WEBVTT - Copyright and Fair Use 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.720 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.640 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.760 and I love all things tech. And it has been 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.880 a while since I've done an episode about the concepts 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:29.040 of copyright and fair use. And after I keep seeing 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:33.559 the phrase no copyright infringement intended over and over on 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:38.040 places like YouTube and Instagram, I figure it's a good 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.080 time to tackle this again. Because people continue to pretend 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:49.519 like copyright infringement only applies under very specific circumstances and 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.559 that with just a little bit of verbiage you can 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:55.960 get around it, when really the opposite is true. And 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.080 since the Internet and technology allows for more opportunities for 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:04.319 a copyright in fringe mint, and because various governments and 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.480 around the world have past legislation to, you know, specifically 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:12.720 tackle copyright infringement, and companies have lobbied endlessly for more 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:18.080 restrictive copyright rules, I think it fits the scope of 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.920 tech stuff, particularly since a lot of these laws were 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:27.240 formed in reaction to changes in technology. So first, let's 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:33.800 kind of define what copyright is now. Essentially, copyright guarantees 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.840 the creator of a work or an entity that has 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.520 been designated by the creator of the work, the right 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:45.000 to profit off of that work, the right to make 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:50.560 copies of that work and then distribute or sell them, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.200 or you know, you just you own that intellectual property. 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.840 No one else can come and make copies of it 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:01.120 without your permission. The works in this case range from 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:06.440 the written word to music too, paintings, sculpture, uh to 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.040 digital files. I mean, copyright now applies to lots of stuff. 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.480 Clearly it didn't apply to all of that in the beginning, 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.959 but something that has a vaulved over time. It does 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:20.959 not include inventions. Those are covered under patent law. And 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.800 then you also have things like trademarks, which make things 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.480 more complicated. I might talk about trademarks and copyright in 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.280 a future episode to kind of talk about how those 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.160 complicate things, because companies have tried to use trademarks in 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:42.519 order to extend copyright protection. But trademarks last in perpetuity. 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.760 Copyright only lasts a certain amount of time, at least 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.800 in theory. We'll get to all that. So along with 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.400 the right to profit from intellectual property comes with it 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.400 protections against others who are taking a work and profiting 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.920 off of it without permission. You can see the value 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.919 of this concept right away, I imagine. So let's say 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.240 you are a musician and you write a song. It 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.400 was your work, You create the whole piece, You wrote 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.959 the music, and you wrote the lyrics, and you plan 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.520 to earn money through this song. Maybe you're going to 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.880 record it to some form of media and then sell 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.560 copies of the song. So you filed a copyright for 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.280 the song, which gives you the exclusive rights to make 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.840 copies of it uh in whatever format you like, whether 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:38.160 it's digital files or physical media, or even like sheet music. 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.960 You can charge whatever you like for your work, though 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:43.760 obviously if you go bonkers and you ask for a 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.240 ridiculously high price, you aren't likely to get a lot 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.080 of takers. You also have the protection should someone else 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.280 start making copies of your song without your permission. Maybe 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.520 they are performing it themselves, in which case they should 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:03.160 secure a license first, or maybe they're taking your original 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.800 recording and just duplicating it. So let's say that you 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.840 created an MP three file and they just copy the 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.600 MP three file endlessly and start either giving it away 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.479 or selling it to people. You could sue that person, 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.640 and in court you could prove that you hold the 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.960 copyright to that piece of music, and assuming the court 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.400 agrees with that the copyright is legitimate, you could then 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.680 seek damages against the person or entity that made the 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:37.599 unauthorized copies of your work. Music is actually really a 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.839 special case because you can have multiple copyrights on the work. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.720 You could have one for the lyrics, then you could 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.200 have another for the musical composition itself, and that would 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.120 mean that someone who wanted to play your music but 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:56.880 change the lyrics would still potentially be liable for copyright violations. 