Episode: 430
Title: HPR0430: Copyright
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0430/hpr0430.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 20:23:04

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We're going to jump into the game.
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Welcome to Hacker Public Radio, my name is Soak, today I'm going to be talking about
copyright.
Now I spoke about this on Cranx several weeks ago and also I did a blog post on Soak.org
but I'm going to talk about it on here and try and get some discussion going and talk
about it and try and get some feedback and try and improve this and try and get everything
in sync and everything going well for this.
So first up I agree with everything I've heard, Laura, it's less exact, I think creator
commons is a great idea, I release pretty much everything I do I believe under creator commons
licenses I'm trying to think of what I don't release under there and I think my personal
blog not Soak.org is the one that's actually under my real surname but that's just me
just telling people what's happening in my life so I do Hacker Public Radio, that's
creator commons, tit radio, Cranx, my blog, Soak.org, that is all of this is under creative
commons so I'm a big proponent of it and a big fan of it and I try and do everything
creator commons that I can, I'm not out to make money of this, be called if I could but
that's not why I'm doing this.
I am a realist, I do believe that the big companies and groups like the RWA and the MPAA
are never ever going to go for creative commons stuff, they're always going to be pushing for
longer and more copyright, more joconian rules so therefore I think we need to create
compromise with them to increase the amount of probably the main works and things like that
at the moment a lot of things aren't you know you trying to find a book on something you can't
because it's out of print but it's still under copyright so you can't actually get a copy
unless you want to go to amazon.com and look at the marketplace there and buy something for
hundreds of dollars, you can't actually get the work if you just want to read it yourself,
so that's what I did enjoy the speech that Lawrence Leslie did about the Google books which
actually sort of sparked me to actually do the blog post in this podcast. So I do think we need
to reach compromise, try and increase the amount of public domain works. If we turn around
and say everything must be creative commons they will turn around and say no and they have the money
so we will do so we need to give them a reason to give up some work and that would be an improvement.
To that end I have actually put some thought into this as I said I discussed it on Cranks of
World Back but I want discussion on someone to try and improve I mean I'd love their Florence
so let's accept this is a great idea to store my ideas entirely while okay not steal because
again it's creative commons so that's not a problem but I think that would be fantastic for him to say
that's a brilliant idea and push it for this. Again I'm a realist ain't going to happen but
I just think that would be cool but I want to get some discussion and try and move this forward
and try and get some ideas from everyone on this. Now I'm not saying this is perfect I know this
what I'm going to say is not perfect I'm not saying I'm writing all these ideas I know in fact
some of these ideas personally I think are wrong but the reason behind this is we're trying to
get something that everyone most people the important people I us lots to get some more stuff
into public domain and the MPAA the RIAA and all that lot would do things to try and get things
out of copyright faster that they're not interested in they're not making money on but keep
the stuff that they are making money on because they've already got that under copyright anyway so
they're not going to lose that we're not going to gain any of it but realistically we're not
going to gain that anyway we're going to gain some of these obscure books that are out of print
but you can't get any more so this is the kind of idea behind it I want feedback I want talk about
this I want discussions feel free to do your own podcast about it tell me why you think I'm wrong
as long as it's not just saying so it's wrong he's full of crap because that's not constructive
say I think so it's wrong on this point because if we do this then this fact and the other would work
so tell me why explain what's going on so that's the whole idea behind it and again this is not
going to be something perfect this is going to be an improvement and the idea is from that we can
then make something better again and from that new one we can then create something new and so on
and so forth and improve it so number of years I list here and the percentages and things like
that are just numbers the idea is I just wanted to put something out here I'm not
tied down saying well it must be fiscal I'm saying it must be 10 years or whatever I don't want to
worry about that too much there's just a certain number of years the idea behind it is as
Lawrence Leicester said his talk and other people have said you have the copyright
which is yeah way too long and most of the money's made in the beginning the first
five or seven years I think was the number where 95% of the money's actually made from the book
and then it falls off the best cellist list or whatever no one ever buys it and then it goes on sale
or the second hand copies come in anyway and the original author is not making any money off it
or afraid little so what does it matter so that's the idea behind it so here are the four rules
that I've come up with again if you want to add extra ones in let me know if you want to correct
some of these let me know this is just the vague idea so rule number one if you release a new work
unless I always stated EGU release under a creative comments license you get an immediate copyright
for 10 years again 10 years just to figure the reason we're doing this is we want stuff to fall
out of copyright faster meaning more work in the public domain so that people can use it to create
new works or do mashups of movies and videos and things like that I'll take this song someone else
may put new lyrics on it or do like an anime cartoon thing that they seem to always do with linking
pop videos songs and the idea behind this is this is the uses or lose it clause we want things to
be through if you're not creating with it it's public domain because you're not doing anything with it
number two if you release something unless it contains 51% or more new content or whatever the
figure is I just pulled that one out the idea is half or more 51% or more new copyright copyright
is not extended if it is not mostly new if it is new copyright is extended for another 10 years
it must be an equivalent form however this is my Disney clause the idea is as long as Disney
make a new Mickey Mouse movie every decade and not just a rehash hence the 51% they're doing that
with Fantasia there are like 87 different copies versions out there and they're all slightly
different but they're pretty much the same movie they they've improved a few things the stuff
