WEBVTT - Rerun: Copyright and Fair Use 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:16.439 Hey there, folks, Jonathan Strickland. Here. No normal intro for today. 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.560 We're gonna do a rerun because I'm under the weather 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.239 and it's a crazy holiday week with Thanksgiving week here 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.759 in in the United States, and uh, it just all 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.160 my efforts to put together a new episode kind of 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.159 fell apart. But I do plan on having a news 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.720 episode tomorrow, and in the meantime, I didn't want to 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.600 leave you without anything. So I looked back on last 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.480 year and there was this episode about copyright and fair 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.479 use I did, and I thought, hey, I'm gonna essentially 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.080 plagiarize myself and copy myself, so why not do the 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:52.200 copyright and fair use episode. It originally published on May one. 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:57.200 I think it's an important topic to really educate yourself 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.040 about in the tech space in particular, as uh, the 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:06.400 Internet in general and the Web really specifically have created 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:12.720 the foundation for rampant copyright abuse. And you know there 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.440 are multiple sites that story. So let's listen to this 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.240 episode that published last year on copyright and fair use, 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:26.280 and I'll chat with you again really soon. It has 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:28.959 been a while since I've done an episode about the 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:33.400 concepts of copyright and fair use. And after I keep 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:38.040 seeing the phrase no copyright infringement intended over and over 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.399 on places like YouTube and Instagram, I figure it's a 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.240 good time to tackle this again. Because people continue to 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:53.440 pretend like copyright infringement only applies under very specific circumstances 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.040 and that with just a little bit of verbiage you 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.280 can get around it, when really the opposite is true. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.640 And since the Internet and technology allows for more opportunities 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:09.360 for a copyright infringement, and because various governments and around 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.480 the world have passed legislation to you know, specifically tackle 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:18.679 copyright infringement, and companies have lobbied endlessly for more restrictive 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:23.600 copyright rules, I think it fits the scope of tech stuff, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:27.560 particularly since a lot of these laws were formed in 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:32.440 reaction to changes in technology. So first, let's kind of 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:39.040 define what copyright is now. Essentially, copyright guarantees the creator 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.440 of a work or an entity that has been designated 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.320 by the creator of the work, the right to profit 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:51.360 off of that work, the right to make copies of 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:56.120 that work and then distribute or sell them, or you know, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.440 you just you own that intellectual property. No one else 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.519 can come and make copies of it without your permission. 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.639 The works in this case range from the written word 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:12.679 to music, to paintings, sculpture, uh to digital files. I mean, 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.440 copyright now applies to lots of stuff. Clearly it didn't 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.280 apply to all of that in the beginning, but something 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.400 that has evolved over time. It does not include inventions. 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.320 Those are covered under patent law. And then you also 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.000 have things like trademarks, which make things more complicated. I 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:34.560 might talk about trademarks and copyright in a future episode 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.080 to kind of talk about how those complicate things, because 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.080 companies have tried to use trademarks in order to extend 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:49.160 copyright protection. But trademarks last in perpetuity. Copyright only lasts 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.600 a certain amount of time, at least in theory. We'll 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.120 get to all that. So along with the right to 0:03:55.400 --> 0:04:00.360 profit from intellectual property comes with it protections against others 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.640 who are taking a work and profiting off of it 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.960 without permission. Now you can see the value of this 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:11.280 concept right away, I imagine. So let's say you are 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.640 a musician and you write a song. It was your work. 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.800 You created the whole piece, You wrote the music, and 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:22.120 you wrote the lyrics and you plan to earn money 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.000 through this song. Maybe you're going to record it to 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.840 some form of media and then sell copies of the song. 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.240 So you filed a copyright for the song, which gives 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.800 you the exclusive rights to make copies of it uh 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.800 in whatever format you like, whether it's digital files or 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:44.120 physical media, or even like sheet music. You can charge 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.320 whatever you like for your work, though obviously if you 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.839 go bonkers and you ask for a ridiculously high price, 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.240 you aren't likely to get a lot of takers. You 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.159 also have the protection should someone else start making copies 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.080 of your song without your permission. Maybe they are performing 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.960 it themselves, in which case they should secure a license first, 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.680 or maybe they're taking your original recording and just duplicating it. 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.839 So let's say that you created an MP three file 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.120 and they just copy the MP three file endlessly and 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.200 start either giving it away or selling it to people. