WEBVTT - Rerun: Copyright and Fair Use 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.640 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.000 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.160 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and How the Tech 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:24.600 are You. This episode, originally published May seventeenth, twenty twenty one, 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.760 is called Copyright and Fair Use. I feel it's always 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.680 important to revisit this topic because it's a it's one 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:33.720 that's a little complicated, and I think a lot of 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.959 people have misconceptions about what fair use is and how 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.360 it works. So enjoy and I'll chat with you a 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:46.839 little bit at the very end. It has been a 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.920 while since I've done an episode about the concepts of 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:54.080 copyright and fair use, and after I keep seeing the 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:59.080 phrase no copyright infringement intended over and over on places 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.960 like you Tube and Instagram, I figure it's a good 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:07.039 time to tackle this again because people continue to pretend 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:14.440 like copyright infringement only applies under very specific circumstances and 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.480 that with just a little bit of verbiage you can 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.920 get around it, when really the opposite is true. And 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.000 since the Internet and technology allows for more opportunities for 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:29.959 copyright infringement, and because various governments and around the world 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.760 have passed legislation to, you know, specifically tackle copyright infringement, 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:40.360 and companies have lobbied endlessly for more restrictive copyright rules. 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.520 I think it fits the scope of tech stuff, particularly 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.400 since a lot of these laws were formed in reaction 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:53.440 to changes in technology. So first, let's kind of define 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:59.400 what copyright is now. Essentially, copyright guarantees the creator of 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.960 a work or an entity that has been designated by 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.160 the creator of the work, the right to profit off 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.840 of that work, the right to make copies of that 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:16.400 work and then distribute or sell them, or you know, 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.720 you just you own that intellectual property. No one else 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.800 can come and make copies of it without your permission. 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:26.880 The works in this case range from the written word 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:32.919 to music, to paintings to sculpture to digital files. I mean, 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.720 copyright now applies to lots of stuff. Clearly, it didn't 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.560 apply to all of that in the beginning, but something 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.600 that has evaulved over time. It does not include inventions. 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.600 Those are covered under patent law. And then you also 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.280 have things like trademarks, which make things more complicated. I 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.840 might talk about trademarks and copyright in a future episode. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.320 To kind of talk about how those complicate things because 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.360 companies have tried to use trade in order to extend 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:09.440 copyright protection. But trademark's last in perpetuity. Copyright only lasts 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.880 a certain amount of time, at least in theory. We'll 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.440 get to all that. So, along with the right to 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:20.600 profit from intellectual property comes with it protections against others 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:22.840 who are taking a work and profiting off of it 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:27.200 without permission. Now you can see the value of this 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.520 concept right away, I imagine. So let's say you are 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.960 a musician and you write a song. It was your work. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.080 You created the whole piece, You wrote the music, and 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.400 you wrote the lyrics, and you plan to earn money 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.280 through this song. Maybe you're going to record it to 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.120 some form of media and then sell copies of the song. 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.480 So you file the copyright for the song, which gives 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.640 you the exclusive rights to make copies of it in 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.520 whatever format you like, whether it's digital files or physical 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.720 media or even like sheet music. You can charge whatever 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.680 you like for your work, though obviously if you go 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.400 bonkers and you ask for ridiculously high price, you aren't 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.120 likely to get a lot of takers. You also have 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.040 the protection should someone else start making copies of your 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:22.120 song without your permission. Maybe they are performing it themselves, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.040 in which case they should secure a license first, or 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.920 maybe they're taking your original recording and just duplicating it. 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.159 So let's say that you created an MP three file 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.760 and they just copy the MP three file endlessly and 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.480 start either giving it away or selling it to people. 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.360 You could sue that person, and in court you could 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.719 prove that you hold the copyright to that piece of music, 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.360 and assuming the court agrees that the copyright is legitimate, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:56.680 you could then seek damages against the person or entity 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:01.200 that made the unauthorized copies of your work. Music is 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.880 actually really a special case because you can have multiple 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.720 copyrights on the work. You could have one for the lyrics, 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.080 then you could have another for the musical composition itself, 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.279 and that would mean that someone who wanted to play 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:19.800 your music but change the lyrics would still potentially be 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.080 liable for copyright violations. But we're going to get back 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.440 to that a little bit later in this episode, but 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.880 it is something to keep in mind. However, Then there 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.279 are such things as mechanical licenses. This sets out the 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:36.400 rules for stuff like playing recorded music in particular places. 