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:58.760 But we're going to get back to that a little 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.200 bit later in this episode, but it is something to 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.920 keep in mind. However, Then there are such things as 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.440 mechanical licenses. This sets out the rules for stuff like 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:12.120 playing recorded music in particular places. So if you've ever 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.920 been to like a restaurant or a theater and you've 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.080 heard music being played over the sound system, chances are 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:25.440 that that place of business has paid out a license 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.560 fee in order to be able to do that. Intellectual 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.159 property rights get pretty complicated. Uh. It also depends upon 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.839 the size of the venue I might have to do 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.719 a future episode to kind of talk about all the exceptions, because, 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.040 as I said, it does get complicated, and in some cases, 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.960 if it's a very small venue, uh, they can sometimes 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:47.960 be exempt from having to pay the same sort of 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.240 license fees that larger venues have to pay. And part 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.559 of the argument there is that the number of people 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.520 who would actually experience the music is much smaller because 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:02.120 the venue is smaller. Anyway, in the old days, as 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:06.360 in before the printing press, copyright wasn't really that big 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.880 of a thing, Like, there wasn't a big concern for it. 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:14.320 There were predecessors for formal copyright, but truthfully, there wasn't 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.520 much occasion to use them because the act of copying 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.960 a work involved actually making a copy out by hand, 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:25.599 handwriting the copy of a written work. This was a 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.240 painstaking process and not something that could be done on 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.160 any sort of scale, and so copyright wasn't as huge 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.360 a concern just because infringement itself was not something that 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.160 was easy to do. And to that the fact that 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.479 much of the world's population was alliterate and there just 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.880 wasn't a foundation for copyright infringement to really take hold. 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.919 Then a smarty pants named Johann Gutenberg had to go 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.039 and invent the movable type printing press, at least the 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.680 European version. I should stress that Europe because other parts 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.840 of the world are actually further advanced with printing technologies 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.800 than Europe was. But this is the one that Western 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.920 cultures tend to talk about because we get a little myopic. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.919 But i'll i'll set aside the commentary. So with the 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.760 printing press, it became possible to set the type on 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.520 the press and then print out sheets one after the 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.119 other in relatively quick succession. Now, it still took time 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.920 to set the press between pages because you had to 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.400 change all the type out right. You had to remove 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.080 all the type, set the type again, and then print 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.680 the next sheet. So you would typically use the press 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.320 to print a bunch of the same sheet in a 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.440 row before you would reset the type and move on 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.240 to the next sheet. However, you could also use a 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:44.600 single large sheet of paper to set up multiple pages 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:50.160 of text, and so you could divide up the quadrants 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.880 of a printing press and change the type up so 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:57.880 that you are actually creating multiple pages per press, and 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.960 then you fold the paper in such a way that 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.080 that makes all sense. Like if you fold it once 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.200 along a vertical line, so you you fold it in 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:11.040 half vertically, um then are along the vertical access, I 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.440 should say, then you end up with a folio that 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.880 was a single large sheet of paper that would have 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.000 one page printed on the left side, one page printed 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.400 on the right side. You have a vertical fold in 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.200 the middle, and then you can just keep printing those 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.080 over and over again, and then you bind a bunch 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.960 of those together and you've got a book. Or you 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:36.160 could do a double fold and you could have a quarto, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.199 which would also involve you having to make a cut 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.319 along the horizontal line. But then you've got four pages 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.719 per sheet, so you could do that and that it 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:49.679 means that with one press you're effectively printing four pages, 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:52.080 and then you let it dry, you flip it over 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.320 and you can print another four pages. Very useful. So 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.040 this was these were different ways that you could end 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:03.120 up creating book fairly quickly. The process of publishing became 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.960 much faster than with people doing it by hand, but 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.000 there wasn't yet a formalized protection in place for the 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.959 creator of the works, and at this point, the typical 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.960 approach was for an author to receive a flat fee 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:20.040 for their work, which would then go to a book 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.440 printer to produce, so the printer would take ownership of 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.000 that work from that point forward. Then it was just 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.480 a matter of time before other printers would get hold 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.200 of the book and start making their own copies. At 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.280 least for books that proved to be popular for authors. 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.360 There really wasn't a whole lot of profit in this approach. 