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.080 You could sue that person, and in court you could 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.440 prove that you hold the copyright to that piece of music, 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.080 and assuming the court agrees that the copyright is legitimate, 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.680 you could then seek damages against the person or entity 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.920 that made the unauthorized copies of your work. Music is 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.560 actually really a special case because you can have multiple 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.400 copyrights on the work. You could have one for the lyrics, 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.880 then you could have another for the musical composition itself, 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.040 and that would mean that someone who wanted to play 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.520 your music but change the lyrics would still potentially be 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.800 liable for copyright violations. But we're going to get back 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.159 to that a little bit later in this episode, but 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.640 it is something to keep in mind. However, Then there 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.000 are such things as mechanical licenses. This sets out the 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:16.120 rules for stuff like playing recorded music in particular places. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.159 So if you've ever been to like a restaurant or 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.560 a theater and you've heard music being played over the 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:28.479 sound system, chances are that that place of business has 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:31.920 paid out a license fee in order to be able 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.480 to do that. Intellectual property rights get pretty complicated. Uh. 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.880 It also depends upon the size of the venue. I 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.760 might have to do a future episode to kind of 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.599 talk about all the exceptions, because, as I said, it 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.159 does get complicated, and in some cases, if it's a 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.480 very small venue, UH, they can sometimes be exempt from 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.320 having to pay the same sort of license fees that 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.520 larger venues have to pay. And part of the argument 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.080 there is that the number of people who would actually 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.960 experience the music is much smaller because the venue is 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.440 smaller anyway. In the old days, as in before the 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.840 printing press, copyright wasn't really that big of a thing, like, 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.520 there wasn't a big concern for it. There were predecessors 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.800 for formal copyright, but truthfully, there wasn't much occasion to 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.480 use them because the act of copying a work involved 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:28.280 actually making a copy out by hand, handwriting the copy 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.200 of a written work. This was a painstaking process and 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:35.120 not something that could be done on any sort of scale, 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.880 and so copyright wasn't as huge a concern just because 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.080 infringement itself was not something that was easy to do. 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:44.880 And to that the fact that much of the world's 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.280 population was illiterate and there just wasn't a foundation for 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:52.040 copyright infringement to really take hold. Then a smarty pants 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.920 named Johann Gutenberg had to go and invent the movable 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.960 type printing press, at least the European version. I should 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.280 stress that Europe because the parts of the world were 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.360 actually further advanced with printing technologies than Europe was. But 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.760 this is the one that Western cultures tend to talk 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.800 about because we get a little myopic. But i'll i'll 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.360 set aside the commentary. So with the printing press, it 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.680 became possible to set the type on the press and 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.240 then print out sheets one after the other in relatively 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.520 quick succession. Now, it still took time to set the 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.200 press between pages because you had to change all the 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.720 type out right. You had to remove all the type, 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.680 set the type again, and then print the next sheet. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.120 So you would typically use the press to print a 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.559 bunch of the same sheet in a row before you 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.400 would reset the type and move on to the next sheet. However, 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.680 you could also use a single large sheet of paper 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.320 to set up multiple pages of text, and so you 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:56.319 could divide up the quadrants of a printing press and 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.680 change the type up so that you are actually creating 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.760 multiple pages per press. And then you fold the paper 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.680 in such a way that that makes all sense, like 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.840 if you fold it once along a vertical line, so 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.480 you you fold it in half vertically. Um, then are 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.320 along the vertical access I should say, Then you end 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.280 up with a folio that was a single large sheet 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:23.840 of paper that would have one page printed on the 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.000 left side, one page printed on the right side. You 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.760 have a vertical fold in the middle, and then you 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:31.640 can just keep printing those over and over again, and 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.640 then you bind a bunch of those together and you've 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:39.120 got a book. Or you could do a double fold, 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.800 and you could have a quarto, which would also involve 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.240 you having to make a cut along the horizontal line. 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.120 But then you've got four pages per sheet, so you 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.800 could do that, and that it means that with one 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:55.800 press you're effectively printing four pages, and then you let 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:57.240 it dry, you flip it over, and you can print 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.480 another four pages. Very useful. So this was these were 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.680 different ways that you could end up creating books fairly quickly. 