Copyright and Plagiarism – Your Opinions Please.
I’ve been ‘discussing’ this with @rah about copyright. @rah is a music producer. @rah believes everything is created by humanity and therefore should belong to humanity, and ‘free’.
In the UK, we have the most stringent copyright laws in the world. Just the act of typing up these words on my computer this morning means they are copyright and no one has the right to copy them and use them for their own profit without permission from me. Whether that means I give the permission freely or for a charge is down to me. I created the sequence of words and by that act, this sequence is mine.
Proving it would have made me money is the thing though. Unless you’re famous, with a great background in earning from your wordsmith skills, you don’t have much of a chance against Joe Nobody who made a couple of hundred dollars by posting your work to sites and taking the credit. If someone famous like Dorothy la Fame took your story and fiddled with it a little (or not at all) and published, making thousands or millions of dollars from it and you can PROVE she stole your work, then the world is indeed your oyster – if you win the court case.
In America, there are businesses that take care of the copyrighting for writers. For a charge (of course) they will register the writer’s works, but if you look hard enough, you can do it yourself. The protection afforded by registering your work helps if you have to take a plagiarist to court for infringement. It doesn’t help with proving how much ‘damage’ you suffered and therefore, how much money you lost.
The money you ‘win’ in that court case all depends upon how much you’ve lost by the other’s theft. How much money would you have earned if you had published? Maybe a little more than Joe Nobody, but more than likely, a hell of a lot less than Dorothy la Fame.
In my opinion, the same goes for all aspects of creativity. I don’t believe MY work should benefit anyone else UNLESS they have asked for permission to use it and certainly NOT if they put their name to the work and take the credit for it. Or, if they just leave their name off and allow others to assume it’s theirs.
Do you think once a photograph or piece of music is out in the open, posted on the internet and discoverable, it should therefore pass into public domain, or do you believe the work and credit remains with the original author/creator long past the ‘death plus 70 years’ it is currently?
In my first book, I used the poem by Rudyard Kipling – Female of the Species. I credited him with the work of course, but I didn’t need to gain permission because of ‘fair use’ and the ‘death plus 70 years’ clause. Tolkein’s works are the only ones I know that have been contested in court and the rights belong to his descendants for longer than that term.
So, don’t use other artists/creatives work UNLESS you cite sources and give credit where credit is due.
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
Images from Pixabay
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Don't forget that copyright started (in the Statute of Anne) as a tool for
A) censoring and
B) giving a very profitable monopoly to a group of printers (who, in turn, would watch the censoring, even having the right to destroy "unlawful" printing presses).
You could say it was one of the first Public Private Partnerships.
Censoring is still a much used possibility of copyright. Also monopoly for earning money with works the "owner" should no longer have any monopoly right over, if you ask me.
btw: The statute of Anne (copyright) was abolished for the censoring reason and it tooo decades for a new copyright.
The US founding fathers where very much split about copyright. Thats why the connected it to a prerequisite "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" - if it does not do this, it is unconstitutional.
In Theory.
A study compared the number of works available under copyright and after it, measured by titles available at Amazon, devided into decades.
They found that the in the decade after the copyright run out more books were available then in the 3rd decade of copyright. Since the decades were made on the calender decades and not "age of book", you could say that after about 14 years copyright prevents books from being printed.
Incidentally (or not) the first copyright and patent times were 14 years and 17 years.
not really, though i upvoted you for the interesting legal discussion
You're mixing up the Statute of Anne (enacted in 1710) with several laws that came before it. Most notably the The royal charter of the stationers company in the 1500s and The Licensing act in the 1600s
Copyright existed prior to the statute of anne. The difference was that unlike modern copyright, pre-18th-century copyright was a right granted to publishers, not authors. The statute of Anne was significant in that it redefined copyright as a right given to authors.
The statute of Anne harmed publishers, as it forced them to pay royalties and allowed authors to control who published their book. That is to say, it took rights away from publishers and gave them to authors. You could argue that it did so incompletely., but it was definitely a move away from commercial monopoly over information.
It ended the abuses under the royal charter of the stationers company and the licensing act (including government sponsored censorship and the right of the government or the stationers company to enter a property and destroy "unlawful" printing presses)
Isn't the word copyright from the Anne?