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.520 William Shakespeare, who you know you could argue, was one 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.920 of the greatest English writers, mostly known for his plays 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.200 but also his poetry. He never sought out the printing 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.520 of his plays. Others would give it a shot. Either 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.160 they would try to copy down plays as they were 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.480 being performed and then go and print what they had 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:02.319 trans rived, or they would try to get hold of 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.000 the sides that actors were using in their roles, or 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.680 a combination of the two. It was really only after 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.240 Shakespeare's death that his friends got together and did their 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.360 best to gather his plays and publish them. Now, based 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.000 on what I know about Shakespeare, I suspect the reason 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.760 that he did not seek out publication of his works 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.000 was that it really wasn't where the money would be 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.120 for him. He would get a pay the flat fee 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.880 for every play he wrote. But more importantly, he was 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.960 a part owner of the theater itself, like the Globe 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.720 Theater or the Rose Theater. He was part of the 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.520 company that owned the theater, so that meant he would 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.560 actually take a share of the box office. So, in 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:47.200 other words, his main goal was to attract crowds to 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.559 the theater. That's where the money was. But you can 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.920 bet that if there had been serious money in publication 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.600 back in those days, Shakespeare would have been all over 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:58.880 it because a quick glance at some of the lawsuits 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:01.800 he was involved with during his lifetime indicates he had 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:06.000 a certain appreciation for the accumulation of wealth. So Shakespeare, 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.880 great artist, also a business guy, and had publishing been 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.080 a bigger business for the author, he certainly would have 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.760 gone that route, I'm sure of it. Now. The printing 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.760 press was a truly transformational piece of technology. It became 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:25.480 easier to produce many copies of a work. Book printing businesses, 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.600 which would evolve into true publishing houses, began to pop 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.000 up all over Europe, and the powers that be, that is, 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.720 the Church and the various governments of Europe, viewed book 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.880 printers as both an asset and a potential threat. Through 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.480 the printers, these organizations could spread information quickly. The Bible 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.960 was a very early candidate for printing, as the Guttenberg 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:52.800 Bible proves and governments could use printing presses to spread 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.920 information about laws and declarations and that kind of thing. 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.520 But printing presses also meant it was easier to print 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.559 stuff that undermined authority. People who had a bone to 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.840 pick with the folks who were in charge could potentially 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.000 spread their ideas and maybe find sympathetic souls who shared 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:15.760 those same beliefs. So the printing press could enable existential 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.760 threats to the power structure. And this is where we 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:24.400 get a predecessor to copyright. Now, this predecessor wasn't so 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.200 much about making sure the author of a book was 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:31.440 fairly compensated. Instead, it was more about keeping printing houses 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.360 under control. The basic idea was that any business that 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.240 wished to print materials had to first secure an official 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:43.600 license from, you know, the government of that region. These 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.680 licenses typically meant that a specific printer would be responsible 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.320 for the printing of particular works to the exclusion of 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.280 all other printers. So you might say that this one 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:58.960 printer can print this one book, and no other printer 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.480 in the region is a allowed to do that, so 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.640 they have a monopoly on that specific title. In fact, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.280 they called the monopolies. These agreements would last a set 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.280 number of years, which wasn't too different from the concept 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.200 of modern copyrights. If any other printer was found to 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.520 produce a work that some other printer had exclusive rights to, 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.400 that matter could go to court. But this was all 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:27.640 about the printing houses, not authors. England passed its first 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:32.360 actual copyright law in seventeen. This law changed things quite 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.040 a bit. A publisher would have a fourteen year period 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.240 of exclusive rights to publish any new book. Existing books 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:42.760 that the printing house was already printing would enjoy protection 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.200 for twenty one years. After that, the author of the 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.640 work could choose to renew the copyright if the author 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.040 was still alive. Otherwise the work would enter into the 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.240 public domain, meaning anyone would be legally allowed to make 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:00.160 a copy of that work or use it in any 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:03.280 way they liked. There were no longer any protections on 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.480 that piece of work, and it was available for any 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:10.280 public use. The United States wouldn't get its first true 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:14.480 copyright law until nearly a century later. But let's be fair, 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:17.280 there was no such thing as the United States in 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.320 seventeen ten, so I'm gonna cut the young nations some 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.680 slack here. The copyright law of the US followed closely 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.720 in the footsteps of the Copyright Act of Britain, which 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.360 was also known as the Statute of Ann as in 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.760 Queen Anne. So the way that the US law worked 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.120 was that an author would register their work with the 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.160 U S District Court of their particular region, and they 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.720 would in return receive an exclusive copyright for fourteen years, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.960 with the option to renew for