WEBVTT - RERUN: Copyright and Fair Use 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.160 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.040 and how the tech are you up Here? In the 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.960 United States? It is Martin Luther King Junior Day, and 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.440 that means that we have the day off work, so 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.400 we're going to do a rerun today because I'm I'm 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:36.280 not I'm not working today. So this episode originally published 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:39.800 in one and I keep wanting to say that's last year, 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.480 but I kind of remind myself it's not two anymore. Yeah, 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.560 this came out may see is called copyright and fair use. 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.320 I feel it's always important to revisit this topic because 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.160 it's a it's one that's a little complicated, and I 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.840 think a lot of people have misconceptions about what fair 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.760 use is and how it works. So enjoy and I'll 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.600 chat with you a little bit at the very end. 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.320 It has been a while since I've done an episode 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:14.240 about the concepts of copyright and fair use. And after 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:18.679 I keep seeing the phrase no copyright infringement intended over 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:23.200 and over on places like YouTube and Instagram, I figure 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.800 it's a good time to tackle this again, because people 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:33.160 continue to pretend like copyright infringement only applies under very 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:37.200 specific circumstances and that with just a little bit of 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.680 verbiage you can get around it, when really the opposite 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.000 is true. And since the Internet and technology allows for 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.480 more opportunities for a copyright infringement, and because various governments 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.800 and around the world have passed legislation to you know, 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:58.040 specifically tackle copyright infringement, and companies have lobbied endlessly for 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:03.720 more restrictive copyright rules, I think it fits the scope 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.720 of tech stuff, particularly since a lot of these laws 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:12.480 were formed in reaction to changes in technology. So first, 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:18.360 let's kind of define what copyright is now. Essentially, copyright 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.520 guarantees the creator of a work or an entity that 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.120 has been designated by the creator of the work, the 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.440 right to profit off of that work, the right to 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:36.519 make copies of that work and then distribute or sell them, 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.160 or you know, you just you own that intellectual property. 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.800 No one else can come and make copies of it 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.080 without your permission. The works in this case range from 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:52.359 the written word to music, to paintings, sculpture, uh to 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.359 digital files. I mean, copyright now applies to lots of stuff. Clearly, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.440 it didn't apply to all of that in the beginning. 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.919 But something that has a voulved over time. It does 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:06.880 not include inventions. Those are covered under patent law. And 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.760 then you also have things like trademarks, which make things 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.440 more complicated. I might talk about trademarks and copyright in 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.239 a future episode to kind of talk about how those 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.120 complicate things because companies have tried to use trademarks in 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:28.600 order to extend copyright protection. But trademarks last in perpetuity. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.680 Copyright only lasts a certain amount of time, at least 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.760 in theory. We'll get to all that. So along with 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.360 the right to profit from intellectual property comes with it 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.360 protections against others who are taking a work and profiting 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:47.320 off of it without permission. Now you can see the 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.120 value of this concept right away, I imagine. So let's 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.320 say you are a musician and you write a song. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.040 It was your work, you create the whole piece, You 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.640 wrote the music, and you wrote the lyrics, and you 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.320 plan to earn money through this song. Maybe you're going 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.400 to record it to some form of media and then 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.920 sell copies of the song. So you filed a copyright 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.920 for the song, which gives you the exclusive rights to 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.440 make copies of it uh in whatever format you like, 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.280 whether it's digital files or physical media, or even like 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:27.599 sheet music. You can charge whatever you like for your work, 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:29.640 though obviously if you go bonkers and you ask for 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.039 a ridiculously high price, you aren't likely to get a 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:36.680 lot of takers. You also have the protection should someone 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.400 else start making copies of your song without your permission. 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.160 Maybe they are performing it themselves, in which case they 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.640 should secure a license first, or maybe they're taking your 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.640 original recording and just duplicating it. So let's say that 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.680 you created an MP three file and they just copy 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.320 the MP three file endlessly and start either giving it 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.400 away or selling it to people. You could sue that person, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.599 and in court you could prove that you hold the 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.920 copyright to that piece of music, and assuming the court 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.320 agrees with that the copyright is legitimate, you could then 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.640 seek damages against the person or entity that made the 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:23.560 unauthorized copies of your work. Music is actually really a 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.799 special case because you can have multiple copyrights on the work. 