I had to look that up. The word copyright actually doesnt appear in the statute of anne.
The word "copyright" comes from the Stationers Company, which was granted a royal-charter-backed monopoly on book printing int he 1500s. It was their royal charter that allowed the smashing of printing presses and such.
The way it was used at the time, copyright literally ment the right of the book publishers to copy and publish the book. The statute of anne established the modern meaning of the term, but didnt actually use it.
from "Copyright in Historical Perspective"
I'm not quite sure of the point you're making. Would you elaborate further please? :)
Just throwing in a few facts to my opinion that copyright is out of control.
Out of control? Copyright laws protect artists and creatives from theft. How is it out of control?
Which theft?
Theft is if you take away something that the other does not have anymore after the theft. If I take your sentence and post it somewhere else, then MORE people have it. Quite the contrary to theft.
Copyright is a monopoly (with all the bad things monopolies have) created with a purpose: The US constitution has put it down quite good.
If copyright does not work towards this, it's broken and needs to be fixed. That it is broken should be very very clearly visible, not only on the Amazon numbers I wrote above.
Think of it this way then.
You make a post here on Steemit. It's a good post and someone decides to copy it and post it with different tags, just five minutes after you post it.
A few whales see your post and you're making more than you've ever made on Steemit for any of your work to date.
The other post, copied from yours also attracts the attention of some whales, but they have more steempower than 'your' whales and the other guy's post makes double.
Should that money have been yours or the other guy's?
After all, you wrote the post, took time to research your data and the pictures. All he did was copy it and use different tags.
My point is, it is the Author/Creator's privilege where, when or whether to post their work, no one else's - ever.
5 minutes is not 70 years after death. I think you misunderstood it.
I am not for abolishing both authors moral right nor copyright.
I am a "society-maximist" though. So if copyright leads to less works available after time X, then it should stop at time X.
Besides: Nobody is writing a book today with the warm thought that in 100 years her great-great-grandchildren will be able to earn money with it, mostly because there are no great-great-grandchildren and because that possibility is extremely remote.
Hmm... I'm not yet dead but you said:
I could be mistaken but I assumed you meant taking anyone's work and posting it wherever you like is your right and not theft.
"meant taking anyone's work and posting it wherever you like is your right and not theft."
Its not theft. If it is your right is a debatable thing. Currently the majority says no.
After all, you "stole" all those words and sentences from someone else before you, so why should those after you not have the right you yourself exercised?
We are tiny spots of dust on the shoulders of giants.
Let's go back to my example:
Should that money have been yours or the other guy's?
Depends on your stance on copyright ;)
The poster has (and yes, should have imho) a monopoly right on the distribution and monetization. Definitely in the first 5 minutes ^^
And that is the point of copyright.
Thats the point of copyright as YOU understand it.
But that the author should get money is just the latest addition to copyright, after all that other stuff. In fact even today most authors have to pay if they want something published. It definitely is not the main point of copyright and not the intention of the creators of copyright.
To "And that is the point of copyright."
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/01/modern-copyright-was-built-fundamental-assumption-internet-reversed/
Dutch copyright law is similar; the mere act of writing gives you copyright. I also don't think that what I post is automatically in the public domain. It is mine until I say otherwise, like I do for photos I give to Wikipedia. I make some money on the side as a photographer, and it would be a real problem for me if all my photos went into the public domain the moment I advertise them online.
this is true everywhere, including the US. Some countries enforce more actively, but for intellectual property law like copyrights, trademarks and patents, most countries (nearly all) rules and laws are based on worldwide international treaties.
Someone in the US offering to "register" your work to provide it with copyright protection is a scammer.
Exactly so. My works are on Amazon, Smashwords etc, but it's my choice to distribute them in serial form on Steemit, no one else's.
not necessarily. The status of copyrighted material on steemit is murky in many ways. For example, you chose to distribute your work on steemit. Fair enough, you made that choice.
But what about busy? Your work will also be available there (because its on the steem blockchain). You might not have a problem with that. But if you did, you really wouldn't hace any option. What about future sites based on the steem blockchain, some of which might conceivably be for profit endeavors ? What about sites that aren't entirely steem blockchain based, but which access the steem blockchain using javascript.
