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Topic: alternatives to U.S. copyright?  (Read 1458 times)

Offline michael_sayers

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alternatives to U.S. copyright?
on: May 03, 2015, 09:48:38 PM
Hi Everyone,

There is a saying that it isn't wise to place all of one's eggs in one basket. As a composer, I wonder about this in regard to reliance on the U.S. Copyright Office. One can think of scenarios in 2015 such as cyber warfare, and hackers deleting overnight all electronic files and records there. Maybe the data would be recoverable, and maybe there are secure backups, and maybe not. Either way, a loss of the digital records including the date of deposit and for millions of accumulated items, even when a physical score is there in deposit, would not be something that could be recovered from.

And one can ponder other scenarios. With 18 trillion dollars in technical debt plus interest that will be spread out over decades, and growing, I do have concern about the long term political stability of the U.S. I am a U.S. citizen, so this is not intended as criticism of the U.S.A., and yet this and some other unsustainable trends show no indications of reversal and even have accelerated in recent years.

Maybe someone here is aware of alternatives to U.S. copyright, just in case there ever is a "black swan" scenario that impairs the function of U.S. copyrights and also the effective national and international enforcement of them?


Mvh,
Michael

Offline Bob

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Re: alternatives to U.S. copyright?
Reply #1 on: May 03, 2015, 10:30:26 PM
Haha.  I think you're covered for copyright whether you want it or not.  Whether other countries honor that might be a little different.  It's smart to register (or whatever) with them in case it ever comes up.  I've heard they've got more stuff then they can actually process though so it ends up sitting in a warehouse.

I thought it was still sending them things on paper.  I haven't looked into it for a long time though. 

That's just their copy though.  If they lose it, you're still covered.  You're still covered even if you don't copyright it.  It's just easier to prove if you've given them a copy.  I haven't done anything like that, but I imagine you get some kind of receipt.

As far as enforcing it, that only happens when you sue someone who stole your work and a judge agrees with you.

I would imagine if it's the government and they're actually being serious about it, it's backed up plenty.  They won't lose it.


I thought this post was going to be about copyright infringement/"piracy" or maybe something about length of copyright.  It sounds like you're asking for another work to protect intellectual work in case the U.S. government falls apart or maybe they didn't make a backup.  That sounds really, really far-fetched.  If everything did fall apart, I doubt copyright would be a great concern at that point. 

If you want to do the poor man's copyright, send your work to yourself, have it certified by the post office, and only open it if you need to dispute something.  Then you're holding onto the original work, dated by the U.S. government.  I would still think it's safer with the government though rather than privately.  Maybe stick multiple copies in multiple bank vaults around the country to be safe. 

I would be curious if they're accepting digital media now.  And then how they would attempt to keep that up to date.  Digital stuff is going to age fast and hardware will change.  If it's really being maintained that would be a ton of work, and they weren't able to keep up with printed materials.


A shorter scenario, disregarding the government so much -- You create it in a fixed form, you're covered.  If someone steals that, you can dispute them.  Registering it with the government just makes it easier to dispute.  No one's out there monitoring that your work isn't being ripped off. 
Favorite new teacher quote -- "You found the only possible wrong answer."

Offline j_menz

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Re: alternatives to U.S. copyright?
Reply #2 on: May 04, 2015, 12:15:28 AM
Copyright in any jurisdiction is covered by the laws of that jurisdiction. For example, a work originating in the United States but published or copied in France is covered by the laws of France in respect of that publication or copying, not the laws of the United States.

Internationally, copyright is covered by the Berne Convention, the World International Property Organisation Copyright Treaty and the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights of the World Trade Organisation. These treaties deal with international aspects of copyright law, as well as providing for harmonisation of domestic laws between signatory countries.

Registration is generally not required - the US is the only substantial country that provides for it.
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left" -- Oscar Levant

Offline 8_octaves

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Re: alternatives to U.S. copyright?
Reply #3 on: May 04, 2015, 12:45:18 AM
Hi Michael_sayers,

you mentioned the danger of cyber-warfare- / hackers' - activity- problem in connection to the data stored by the Copyright office ( e.g. if hackers delete entries there ):

I think, today, there should be chances to quickly restore such a loss of data. At least, that's what I hope. Institutions, today, which are storing massive amounts of data, should provide digital backups, at first. But not only. Additionally, there may be the typewritten cards, which occured to us a short time ago, when we spoke of Joplin's "A Guest of Honor", whose entry was written on such a card. I presume, these cards will be created today, too, in addition to the digital data.

