Study Shows That Wartime Program To Abolish Copyright On German Science Books Brought Significant Benefits To US
from the perhaps-we-should-do-it-more-often dept
As Techdirt readers know, there is a ratchet effect that means copyright always gets longer and stronger. As well as being inherently unfair — why must the public always lose out when copyright law is changed? — there’s another unfortunate consequence. If the term or breadth of copyright were reduced from time to time, we would be able to test the effects of doing so on things like creativity. For example, if it turned out that shortening copyright increased the number of works being produced, then there would be a strong argument for reducing it further in the hope that the effect would be strengthened. The fact that we have been unable test this hypothesis is rather convenient for copyright maximalists. It means they can continue to call for the term of copyright to be increased without having to address the argument that this will cause less creativity, or reduce access to older works.
Even though it is not possible to test the effects of reduced copyright directly, two US academics, Barbara Biasi and Petra Moser, have spotted a clever way of investigating the idea indirectly, in the field of science publishing. As they write in a post on CEPR’s policy portal, in 1942 the US Book Republication Program (BRP) allowed US publishers to reprint exact copies of German-owned science books, effectively abolishing copyright for that class of works. They have looked at what impact this dramatic change had on the use of those reprinted works by scientists. Comparing citation rates before and after the BRP was introduced is not enough on its own: citation rates fluctuate, so it is necessary to compare the BRP citation rate with something else. The researchers’ solution is to look at the citation rate of Swiss books from the same time:
This approach addresses the issue that English-language citations may have increased mechanically after 1942, if English-language scientists published more after the war. Like German scientists, Swiss scientists were leaders in chemistry and mathematics and wrote primarily in German, but due to Switzerland’s neutrality, Swiss-owned copyrights were not accessible to the BRP. [Office of Library Services] estimates of a matched sample of BRP and Swiss books (in similar fields and with similar levels of pre-BRP non-English citations) confirm the significant increase in citations in response to the BRP.
Specifically, there was a 67% increase in citations of BRP books compared to similar Swiss books. The research suggests this was driven largely by the 25% drop in average prices seen after the BRP scheme was introduced. The reduction in price seems to have allowed a wider range of US libraries to purchase the more affordable BRP texts, whereas Swiss books remained concentrated in the holdings of two wealthy research libraries (Yale and Chicago). Better access was correlated with more citations: the data shows that the latter increased most near the locations of BRP libraries. The researchers conclude:
In the context of contemporary debates, our findings imply that policies which strengthen copyrights, such as extensions in copyright length, can create enormous welfare costs by discouraging follow-on science, especially among less affluent institutions and scientists.
Critics might point out that this is just one study of one rather specific area. But that’s an argument for reducing copyright terms, perhaps on a trial basis, to see whether the results of this research are confirmed. However, the copyright ratchet will never allow that, not least because the companies involved probably know it would confirm that constantly strengthening copyright is bad for everyone except themselves.
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Filed Under: benefits, copyright, germany, public domain, science, us
Comments on “Study Shows That Wartime Program To Abolish Copyright On German Science Books Brought Significant Benefits To US”
Because corporate America says so.
Isn't a lot of America post-war built on nazi science?
With Operation Paperclip and the like?
Re: Isn't a lot of America post-war built on nazi science?
Yep. They hid and employed Nazi scientists and protected them from reprisals — and justice.
This might surprise some people but not every Nazi ever was necessarily a bad person. Oskar Schindler of Schindler’s List fame was a member of the Party to protect his business interests — and his Jewish friends. During the Rape of Nanking Nazi party member John Rabe rescued Chinese citizens from their Japanese oppressors.
Basically, being a member of the Party ensured a better life for people than not being a member; they didn’t necessarily agree with what was going on. So… these scientists… were they all bad guys? Possibly, but I’d like to think there were a few goodies in the mix.
Modern-day Nazis don’t get a pass because they have a choice on whether or not to push a (false) white supremacy narrative that leads to violence against minorities.
Re: Re: Isn't a lot of America post-war built on nazi science?
“‘Once rockets are up, who cares where zey come down? Zat’s not my department’ says Wernher von Braun” – Tom Lehrer
Re: Re: Re: Isn't a lot of America post-war built on nazi science?
I wouldn’t call that guy a good guy.
