What If Copyrights Only Lasted For Five Years?
Copyright limits
A recent article in informationweek.com proposed limiting the term of copyright to five years as a way to deal with the recording industries recent abusive lawsuits. The results of such a change would be far reaching and immediate.
If the proposed change were ever introduced in congress the first response by the affected industries, would be a preemptive strike in congress. Airlines would have to add extra flights to handle the massive traffic from the lobbiests flying in from across the country in an attempt to stop the bill. If somehow the bill made it through congress despite the massive lobbying and the enormous sums of money that would be thrown at legislators the industry would be changed forever.
The short term changes to the recording, publishing and movie industries would be ground shaking. The stock market would react immediately to the loss of the perceived value of the intellectual property and the share prices of affected companies would drop. In the loss of value many companies would be bought out and some might not survive. Those that managed to survive through the first few months would scramble to find new business models that could replace the long term income companies have grown to expect from their products. The benefit to the public from these changes would also be dramatic.
Authors would be forced to create more works not having a guaranteed income from past creations. The movie and music industries would have to bring new content out more often. The probable result would be many more, less expensive movies and far more albums being released in an attempt to create more new content. Authors would likely release more short serials and anthologies of short stories.
The public would immediately receive a windfall of public domain content. Overnight, websites specializing in distributing the newly public domain material would spring up everywhere. With all of the free modern content ebook hardware would be in demand along with other portable media devices. The telecommunications industry would need to scramble to install enough additional bandwidth capacity to handle the transmission of all the movies, music, and books that would appear online. The dollar CD pile at your local mega store would double or triple in size. Content piracy would become nearly non existent as the best content from the last eighty years would be immediately available for free. New content would be more creative and less stagnant as producers would need to compete with all the free content available.
The prices for specialized content would drop because the information available in the public domain would be far more up to date. Computer manuals, student text books, and how-to manuals would all be available only slightly out of date. Student text books would need to have drastically better content to justify production, instead of the current system where minor changes are inserted then schools or professors are influenced to update the books to force students to buy new textbooks instead of used. Computer books for many modern programming languages and programs would be available for free forcing companies to innovate and create new content to ensure a continued revenue.
Large numbers of jobs would be created as the desire for more content by the various publishing and content industries manifested. Additional jobs would be created in technology fields as web designers, programmers and network administrators would all be needed for the newly created distribution channels.
In the long term the book, movie, and music industries would adjust to the changed copyright term. Business models would be changed to allow for more profit up front, and the creation of more content. Copyright would again do what it was intended to do, enrich the public domain by forcing authors, musicians, and production companies to create more content, if they wanted to have a continuous revenue stream. Derivative content would be everywhere, new episodes of classic shows, movies based on books now out of copyright, and songs re-recorded. The music, book, and movie industries are some of the only industries where one can do a job and continue to get paid for it for life. Why should this be the case? Is an author looking for another pay check more likely to write a new novel or one that is receiving regular royalty checks?
The changes to our society from implementing a five year copyright would be profound, but almost all to the benefit of the consumer. Congress as always is more interested in protecting the interest of big corporations rather than the public. They are more interested in keeping the corporate cash flowing than following the spirit of the constitution so one should not look for this to happen anytime soon. If it did happen though, you the consumer would be back in control. Piracy would not be a problem as all the content anyone could want would be available for free and the publishing industries would have to price their products competitively while making access easy to compete.
Resources:
If the proposed change were ever introduced in congress the first response by the affected industries, would be a preemptive strike in congress. Airlines would have to add extra flights to handle the massive traffic from the lobbiests flying in from across the country in an attempt to stop the bill. If somehow the bill made it through congress despite the massive lobbying and the enormous sums of money that would be thrown at legislators the industry would be changed forever.
The short term changes to the recording, publishing and movie industries would be ground shaking. The stock market would react immediately to the loss of the perceived value of the intellectual property and the share prices of affected companies would drop. In the loss of value many companies would be bought out and some might not survive. Those that managed to survive through the first few months would scramble to find new business models that could replace the long term income companies have grown to expect from their products. The benefit to the public from these changes would also be dramatic.
Authors would be forced to create more works not having a guaranteed income from past creations. The movie and music industries would have to bring new content out more often. The probable result would be many more, less expensive movies and far more albums being released in an attempt to create more new content. Authors would likely release more short serials and anthologies of short stories.
The public would immediately receive a windfall of public domain content. Overnight, websites specializing in distributing the newly public domain material would spring up everywhere. With all of the free modern content ebook hardware would be in demand along with other portable media devices. The telecommunications industry would need to scramble to install enough additional bandwidth capacity to handle the transmission of all the movies, music, and books that would appear online. The dollar CD pile at your local mega store would double or triple in size. Content piracy would become nearly non existent as the best content from the last eighty years would be immediately available for free. New content would be more creative and less stagnant as producers would need to compete with all the free content available.
The prices for specialized content would drop because the information available in the public domain would be far more up to date. Computer manuals, student text books, and how-to manuals would all be available only slightly out of date. Student text books would need to have drastically better content to justify production, instead of the current system where minor changes are inserted then schools or professors are influenced to update the books to force students to buy new textbooks instead of used. Computer books for many modern programming languages and programs would be available for free forcing companies to innovate and create new content to ensure a continued revenue.
Large numbers of jobs would be created as the desire for more content by the various publishing and content industries manifested. Additional jobs would be created in technology fields as web designers, programmers and network administrators would all be needed for the newly created distribution channels.
In the long term the book, movie, and music industries would adjust to the changed copyright term. Business models would be changed to allow for more profit up front, and the creation of more content. Copyright would again do what it was intended to do, enrich the public domain by forcing authors, musicians, and production companies to create more content, if they wanted to have a continuous revenue stream. Derivative content would be everywhere, new episodes of classic shows, movies based on books now out of copyright, and songs re-recorded. The music, book, and movie industries are some of the only industries where one can do a job and continue to get paid for it for life. Why should this be the case? Is an author looking for another pay check more likely to write a new novel or one that is receiving regular royalty checks?
The changes to our society from implementing a five year copyright would be profound, but almost all to the benefit of the consumer. Congress as always is more interested in protecting the interest of big corporations rather than the public. They are more interested in keeping the corporate cash flowing than following the spirit of the constitution so one should not look for this to happen anytime soon. If it did happen though, you the consumer would be back in control. Piracy would not be a problem as all the content anyone could want would be available for free and the publishing industries would have to price their products competitively while making access easy to compete.
Resources:
- Resources: From slashdot: Copyright Cutback Proposed As RIAA Solution
- From informationweek.com: RIAA Behaving Badly; Let's Cut Their Copyright Privileges
Re: What If Copyrights Only Lasted For Five Years?
The increase in quantity would be from a desire to make money. It would mostly affect best selling authors and corporately owned media. Most authors do not make much money off of their books after the first couple of years, only a very few authors have books that ever go into reprint after the initial run.
This increase in quantity would actually only be from the best authors. Those that could normally sit around and collect royalty checks for years.
Everyone's objection to this has been that it would hurt authors. I say yet again, copyright is not for authors it is to increase the material in the public domain. Congress has made copyright into a lifelong grant that in no way resembles the original intent, which was to increase the material in public domain.
This increase in quantity would actually only be from the best authors. Those that could normally sit around and collect royalty checks for years.
Everyone's objection to this has been that it would hurt authors. I say yet again, copyright is not for authors it is to increase the material in the public domain. Congress has made copyright into a lifelong grant that in no way resembles the original intent, which was to increase the material in public domain.