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.480 The process of publishing became much faster than with people 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.320 doing it by hand, but there wasn't yet a formalized 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.400 protection in place for the creator of the works, and 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.120 at this point, the typical approach was for an author 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.560 to receive a flat fee for their work, which would 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:27.360 then go to a book printer to produce, so the 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.760 printer would take ownership of that work from that point forward. 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.080 Then it was just a matter of time before other 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.480 printers would get hold of the book and start making 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.240 their own copies, at least for books that proved to 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.600 be popular for authors. There really wasn't a whole lot 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.400 of profit in this approach. William Shakespeare, who you know, 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.319 you could argue, was one of the greatest English writers, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.240 mostly known for his plays but also his poetry. He 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.080 never sought out the printing of his plays. Others would 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.440 give it a shot. Either they would try to copy 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.640 down days as they were being performed and then go 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.000 and print what they had transcribed, or they would try 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:09.000 to get hold of the sides that actors were using 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.440 in their roles, or a combination of the two. It 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.920 was really only after Shakespeare's death that his friends got 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.040 together and did their best to gather his plays and 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.360 publish them. Now, based on what I know about Shakespeare, 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.200 I suspect the reason that he did not seek out 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:27.520 publication of his works was that it really wasn't where 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.600 the money would be for him. He would get a 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.280 pay the flat fee for every play he wrote, but 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.439 more importantly, he was a part owner of the theater itself. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.480 Like the Globe Theater or the Rose Theater. He was 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.600 part of the company that owned the theater, so that 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.080 meant he would actually take a share of the box office. So, 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.640 in other words, his main goal was to attract crowds 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.040 to the theater. That's where the money was. But you 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.840 can bet that if there had been serious money in 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.079 publication back in those days, Shakespeare would have been all 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:02.959 over it because a quick glance at some of the 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.280 lawsuits he was involved with during his lifetime indicates he 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.600 had a certain appreciation for the accumulation of wealth. So Shakespeare, 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:15.560 great artist, also a business guy, and had publishing been 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.760 a bigger business for the author, he certainly would have 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.440 gone that route, I'm sure of it. Now, the printing 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.440 press was a truly transformational piece of technology. It became 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:30.160 easier to produce many copies of a work book. Printing businesses, 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:34.280 which would evolve into true publishing houses, began to pop 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.640 up all over Europe, and the powers that be, that is, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.400 the Church and the various governments of Europe viewed book 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:45.560 printers as both an asset and a potential threat. Through 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:50.160 the printers, these organizations could spread information quickly. The Bible 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.640 was a very early candidate for printing, as the Guttenberg 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.480 Bible proves and governments could use printing presses to spread 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:01.120 information about laws and declarations and kind of thing. But 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.640 printing presses also meant it was easier to print stuff 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.840 that undermined authority. People who had a boned pick with 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.040 the folks who were in charge could potentially spread their 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:17.000 ideas and maybe find sympathetic souls who shared those same beliefs. 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.240 So the printing press could enable existential threats to the 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.640 power structure. And this is where we get a predecessor 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:30.480 to copyright. Now, this predecessor wasn't so much about making 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:33.960 sure the author of a book was fairly compensated. Instead, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.520 it was more about keeping printing houses under control. The 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.240 basic idea was that any business that wished to print 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.440 materials had to first secure an official license from, you know, 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:50.120 the government of that region. These licenses typically meant that 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.240 a specific printer would be responsible for the printing of 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.480 particular works to the exclusion of all other printers. So 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.719 you might say that this one printer can print this 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.559 one book, and no other printer in the region is 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.760 allowed to do that, so they have a monopoly on 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.400 that specific title. In fact, they called the monopolies. These 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.600 agreements would last a set number of years, which wasn't 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.480 too different from the concept of modern copyrights. If any 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.320 other printer was found to produce a work that some 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.600 other printer had exclusive rights to, that matter could go 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.760 to court, but this was all about the printing houses, 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.960 not authors. England passed its first actual copyright law in 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.040 seventeen This law changed things quite a bit. A publisher 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.960 would have a fourteen year period of exclusive rights to 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.840 publish any new book. Existing books that the printing house 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.720 was already printing would enjoy protection for twenty one years. 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.000 After that, the author of the work could choose to 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:56.040 renew the copyright if the author was still alive. Otherwise 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.920 the work would enter into the public domain, meaning any 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.560 one would be legally allowed to make a copy of 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.320 that work or use it in any way they liked. 