Re: Re: Re:2 I wouldn't call that guy a good guy.
Who? von Braun? Without him, the US wouldn’t have had a quality space program. They had no home-grown high-calibre rocket scientists, unlike the Russians, who had Korolev.
Re: Re: Re:3 I wouldn't call that guy a good guy.
Yeah… what do we measure our morals by? Body-count (or lack thereof) or gains in technology?
Re: Re: Re:3 "They had no home-grown high-calibre rocket scientists''
“The lunar module descent engine probably was the biggest challenge and the most outstanding technical development of Apollo.” – a current NASA website.
“They”(Robert Goddard) were building and flying liquid rockets in the 1920s in Massachusetts, later in California.
That lunar descent engine for NASA was designed and manufactured by JPL & TRW in Ohio, 588 rocket engines have flown by SpaceX using it’s basic design & built in California.
“They”(our) best spacecraft designer (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo & Space Shuttle) Maxime Faget was born in Belize.
‘They’ (Our) mistake was investing in ‘experts from afar’; the X-15 sent the first civilian into space (1963) with a liquid ammonia and liquid oxygen rocket (fuels rejected by Warner von Braun) first built in New Jersey.
The Nazis spent years trying to privatize as a stock corporation the Peenemünde Army Research Center, arresting von Braun for a while to press the point; Corporate-State socialism at it’s finest.
“If the term or breadth of copyright were reduced from time to time, we would be able to test the effects of doing so on things like creativity.”
Perhaps, but I doubt it. For example, if copyright had been shortened a decade ago, it wouldn’t really have shown that the coinciding increase in publication related to new technology had anything to do with the decrease in copyright. Only that the two events were correlated.
I’ll maintain that no creative person is going to go “well…. I’m only getting 50 years of copyright rather than life+70, so no point writing that novel”. There is an effect of some copyright vs zero copyright – for example that author may not wish to publish his novel if he knows he’ll get plagiarised before he can sell it. But, these extensions are for the publishers, not the authors.
That’s why extensions – especially retroactive extensions – can be so problematic. The authors don’t care about the extension in order to write, but the publishers can control which works continue to be published – and those will not necessarily be those that are significant or important, only the ones that make money. Great works that don’t consistently sell are lost to history, while popular trash lives on, and that’s pretty much the opposite of what copyright is meant to achieve.
Re: Re:
Having made the effort to write a novel, an author can publish and try to make money, or they can put it in a drawer and moan about all that wasted effort. Anybody who makes the latter choice is not cut out to be an author, especially as writing a novel is always a high risk activity when it comes to making money, and plagiarism is the least of the risk factors.
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“Anybody who makes the latter choice is not cut out to be an author”
So, Stephen King is not cut out to be an author? Or, are you just talking about people thinking about cutting their first publishing deal (King has talked numerous times about manuscripts he sat on for decades). True, he has other books published, but Carrie was the fourth novel he wrote, meaning he “sat on” 3 full novels before one was published.
Sure, it was a very different time and rejection letters rather than fear were what kept some of them in that drawer – but some were equally due to him fearing they were not good enough.
“plagiarism is the least of the risk factors”
Under current copyright rules, possibly. Now imagine that someone can take your manuscript while you’re negotiating your publishing deal, beat you to print claiming to be the original author and there’s nothing you can do to stop them. That’s the zero copyright situation I’m referring to, which was actually happening before the original copyright rules were put into place.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Just how did the plagiarist get a copy of the manuscript? Also, going via a publisher for a new author is the hardest route to getting a novel published, as only a fraction of a percent of submissions get accepted.
As to self publishing, where if anything the opportunities for plagiarist to get a copy are much higher, it is still relatively rare, and very much frowned on.
It is also worth noting that many authors write several novels before attempting to get one published, mainly because they can see the flaws in their earlier works, and know they need to develop their skills to reach an acceptable (to publishers) standard. Sometimes those books get published later, because of demand of fans who are eager for everything that an author wrote.
As to plagiarism before copyright rules were in place, getting a copy of a manuscript to beat the author to finding a printer publisher was not exactly easy. Before a book could be printed, a hand written copy of the manuscript had to be made, unless the author was willing to hand over their only copy. Copying the original without the authors approval would be impossible, as it would take days, or weeks of work. That leaves theft of the original or a copy as the only way, and even then the author, or their scribes work could be identified by their writing.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
“Just how did the plagiarist get a copy of the manuscript?”
