That is ridiculous. You'd get all sorts of shit film adaptations because people want to cash in before the window is up. Could I make my own Mario game? Because it would be proper shit if I could. So would the 10 million other mario games that everyone else makes to cash in, then the brand is worthless because you can't tell what's a good mario game and what isn't. And then no more mario games.

No more Halos neither. I really don't see who that change benefits apart from megacorps that won't have to go to the trouble of dealing with the people who came up with the ideas that they then profit from.

monkey wrote:

No more Halos neither. I really don't see who that change benefits apart from megacorps that won't have to go to the trouble of dealing with the people who came up with the ideas that they then profit from.

It benefits everyone as all of these things become public goods which are open to everyone to enjoy regardless of your ability to pay.

And quality goes down the toilet. This one's an unworkably terrible idea, Yoss.

EDIT: Not you, Gav.

Arguably it could push quality up as creators can’t rest on their laurels.

What are the actual laws today? Death + 50 years or something?

acemuzzy wrote:

What are the actual laws today? Death + 50 years or something?

I think it depends on what’s copyrighted.

It's all moot this, because in Yoss's brave new world of copyright there will be no more music anyway.
Artists by in large make nothing from digital sales compared to what they did from physical.
To get round this, musicians now make their money from touring. But those tours don't pay for themselves, so where they actually make their money now is with merchandising at these live shows.
Nobody is going to be buying a band's t-shirt (or whatever) at their gigs, if there are dozens of newly legitimate stalls outside the venue all selling their newly legitimised "alternative" merchandise at a fraction of the cost of what's on sale inside.

Yossarian wrote:

Arguably it could push quality up as creators can’t rest on their laurels.

I'd need to see proof for that theory.

Edit: also, what's wrong with someone having 1 success and it's enough for them?

I mean , I get the broad strokes of what you are saying and I somewhat agree as it means culture is owned by the people and not a faceless company (who could easily sit on some ip and never use it) but I just don't see it being workable in a fair model.

What might work is personal ownership is allowed to be much longer whereas a corporation can only buy an up for a max 10 years and then must pay to renew (as a tax which goes into public funds)

Which means your arts disappear. You can't have it both ways.

The alternative is returning to the old patronage system. But that just resulted in stale art, commissioned by wealthy types to make themselves look good or make political statements.

I'm not sure this is true, or at least true at the moment. People will always make stuff when there's the opportunity and technology and a lot will be really weird and interesting; 90% will always be pure shite, same as the expensive stuff then, now and hence. What's more sobering to me is that if you do want to monetise, archive and publicise your unique modes of expression you are locked into large and growing megaplatforms for distribution who will of course always coin it more than you ever will, and can make small policy changes with big impacts on their userbases (Tumblr's grot ban, algorithmic tweaking etc). To some extent that's meet-the-new-boss-same-as-old, but I guess more people get to experience that dynamic now.

Ultimately I find the whole notion of having to sing for your supper fucking gross and worth resisting, artz and commerce should never cross streams, and in a better future we'd be looking at at least socialised/decommodified ownership of distributors. If they're going to assume the scale and ubiquity of utilities, treat them so.
Fwiw I think digital is absolutely better than physical in theory, but leaving it entirely up to Silicon geography to set the terms with slim public oversight is already looking like a colossal mistake. Insofar as less of the genie can be stuffed back in the glassware at this point, one's left feeling like acceleration towards crisis and reform is the only way forward, which is not fun either.

I get confused between trademark, copyright and the other one, but there's another aspect which in my mind is weighted far too heavily in favour of the conglomerate media corps, and that is appropriating the cultural and artistic works in both story telling, language and prior art in branding.

Two examples that come to mind are the recent attempt by Disney to claim ownership of the Swahili phrase, hakuna matata, which is not theirs. The other is the brand claim for ugg boots (at the very least a long used term in Australia) by american footwear company sketchers (IIRC). 

If copyright holders can commit theft of IP, then as far as I'm concerened it is open slather and piracy or knockoffs are fair game on all those respective companies.

I'd actually say a fair compromise with regards to copyright longevity would be the life of the artist, and the copyright can be passed down to his or her children for their life. One generation or a few decades beyond - so long as it stays in the family. The moment it is sold to a company, LLC, publisher or hedge fund, the timer is set to a hard ten years.

Frosty wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/28/revealed-homeless-people-given-one-way-tickets-to-leave-areas Well this is disgusting. Austerity has been a great move all round.

Reconnections is a delightfully evil euphemism. Bet they paid a consultant and brand developer six figures each to develop that policy.

They'd game it the same way that they always have. By buying the legislature they desire.

@vela.

Copyright relates to a completed work with some creative element (book, performance, literature, music)

Trademark is a badge indicating a product or service comes from a certain person. It’s done on a local basis.

IMHO it’s not completly abhorrent that Disney want to Register Trademark in Hakuna Matata because I reckon 99 percent of people in America/UK/Australia would associate that word with Disney so if someone made a Hakuna Matata Piss Sex Toy people might think it came from Disney and they may want to block such things. We also let normal words like apple to be trademarked.

mistercrayon wrote:

The problem with that method (lower limits on companies owning IP) is that you reduce its value and which is the entire purpose of it being sellable. So you put into the hands of the artist not only their ability to create but also the ability to sell the thing as well, which to me is a bit like determining the success of a chef on their ability to do bookkeeping.

True, ideally admin is done by actual administrators, but "it's only valuable if big fuckers want to speculate on it" is sort of the root of an evil.