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.640 You could have one for the lyrics, then you could 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.159 have another for the musical composition itself, and that would 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.080 mean that someone who wanted to play your music but 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:42.839 change the lyrics would still potentially be liable for copyright violations. 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:44.720 But we're going to get back to that a little 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.160 bit later in this episode, but it is something to 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.880 keep in mind. However, Then there are such things as 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.400 mechanical licenses. This sets out the rules for stuff like 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:58.080 playing recorded music in particular places. So if you've ever 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.880 been to like a restaurant or a theater and you've 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:06.040 heard music being played over the sound system, chances are 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:11.400 that that place of business has paid out a license 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.520 fee in order to be able to do that. Intellectual 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.120 property rights get pretty complicated. Uh. It also depends upon 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.800 the size of the venue. I might have to do 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.679 a future episode to kind of talk about all the exceptions, because, 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.000 as I said, it does get complicated, and in some cases, 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.920 if it's a very small venue, Uh, they can sometimes 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:33.919 be exempt from having to pay the same sort of 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.200 license fees that larger venues have to pay. And part 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.520 of the argument there is that the number of people 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.520 who would actually experience the music is much smaller because 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:48.080 the venue is smaller. Anyway, in the old days, as 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:52.320 in before the printing press, copyright wasn't really that big 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.840 of a thing, like, there wasn't a big concern for it. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:07:00.280 There were predecessors for formal copyright, but truthfully, there wasn't 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.480 much occasion to use them because the act of copying 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.599 a work involved actually making a copy out by hand, 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.560 handwriting the copy of a written work. This was a 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:15.200 painstaking process and not something that could be done on 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:19.120 any sort of scale, and so copyright wasn't as huge 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.320 a concern just because infringement itself was not something that 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.120 was easy to do. And to that the fact that 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.440 much of the world's population was illiterate and there just 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.840 wasn't a foundation for copyright infringement to really take hold. 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.880 Then a smarty pants named Johann Gutenberg had to go 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.000 and invent the movable type printing press, at least the 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.640 European version. I should stress that Europe, because other parts 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.800 of the world were actually further advanced with printing technologies 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.760 than Europe was. But this is the one that Western 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.880 cultures tend to talk about because we get a little myopic. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:54.880 But i'll i'll set aside the commentary. So with the 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.720 printing press, it became possible to set the type on 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.720 the press then print out sheets one after the other 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.200 in relatively quick succession. Now, it still took time to 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.240 set the press between pages because you had to change 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.720 all the type out right. You had to remove all 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.160 the type, set the type again, and then print the 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.760 next sheet. So you would typically use the press to 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.600 print a bunch of the same sheet in a row 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.480 before you would reset the type and move on to 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.760 the next sheet. However, you could also use a single 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.120 large sheet of paper to set up multiple pages of text, 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.360 and so you could divide up the quadrants of a 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.840 printing press and change the type up so that you 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:44.200 are actually creating multiple pages per press. And then you 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.320 fold the paper in such a way that that makes 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.120 all sense, Like if you fold it once along a 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.400 vertical line, so you you fold it in half vertically. Um, 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.040 then are along the vertical access, I should say. Then 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.640 you end up with a folio that was a single 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.840 large sheet of paper that would have one page printed 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.880 on the left side, one page printed on the right side. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.520 You have a vertical fold in the middle, and then 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:12.840 you can just keep printing those over and over again, 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.640 and then you bind a bunch of those together and 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:20.400 you've got a book, or you could do a double fold, 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.079 and you could have a quarto, which would also involve 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.559 you having to make a cut along the horizontal line. 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.400 But then you've got four pages per sheet, so you 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.080 could do that and that it means that with one 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:37.120 press you're effectively printing four pages, and then you let 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:38.560 it dry, you flip it over and you can print 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.760 another four pages. Very useful. So this was these were 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:47.000 different ways that you could end up creating books fairly quickly. 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.760 The process of publishing became much faster than with people 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.600 doing it by hand, but there wasn't yet a formalized 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.680 protection in place for the creator of the works. And 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.440 at this point, the typical approach was for an author 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.840 to receive a flat fee for their work, which would 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:08.640 then go to a book printer to produce, so the 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.040 printer would take ownership of that work from that point forward. 