From someone working in one of the publishers it was sent to originally. Or, via one of the many other ways in which a document can leak. Especially now, where “publish” might just mean uploading a document to a server that’s trawled by bots.
“Also, going via a publisher for a new author is the hardest route to getting a novel published, as only a fraction of a percent of submissions get accepted.”
Indeed. But, the same mechanisms protect authors publishing via other routes as well. If I write a book, then a known author releases the same manuscript under his name, how other than copyright do I get to stop him publishing that manuscript?
“it is still relatively rare”
Rare that it happens, or rare that it’s successfully caught with sufficient evidence to prove it?
“It is also worth noting that many authors write several novels before attempting to get one published, mainly because they can see the flaws in their earlier works, and know they need to develop their skills to reach an acceptable (to publishers) standard.”
Yes, but, you said this:
“Having made the effort to write a novel, an author can publish and try to make money, or they can put it in a drawer and moan about all that wasted effort. Anybody who makes the latter choice is not cut out to be an author”
Which is it – a person should not be an author if they don’t try to publish, or that having unpublished work is a natural part of the process? Also, you just said they need to reach a publisher’s standards, but then stressed they can just as easily self publish. Make up your mind.
“As to plagiarism before copyright rules were in place, getting a copy of a manuscript to beat the author to finding a printer publisher was not exactly easy”
Indeed, so surely that makes them more important now that it can be done instantaneously? Unless I’m very much mistaken, that kind of thing did actually happen even back then, hence the introduction of copyright to give authors a chance to make back some revenue and thus be incentivised to continue writing.
Modern copyright rules have gone too far, but I believe it would be worse for authors to have nothing.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Go and read upon the history of copyright as it was a tool of censorship introduced when the printing press enables easy copying (relative to copying by hand) of works. Also read up on the Statute of Anne, where
Thats right copyright mainly benefits the publishers, and not the authors, which is why the main organizations pushing for extended copyright are publisher associations, and publishers. Indeed the main role of copyright, either the censorious version, or the Statute of Anne version, was to protect a publishers investment against a copy of a work being made available to another publisher. Where you print thousands of copies, the estimated size of the market, before you sell the first copy, having a pirate printer steal most of that market with cheap copies was a financial disaster.
If you decide to try and get published, then you have to meet the publishers standards, and gain the attention of a publisher. Alternatively you can self publish free copies from the get go, and while initial efforts may not gain much of an audience, the criticism and encouragement from that audience will help the author to develop. That route is also a surprisingly good protection from plagiarism, and does not require the ability to pay a lawyer lots of money to protect your rights.
Copyright,like patents is largely a license to sue, which means it is useful to corporation who can afford the lawyers, and troll lawyers, but much less so for an individual.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
“Go and read upon the history of copyright as it was a tool of censorship introduced when the printing press enables easy copying:”
Yes, as it’s a tool of censorship when copying can be done in less than a second. Your point? Citing the Statute Of Anne ion the modern context is pretty pointless anyway. Even if the framers could have imagined of today’s technology, they would not have counted upon the removal of the need for explicit registration, something that has totally changed the playfield.
“Thats right copyright mainly benefits the publishers, and not the authors”
Depends on how you term it. For example, copyright has been a vital foundation for things like GPL software licences and CC licenced content. Without copyright as a foundation, those things would not be possible.
“That route is also a surprisingly good protection from plagiarism”
Citation needed. I know a number of people who have been plagiarised, and if they decide to go the “I want credit for my own work” route rather than the “my audience will know the truth” route, it’s copyright that’s their main tool of defence.
Also, if you’re essentially talking about an honours system, that won’t work in an arena when large corporations still control a large amount of the public mindspace. In a culture where I’ve had to try to explain to people that Battle Royale did not possible rip off The Hunger Games (given that it was written a decade prior), do you really think the public will believe that the new title from a major publisher was ripped off from a nearly identical contemporary work?