The argument could be made (and im not saying that its necessarily the conclusion i agree with) that when you put your work on a public blockchain, it enters the public domain. An analagous situation would be, imagine if you wrote a poem, then printed that poem on a billboard.
Having done so, you cannot assert the right to stop someone from photographing the billboard and distributing the photograph.
One could also make the argument that youre giving non exclusive licensing to the steem blockchain. That is to say, that you accept that the steem blockchain can give it to anyone to display, but not to reuse.
its really the type of situation that doenst have much of a precedent.
Great Post! How about the case where you don't care if the content is copied and distributed in any fashion. Which consensus model should we use? The one who cares about distribution or the one who doesn't? And what about the middle ground where you can only distribute if you attribute properly? How would you arbitrate this on the block chain? Right now the only consensus I see is the feline. But as you know it is pretty dumb (at least Turing Test wise).
A lot of people want things for free, but not many would be willing to work for free. It's hard work making a living in the creative industries.
Exactly. :)
I already discussed about plagiarism problems when I joined steemit back in August. There is a blurry border to plagiarism. Copyright must also be in mind while blogging and curating. That's why I think that curating bots and curating without checking quality of content will lead to less quality stuff and more trash. This is a danger for steemit. Thanks for posting I do appreciate your post!
Thank you. I agree somewhat with your point. Without human intellect, there's little or no judgement on 'good' quality work. A detection bot can check for copying, but not necessarily copyright.
As a fellow music producer, I don't think everything should be free. Free to access, maybe, but not free for distribution. The time and effort it takes to create a piece of art is not free to the creator. They're sacrificing precious time to work. Unless there were some kind of universal basic income, then nothing should be "free". If a person's content is being distributed then that distribution is proof of worth. It proves that it's beneficiary to the people distributing it and that they believe their own consumers will benefit from seeing it. Content creation should be rewarded, and royalties should be rewarded to the original content creator when their content is distributed.
Exactly!
Oh, also:
I believe that's the basis of Communism... ;)
Eh, more Marxism than Communism. Communism includes a dictatorship and hierarchy to control the wealth distribution, whereas equal wealth distribution is the fundamental model behind Marxism. Communism is Marxist Socialism on steroids.
To be frank, I'm not a fan of either, nor any political ideology to be honest.
The ideology only works if everyone is equal and willing to give the same 100% as the next guy. That doesn't often happen; to paraphrase Wesley Snipes' Blade character, 'Some asshole is always trying to ice-skate uphill.' In other words, the human being is intent on being unique and therefore, we don't all work the same way. Some are grafters, some are thinkers. Who then decides when 100% is the same as the next guy's?
Precisely. It only works as much as we allow it too, therefore nothing can be definitively labelled when considering more than one perception. Nothing is 100%. It is what it is.
50% of work done is done "free". Unintentionally often.
Anyway, neither author nor distributor have a god given right for getting paid for their work. Just saying. Because that means if everybody can do that work, you no longer can get paid for it and the "work" disappears. As have a lot of other professions.
as an Australian you should know better how to behave
I think you misreplyed. If you mean me: I never was in australia. Not even in austria, I think...
I did - my most humble of apologies - you did not deserve that over Christmas. I shall make a note and you will be surprised nicely in the future. I am having a battle against my treatment on steemit which is sad but true.
My very best wishes to you and your family for 2017.
Namaste.
This is also what I think....!!
Thank you :)
Totally agree, cite sources, be open and don't try to use said sources for material gain.
Dead people are ripe for the picking when it's been a while which is always good!
That's a new slant on archaeology ;)
Heh heh!
The copyright laws are too strict, and they are useless in the form they exist now. They do more damage than gain. However, we need some kind of copyright law.
This is a good observation and I agree with the points you gave. In reality, especially with arts and creative work, the best artists out there not just copy ideas, but steal them shamelessly.
Pablo Picasso is widely quoted as having said that “good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
Concerning @rah, well there's a saying, if you don't work you don't eat. No not everything is free.
I think, with some people, copyright is a concept for other people to adhere to.
The first time @rah finds his/her work stolen, opinions may change.
I bet he uses pirated audio software
I couldn't possibly comment (or speculate) on that :)