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Bringing Copyright Down To An Optimal Length |
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The economist Rufus Pollock has calculated that the optimal length of copyright should be 14 years beyond the life of the author. (You can see the calculations for yourself [pdf], if you have a head for that kind of thing) That optimal length comes from weighing the rights of the artist in contrast to the rights of the public. Without some copyright protections, artists have little incentive to create new works, as those works won’t be protected. However, work benefits the public when it falls out of copyright into the public domain, often inspiring future works.
Today in America, and in most other industrialized nations, the length of copyright is well beyond 14 years. Terms of 50-70 years are more common. In America, every time the copyright on Mickey Mouse is set to expire, the Disney corporation among others lobbies Congress to extend the copyright length. These 20 year extensions, passed in 1976 and again in 1998, essentially freeze the advancement of the year of public domain, meaning as copyright grows longer no works made after 1923 will ever become public domain.
If the optimal length of copyright is 14 years, how do we go about changing the law to let works expire into the pubic domain? I feel the answer starts with the artists themselves.
Artists are the ones who are supposed to be protected by copyright. They are the ones making money from their work and they are the ones who supposedly want this protection. And by conventional thinking, longer copyrights are in their best interests. The longer a work remains under copyright, the longer an artists can make money on it.
Reality, especially in the music business, says otherwise. Copyright has become meaningless in some circles due to rabid file sharing. With people spending less money on copyrighted music, the core money-making business or musicians is threatened. File sharers don’t care what copyright laws say, and file sharing is here to stay. To counteract this unstoppable force, musicians are changing their business model.
Musicians now try and make money in other ways. Musicians realize that there is money to be made on tour, that there is money in concert tickets, merchandise, and mobile content. The album is not the product of the future, and so the album becomes the advertising vehicle. There are groups of artists who are against digital rights management technologies designed to protect their copyrights. Their basic message is that extended copyrights and draconian protections harm their ability to spread their work. They would rather have more people hear their art than less, instead making their money on touring and merchandising. More importantly, they rightly point out that long copyrights benefit big artists more than small, and they want to level the playing field.
These independent artists should be leading the charge against 70 year copyrights. These artists should be forming coalitions to lobby Congress and urging their fans to disregard copyright law (as some have done). With the rise of the Internet, the strength of indie art in America is gaining strength. They will be able to join together to advocate for their interests. I think those interests include reducing copyright length to their optimal level. Copyright law is designed for artists, and so if artists want change, they need to be the ones to make it. Copyright in America has become harmful, protecting rights long after it stops being fair and promoting enforcement policies that target the customer as a criminal. I believe that many, if not most, artists lament what copyright has become. If they are serious about that sentiment, change needs to start with them.
(If there are any artists reading, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the issue below in the comments.)
I’m not so certain of that disadvantage. These days, almost anything can be done live. Either way, you’d still have a market with signed merchandise, personalization, mobile content, etc…
Would “pay for protection” work? If you want copyright protection, pay for it. (Details later.)
Interesting idea. I guess for me, that still doesn’t hit the heart of the issue. If file sharing is going to happen whether copyright holders want it to or not (and that looks like it is the case), then paying for extra length protection really isn’t going to solve the problem. Musicians will still have to change their business model. However, I do like the idea in that I think it would generally shorten overall copyright lengths. For the price to be fair, the extra years of copyright would have to cost as much as the public sphere loses by having that copyright expire into the public domain. I would put that cost pretty high, meaning that very few artists would go ahead and extend copyright protection, thus lowering the average length.