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.560 So if you've ever been to a restaurant or a 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:44.000 theater and you've heard music being played over the sound system, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:49.520 chances are that that place of business has paid out 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.840 a license fee in order to be able to do that. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:58.120 Intellectual property rights get pretty complicated. It also depends upon 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.800 the size of the venue. I might have to do 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.200 a future episode to kind of talk about all the exceptions, 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.440 because as I said, it does get complicated, and in 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.279 some cases, if it's a very small venue, they can 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.800 sometimes be exempt from having to pay the same sort 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.000 of license fees that larger venues have to pay. And 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:18.200 part of the argument there is that the number of 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.120 people who would actually experience the music is much smaller 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:26.080 because the venue is smaller. Anyway, in the old days, 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.919 as in before the printing press, copyright wasn't really that 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.400 big of a thing, Like, there wasn't a big concern 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:38.760 for it. There were predecessors for formal copyright, but truthfully, 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.880 there wasn't much occasion to use them because the act 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.920 of copying a work involved actually making a copy out 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.159 by hand, handwriting the copy of a written work. This 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.719 was a painstaking process and not something that could be 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.559 done on any sort of scale. And so copyright wasn't 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.640 as huge a concern just because infringement it's was not 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.640 something that was easy to do. Add to that the 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.080 fact that much of the world's population was illiterate and 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.160 there just wasn't a foundation for copyright infringement to really 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.680 take hold. Then a smarty pants named Johann Gutenberg had 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.600 to go and invent the movable type printing press, at 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.120 least the European version. I should stress that Europe because 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.720 other parts of the world were actually further advanced with 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.360 printing technologies than Europe was. But this is the one 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:30.040 that Western cultures tend to talk about because we get 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.480 a little myopic. But I'll set aside the commentary. So 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.760 with the printing press, it became possible to set the 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.880 type on the press and then print out sheets one 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.400 after the other in relatively quick succession. Now, it still 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.600 took time to set the press between pages because you 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:49.440 had to change all the type out right, You had 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.480 to remove all the type, set the type again, and 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.200 then print the next sheet. So you would typically use 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.000 the press to print a bunch of the same sheet 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.040 in a row before you would reset the type and 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.320 move on to the next sheet. However, you could also 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.600 use a single large sheet of paper to set out 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:13.320 multiple pages of text, and so you could divide up 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.440 the quadrants of a printing press and change the type 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:22.280 up so that you are actually creating multiple pages per press. 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.760 And then you fold the paper in such a way 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.640 that that makes all sense, like if you fold it 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.160 once along a vertical line, so you fold it in 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:36.520 half vertically then or along the vertical axis, I should say, 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.040 Then you end up with a folio that was a 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.440 single large sheet of paper that would have one page 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.160 printed on the left side, one page printed on the 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.840 right side. You have a vertical fold in the middle, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.360 and then you can just keep printing those over and 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:53.280 over again, and then you bind a bunch of those 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:57.640 together and you've got a book. Or you could do 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.320 a double fold, and you could have a quarto, which 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:03.440 would also involve you having to make a cut along 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.800 the horizontal line. But then you've got four pages per sheet, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.680 so you could do that, and that means that with 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:16.040 one press you're effectively printing four pages. Then you let 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:17.520 it dry, you flip it over, and you can print 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.720 another four pages. Very useful. So this was these were 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:26.000 different ways that you could end up creating books fairly quickly. 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.800 The process of publishing became much faster than with people 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.080 doing it behind, but there wasn't yet a formalized protection 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.840 in place for the creator of the works, and at 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.520 this point, the typical approach was for an author to 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.040 receive a flat fee for their work, which would then 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:48.000 go to a book printer to produce, so the printer 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.000 would take ownership of that work from that point forward. