allow for corporate control and profit making of the author's works. They need to be amended to restore that control to authors, as well as decreasing the periods that copyrights last for. Furthermore, public domain requirements should be relaxed.

[Villanova1L]

Copyrights still protect the author if the contracts they sign that distribute their material are fair. It's the job of the artist to enter a contract that allows control over his work, it isn't a fault of copyright, but poorly instructed artists.

[Love As Arson]

This merely says that we should do something different, it fails to answer what.
I never said it did. The point of the thread was to discuss what others might conceive of as alternatives to this.
I think copyrights/patents are the only way to protect the creative works of authors, musicians, artists, and other creative artists.
The problem, however, is that it does not protect the creative works for them.
To say it is going back to the 16th century is absurd, and the fact remains that cd sales are garbage because of the markup on cds not the copyrights protecting them.
The copyright gives the company sole rights to a release, thereby allowing it to set the prices, since one cannot get it in physical form from any other place.

Copyrights still protect the author if the contracts they sign that distribute their material are fair. It's the job of the artist to enter a contract that allows control over his work, it isn't a fault of copyright, but poorly instructed artists.
The concentration of wealth and power in a small set of labels limits an artist's options.