Copyright term

Expansion of U.S. copyright term (Assuming authors create their works at age 35 and live for 70 years)

Copyright term is the length of time copyright subsists in a work before it passes into the public domain.

Length of copyright

Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions. The length of the term can depend on several factors, including the type of work (e.g., musical composition or novel), whether the work has been published or not, and whether the work was created by an individual or a corporation. In most of the world, the default length of copyright is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years. In the United States, the term for most existing works is a fixed number of years after the date of creation or publication. In most countries (for example, the United States[1] and the United Kingdom[2]) copyright expires at the end of the calendar year in question.

The length and requirements for copyright duration are subject to change by legislation, and since the early 20th century there have been a number of adjustments made in various countries, which can make determining the copyright duration in a given country difficult. For example, the United States used to require copyrights to be renewed after 28 years to stay in force, and formerly required a copyright notice upon first publication to gain coverage. In Italy and France, there were post-wartime extensions that could increase the term by approximately six years in Italy and up to about 14 in France. Many countries have extended the length of their copyright terms (sometimes retroactively). International treaties, like the Berne Convention, establish minimum terms for copyrights, but these only apply to the signatory countries, and individual countries may grant longer terms than those set out in a treaty.[3]

Charts

Several charts have been made to help decipher the various copyright terms in the United States, such as:

Reception and discussion

Discussions about the optimal length of the copyright term (e.g. regarding the copyrights incentive for creative production) is significant part of public and scientific discurs and reception.[8][9][10][11]

In 2009, a paper by Rufus Pollock of University of Cambridge scientifically quantified the optimal copyright term length via an economical model with empirically-estimable parameters as duration of 15 years, significantly shorter than any currently existing copyright term.[11][12][13]

In 2014 a Rock, Paper, Shotgun article about the existence of orphaned classical video games raised a controversial public debate about copyright terms and public domain,[14][15][16] between game industry veterans like John Walker, George Broussard and Steve Gaynor.[17][18]

A March 2015 published Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation paper, analysed with a simulated model the relationship of scientific knowledge creation to copyright term length and concluded a decreased knowledge production on copyright term increases for the analysed context.[8]

As a curiosity, the famous work Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has a complex – and disputed – story of copyright expiry.[19]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 17 U.S.C. § 305
  2. ↑ "Amendments of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988". The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations. 1995.
  3. ↑ Nimmer, David (2003). Copyright: Sacred Text, Technology, and the DMCA. Kluwer Law International. p. 63. ISBN 978-90-411-8876-2. OCLC 50606064.
  4. ↑ Bell, Tom W. (July 23, 2008). "Copyright Term Chart: Trend of Maximum U.S. General Copyright Term". TomWBell.com.
  5. ↑ Clorox (diskussion) & Bell, Tom. W. (November 27, 2008). Vectorization of Tom Bell's graph, which shows expansion of U.S. copyright law.
  6. ↑ Hirtle, Peter B. (January 1, 2015). "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States". Cornell.edu.
  7. ↑ Sunstein, Kann, Murphy & Timbers LLP (2014). "Copyright Flowchart: Flowchart for determining when U.S. copyrights in fixed works expire". WINNING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY®.
  8. 1 2 Does Longer Copyright Protection Help or Hurt Scientific Knowledge Creation? Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 18 (2) 23 DOI: 10.18564/jasss.2720 "The prevailing trend in most simulations was that increasing the copyright term resulted decreased knowledge production." (31-Mar-2015)
  9. ↑ Copyright and wrong - Why the rules on copyright need to return to their roots on The Economist "The notion that lengthening copyright increases creativity is questionable, however. Authors and artists do not generally consult the statute books before deciding whether or not to pick up pen or paintbrush. And overlong copyrights often limit, rather than encourage, a work's dissemination, impact and influence." (Apr 8th 2010)
  10. ↑ Do patent and copyright law restrict competition and creativity excessively? on University of Chicago Law School by Becker & Posner "I am concerned that both patent and copyright protection, though particularly the former, may be excessive." (2012)
  11. 1 2 Watt, Richard (September 26, 2014). Handbook on the Economics of Copyright: A Guide for Students and Teachers. Edward Elgar Publishing. Retrieved 2015-01-11.
  12. ↑ Pollock, Rufus (2007-10-01). "OPTIMAL COPYRIGHT OVER TIME: TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND THE STOCK OF WORKS" (PDF). University of Cambridge. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-02-21. Retrieved 2015-01-11. The optimal level for copyright has been a matter for extensive debate over the last decade. Using a parsimonious theoretical model this paper contributes several new results of relevance to this debate. In particular we demonstrate that (a) optimal copyright is likely to fall as the production costs of `originals' decline (for example as a result of digitization) (b) technological change which reduces costs of production may imply a decrease or a decrease in optimal levels of protection (this contrasts with a large number of commentators, particularly in the copyright industries, who have argued that such change necessitates increases in protection) (c) the optimal level of copyright will, in general, fall over time as the stock of work increases.
  13. ↑ Pollock, Rufus (2009-06-15). "FOREVER MINUS A DAY? CALCULATING OPTIMAL COPYRIGHT TERM" (PDF). University of Cambridge. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-01-12. Retrieved 2015-01-11. The optimal term of copyright has been a matter for extensive debate over the last decade. Based on a novel approach we derive an explicit formula which characterises the optimal term as a function of a few key and, most importantly, empirically-estimable parameters. Using existing data on recordings and books we obtain a point estimate of around 15 years for optimal copyright term with a 99% confidence interval extending up to 38 years. This is substantially shorter than any current copyright term and implies that existing terms are too long.
  14. ↑ Walker, John (2014-01-29). "GOG's Time Machine Sale Lets You CONTROL TIME ITSELF". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2016-01-30. As someone who desperately pines for the PD model that drove creativity before the copyright industry malevolently took over the planet, it saddens my heart that a game two decades old isn’t released into the world.
  15. ↑ Walker, John (2014-02-03). "Editorial: Why Games Should Enter The Public Domain". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2016-01-30. games more than a couple of decades old aren’t entering the public domain. Twenty years was a fairly arbitrary number, one that seems to make sense in the context of games’ lives, but it could be twenty-five, thirty.
  16. ↑ Why Games Should Be In the Public Domain on slashdot.com
  17. ↑ George Broussard on twitter "@wickerwaka The whole thing, really. But especially that. Whoever allowed that to be printed should be fired."
  18. ↑ Copyright, trademark & money in a creative industry on gamasutra.com by Steve Gaynor "There is some argument going on about for how long a copyright holder should be able to charge exclusively for their own work, before it enters the public domain. John Walker argues that perhaps a good cutoff would be 20 years before an "idea" enters the public domain."(February 03, 2014)
  19. ↑ "Stanford Center for Internet and Society". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on 2006-10-27. Retrieved 2010-05-08.
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