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.040 There were no longer any protections on that piece of work, 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.840 and it was available for any public use. The United 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.480 States wouldn't get its first true copyright law until nearly 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.320 a century later, but let's be fair, there was no 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:22.920 such thing as the United States in seventeen ten, so 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.080 I'm gonna cut the Young Nations some slack here. The 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.479 copyright law of the US followed closely in the footsteps 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.000 of the Copyright Act of Britain, which was also known 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:36.040 as the Statute of Ann as in Queen Anne. So 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.920 the way that the US law worked was that an 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.680 author would register their work with the U S District 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.720 Court of their particular region, and they would in return 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.000 receive an exclusive copyright for fourteen years, with the option 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.400 to renew for a second fourteen year period, and after 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.920 those twenty eight years, assuming that you actually renewed your copyright, 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.160 the work would then enter into the public domain with 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.680 the Statute of Ann and the Copyright Act of the 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:05.040 US or at the point where authors would get a 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.720 little more protection and a chance to benefit more from 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.600 their own work. It was no longer the case of 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.280 a one time flat fee in every instance. Now, I 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:18.480 say authors, but often we're really still talking about publishers. Here, 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.800 the publisher retains the copyright because the copyright allows the 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.800 publisher to you know, publish the works. Otherwise, the author 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.960 would have to grant permission for each printing. You'd have 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:31.160 to have a license for it. It It all gets clunky 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.720 right that the author has exclusive copyright to their work, 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:40.040 they have to grant permission to whichever entity is creating 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:43.440 copies of that work. You often see this reflected today 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.440 in ways that are kind of confusing. When you agree 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:51.040 to certain platforms, there's language there that seems to suggest 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:56.400 that anything you post on that platform is that platform's property. 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.280 But usually the reasoning for the language is to make 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.640 sure that the platform has the necessary permission to display 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.160 whatever it is you're posting, because otherwise, every single time 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.600 you posted, you would have to have some sort of 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:15.280 licensing agreement or something that would give permission to the 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.960 platform to actually display the thing you wrote. It gets 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.240 pretty complicated now. The same would be true for most 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.960 music produced in the modern era. The copyright isn't necessarily 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:30.560 held by the artist, but by a music label. It's 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.919 kind of like how Thomas Edison made sure that his 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.600 name was on every patent produced out of his business. 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:38.919 He might not have had a direct hand in the 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.320 creation of every invention. In fact, we know that he 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.400 didn't have a direct hand and a lot of them, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.720 but he sure as heck made sure that his signature 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:49.560 was on the patent to every single one, so that 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.760 he had a right to each of them. Anyway. One 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.639 of the consequences of all of this is that to 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.040 this day, getting the permission of an author or artist 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:04.400 in order to use their work typically isn't enough. That's 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.920 because in many cases that individual creator doesn't actually hold 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:13.360 the copyright to the work. It's more likely that some 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:18.280 corporate entity will hold the copyright on behalf of that creator. 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.199 So you really have to get the permission of whatever 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:25.399 entity holds the copyright for any specific intellectual property. In 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.880 some cases it might be an individual creator, in other 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.720 cases it might be a big company. So let's say 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.560 if you met an artist for Disney in a cafe 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.920 and this artist told you, oh, it's totally cool if 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:44.399 you use they're drawing of a popular Disney character for 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.639 something you're doing, that's probably not good enough because that 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:54.119 artist wouldn't even hold the copyright for that work. Disney would, 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.959 and copyright laws would evolve quite a lot over the 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.560 following centuries. They banded to include more types of works, 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.919 as well as to allow for things like licenses, and 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.879 without these considerations, it might be illegal to, you know, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.399 play playback an album without first getting permission of the 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.679 music label, which is clearly absurd. You wouldn't have it. 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.120 Where you bought an album, you went home, and every 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.320 time you were to play the album, you first had 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.200 to get permission from the music label to do that 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.760 that just doesn't make sense. But that's the sort of 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.400 stuff that actually had to be codified into law. It's 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.800 you know, it's not enough to just everyone agree like, 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.520 oh well, that's absurd. It actually had to be written 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.480 down somewhere and ratified. One of the biggest changes to 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:46.800 copyright has been how long that copyright protection lasts. This 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:52.480 also ties into how many capitalist societies treat corporations, which 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:56.159 is uh ridiculously in my mind. So here in the 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.720 United States in particular, corporations are treated legally like a 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.400 per person. But if you think about that's kind of bonkers. