Ages ago, I mentioned that I’d like to see a far more radical copyright reform than any I’ve seen proposed. One of Alas’ readers asked me how I’d design a copyright system.<\/p>\n
Well, I’d start with a few principles in mind…<\/p>\n
So what kind of copyright law would I enact, if I were elected despot someday?<\/p>\n
1) No more work-for-hire laws, period<\/b>. The creator or creator(s) are the ones who actually created the work (whatever that work is); their ownership of their own work cannot be sold or even given away. (I’ve blogged about the ways work-for-hire harms creators here <\/a>and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n What about currently existing work-for-hire creations? If possible, ownership of those works should be returned to their true creators. If that’s not possible (if the original creators have died, for instance), then the work becomes public domain.<\/p>\n 2) Compulsory licensing <\/b>should be the law of the land, allowing anyone to publish any work at will.<\/p>\n What is compulsory licensing? Just what it sounds like – “A compulsory license forces a<\/a> copyright (or patent) owner to permit someone else to use the work for a predetermined fee. Accordingly, it precludes the owner of the copyright (or patent) from refusing to license her work to other people…”<\/p>\n Say, for instance, I wanted to publish a proper edition of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone<\/i> – one in which the original British language is retained. I wouldn’t need permission to do that; I’d just need to start sending the royality checks to J.K. Rowling’s representatives.<\/p>\n 3) Derivative works <\/b>also benefit from compulsory licensing.<\/p>\n Current “fair use” laws would still apply. Authors would be free to use brief quotes from J.K. Rowling without permission in certain contexts (for an epigram, say, or as part of a scholarly book discussing Harry Potter).<\/p>\n But what if I write my own Harry Potter novel (“Harry Potter and the overly restrictive copyright law<\/i>“). Again, compulsory licensing would apply. I can write as many Harry Potter books as I want – but if they start turning a profit, I (or my publisher) must send royalty checks to J.K. Rowling. (Rowling’s percentage would be lower for this than for a straight-out reprinting, however.)<\/p>\n 4) Open book policy.<\/b> To keep corporations from falsely claiming that there are no profits to share, publication of a work – or a derivative work – legally obliges the publisher (distributor, label, studio, whatever) to completely open their books and financial records to the creator\u2019s legal and financial representatives.<\/p>\n 5) In collaborative works, each creator is a co-owner of the final creative product. <\/b>Everyone gets a share of the profits. The default (if no contract says otherwise) is for all creators’ profits to be divided equally between all creators; however, creators can write agreements to divide profits in a different manner.<\/p>\n 6) In collaborative works, each creator is the full owner of their own contribution <\/b>to the degree that their contribution can be separated from the creative work.<\/p>\n To see why this is needed, remember the old ABC sit-com Three’s Company<\/i>. When the show’s co-star Suzanne Sommers, who played “Chrissy,” left the show, she was arguably the most popular TV actress in the USA; yet no other TV network was willing to hire her for over five years. Why not? Because ABC, bitter over losing Sommers, threatened to sue any network that hired Sommers, on the grounds that ABC owned “Chrissy’s” distinctive likeness.<\/p>\n This is what inevitably happens when large corporations are permitted to own copyrights; rather than using them to encourage creativity, which should be the purpose of copyright, corporations use copyright to prevent other creators from creating.<\/p>\n Under my system, Sommers would have been free to continue to perform, without threat of a copyright lawsuit.<\/p>\n In other examples, Joss Whedan should be free to shop around his script to Aliens 4<\/i> around to other movie studios, since he was reportedly displeased with how the first script came out. Steve Gerber, who created Howard the Duck in an issue of The Incredible Hulk<\/i> (published by Marvel Comics), would fully own Howard, and be free to publish more Howard the Duck as he pleases. (Of course, Marvel can also publish their own version of Howard the Duck – but they’d have to pay Gerber royalties for publishing a derivative of his work).<\/p>\n That about covers it, I think\u2026 suggestions? Comments?.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ages ago, I mentioned that I’d like to see a far more radical copyright reform than any I’ve seen proposed. One of Alas’ readers asked me how I’d design a copyright system. Well, I’d start with a few principles in … Continue reading