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:53.319 Then it was just a matter of time before other 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.720 printers would get hold of the book and start making 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.520 their own copies, at least for books that proved to 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.880 be popular. For all, there really wasn't a whole lot 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.640 of profit in this approach. William Shakespeare, who you know 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.479 you could argue, was one of the greatest English writers, 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.520 mostly known for his plays but also his poetry. He 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.360 never sought out the printing of his plays. Others would 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.760 give it a shot. Either they would try to copy 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.959 down plays as they were being performed and then go 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.280 and print what they had transcribed, or they would try 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.240 to get hold of the sides that actors were using 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.679 in their roles, or a combination of the two. It 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.200 was really only after Shakespeare's death that his friends got 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.280 together and did their best to gather his plays and 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.679 publish them. Now, based on what I know about Shakespeare, 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.439 I suspect the reason that he did not seek out 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.800 publication of his works was that it really wasn't where 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.640 the money would be for him. He would get a 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.600 paid the flat fee for every play he wrote, but 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:58.720 more importantly, he was a part owner of the theater itself. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.240 Like the Globe the Rose Theater, he was part of 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.240 the company that owned the theater, so that meant he 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.360 would actually take a share of the box office. So, 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.920 in other words, his main goal was to attract crowds 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.320 to the theater. That's where the money was. But you 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.080 can bet that if there had been serious money in 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.320 publication back in those days, Shakespeare would have been all 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:23.240 over it because a quick glance at some of the 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.560 lawsuits he was involved with during his lifetime indicates he 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.880 had a certain appreciation for the accumulation of wealth. So Shakespeare, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.559 a great artist also a business guy, and had publishing 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.960 been a bigger business for the author, he certainly would 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.360 have gone that route. I'm sure of it. Now. The 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.280 printing press was a truly transformational piece of technology. It 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.360 became easier to produce many copies of a work book. 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:54.080 Printing businesses, which would evolve into true publishing houses, began 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.880 to pop up all over Europe, and the powers that be, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.720 that is, the Church and the various governments of Europe, 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.800 viewed book printers as both an asset and a potential threat. 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:10.000 Through the printers, these organizations could spread information quickly. The 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.280 Bible was a very early candidate for printing, as the 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:17.400 Gutenberg Bible proves and governments could use printing presses to 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.880 spread information about laws and declarations and that kind of thing. 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.480 But printing presses also meant it was easier to print 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.560 stuff that undermined authority. People who had a bone to 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.760 pick with the folks who were in charge could potentially 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.960 spread their ideas and maybe find sympathetic souls who shared 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:40.760 those same beliefs. So the printing press could enable existential 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.719 threats to the power structure. And this is where we 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:49.280 get a predecessor to copyright. Now, this predecessor wasn't so 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.160 much about making sure the author of a book was 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:56.400 fairly compensated. Instead, it was more about keeping printing houses 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.320 under control. The basic idea was that any business that 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.199 wished to print materials had to first secure an official 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:09.880 license from the government of that region. These licenses typically 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:12.840 meant that a specific printer would be responsible for the 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:17.240 printing of particular works to the exclusion of all other printers. 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.720 So you might say that this one printer can print 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.680 this one book, and no other printer in the region 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.599 is allowed to do that, so they have a monopoly 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.880 on that specific title. In fact, they called the monopolies. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.520 These agreements would last a set number of years, which 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.319 wasn't too different from the concept of modern copyrights. If 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.160 any other printer was found to produce a work that 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.760 some other printer had exclusive rights to, that matter could 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.119 go to court, But this was all about the printing houses, 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:54.280 not authors. England passed its first actual copyright law in 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.800 seventeen ten. This law changed things quite a bit. A 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.120 publisher would have a fourteen year period of exclusive rights 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.840 to publish any new book. Existing books that the printing 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:09.000 house was already printing would enjoy protection for twenty one years. 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.320 After that, the author of the work could choose to 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:16.280 renew the copyright if the author was still alive. Otherwise 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.520 the work would enter into the public domain, meaning anyone 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.000 would be legally allowed to make a copy of that 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.160 work or use it in any way they liked. There 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.320 were no longer any protections on that piece of work, 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.080 and it was available for any public use. The United 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.720 States wouldn't get its first true copyright law until nearly 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.600 a century later. But let's be fair, there was no 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.200 such thing as the United States in seventeen ten, so 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.960 I'm going to cut the young nation some slack here. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.840 The copyright law of the US followed closely in the 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:52.040 footsteps of the Copyright Act of Britain, which was also 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.440 known as the Statute of Anne as in Queen Anne. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.000 So the way that the US law worked was that 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.080 an author would read just through their work with the 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:05.400 US District Court of their particular region, and they would 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.800 in return receive an exclusive copyright for fourteen years, with 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.920 the option to renew for a second fourteen year period, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.880 and after those twenty eight years, assuming that you actually 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.040 renewed your copyright, the work would then enter into the 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.480 public domain with the Statute of Ann and the Copyright 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.000 Act of seventeen ninety in the US or at the 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:26.320 point where authors would get a little more protection and 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.360 a chance to benefit more from their own work. It 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.480 was no longer the case of a one time flat fee. 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.200 In every instance now I say authors, but often we're 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.200 really still talking about publishers. Here. The publisher retains the 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.880 copyright because the copyright allows the publisher to, you know, 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.160 publish the works. Otherwise, the author would have to grant 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.040 permission for each printing. You'd have to have a license 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.840 for it. It all gets clunky, right. If the author 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.640 has exclusive copyright to their work, they have to grant 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:01.360 permission to whichever entity is reading copies of that work. 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.840 You often see this reflected today in ways that are 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:09.280 kind of confusing. When you agree to certain platforms, there's 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.160 language there that seems to suggest that anything you post 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:18.160 on that platform is that platform's property. But usually the 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.200 reasoning for the language is to make sure that the 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.480 platform has the necessary permission to display whatever it is 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.600 you're posting, because otherwise, every single time you posted, you 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.400 would have to have some sort of licensing agreement or 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.680 something that would give permission to the platform to actually 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.800 display the thing you wrote. It gets pretty complicated now. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.760 The same would be true for most music produced in 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.480 the modern era. The copyright isn't necessarily held by the 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:51.200 artist but by a music label. And it's kind of 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.680 like how Thomas Edison made sure that his name was 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.680 on every patent produced out of his business. He might 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.680 not have had a direct hand in the creation of reinvention. 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.640 In fact, we know that he didn't have a direct 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.119 hand in a lot of them, but he sure as 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.760 heck made sure that his signature was on the patent 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:10.440 to every single one, so that he had a right 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.560 to each of them anyway. One of the consequences of 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.119 all of this is that, to this day, getting the 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.600 permission of an author or artist in order to use 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:25.840 their work typically isn't enough. That's because in many cases 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:31.440 that individual creator doesn't actually hold the copyright to the work. 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.960 It's more likely that some corporate entity will hold the 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.959 copyright on behalf of that creator. So you really have 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.520 to get the permission of whatever entity holds the copyright 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.560 for any specific intellectual property. In some cases it might 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:50.120 be an individual creator, in other cases it might be 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.720 a big company. So let's say if you met an 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.879 artist for Disney in a cafe and this artist told you, oh, 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:03.080 it's totally cool if you use their drawing of a 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.240 popular Disney character for something you're doing that's probably not 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.639 good enough because that artist wouldn't even hold the copyright 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.520 for that work. Disney would, and copyright laws would evolve 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.760 quite a lot over the following centuries. They expanded to 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.200 include more types of works, as well as to allow 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.960 for things like licenses, and without these considerations, it might 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.480 be illegal to you know, play back an album without 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.920 first getting permission of the music label, which is clearly absurd. 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.760 You wouldn't have it where you bought an album, you 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.000 went home, and every time you were to play the album, 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.679 you first had to get permission from the music label 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.560 to do that. That just doesn't make sense. But that's 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.120 the sort of stuff that actually had to be codified 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.000 into law. It's you know, it's not enough to just 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.280 everyone agree like, oh well, that's absurd. It actually had 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.760 to be written down somewhere and ratified. One of the 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.320 biggest changes to copyright has been how long that copyright 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.760 protection lasts. This also ties into how many capitalist societies 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:16.280 treat corporations, which is ridiculously in my mind. So here 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.320 in the United States, in particular, corporations are treated legally 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:21.840 like a person. But if you think about it, that's 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.120 kind of bonkers. More than kind of bonkers. I should say, 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:30.000 people get old. People pass away corporations. Assuming that they 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.720 are run well and they provide some sort of goods 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:37.920 or services that people want or need, they can exist indefinitely. 