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.240 More than kind of bonkers, I should say, people get old, 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.640 people pass away corporations. Assuming that they are run well 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.199 and they provide some sort of goods or services that 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:18.240 people want or need, they can exist indefinitely. And a 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:23.119 corporation that relies heavily on intellectual property is quite loath 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.760 to give up that meal ticket, and so corporations over 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.480 the years have lobbied hard to extend copyright in order 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:33.920 to prevent the i P that they own from falling 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.320 into the public domain. And then they can no longer 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:42.040 exclusively exploit that i P. They could still exploit it. 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.639 They could still sell stuff with it, just it doesn't 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.679 stop anyone else from doing the same thing. Perhaps the 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.000 most high profile of all these companies was one that 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.920 seemed fixated on a particular mouse that I've already mentioned. 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:07.320 I'll explain more after this quick break. Before the break, 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:09.960 I t s that corporations played a huge part in 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.040 lobbying Congress to extend the protections of copyright, and one 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.639 of those corporations is the Walt Disney Company and the 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:22.600 cultural phenomenon that is Mickey Mouse. The cartoon Steamboat Willie, 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.239 which was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, was released in 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:31.000 nineteen twenty eight. Now, at that time, US copyright law 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.239 had a twenty eight year protection limit, which could then 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.840 be renewed for a second twenty eight year term, which 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.439 would provide a total of fifty six years of copyright 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.040 exclusivity to the owner of an i P. But then 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.280 the i P would enter the public domain. That means 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:53.320 that if copyright law had remained unchanged since Steamboat Willie, 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:56.679 Steamboat Willie would have entered the public domain back in 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:02.280 nineteen four Spoiler alert. As of the recording of this podcast, 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.199 Steamboat Willie is not in the public domain yet, so 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.879 things did not remain the same. By the nineteen seventies, 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:13.680 the Disney Company was lobbying hard to change copyright laws, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.320 and I want to be clear, they weren't the only ones, 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:22.840 but you frequently hear Disney specifically in regard to lobbying 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.960 for copyright law extensions, and it worked. Congress changed the 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:30.840 copyright protection so that copyrights that were held by individual 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:35.840 authors protection would last the lifetime of that author plus 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:40.359 another fifty years. So now we're well beyond guaranteeing the 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:42.639 right of a person to profit off of their work. 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:47.080 Right now, you're saying you're guaranteeing that multiple generations of 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.560 an author's family can continue to benefit from the work 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:54.760 of the author. The author will be dead and fifty 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.680 years will pass, and until those fifty years are up, 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:03.680 the estate will continue to benefit monetarily from that author's work, 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:06.600 assuming that you know people are still buying it. Obviously, 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:09.480 if it falls out of favor and no one's purchasing anything, 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:14.800 then those rights, while they're important, don't actually leverage into 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:18.240 any kind of monetary gain. But this is where I 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:20.639 start feeling a little weird about all this, because I 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.680 think it's one thing to want to provide for your family, right, 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:28.560 you want to earn money and help contribute to your 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:33.200 family or households well being. But it's another to create 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:36.960 generational wealth that removes the need for future generations to 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.360 you know, make any sort of meaningful contribution themselves. There 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:45.320 are lots of cases where the children of authors who 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:50.080 were incredibly successful, uh, have themselves gone on to do 0:23:50.200 --> 0:23:53.600 amazing things, which is great. But there are also cases 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:57.320 of people who just kind of, you know, never bothered 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:00.800 to do anything because they didn't really have need to. 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:03.960 They were all of their needs were already met because 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:09.000 they were earning income on something that their parents or 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:13.320 grandparents or great grandparents had done, and there never was 0:24:13.359 --> 0:24:16.920 any need for them to do anything. Uh. Not super 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:21.760 helpful for the general society. Not very healthy in my 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:26.440 mind anyway. For corporations that owned i P. It was 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:29.399 a different story, right, because corporations don't die, so you 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:32.840 can't say the life of a corporation plus fifty years. 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:36.920 So in this case, the copyright protection extended the term 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:40.720 for works that had been published before ninety eight to 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:44.359 a total term of seventy five years of protection. Uh. 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:48.119 The Copyright Extension pushed that that protection of Steamboat Willie 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:50.119 to two thousand three because of that, because it was 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:53.479 published in nineteen seventy five years later would be up 0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:58.199