a second fourteen year period, 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.920 and after those twenty eight years, assuming that you actually 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.120 renewed your copyright, the work would then enter into the 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.520 public domain with the Statute of Ann and the Copyright 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.080 Act of seventeen nine in the US or at the 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.400 point where authors would get a little more protection and 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.360 a chance to benefit more from their own work. It 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.000 was no longer the case of a one time flat 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.000 fee in every instance. Now, I say authors, but often 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:15.120 we're really still talking about publishers. Here. The publisher retains 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.920 the copyright because the copyright allows the publisher to you know, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.200 publish the works. Otherwise the author would have to grant 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.080 permission for each printing, you'd have to have a license 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.920 for it. It all gets clunky. Right that the author 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.680 has exclusive copyright to their work, they have to grant 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:36.400 permission to whichever entity is creating copies of that work. 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.840 You often see this reflected today in ways that are 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:44.360 kind of confusing. When you agree to certain platforms, there's 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.240 language there that seems to suggest that anything you post 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:53.560 on that platform is that platform's property. But usually the 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.240 reasoning for the language is to make sure that the 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.560 platform has the necessary permission to display whatever it is 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.640 you're posting, because otherwise, every single time you posted, you 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.520 would have to have some sort of licensing agreement or 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.720 something that would give permission to the platform to actually 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.880 display the thing you wrote. It gets pretty complicated now. 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:18.800 The same would be true for most music produced in 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.040 the modern era. The copyright isn't necessarily held by the artist, 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.400 but by a music label. And it's kind of like 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.960 how Thomas Edison made sure that his name was on 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.840 every patent produced out of his business. He might not 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.800 have had a direct hand in the creation of every invention. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.680 In fact, we know that he didn't have a direct 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.200 hand in a lot of them, but he sure as 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.800 heck made sure that his signature was on the patent 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:45.520 to every single one, so that he had a right 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.680 to each of them anyway. One of the consequences of 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.200 all of this is that, to this day, getting the 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.640 permission of an author or artist in order to use 0:16:55.680 --> 0:17:00.920 their work typically isn't enough. That's because in many cases 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:06.480 that individual creator doesn't actually hold the copyright to the work. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:11.000 It's more likely that some corporate entity will hold the 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.960 copyright on behalf of that creator. So you really have 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.560 to get the permission of whatever entity holds the copyright 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.600 for any specific intellectual property. In some cases it might 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.200 be an individual creator, in other cases it might be 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.760 a big company. So let's say if you met an 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.960 artist for Disney in a cafe and this artist told you, oh, 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:38.119 it's totally cool if you use they're drawing of a 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:42.320 popular Disney character for something you're doing, that's probably not 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.720 good enough because that artist wouldn't even hold the copyright 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.600 for that work. Disney would, and copyright laws would evolve 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.800 quite a lot over the following centuries. They expanded to 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.240 include more types of works, as well as to allow 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.000 for things like licenses, and without these considerations, it might 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.480 be illegal to you know, play playback an album without 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.960 first getting permission of the music label, which is clearly absurd. 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.800 You wouldn't have it where you bought an album, you 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.720 went home, and every time you were to play the 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.280 album you first had to get permission from the music 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.399 label to do that. That just doesn't make sense. But 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:24.439 that's the sort of stuff that actually had to be 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:28.760 codified into law. It's you know, it's not enough to 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.159 just everyone agree like, oh well, that's absurd. It actually 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.720 had to be written down somewhere and ratified. One of 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.560 the biggest changes to copyright has been how long that 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:44.160 copyright protection lasts. This also ties into how many capitalist 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:50.840 societies treat corporations, which is uh ridiculously in my mind. 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.479 So here in the United States in particular, corporations are 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.680 treated legally like a person. But if you think about 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.600 that's kind of bonkers. More than kind of bonkers, I 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:04.760 should say, people get old, people pass away corporations. Assuming 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.320 that they are run well and they provide some sort 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:11.080 of goods or services that people want or need, they 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.320 can exist indefinitely. And a corporation that relies heavily on 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:20.520 intellectual property is quite loath to give up that meal ticket, 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.439 and so corporations over the years have lobbied hard to 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.119 extend copyright in order to prevent the i P that 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.760 they own from falling into the public domain. And then 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:36.359 they can no longer exclusively exploit that i P. They 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.320 could still exploit it, they can still sell stuff with it, 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:42.920 just it doesn't stop anyone else from doing the same thing. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.960 Perhaps the most high profile of all these companies was 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.400 one that seemed fixated on a particular mouse that I've 0:19:50.440 --> 0:20:02.200 already mentioned. I'll explain more after this quick break. Before 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.920 the break, I t s that corporations played a huge 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.439 part in lobbying Congress to extend the protections of copyright, 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.560 and one of those corporations is the Walt Disney Company 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.800 and the cultural phenomenon that is Mickey Mouse. The cartoon 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.960 Steamboat Willie, which was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, was 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:25.320 released in nineteen twenty eight. Now, at that time, US 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.240 copyright law had a twenty eight year protection limit, which 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.919 could then be renewed for a second twenty eight year term, 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.119 which would provide a total of fifty six years of 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:40.040 copyright exclusivity to the owner of an i P, but 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.240 then the i P would enter the public domain. That 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:48.640 means that if copyright law had remained unchanged since Steamboat Willie, 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.040 Steamboat Willie would have entered the public domain back in 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:57.600 nineteen four. Spoiler alert, As of the recording of this podcast, 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.520 Steamboat Willie is not in the public domain yet, so 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.200 things did not remain the same. By the nineteen seventies, 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:09.000 the Disney Company was lobbying hard to change copyright laws, 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:11.639 and I want to be clear, they weren't the only ones, 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:18.160 but you frequently hear Disney specifically in regard to lobbying 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.280 for copyright law extensions, and it worked. Congress changed the 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.159 copyright protection so that copyrights that were held by individual 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:31.119 authors protection would last the lifetime of that author plus 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:35.679 another fifty years. So now we're well beyond guaranteeing the 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:37.960 right of a person to profit off of their work. 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:42.399 Right now, you're saying you're guaranteeing that multiple generations of 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.879 an author's family can continue to benefit from the work 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.080 of the author. The author will be dead and fifty 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.000 years will pass, and until those fifty years are up, 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:59.040 the estate will continue to benefit monetarily from that author's work, 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.920 assuming that you know, people are still buying it. Obviously, 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:04.800 if it falls out of favor and no one's purchasing anything, 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:10.080 then those rights, while they're important, don't actually leverage into 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.560 any kind of monetary gain. But this is where I 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:15.920 start feeling a little weird about all this, because I 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.439 think it's one thing to want to provide for your family, 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:23.440 right you want to earn money and help contribute to 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:28.119 your family or households well being. But it's another to 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:32.240 create generational wealth that removes the need for future generations 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:36.119 to you know, make any sort of meaningful contribution themselves. 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:40.440 There are lots of cases where the children of authors 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:45.199 who were incredibly successful, uh have themselves gone on to 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.520 do amazing things, which is great. But there are also 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.920 cases of people who just kind of, you know, never 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:55.320 bothered to do anything because they didn't really have a 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:58.240 need to. They were all of their needs were already 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:03.639 met because they were earning income on something that their 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:08.280 parents or grandparents or great grandparents had done, and there 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:10.719 never was any need for them to do anything. Uh. 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:16.760 Not super helpful for the general society. Not very healthy 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.800 in my mind anyway, for corporations that owned I P. 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.359 It was a different story, right, because corporations don't die, 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.879 so you can't say the life of a corporation plus 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:31.760 fifty years. So in this case, the copyright protection extended 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:34.680 the term for works that had been published before nine 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:38.960 to a total term of seventy five years of protection. 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:43.160 Uh the Copyright Extension pushed that that protection of Steamboat 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:45.399 willie to two thousand three because of that, because it 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.600 was published in nineteen seventy five years later would be 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:53.440 up to two thousand three. However, in nineteen Congress passed 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:57.000 the Copyright Term Extension Act, also known as the Sunny 0:23:57.040 --> 0:24:00.960 Buno Copyright Term Extension Act after the late congressman and 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:04.639 musician Sonny Bono. Bono had passed away in an accident 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.719 while Congress was hashing out this extension bill, so he 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:11.600 was posthumously honored with the title of the the Act. 0:24:12.400 --> 0:24:15.960 This act extended the copyright protection for any work published 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:19.560 in nineteen twenty three or later, and the extension meant 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:23.399 that the copyright protection now went from the life of 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:26.639 the author plus fifty years to the life of the 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:29.919 author plus seventy years for those works that were created 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:33.439 by an individual artist, and it meant for works of 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:38.560 corporate authorship, you know, works that like Steamboat Willie from Disney, 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:41.119 they went from having seventy five years of protection to 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:45.639 either ninety five years after publication or one twenty years 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:49.399