[Baron Munchausen]

Copyright of characters vs. stories...

That is something of a problem. A trademark is traditionally something used to identify a business to its customers. Mickey Mouse is a trademark because he's the 'face' of Disney. The other characters invented by Disney are not necessarily trademarks. Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Goofy, Pluto, etc... Control freaks like Walt Disney, Inc. are obviously not going to be pleased with losing control of even minor characters. But then corporations are often not pleased that they have competition at all, witness Microsoft and the 'pay me for every machine you ship' license on DOS and Windows. The public has to get off its collective arse and make Congress understand that copyright has gone to far. There's no other solution to the problem.

A reasonable limit on copyright duration is just going to have to be sufficient. Give people the time to get some decent benefits from what they invent, and then have a firm end of copyright. I advocate 21 years myself. This is the traditional length of a 'generation' even though we've lowered the voting age to 18 recently. (That was because of the complaints during the Vietnam War that 18 year-olds were old enough to die in war but not old enough to vote, remember.) Anyway, 21 years after a book, song, movie is released you've got a whole new generation of people who have grown up with it. It's just 'part of the world' for them. They can't remember a time when it wasn't around. So, it's time to let it go.

Yes, corporations 'owning' patents and copyrights is a problem. It's the source of the current warping of the law, actually. Because of the direct links of stock value to the compensation of top officers of the corporation suits have an incentive to try every trick they can come up with to increase the bottom line for their corporate monster^H^H^H^H^H^H^ master. You do know that almost all employment contracts include the right of the employer to all creations of the employee on the job, and sometimes even on their own time? Many people don't realize what they are signing, but those contracts really do say that the company owns everything you do. This is something else that needs to be stopped by Congress -- i.e. the general public has to get off their arse.

A real solution to the 'making a living' problem for artists of all stripes would be to set legal limits for the percentage of price for a copyrighted work that a corporate 'distributor' could take. Thus guaranteeing the 'original creator' a certain portion of his earnings. As it is now for example, most contemporary record labels don't pay 'their artists' a red cent in royalties. They have structured the contracts in (frankly illegal) ways that guarantee them all the profits and the artists get all the charges, resulting in the artists owing the corporations money. Most acts only make money on tour. A few actually do own at least a share in their own labels (Anni di Franco, Loreena McKennit, Metallica) and actually get some of the corporate profits.

(Hint: If you buy the CD of your favorite artist directly from them AT THE CONCERT they get the share that normally goes to the retail outlet. This is orders of magnitude more than they would normally get. Don't buy the CD at the store. Wait. Go to see them on tour and buy it directly from them. This doesn't solve the corporate greed problem, but it helps the artists.)

The most evil, slimey, disgusting trick of all is the 'work for hire' clause in those contracts. According to current copyright law a 'performance' cannot be a work for hire. Yet they have had this clause defining all songs/albums as 'works for hire' in their contracts for decades. If the artist notices they get the glad-hander reply 'but that's not valid so it doesn't mean anything'... yes, but all the time they have been lobbying to CHANGE THE LAW. They nearly got it passed a few years ago (it was an amendment or 'rider' on the 1998 copyright extension as I recall). Those b*st*rd suits have been plotting to rob 'their artists' once and for all even while they are whining before congress about how this 'piracy' hurts 'their artists'. How many of the complainers (ahem, Lars from Metallica?) even know this? It was just barely kicked out of the bill before it was finalized.

[ July 16, 2003, 21:32: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]