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:42.439 And a corporation that relies heavily on intellectual property is 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.920 quite loath to give up that meal ticket. And so 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:51.040 corporations over the years have lobbied hard to extend copyright 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.840 in order to prevent the IP that they own from 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.159 falling into the public domain. And then they can no 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:02.360 longer exclusively exploit that IP. They could still exploit it, 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.920 they could still sell stuff with it, just it doesn't 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:08.960 stop anyone else from doing the same thing. Perhaps the 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.240 most high profile of all these companies was one that 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.160 seemed fixated on a particular mouse that I've already mentioned. 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:27.600 I'll explain more after this quick break. Before the break, 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.800 I teased that corporations played a huge part in lobbying 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:34.399 Congress to extend the protections of copyright. And one of 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:38.360 those corporations is the Walt Disney Company and the cultural 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:43.320 phenomenon that is Mickey Mouse. The cartoon Steamboat Willie, which 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:47.120 was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, was released in nineteen 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:51.600 twenty eight. Now, at that time, US copyright law had 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:54.679 a twenty eight year protection limit, which could then be 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.359 renewed for a second twenty eight year term, which would 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.760 provide a total of fis fifty six years of copyright 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.560 exclusivity to the owner of an IP, But then the 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:09.120 IP would enter the public domain. That means that if 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:14.640 copyright law had remained unchanged since Steamboat Willie, Steamboat Willy 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.640 would have entered the public domain back in nineteen eighty four. 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:23.240 Spoiler alert, as of the recording of this podcast, Steamboat 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.840 Willie is not in the public domain yet, so things 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.399 did not remain the same. By the nineteen seventies, the 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.119 Disney Company was lobbying hard to change copyright laws, and 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:36.639 I want to be clear they weren't the only ones, 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:43.120 but you frequently hear Disney specifically in regard to lobbying 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.240 for copyright law extensions, and it worked. Congress changed the 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.119 copyright protection so that copyrights that were held by individual 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:56.119 authors protection would last the lifetime of that author plus 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.639 another fifty years. So now we're well beyond gearuaranteeing the 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:02.960 right of a person to profit off of their work. 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:07.359 Right now, you're saying you're guaranteeing that multiple generations of 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:10.840 an author's family can continue to benefit from the work 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:15.040 of the author. The author will be dead and fifty 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:17.880 years will pass, and until those fifty years are up, 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:24.000 the estate will continue to benefit monetarily from that author's work, 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.840 assuming that you know, people are still buying it. Obviously, 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:29.720 if it falls out of favor and no one's purchasing anything, 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:35.040 then those rights, while they're important, don't actually leverage into 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:38.520 any kind of monetary gain. But this is where I 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.879 start feeling a little weird about all this, because I 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:43.400 think it's one thing to want to provide for your family, 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:48.080 right you want to earn money and help contribute to 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:53.080 your family or household's well being. But it's another to 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:57.200 create generational wealth that removes the need for future generations 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:01.040 to you know, make any sort of meaningful contribution themselves. 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:05.359 There are lots of cases where the children of authors 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:10.320 who were incredibly successful have themselves gone on to do 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:13.879 amazing things, which is great, But there are also cases 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.600 of people who just kind of, you know, never bothered 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:21.119 to do anything because they didn't really have a need to. 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.240 They were all of their needs were already met because 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:29.320 they were earning income on something that their parents or 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:33.600 grandparents or great grandparents had done, and there never was 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.520 any need for them to do anything. Not super helpful 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:43.280 for the general society. Not very healthy in my mind anyway. 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:47.879 For corporations that owned IP it was a different story, right, 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:50.680 because corporations don't die, so you can't say the life 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:54.359 of a corporation plus fifty years. So in this case, 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:58.280 the Copyright Protection extended the term for works that had 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.560 been published before nineteen seven seventy eight to a total 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:05.879 term of seventy five years of protection. The Copyright Extension 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:09.200 pushed that protection of Steamboat Willy to two thousand and 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:11.280 three because of that, because it was published in nineteen 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:13.840 twenty eight, seventy five years later would be up to 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:18.080 two thousand and three. However, in nineteen ninety eight, Congress 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.560 passed the Copyright Term Extension Act, also known as the 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:25.760 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, after the late congressman 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:29.080 and musician Sonny Bono Bono had passed away in an 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:32.479 accident while Congress was hashing out this extension bill, so 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:36.560 he was posthumously honored with the title of the act. 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.920 This Act extended the copyright protection for any work published 0:24:40.920 --> 0:24:44.560 in nineteen twenty three or later, and the extension meant 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:48.320 that the copyright protection now went from the life of 0:24:48.359 --> 0:24:51.560 the author plus fifty years to the life of the 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:54.840 author plus seventy years for those works that were created 0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:58.399