Opinion:Copyright

Current copyright laws no longer provide the benefits for which they were created. With the spreading of the Internet, copyright laws need a reform.

Current Copyright Stifles Innovation
Copyright laws where introduced just over 300 years ago, with two intentions:
 * Copyright:encourages new works, by giving authors economic benefits for a limited amount of time.
 * Authors rights:Protect the artistic reputation of authors by granting authors control how the work is used.

Most copyright laws achieve both goals by granting exclusive rights to the author for a limited period of time. In that period, no-one else can use the work without permission of the author.

In the last century, both the scope of copyright has broadened and the duration dramatically lengthened. As a consequence, innovation is stifled.

As Lawrence Lessig has put it:
 * 1) Creativity and innovation always build upon the past.
 * 2) The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.
 * 3) Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.
 * 4) Ours is less and less a free society

Whereas in the past the author only had control over publication of a work for 14 years (plus extension to 28 years), nowadays the author (and his heirs) retain control over publication and usage, for a period of 70 years after the death of the author.

In the entertainment industry this enhanced control of the usage of works has result in much effort to gain as much money out of a work, and little effort has gone in distributing the work to as many users as possible. In my country, the Netherlands, there still is no easy-to-use place to legally download movies, so user resort to downloading without contributing to the authors. Even though this practice is legal in the Netherlands (due to a collective copy levy on blank media), it is clear that this is not helping progress in any way.

In science, publishers retain control over articles of prolonged periods of time, meaning that scientific research is no longer available for free.

In both examples, progress is hampered. Rather then encouraging the creation of new work, copyright law hinders authors of new work, since they now have to fear of infringing upon existing property rights. Scientist now have to pay to learn about ideas, and access to scientific results to the general public (or countries who can not afford the magazine subscriptions) is out of the question.

Regaining Intellectual Freedom
It should come as no surprise that the general public is seeing copyright laws as something bad that is only there to protect big corporations, and all sorts of open access and open content initiatives have sprung up to regain the intellectual freedom of a few centuries ago.

Meanwhile, the content industry is claiming the violating copyright is outright theft and encourages the concept of "intellectual property", as if thoughts and creativity somehow can by owned. This notation is false, and does no justice to the fact that copyright is a simple legal trick to grant economic benefits in order to inspire and encourage creativity.

The assertion of "copyright theft" is absurd, as nothing is stolen, only duplicated in the process. This becomes even more apparent in the Internet age where replication of works is done without effort at all -- quite a difference from the time when copyright was invented and owning a printing press was a huge economic investment.

Clearly, current copyright has turned into a draconian monster that stifles intellectual freedom and the economic circumstances upon which it was build no longer hold in the Internet age.

Copyright is Needed
Copyright is still needed today, along with other intellectual property rights (such as neighbouring rights and database rights). After all, the original premise still holds: by properly granting exclusive rights to the copyright holder, an author is more likely to make the investment necessary to create and publish his or her work.

The intend of copyright is not to let an author make as much money as possible. Economic benefit is a tool, not a goal in itself.

Copyright should:
 * Let author decide to withhold or publish a work.
 * Encourage easy distribution of work that may be published ...
 * ... so that the rights holder receives economic benefits from widespread distribution.
 * Allow others to build upon the work, encouraging progress ...
 * ... without economically hindering the holder of the original work so much that he is inclined to withhold his work from distribution.

Future of Copyright
So what has worked well in the past?
 * Limiting the period of copyright:Economic benefits are prime right after publication of a work. As soon as the economic potential fades, the work should become available for derivative works. For most works this period is 10 to 20 years, although it can be argued that for some works 50 to 80 years is better. 50 years is enough for organisations. 80 year is the maximum if the copyright lies with a natural person (think about a musician who created a few hits in his early twenties. In that case, 80 years of protection guarantees some income during his/her retirement.)
 * Limiting the scope of copyright:Only actions that give a clear economic benefit to a user should be in scope of copyright, such as viewing and selling of the work. Creating derivative works, such as lyrics website, subtitles for TV series, or parodies, usually does not diminish the economic value of the original work. Such derivative works should only be stopped if the distribution of the original work is hampered, or if the derivative work is such a mutilation that it harms the reputation of the original author.
 * Registration: Works should be registered after an initial period (e.g. 20 years), after that period copyright is extended after paying a fee. This prevents orphan works, and ensures that works that are no longer deemed economically viable become public as soon as possible. The fee may depend on the type of work and the size (registering a poem should be less expensive than registering a movie).
 * Preserving culture:As part of the registration process, the author may be compelled to upload their work, so it can be preserved for future generations. The registration fees should be high enough to pay for this digital preservation. Optionally, this allows works to made publicly available after the copyright expires. This does not have to be free of charge, and does not need to government-operated. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of commercial competition in the field of digital preservation!
 * Collective levies:Allowing unlimited use of a work in exchange for a fixed copy levy has greatly stimulated use of works.
 * Let users value the work:A problem with general copy levies is that it is hard to decide how to distribute the fees. Best is to lest the market decide on the value: the more users (viewers, readers, ...) a work has, the more money should go to the author.

These ideas are not insuperable. They are not new, and can be put into action. Politicians should act and do what is best for innovation and culture, not what is best for a limited set of lobbyists who are only concerned with their own economic well-being.

As a first start, allow legal downloads.