Understand, I agree with the idea that copyright as a whole mainly benefits publishers and the status quo. It needed to be reduced and reformed drastically. But, as I see it, it’s something that it stopping the corporations getting even further monopolies on culture – because without it, they’d be the ones not only stealing, but with the ability to convince people they were the victims!
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
If there is no copyright, and the self publishing platforms continue to exist, an author can always undercut a corporation by selling direct. Indeed the overpricing of many works is due to the monopoly on copying granted by copyright. Imagine Academia without the dam of the academic publishers restricting the flow of ideas.
Remove copyright and Red Hat carry on as they are now, selling a service, whilst Elsevier would have to find a much less abusive business model or go Under.
As to GPL, and Creative commons licenses,they would not exist, but then again, without copyright, corporations could would not be able to restrict copying and development. It might take a bit of reverse engineering, but it wold not be illegal. Also, the whole problem of restrictions on derivative works would disappear. The base rational for those licenses is to ensure that derivative works cannot be used to block the spread and further building on the derivative works.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
“If there is no copyright, and the self publishing platforms continue to exist, an author can always undercut a corporation by selling direct”
Unless the corporation takes the unprotected manuscript and passes it off as their own. Maybe not direct fraud, but they could get away with a decent amount of plagiarism, and if the honour system is your only defense, you’re screwed. An established author may be able to fight it with the fan base, but an unknown?
“Indeed the overpricing of many works is due to the monopoly on copying granted by copyright”
Indeed, which is why is desperately needs to be reformed. Getting rid of it entirely would makes things worse, however.
“Remove copyright and Red Hat carry on as they are now, selling a service”
The code is still copyrighted, they just have chosen to licence under a different licence to the standard copyright one, and chosen a different business model to selling the code.
“Also, the whole problem of restrictions on derivative works would disappear.”
So would the whole “problem” of people being attributed and compensated for their work. Larger companies have been caught many times ripping off GPL code to further their own projects, what makes you think they’ll stop when they don’t have any restriction on doing so?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
Interestingly your anti abolition arguments are all based on circumstances where copyright is not working to protect the interests of the individual. If a person cannot afford the legal bills to protect their copyrights, they are not benefiting it, while the risks of the the same bills blocks reclaiming their copyright. Without copyright, a plagiarist does not have the weapon needed to force the originator to remove their copies.
With respect to code, no copyright means it can be copied and reverse engineered, and that effort cannot be attacked as infringement including being a derivative work.
Also, I cannot see corporations going into large scale plagiarism, as they will be competing with each other to sell the same works, and with a loud noise about their plagiarism coming from many sources, which will direct people to those sources for the works. Also the ability to create the next work is more valuable than the works already created.
Note, piracy is more acceptable than actual plagiarism, and the actual creators name can be valuable for gaining an audience.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
A government could restrict such leaking without imposing "full" copyright on the public. Leaking private data is very different from copying published work.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Way back in the 1600’s.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Conflating fraud with copying, eh? What a typical copyright industry asshole.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
I’m saying that copyright is a useful tool for combatting plagiarism, not that they are the same. Plus, if you’re ignorant enough of my posting history to think I have anything to do with the copyright industry, it’s not surprising that you jumped straight to insults instead of refuting my opinion.
Do they mention WHY?
Going by the date of the BRP, 1942, I have to assume it was part of the war effort.
We printed and distributed counterfeit German postage stamps at that time too, all part of making the German citizenry lose faith in the Nazi government.
Any serious Mathematician of that era needed to know German and Russian, as that’s what many of the seminal works were written in.
So the BRP *removing* Copyright (not “lessening the term”), isn’t really any sort of valid indicator as to the “efficiency” of term length in reference to new creativity sparked.
If they passed a similar law making all US-copyrighted Geology books instantly reproducible, US authors writing in the field would simply Copyright their works in other countries.
Re: Do they mention WHY?
Wouldn’t matter. Copyrights are not international in scope. A book written by an American author might have a US copyright, a Canadian copyright, a British copyright, etc. but each of those only applies to the particular country. If, say, the US copyright were abolished somehow, the book would simply be in the public domain in the US while still copyrighted elsewhere. Even if the author made special efforts to ensure it was copyrighted elsewhere (which probably wouldn’t be necessary, though one can hope) that would have no effect on the status of the book in the US.
