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0 pointsthechao6y ago0 comments

This is exactly how non-private copyright & patents should work. That is copyright/patent "for hire" would be COST, with the rate of taxation increasing by a small amount each year until tax rate was 100%. This would given Disney the ability to keep the mouse for 120 years, but also free up less lucrative works for public enjoyment.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

tsimionescu6y ago· 1 in thread

Why is it a goal to allow the Disney corporation to keep the mouse to itself for 120 years?

This notion of copyright has basically destroyed the idea of folklore in the last few hundred years, relegating it from one of the main areas of human expression to a corner of the internet.

I think even 20 + 20 copyright is problematic. People should be free to use characters and stories while they are still relevant, and create their own variations that may even become more popular than the 'original creation' (in quotes because so much of creativity rests on the shoulder of others).

thechaoOP6y ago

This is a pragmatic approach to the reality of the situation: Disney and other large copyright holders have historically been able to leverage their position to increase copyright universally to absurdly long levels. The idea of a COST based mechanism for copyright tries to address a few practical approaches to copyright:

1. Copyright that's not assigned value defaults to the public domain; this provides an avenue for copyright to devolve to public domain immediately which does not currently exist;

2. Copyright that's no longer maintained by its owner devolves to the public domain (similar to 1), taking it out of "copyright limbo";

3. Any group with sufficient resources can take a copyright into the public domain as a public good, e.g., "we" could buy Wolverine into the public domain;

4. Copyright can be maintained for very long durations for entities that choose to do so;

5. The ever-increasing cost means that eventually the copyright "buys itself out", that is, when the COST is assessed at 100%, the Fed has sufficient funds to simply buy the copyright outright (this is a choice, btw, the Fed could happily accept 130% of COST!); and,

6. Absurd copyright lengths no longer universally apply.

I think (but I've not completely thought this through) that such a system could help with patent litigation. Specifically, consortia of entities can buy out a patent if the patent is weaponized. Mind you, the patent holder can no longer "squat" on a patent for free: they must pay the COST of a patent portfolio! This naturally handles the asymmetry of costs between NPEs and regular old entities.

tlholaday6y ago

What is the benefit of increasing the rate?

If you like 100 years of ownership, set the rate at 1% per year, calculated on the copyright/patent holder's self-assessed price. Every century, the polity collects 100% of the value. What the polity does with the money collected is up to the polity.

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