The digital data themselves should be decentralized stored, for example, on different locations ( not in the same house, or even state ) , so that, when there's a problem at one of the locations, e.g. loss / hack / fire / etc., the data can easily be restored by the help of the other locations' data-copies.

And that would be good, I think, not only for copyright-institutions, but also for all other institutions which have to do with the storage of massive amounts of valuable data, like, e.g., libraries.

Incident in Germany: There were problems, when the famous Anna Amalia-library went on fire, and in the fire, and in the subsequent extinction by the firefighters with water, many old and valuable manuscripts and very old books were destroyed, or only under massive difficulties to be restored again ( the books themselves, or at least their text-content ), by expert book-craftsmen.

So, to take a big portion of danger away for such unpleasant cases, I'm of the opinion, that everything of such old stuff, valuable manuscripts, books, etc. - some "librarians" won't like that, but that doesn't concern me - has in any case to be DIGITIZED / SCANNED / COPIED. And the data as fulltext / scan / pdf decentralised stored.

That would be a protection against TOTAL loss of the physical specimen, when e.g. a fire / theft / other accident occurs, but some picky librarians say: "uhhhhh...this old book...mustn't be scanned ... it mustn't be touched, it mustn't be influenced by too bright light ( e.g. while scanning it ), etc etc.." . I cannot follow such arguments. Books which have survived 500 years, won't die if you scan them once or if you carefully take digital photos of them and their contents once.

Once we have copies, we can copy the copies.

Cordially, 8_octaves!
"Never be afraid to play before an artist.
The artist listens for that which is well done,
the person who knows nothing listens for the faults." (T. Carreño, quoting her 2nd teacher, Gottschalk.)

Offline ahinton

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Re: alternatives to U.S. copyright?
Reply #4 on: May 04, 2015, 09:46:23 AM
The destruction of physical material (books, manuscripts, documents et al), whilst often tragic, is a quite different issue to intellectual property and rights in those items' contents; j_menz makes the correct and important points here. If the concern is for what should happen to intellectual property rights in respect of works registered in US in the event of US collapsing, I imagine that it would be uncommon, especially where music is concerned, that anyone merely registers works in US and not elsewhere, so I do not see what problem would arise outside US in such circumstances. Should US collapse, it would itself no longer be able to honour intellectual property rights but this would not affect the rights holders' title to them anywhere else in the world.

As to artifacts such as mss. and published material of which copies in official hands in US might be destroyed, there's always the originals and most if not all copyright holders would keep their own physical and/or digital copies of the mss. of the works to which they hold title, so the works themselves would not be lost unless the entire world went up in smoke.

Best,

Alistair
Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive

Offline j_menz

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Re: alternatives to U.S. copyright?
Reply #5 on: May 04, 2015, 11:09:33 AM
The distinction between copyright and the existence (and ownership) of a physical copy is important.

There are a number of works where physical ownership of a manuscript (unpublished) persists whether in the hands of an uncaring or malevolent heir, or where it is disputed between competing claimants. Physical ownership of the ms. is not subject to time restrains - so a work may be well out of copyright but still not available simply because access to the one extant copy is prohibited by the one owner of that sole physical copy.

Come the revolution, of course, there's a special wall reserved.  ;)
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left" -- Oscar Levant

Offline michael_sayers

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Re: alternatives to U.S. copyright?
Reply #6 on: May 04, 2015, 03:10:30 PM
Hi Everyone,

All my publicly available material is on deposit with the U.S. copyright office. 

I'll be back in a bit with some thoughts and questions about the many ideas in this thread . . .


Mvh,
Michael

Offline michael_sayers

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Re: alternatives to U.S. copyright?
Reply #7 on: June 18, 2015, 07:08:40 AM
Hi Everyone,

I keep thinking I should go ahead and make everything available for download that is from this year. It is all already deposited for copyright, and that date becomes the date of registration, but I worry that there is a <.01% chance of an issue with the deposit being lost or misfiled, and a <.01% chance that someone would have a go at pilfering from the pdfs.

There is the "better a week early than a day too late" saying. Maybe I should go ahead and do it? For all I know, I could have a stroke tomorrow. As one gets older the trend due to this type of awareness is toward immediacy and maximum carpe diem [within reason, of course!].


Mvh,
Michael
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