The Absurdity in Copyright Laws

Let me preface this post with the statement that I am not a raving anti-establishment anarchist. On the whole, I think well-defined property rights are necessary for the effective functioning of any free society (one might suggest viable alternatives, but I suspect their effective domain will always be small groups). However sometimes the delineation and definition of property rights goes too far.

Recently, this problem has been most in evidence in the realm of intellectual-property. In 1998, fearing the demise of Mickey "the cash cow" Mouse (and numerous other characters), the Walt Disney Company approached Congress requesting an extension of their copyright. Congress responded with, and Clinton signed, the Copyright Term Extension Act (this was by no means the first time that Congress had extended copyrights at the behest of businesses and their associations). The CTEA extends copyright to life plus seventy for works copyrighted by individuals, and to 95 years for works made by or for corporations. A little more than a year ago (Jan 15 2003) the Supreme court held up the CTEA saying that it neither infringed on free speech, nor had Congress overstepped its bounds in passing it (Justices Stevens and Breyer dissented).

The basic argument for intellectual copyright is that it engenders innovation. The idea is that if people can't make any money off of their creativity, then they won't be creative. Within the domain of science and technology, I think this argument holds great force (though I might suggest some specific changes, see below). It has been shown that even with a strong copyright, companies do not accrue all of the benefits of their technological innovations and scientific discoveries. I don't have the research at hand, but my fuzzy brain says they get something less than half of the total benefit to society (total benefit to society includes the benefit to the company). However, in the realm of the arts, I don't find that the argument has much sway. At a certain level, artists produce art because it is what they like to do. They should certainly be compensated, and should certainly have a limited monopoly over their work for a period of time. However it is not at all clear that one hundred years and up is in any way reasonable.
It's also worth looking at all the great art that, had it been produced under today's copyright laws, would constitute theft:

Shakespeare:
-His "Romeo and Juliet" owes a great deal to a poem by the same name written a mere thirty years earlier (by Arthur Brooke)
-Many of his historical plays would infringe on Holingshead's "Chronicles of England"

Disney:
Cinderella,Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Alice in Wonderland, and others were based on works in the Public Domain. And of course, Mickey himself was based on another cartoon character.

Music:
Both Jazz and, especially, Hip Hop developed a great deal through the interpretation and sampling of other peoples' music.

This all brings me to the more current events of DJ Danger Mouse vs. the EMI. Not too long ago, Mr. Danger Mouse released the critically acclaimed "Grey Album". It is, as one might guess, a remix of the Beatle's "White Album" and Jay-Z's "Black Album". I'm not going to summarize the particulars of the case here as this is done more than adequately elsewhere (see links below). I will however say that I think the terms of copyright need to be relaxed on artwork in general. This is a difficult issue. A few years back the Verve Symphony released a song whose entire melody was lifted from a Rolling Stones song. The Stones permitted the use in exchange for all of the royalties from that song. That is a bit excessive, but the Stones melody made what would have otherwise been a hollow and vapid song a success. And therein lies the crux of the issue. I don't think future artists should be able to repackage existing genius and turn a profit; I am however all for the reinterpretation and transformative use of existing material. How do we differentiate the two? I am inclined to think that this ideal is not really possible. We must, to some extent, choose one side or the other. The question is which side, and to what degree. As I've said, I think copyright law is currently too restrictive. To pick a number out of the sky, I'd say that the copyright on a work of art should be no more than fifty years from the date of creation (I'd concede an extension on this in the case of outright and entire duplication). After fifty years, a work should be mostly, if not entirely, in the public domain. Additionally, I'd like to see an expansion of the fair use guidelines so a to allow works such as the "Grey Album" (some have claimed that fair use already allows such works, but I'm not convinced these claims will stand up in court) to circulate unimpeded by spurious claims of ownership.

Links
DJ Danger Mouse
Illegal Art
Grey Tuesday
Eldred V. Ashcroft (the CTEA Supreme Court decision)

This is the see below: A friend of mine recently suggested that the copyright on scientific journal articles be limited to about four months. As it is, access to journals is very expensive, and it is thus very difficult to find all the information one might want in a given subject area. If I may, let me present an idealized vision: a grand database containing all of the research ever published nicely organized and crossreferenced. Alas, journals have become a money tree, and this seems unlikely.