A Modest Proposal

 Despite the title this isn't a work of satire in the vein of Jonathon Swift, I am being serious here and describe my proposal as modest as compared to my many other proposals it is.

There has been an upsurge in talk about the problems with the current copyright system and how it seems to have run amuck and become something of a monster. Talk and proposals for reform have also gained in popularity, but most talk runs into the brick wall of a powerful and entrenched lobbying machine and the weakness of political representation. 

So, to tip the balance a little more in the favour of the public good I have come up with a modest proposal for reform, a reasonable compromise if you will. 

This proposal is aimed at the Great Satan United States of America, and a few other countries . 

My proposal is this, build a campaign to convince Congress to pass legislation that will adopt the rule of shorter term into Law. 

A quick recap, the rule of shorter term is:

 The rule of the shorter term, also called the comparison of terms, is a provision in international copyright treaties. The provision allows that signatory countries can limit the duration of copyright they grant to foreign works under national treatment to no more than the copyright term granted in the country of origin of the work.

Thanks Wikipedia. 

The name shorter term is the most commonly used for this provision because it only comes into effect if and when the copyright term in the country of origin is shorter than that of the host country. As an example, New Zealand's copyright terms are life +50 years, in the United Kingdom its life +70 years, this means that there is a 20 year gap in public domain materials, that would be quite a challenge for a New Zealand media company operating in both territories, they would have to pay special attention to ensure they were not using material still in copyright in the UK without permission. However, the UK does have the rule of shorter term in its copyright legislation so all New Zealand made intellectual property that is public domain in New Zealand is also public domain in the United Kingdom. 

Its a mechanism to make international commerce easier, it just so happens as a side effect to make artistic expression and educational use a little easier too.

Many nations have this provision in some form as part of their copyright legislation, though a few do not so its worth checking. New Zealand is one of the nations that hasn't adopted it so in the example I gave above this would prevent the reverse, except that since the UKs copyright lasts longer than New Zealand's anyway it doesn't matter. One notable exception is the United States of America. This lack of a shorter term is what enabled the estate of Conan Doyle to strong arm productions and adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's work in the US for years after his entire body of work passed into the public domain in his home nation of the UK and thus most of the rest of the world.

Wikipedia has an incomplete list of nations with a clear yes or no on shorter term.

So my proposal simply is to build up a lobbying campaign to convinve the United States Congress to draft legislation to adopt the rule of the shorter term into law. Why focus on the US? Well its the biggest source of entertainment and art globally, its the biggest knot that has to be untangled. Also we're in a rare moment where copyright reforms have made some small steps in the United States, in the past few years we've had

1. The end of the 20 year freeze on works entering the public domain.
2. The Music Modernisation Act which declared that sound recordings can now enter the public domain
3. Weakened the ability of research papers on programs that used federal funds to be limited to paywalled access only
4. The entry of many important cultural icons into the public domain after decades of intense corporate lobbying to prevent this, e.g. Mickey Mouse, the complete Sherlock Holmes, etc.
   

None of this is groundbreaking but they are steps in the right direction for open access and free information, and they come after decades of nothing but giant leaps in the other direction.

We also saw the attempt to restore the United States of America's copyright terms with the Copyright Clause Restoration Bill. That attempt has floundered and it was sponsored by a handful of Republican legislators trying to strong arm a company (Disney) after it was forced into a dispute with the Republican government of Florida, which the Disney corporation had supported for years lest you feel sorry for the house of the mouse. Despite all this it did set a precedent that more radical copyright reforms can find some support in Congress already and that the power of corporations are not infallible.

In addition adopting the rule of shorter term has an additional strength, it side steps the main opposition, all copyright reform proposals that mean even a slither less control by massive media and research monopolies is fought with a mountain of what amounts to gaslighting about struggling creatives, the same authors, actors and artists strong armed into signing away control. This is nullified since the rule is based on the original creatives and not on some corporation or great-great-great descendant. 

And yet another  strength is that this reform proposal is in lock step with the wider trends of US copyright reform. Throughout the 20th Century, the United States has been step by gradual step moved away from its unique concepts of copyright to conform to international standards, and has already adopted much of the Berne Convention standards and practises. This omission if corrected would further cement that process and bring it into harmony with many other nations on the world stage. 

And yet one more strength of this proposal is the opportunity for wider support. While public sentitment for copyright reforms have grown it is still largely a movement of niche interests, political fringe activists, creatives and education reformers, this limits our abilities to push for changes and is why much of our activism is committed to educational materials to appeal and convince broader sections of the public, with limited sucess. 

However, in this particular facet of copyright the tension also effects players in the industry. Remember Sherlock Holmes? The reason Sherlock Holmes became a well known example of copyright headaches is because the owners of the IP in the USA were extremely active in trying to compel other media companies including Netflix to bend to their wishes while they still owned a few short stories from the Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. That was why we had such nonsense about "respecting women and showing emotions are from the last few stories" which was rediculous and not true, he'd done both in the earliest stories.

So, here there is some unique opportunities to build bridges and wider networks of support. To be blunt our arguments for much more subtantial copyright reform are already solid, that's why there's always a shift to worrying about "starving artists" and "control your own work" even when the discussion is on lowering post death terms of limitation. We don't need to worry too much about our arguments they've been honed for years and buttressed by evidence. What we really need is bigger platforms to broadcast our messages to a wider audience and hold their attention long enough to cut through the white noise. And since industry insiders have a potential to gain more of them will be willing to lend some resources. The same companies that lodge spurious cease and desists and DMCA takedowns fight like hell when they're the ones on the recieving end, its not something to be taken lightly.

The path of reform is long and difficult, but it is built on precedent, the more times you can show your strength in numbers/votes and resources in money, organisation and connections the more steps down that road you can take.

I've based much of my strategy on the work of the EU wide initiative to prevent game deletion and other anti consumer practices. While that initiative hasn't passed yet it has built its case along similar lines, moderation of aims, based on working within the wider consumer system, etc. And has wide support with the public and industry developers with little substantial opposition. Most of the opposition I've seen comes from a single developer/content creator. I think there's a lot to learn from that project.

And for other nations on the no shorter term list like Brazil I think this strategy can largely be copied, especially if there's sucess in Washington D.C.