of that but it's not really new work so that wouldn't count however the idea is that
Mickey Mouse was a Mickey Mouse long complicated story behind it Mickey Mouse was made from
the steamboat Willie Cartoon which is based off of the steamboat Bill Cartoon movie with Buster
Keaton I think it was with someone and that was based off of a story about a steamboat pilot
and that was based off the train driver Tancy Jones or whatever I can't remember the guy's name but
so what we want to do is want to get Disney on our side so we don't want to say if you create
a new movie for Disney third Mickey Mouse then from that you extend the copyright that
is basically a bad idea because it allows them to have perma copyright on Mickey Mouse but they've
got that anyway they're the reason that copyright is 75 years plus lifetime wallet whatever the
figure is now because of Mickey Mouse because they can't stand to lose Mickey Mouse so the idea is
if we see something like this it allows them to keep Mickey Mouse and then they're going to be
happy with it if you're not continually making new stuff it goes into public domain I also say
equivalent form because we don't want people just release a one minute Mickey cartoon they say hey
it's Mickey Mouse give us 10 more years has to be a series of 30 minute cartoons or a movie or
a roughly equivalent amount to what they have done in the past so they keep using it
so that's the idea behind that again not perfect but the idea is it is better than what we have
at the moment because more stuff will fall out number three fair use needs to be clarified for
everyone if you mash up a song or use a song in a youtube video you have to give a
nutrition to the original creator and as long as the income you make from it is under a thousand
dollars is fair use I'm not trying to get rid of the existing face I just want clarification
there was that toddler that was dancing to a prince song I think it was and princess people got
in involved and they basically said no it's ours it's copyright take it down it was off the radio
the song was playing on the radio the the toddler was dancing it was a really bad quality there's
no reason and I'll be using that it was just a cute little kid dancing to this song very funny
it's like the video to that was on today's big thing of the kids singing the the Randy House
or whatever the guys name you know with my boots on and they play the song and he's singing along
he's known most lyrics and he's doing the guitar bits my understanding that was actually someone
to do with the band or someone to do with with the artist their kid was listening to it and because
they knew and they actually got the kid in the real actual video which is pretty funny you can go
and look that up and they've taken like the best bits and it looks like the kids miving up all of it
singing along it's it's really brilliant and I think this is a great idea we need to
make people do that I'm not quite sure about the whole
give credit to the original person say this is that song I'm just thinking we need to do that
because then they can YouTube can have a here's a link you can buy the song off iTunes or whatever
because that might get the people involved and the alright AA might actually be
no okay they probably won't be interested but the idea is that some of the artists might be
interested with it because they can get their stuff out there those the the wedding entrance
video which was they're dancing along and singing some song or other I don't know and the song
got really popular after that a bunch of people bought it because of that movie so the audio
because of that video so we're trying to promote things like this to allow still allow the
original creators to make money off it if they want because that gets them on board and then from
again if they're not using it then it's gone they lose the copyright on it so that's the theory
behind that the reason I say a thousand is because I don't want to fall into the argument someone says
well you put this video on YouTube and then you embedded it into your website and your website
has adverts on it and therefore it's commercial so pay up I really don't want that I want to be
able to say well it's under a thousand dollars paying for the hosting stuff is covering that and
so therefore it's non-commercial so I would like clarification there because otherwise we're
going to get in big arguments about this so that's the theory there and my fourth and final rule
is if another type of media creates a work based off your copyrighted work for example a movie
is made from your book then that extends the copyright on your book for 10 years as long as the
book is still under copyright of course this is sort of my forest gun for cause the reason I call
that the original book didn't do too well sold some but really not a huge amount movie came out
and the book sold some more so again the idea is just trying to get by and from artists and people
to actually get interested in this but the idea is we're trying to speed stuff going is probably
domain but then again give them the whole current stick often in character actually made them
interested in this so that's the basic fall rules I'm sure I'm missing things we're movie studios
wait for 10 years after a book is made to try and snap it up for free maybe but a rival studio
come in nine years and say hey here's some money can we buy it off you so I don't think that's
going to be a huge problem we're all starting to see these for example bands quite often they do
a best of album should the copyright be extended just for that well not too sure I think maybe it
should but I'm not sure the we don't want them to be able to re-release albums and just say that
extensive copyright so I think that one still needs a little bit of work on it I also like the
idea of users will lose it for patents there are too many patent trolls around that own a bunch
of patents but aren't actually using any of them and I think they ought to say if they're not using
actively they're gone people like Microsoft would probably be in well I think would be all for this
because it means more patents in the public domain they can claim they're still using this
therefore they get to use more stuff still other but I mean work on new things from a variety of
different sources shall we say and therefore from that I think they might actually be up for that
idea and it gets rid of the patent trolls which again I think a problem anyway so that's basically
the ideas let me know feedback head soaked on all you can go to hack a public radio you can email me
you can all that stuff's coming up you can also phone me I've got a Google voice number now
and I need to be recalled my ending and put it in there but the number is 775453 0256 yes I picked
it because it's 256 which is 2 to the power of 8 of course thank you for listening if you have
any questions you can email me at zokosaro at gmail.com that's x-ray oscar kilo echo Sierra oscar Romeo
uniform at gmail.com or you can visit me at zoke.org x-ray oscar kilo echo period oscar Romeo
golf and you can give me feedback through there thank you again for your time you'll be listening to
heck a public radio
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