Even today, due to disparities in the various countries’ laws, works have different statuses in different places. There are works in the public domain abroad still copyrighted in the US, and works copyrighted abroad in the public domain in the US. It’s not unusual, unexpected, or inherently unacceptable that this should occur.
Re: Re: Do they mention WHY?
Yes, we saw exactly that happen a few years back with Orwell’s 1984. Copyright in Australia expired, and it went into the Public Domain there, yet it was pulled from Kindle and other sources remotely because US Copyright was still active.
BRP was enacted to hurt Germany, by essentially saying any work(s) done by Germans was now fair game to the Allied Powers. Yes, yes, “science” books. There wasn’t much in the way of Poetry or True Crime Novels coming out of the Axis.
So using BRP to show how shortening Copyright simply makes no sense to me. Especially by comparing it to Swiss Copyright.
Re: Re: Re: Do they mention WHY?
Well, the situation you described with 1984 should not have happened. Amazon made a mistake there.
As for removing rights in Allied countries given to nationals of Axis and Central Power countries (the same kind of thing happened in WW1, which is how the trademark ASPRIN came to be generic in the US) I agree it was meant to harm the economies of our enemies in wartime. But it nevertheless shows that the monopolistic pricing of copyright holders has negative effects on access to works, and thus negative effects on the creation of derivative works and on the use of protected works.
That’s no secret of course, but it’s nice to have some confirmation.
The real questions are what benefits does copyright provide to the public that can overcome these inevitable harms? And how can the copyright law be tailored to result in the greatest net benefits for the public?
Re: Re: Do they mention WHY?
And it causes problems when it happens (which is rare because of the USA pushing its laws onto other countries). Were this common, it would become more problematic. Like, if you wanted to publish something still under American copyright, you couldn’t use any American webhost to do it. Even using American-managed domains like .com could invite legal trouble.
It’s not the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, which means those works aren’t in the public domain yet. Does Germany have grounds to sue America? Pretty sure copyright logic would indicate yes.
Re: Re:
Well, Germany can either request an extension of copyright terms beyond the life span of World War II plus 75 years. Or do what the US government does: retroactively remove the books from the public domain.
Either way, since it’s quite clear that the US benefited, there’s enough to claim that the US profited from copyright infringement. I’d say Germany has a case.
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>>policies which strengthen copyrights […] can create enormous welfare costs by discouraging follow-on science, especially among less affluent institutions and scientists
That might be the justification for strengthening copyright – make sure that we can write the patents, and not someone in a developing country who would then charge us for using it. They already have the raw materials and cheap labour, if they can create the knowledge to use both for their own benefit rather than ours, we’ll see our standards of living dropping fast.
Not saying protecting our standard of living is good or bad, it might just be a consideration when it comes to restricting access to knowledge.
Oh, and a PS: If someone from a developing country is reading this and agreeing – is it really in your interest to support the US in their quest for destroying SciHub and similar platforms?
Milking the Cash Cow to death.
“…it would confirm that constantly strengthening copyright is bad for everyone except themselves.”
Actually, this corporate maximizing of copyright law is bad for the corporations themselves as well, but because they see only yearly profits/losses and think in terms of immediate gains and short-term profit, they will not see the writing on the wall – as with cord-cutting – until after the damage to their own reps and bottom lines are beyond repair.
Sort of a “dinosaur effect”.
Eventually, assuming the west survives the inevitable “Look over there” Trump-Crisis to come, the public will demand an end to the legal free ride that corporations now enjoy, (and plan to expand upon forever), as their greed completely stifles new innovation and the public gets tired of buying “the same old shit in a shiny new package”.
Because the only “innovations” that any corporation will ever come up with, will be those that profit the corporation, at public expense. Period.
Its the nature of this form of legality-born responsibility-avoiding organization whose very existence depends entirely upon its ability to make more money next year than this year, forever.
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Abolishing copyright would only bring benefits.
Re: Re:
“Abolishing copyright would only bring benefits.”
Would bring benefits to who exactly?
Copyright was a really good idea, before the laws were “lawyered” to provide a new income source for billionaires.
Discarding the original because the altered version sucks is overkill and not a recommended action.
All that is necessary is to remove all the bullshit verbiage that has been added by the Corporate Clowns over the last couple decades, and return the law to its original useful state and meaning.
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