Cali_Man said:
I think you people crying out about the RIAA's injustices, etc. need to calm down. Lets just wait and see what comes of this before we organize the lynch mob. Maybe prices won't be affected much, maybe they'll back down, maybe people will just stop paying for music again.
The unfortunate reality is that Copyright Law is currently
way out of balance with what is fair and reasonable. Its not just the RIAA's fault, but also Big Corp's like Disney who want to keep works like Mickey Mouse from passing into the public domain.
And as one poster said earlier, how would this be any different than other commodities, such as CD's/DVD's?
Because it is different. When the commodity's owner has his money tied up in a physical product, he has immediate incentives to adjust his prices so as to move inventory that's costing him money to maintain. However, when the product becomes virtual (a download), he has effectively ZERO dollars tied up in inventory...and thus, he is essentially under ZERO compulsion to ever lower his prices.
Can't really fault a business for following a simply supply and demand chart....
True, if classical Supply/Demand rules applied.
But they don't apply here, because under current Copyright Law, the holder has
exclusive distribution rights for roughly a Century.
The first copyright law in the USA was the Copyright Act of 1790. It granted a period of 14 years + option to renew for another 14 = 28 years maximum.
Today (as per the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act), a work for hire is currently protected for 95 years, and a self-owned work is "life of the author plus 70 years".
Futhermore, the history of US Copyrights is that whenever we've gotten close to works starting to pass into the Public Domain, we slap another 20 year extension on. This is exactly what happened in 1998.
And to give you an idea of just how long this "exclusive rights" monopolistic protection is, consider Elvis Presley.
Elvis died at the tragically young age of 42 (January 8, 1935 August 16, 1977), and has now been dead for almost 30 years. But we're still another 42 years from when "Blue Suide Shoes" will pass into the Public Domain..
...assuming that we don't have yet another copyright extension (a bad assumption).
With the Estate's royalties on his songs not ending until the year 2047:
His widow, Priscilla Presley (born 1945) would be 102 years old. Statistically, the odds are ~100% that she will never live to see the day.
His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley (born 1968) would be 79 years old. Odds are greater than 50% that she won't live to see the day, either.
How about Elvis's grandchildren Danielle (born 1989) and Benjamin (born 1992)?
They would even be 58 and 55 years old, respectively, and the only reason why they'll probably outsurvive the royalties is because Grandpa Elvis died so young. Had Elvis lived to even Age 60 (15 years less than statistical life expectancy), then they'd be 73 and 76 years old and odds are that only 1 of the 2 would have lived to see the day.
Personally, the music of Elvis was before my time. Nevertheless, the odds are that I'll die 10 years before his songs could pass into the public domain.
Now do keep in mind that I have no particular grief in providing legal protection to a "Work" to encourage creativity.
What I have a huge problem with is that the protection is literally 3 generations if its a mere song, but if its a Patentable Invention, its still only a mere 14 years.
Afterall, they're both notable Works from Creativity, so there's no logical reason why the period of protection for the two should not be identical.
If anything, because the standard for being issued a Patent is higher than for a Copyright (since Copyrights are automatic), logically, the protection for a Patent should be longer than a Copyright, not shorter.
-hh
