Who Owns Einstein? | Hacker News Reader

Who Owns Einstein?

theguardian.com

20 pointsklelatti13 comments

"Posthumous publicity rights" has to be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard of in my life. Copyright lasting 70 years after the death of the artist/creator is bad enough, but this is ridiculous.

At this point, we would be better off without any copyrights laws. It's no longer about protecting the interests of artists, creators, etc. It's about protecting the interests of corporations and the useless privileged elites to the detriment of society as a whole.

I have to admit, I'm torn on whether or not we should have copyright / patent / etc. laws or not (and what their exact nature should be if so).

But I do feel pretty strongly that IF we have those things, the time spans should be severely limited. I don't think I personally, for example, would support copyright for any duration beyond the life of the author / creator.

I disagree. If copyright exists, its term shouldn't be tied to anyone's life at all.

Let's say I produce a copyrighted work, and immediately sell the rights to that work to you. Why should the value of your purchase depend on how long I live? Should the work produced by a 20 year old be more valuable than the work produced by a 70 year old because the 20 year old is less likely to drop dead and end their work's copyright?

Maybe we should disallow selling / transfer of copyright rights then? Dunno, just spitballing ideas here.

Why not a flat duration? Why tie it to life of author in the first place - what's the benefit?

Originally, a short term answered all these questions.

Remember, Disney happened because the works of the Brothers Grimm fell into what was a robust body of creative works to build on.

Then Disney did not want to give in like kind as they received and we have seen extensions to copyright continue into what are now ridiculous lengths of time.

Originally, the reasoning was to create an incentive for creators to create. It was not intended to be rent seeking. Creators were expected to continue to create and have a body of robust works to create with.

Doing it that way advanced culture and made fortunes. We were all better for it.

Today, it is not so good for all of us. Culture is less rich, less vibrant.

And when I look at the likes of Disney, they own a lot, buying more all the time.

When exactly do they return the free gift worth so much so others may create more?

Fact is future Disney could buy those works same as they do today and find their own old works made new, valuable and worth more than returning them to the public may appear to cost.

I agree. Just like nuclear waste, the copyright shall last forever.

Copyright laws are like medicine. Ideally you want good copyright laws just like you want good medicine. If you can't get or don't have good copyright laws, it's better to have no copyright laws rather than bad copyright laws. All copyright laws do now is feed the parasites. Better to be rid of it altogether.

As the co-owner of Hypnocube, copyright law was the only legal protection I had from wholesale cloning of a product I created from Chinese clones - they copied the product wholesale, circuit, packaging, and code. Without copyright I could not have stopped it.

This case is not unique

Is that enough for protecting small individuals?

It makes sense to give some limited copyright to whoever spent the effort to go through the old papers and organize them into a publishable thing.

I saw a note on Salesforce's Web training site to the effect of "ALBERT EINSTEIN used under license from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem." And there on the main page was a little Alegria Albert, dancing with the Alegria people and Salesforce's nonbinary spaceperson mascot, advertising the company's Einstein™ AI service.

All of this strikes me as tacky and twee. Were the real Albert alive today, he would not want something as stupid as a statistical classifier running on a computer to wear his name as a badge of "intelligence". What is the difference between a cheesy marketing campaign like this, and the tacky associations the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's legal team purports to avoid?

Answer: Salesforce has money, and the licensing fees would make a nice little addition to the university's endowment.

> The university, meanwhile, claims it has not only the legal right, but also a moral duty to protect Einstein from those who would besmirch his name

The multimillion dollar payments are just nice byproducts of their noble protection, I'm sure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com