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:14.360 Then it was just a matter of time before other 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.760 printers would get hold of the book and start making 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.520 their own copies, at least for books that proved to 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.880 be popular for authors. There really wasn't a whole lot 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:26.680 of profit in this approach. William Shakespeare, who you know, 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.640 you could argue was one of the greatest English writers, 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.520 mostly known for his plays but also his poetry, He 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:38.400 never sought out the printing of his plays. Others would 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:40.760 give it a shot. Either they would try to copy 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.920 down plays as they were being performed and then go 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.280 and print what they had transcribed, or they would try 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.280 to get hold of the sides that actors were using 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.720 in their roles, or a combination of the two. It 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.199 was really only after Shakespeare's death that his friends got 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.280 together and did their best to gather his plays and 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.640 publish them. Now, based on what I know about Shakespeare, 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.480 I suspect the reason that he did not seek out 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.840 publication of his works was that it really wasn't where 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.880 the money would be for him. He would get a 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.560 pay the flat fee for every play he wrote, but 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.720 more importantly, he was a part owner of the theater itself, 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.760 like the Globe Theater or the Rose Theater. He was 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.880 part of the company that owned the theater, so that 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.360 meant he would actually take a share of the box office. So, 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.920 in other words, his main goal was to attract crowds 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.320 to the theater. That's where the money was. But you 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.120 can bet that if there had been serious money in 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.360 publication back in those days, Shakespeare would have been all 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.280 over it because a quick glance at some of the 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.560 lawsuits he was involved with during his lifetime indicates he 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.880 had a certain appreciation for the accumulation of wealth. So Shakespeare, 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:56.840 great artist, also a business guy, and had publishing been 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.959 a bigger business for the author, he certainly would have 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.720 gone that route. I'm sure of it. Now. The printing 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.720 press was a truly transformational piece of technology. It became 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:11.440 easier to produce many copies of a work book. Printing businesses, 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.559 which would evolve into true publishing houses, began to pop 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.920 up all over Europe, and the powers that be, that is, 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:22.680 the Church and the various governments of Europe viewed book 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.840 printers as both an asset and a potential threat. Through 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.439 the printers, these organizations could spread information quickly. The Bible 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.480 was a very early candidate for printing, as the Guttenberg Bible. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.199 Prooves and governments could use printing presses to spread information 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:42.400 about laws and declarations and that kind of thing. But 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.920 printing presses also meant it was easier to print stuff 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:50.079 that undermined authority. People who had a boned pick with 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.319 the folks who were in charge could potentially spread their 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:58.280 ideas and maybe find sympathetic souls who shared those same beliefs. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.560 So the printing press could enable existential threats to the 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.920 power structure. And this is where we get a predecessor 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:11.760 to copyright. Now, this predecessor wasn't so much about making 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.240 sure the author of a book was fairly compensated. Instead, 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.800 it was more about keeping printing houses under control. The 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.520 basic idea was that any business that wished to print 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.720 materials had to first secure an official license from, you know, 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.400 the government of that region. These licenses typically meant that 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.520 a specific printer would be responsible for the printing of 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.760 particular works to the exclusion of all other printers. So 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.000 you might say that this one printer can print this 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.839 one book, and no other printer in the region is 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.040 allowed to do that, so they have a monopoly on 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.720 that specific title. In fact, they called the monopolies. These 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.880 agreements would last a set number of years, which wasn't 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.600 too different from the concept of modern copyrights. If any 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.600 other printer was found to produce a work that some 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.880 other printer had exclusive rights to, that matter could go 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.040 to court. But this was all about the printing houses, 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:15.240 not authors. England passed its first actual copyright law in 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.800 seventeen ten. This law changed things quite a bit. A 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.120 publisher would have a fourteen year period of exclusive rights 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.880 to publish any new book. Existing books that the printing 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:30.000 house was already printing would enjoy protection for twenty one years. 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.280 After that, the author of the work could choose to 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:37.320 renew the copyright if the author was still alive. Otherwise 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.520 the work would enter into the public domain, meaning anyone 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.000 would be legally allowed to make a copy of that 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.160 work or use it in any way they liked. There 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.320 were no longer any protections on that piece of work, 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:54.120 and it was available for any public use. The United 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.760 States wouldn't get its first true copyright law until nearly 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:01.600 a century later. But let's be fair, there was no 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.240 such thing as the United States in seventeen ten, so 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.360 I'm gonna cut the Young Nations some slack here. The 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.760 copyright law of the US followed closely in the footsteps 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.280 of the Copyright Act of Britain, which was also known 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.320 as the Statute of Ann as in Queen Anne. So 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.160 the way that the US law worked was that an 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.960 author would register their work with the U. S District 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.000 Court of their particular region, and they would in return 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.280 receive an exclusive copyright for fourteen years, with the option 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.680 to renew for a second fourteen year period, and after 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.200 those twenty eight years, assuming that you actually renewed your copyright, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.480 the work would then enter into the public domain with 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.360 the Statute of ann and the Copyright Act of seventeen 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.840 ninety in the US or at the point where authors 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:47.880 would get a little more protection and a chance to 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.000 benefit more from their own work. It was no longer 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:55.440 the case of a one time flat fee in every instance. Now, 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.760 I say authors, but often we're really still talking about publishers. Here. 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.080 The publisher retains the copyright because the copyright allows the 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.120 publisher to, you know, publish the works. Otherwise the author 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.240 would have to grant permission for each printing. You'd have 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.120 to have a license for it. It all gets clunky, right, 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.800 that the author has exclusive copyright to their work, they 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:21.760 have to grant permission to whichever entity is creating copies 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.080 of that work. You often see this reflected today in 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.920 ways that are kind of confusing. When you agree to 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.440 certain platforms, there's language there that seems to suggest that 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:37.720 anything you post on that platform is that platform's property. 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.560 But usually the reasoning for the language is to make 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.920 sure that the platform has the necessary permission to display 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.440 whatever it is you're posting, because otherwise, every single time 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.880 you posted, you would have to have some sort of 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:56.560 licensing agreement or something that would give permission to the 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.320 platform to actually display the thing you wrote. It gets 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.520 pretty complicated now. The same would be true for most 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.240 music produced in the modern era. The copyright isn't necessarily 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.840 held by the artist, but by a music label. It's 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.199 kind of like how Thomas Edison made sure that his 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.880 name was on every patent produced out of his business. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.199 He might not have had a direct hand in the 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.600 creation of every invention. In fact, we know that he 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:25.680 didn't have a direct hand and a lot of them, 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.000 but he sure as heck made sure that his signature 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:30.840 was on the patent to every single one, so that 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.080 he had a right to each of them anyway. One 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.919 of the consequences of all of this is that, to 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.320 this day, getting the permission of an author or artist 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:45.680 in order to use their work typically isn't enough. That's 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:50.200 because in many cases that individual creator doesn't actually hold 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.640 the copyright to the work. It's more likely that some 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:59.520 corporate entity will hold the copyright on behalf of that creator. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.480 So you really have to get the permission of whatever 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.679 entity holds the copyright for any specific intellectual property. In 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:10.160 some cases it might be an individual creator, in other 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:14.000 cases it might be a big company. So let's say 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:18.080 if you met an artist for Disney in a cafe 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.200 and this artist told you, oh, it's totally cool if 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.679 you use they're drawing of a popular Disney character for 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.919 something you're doing, that's probably not good enough because that 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:35.399 artist wouldn't even hold the copyright for that work. Disney would, 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.239 and copyright laws would evolve quite a lot over the 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.840 following centuries. They expanded to include more types of works, 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.199 as well as to allow for things like licenses, And 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.159 without these considerations, it might be illegal to, you know, 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.679 play playback an album without first getting permission of the 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.960 music label, which is clearly absurd. You wouldn't have it 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.399 where you bought an album, you went home, and every 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:02.600 time you were to play the album, you first had 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:06.480 to get permission from the music label to do that. 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.040 That just doesn't make sense. But that's the sort of 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.680 stuff that actually had to be codified into law. It's 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.080 you know, it's not enough to just everyone agree like, 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.800 oh well, that's absurd. It actually had to be written 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.760 down somewhere and ratified. One of the biggest changes to 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:28.119 copyright has been how long that copyright protection lasts. This 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:33.760 also ties into how many capitalist societies treat corporations, which 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.440 is uh ridiculously in my mind. So here in the 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:41.520 United States in particular, corporations are treated legally like a person. 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.600 But if you think about that's kind of bonkers more 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.200 than kind of bankers. I should say, people get old, 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.920 people pass away. Corporations, Assuming that they are run well 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.520 and they provide some sort of goods or services that 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.480 people want or need, they can exist indefinitely. And to 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:03.960 corporate and that relies heavily on intellectual property, is quite 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.760 loath to give up that meal ticket, and so corporations 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.439 over the years have lobbied hard to extend copyright in 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:14.880 order to prevent the i P that they own from 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.199 falling into the public domain. And then they can no 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:23.320 longer exclusively exploit that i P. They could still exploit it, 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.920 they could still sell stuff with it, just it doesn't 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.960 stop anyone else from doing the same thing. Perhaps the 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.280 most high profile of all these companies was one that 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:37.200 seemed fixated on a particular mouse that I've already mentioned. 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:48.600 I'll explain more after this quick break. Before the break, 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.800 I tease that corporations played a huge part in lobbying 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:55.439 Congress to extend the protections of copyright, and one of 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.360 those corporations is the Walt Disney Company and the cultural 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:04.320 phenomenon that is Mickey Mouse. The cartoon Steamboat Willie, which 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.160 was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, was released in nineteen 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.600 twenty eight. Now, at that time, US copyright law had 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.639 a twenty eight year protection limit, which could then be 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.359 renewed for a second twenty eight year term, which would 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:24.000 provide a total of fifty six years of copyright exclusivity 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.560 to the owner of an i P. But then the 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.719 i P would enter the public domain. That means that 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:35.440 if copyright law had remained unchanged since Steamboat Willie, Steamboat 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.800 Willie would have entered the public domain back in nineteen 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.560 eight four. Spoiler alert, As of the recording of this podcast, 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.479 Steamboat Willie is not in the public domain yet, so 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.160 things did not remain the same. By the nineteen seventies, 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.960 the Disney Company was lobbying hard to change copyright laws, 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:57.600 and I want to be clear they weren't the only ones, 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:04.120 but you freaquently here Disney specifically in regard to lobbying 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:08.240 for copyright law extensions, and it worked. Congress changed the 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.119 copyright protection so that copyrights that were held by individual 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:17.119 authors protection would last the lifetime of that author plus 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:21.639 another fifty years. So now we're well beyond guaranteeing the 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:23.920 right of a person to profit off of their work. 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:28.359 Right now, you're saying you're guaranteeing that multiple generations of 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.840 an author's family can continue to benefit from the work 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.040 of the author. The author will be dead and fifty 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.960 years will pass, and until those fifty years are up, 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:44.960 the estate will continue to benefit monetarily from that author's work, 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.879 assuming that you know people are still buying it. Obviously, 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:50.760 if it falls out of favor and no one's purchasing anything, 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:56.040 then those rights, while they're important, don't actually leverage into 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.480 any kind of monetary gain. But this is where I 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:01.919 start feeling a little weird about all this, because I 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:04.399 think it's one thing to want to provide for your family, 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:09.359 right you want to earn money and help contribute to 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:14.080 your family or households well being. But it's another to 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:18.200 create generational wealth that removes the need for future generations 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:22.080 to you know, make any sort of meaningful contribution themselves. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:26.400 There are lots of cases where the children of authors 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:31.159 who were incredibly successful, uh have themselves gone on to 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:34.480 do amazing things, which is great. But there are also 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:37.880 cases of people who just kind of, you know, never 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:41.280 bothered to do anything because they didn't really have a 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:44.199 need to. They were all of their needs were already 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:49.520 met because they were earning income on something that their 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:54.240 parents or grandparents or great grandparents had done, and there 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:57.120 never was any need for them to do anything. Not 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:02.879 super helpful for the general society. Not very healthy in 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:07.560 my mind anyway. For corporations that owned i P. It 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:10.520 was a different story, right, because corporations don't die, so 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:14.119 you can't say the life of a corporation plus fifty years. 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:18.200 So in this case, the Copyright Protection extended the term 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:22.239 for works that had been published before nineteen to a 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:25.800 total term of seventy five years of protection. UH. The 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:29.520 Copyright Extension pushed that that protection of Steamboat Willie to 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:31.800 two thousand three because of that, because it was published 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:34.879 in nineteen seventy five years later would be up to 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:40.080 two thousand three. However, in nineteen Congress passed the Copyright 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:44.399 Term Extension Act, also known as the Sunny Bono Copyright 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:47.800 Term Extension Act, after the late congressman and musicians Sonny 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:51.360 Bono Bono had passed away in an accident while Congress 0:24:51.400 --> 0:24:54.720