Reasonably priced C11 standard?

[Keith Thompson]

The current ISO or ANSI standards are sold for very much less than the
actual costs. They are low volume documents whose development costs are
subsidized by governments, trade organizations, private companies and
individuals.

Does the money paid for copies of the ISO C standard reimburse the
committee members for their time, or for any other actual expenses of
producing the standard? My understanding is that the answer is no.

 

[Patrick Scheible]

Unfortunately actually putting something into the public domain is
darn near impossible in most jurisdictions. In the US, the copyright
owners retain a right to revoke any purported transfer into the public
domain (or other ownership) for 35 years. Surely the legal issues of
that could be cleaned up fairly easily, but for whatever reason they
haven't been.

But the problem is stuff that you no longer care about - you're hardly
going to make an effort to put it into the public domain.

I favor a scheme using something akin to the old 28 year initial term,
with a inexpensive and easy, but not free (perhaps $20, less if you
demonstrate hardship) or automatic, renewal for as many (say) 20 year
periods (one at a time) you like. An actual filing would be required
for the first renewal, but the automatic approach of the current
system would remain for the first term (and of course you could file
early as well, which might have the advantage of the Copyright office
sending you a notice when it's about to expire).

This covers the 99.9% of the stuff that falls of anyone's care list in
a quarter century, and allows IP holders to hold onto those rare
things that have a longer life.

That would be a good system. I'd add that the renewals should get more
expensive with each renewal. Say, $10 for initial copyright, $100 for
the first renewal, $1000 for the second. No problem for Mickey or Al
Jolson, but will let most works go into the public domain sooner rather
than later.

Also, the copyright fees should support a better job of copyright
searching for the general public. Did you know the Copyright Office
online records only go back to 1978? Previous copyright records were
published in books, and a few generous people have scanned some of the
books and put them on the web. But not all the volumes, for instance
play copyrights were listed in different Copyright Office publications
and no one has bothered to scan them. Make it easy to find out who
currently owns a copyright and how to contact them, and it might even
lead to some money for the copyright owner. As it is, it might be a day
of detective work which even then might not find current contact
information.

-- Patrick

 

[Rui Maciel]

You seem to be assuming that the infringer is completely unwilling to
purchase a legitimate copy of the work. Surely that is not true in
all such cases.

Or are you not counting missed sales as "loss"?

How do you count a missed sale?


Rui Maciel

 

[John Gordon]

How do you count a missed sale?

I don't know how to calculate an exact number of lost sales. But surely
it's more than zero, which made me curious about your claim that no money
is lost.

 

[Kaz Kylheku]

How do you count a missed sale?

sales = sales++; // works for me

 

[Kaz Kylheku]

I don't know how to calculate an exact number of lost sales. But surely
it's more than zero, which made me curious about your claim that no money
is lost.

Also, you should count all the women that wouldn't go out with you!

That's some nonzero quantity of romance there that is worth regretting.

 

[Rui Maciel]

I don't know how to calculate an exact number of lost sales. But surely
it's more than zero, which made me curious about your claim that no money
is lost.

If you account for hypothetical lost sales, do you also account for any
gained sale?


Rui Maciel

 

[John Gordon]

John Gordon wrote:

If you account for hypothetical lost sales, do you also account for any
gained sale?

You mean how an infringed copy might act as advertising, generating
additional legitimate sales? No, I'm not accounting for that.

 

[Walter Banks]

How do you count a missed sale?

When the call my company looking for support.

w..

 

[Walter Banks]

Does the money paid for copies of the ISO C standard reimburse the
committee members for their time, or for any other actual expenses of
producing the standard? My understanding is that the answer is no.

My understanding is generated revenue goes to administration of
standards organization. As a committee member my expenses have been
paid for by my company and as far as I know expenses of most members
are either sponsored by their companies, individual means or in some cases
paid direct expenses by national organizations (typically a commercial
organization not government)

The time commitment is significant close to a month per year is required
by most committee members.

w..

 

[Kaz Kylheku]

My understanding is generated revenue goes to administration of
standards organization.

In that case, copy the damn thing and give $200 to people doing something
useful in computing, like, I dunno, maintaining Debian.

Administering ISO, what a load of crap. The Scheme language has a nice
standard, without all that overhead.

 

[Walter Banks]

In that case, copy the damn thing and give $200 to people doing something
useful in computing, like, I dunno, maintaining Debian.

Administering ISO, what a load of crap. The Scheme language has a nice
standard, without all that overhead.

Then have C without a recognized standard, and we thought there
was chaos now.

Seriously the content is free to anyone who wants to casually read what
is in it and available for a fee for anyone with a professional need. Against
the development cost of a compiler the ISO fees are small and benefits of
availability of standardized test suites (now there are some real fees) and
compatible libraries well worth the cost.

w..

 

[Geoff]

Are you referring to which jurisdiction? If I'm not mistaken, the revision
to the US code which brought over copyright terms that go over 100 years
dates back to 1978, and I don't believe you can claim a link between that
revision and any software industry.

Last time I looked, in the U.S., copyright protection lasts for the
life of the author plus 50 years. I don't know what happens when the
"author" is a corporate entity. With "renewals" the term could last
indefinitely.

 

[Patrick Scheible]

Last time I looked, in the U.S., copyright protection lasts for the
life of the author plus 50 years. I don't know what happens when the
"author" is a corporate entity. With "renewals" the term could last
indefinitely.

You haven't looked recently. In 1998, copyright terms in the U.S. were
extended to life of the author plus 70 years. For corporate entities
it's now 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation,
whichever comes first. No renewal is required.

Along with the sheer amount of time works are protected, the would-be
licenser must determine whether authors are still alive and if not
when they died and who their literary executors are. Again, trivial if
it's Disney and probably easy if it's Al Jolson, but if you just want to
make a legal copy of a borrowed book from a little-known author who
was last in print in the 1920s, it's extremely difficult to determine.
Most individuals would just make an illegal copy, but a library seeking
to scan a brittle book and put it on the web for the greater convenience
of its users can't do it. Maybe Google Books will end up making case
law that overturns it, but most libraries are a lot more conservative
legally than Google Books.

-- Patrick

 

[Nomen Nescio]

My understanding is generated revenue goes to administration of
standards organization. As a committee member my expenses have been
paid for by my company and as far as I know expenses of most members
are either sponsored by their companies, individual means or in some cases
paid direct expenses by national organizations (typically a commercial
organization not government)

The time commitment is significant close to a month per year is required
by most committee members.

This is my experience as well.

 

[Rui Maciel]

When the call my company looking for support.

How do you know that those who called your company looking for support would
have purchased your product if they hadn't got their hands on an
unauthorized copy? The supply and demand model shouldn't be ignored for
convenience.

And does your company provide free support for users of unauthorized copies
or does it charge for support?


Rui Maciel

 

[osmium]

:

You haven't looked recently. In 1998, copyright terms in the U.S. were
extended to life of the author plus 70 years. For corporate entities
it's now 95 years after publication or 120 years after creation,
whichever comes first. No renewal is required.

Along with the sheer amount of time works are protected, the would-be
licenser must determine whether authors are still alive and if not
when they died and who their literary executors are. Again, trivial if
it's Disney and probably easy if it's Al Jolson, but if you just want to
make a legal copy of a borrowed book from a little-known author who
was last in print in the 1920s, it's extremely difficult to determine.
Most individuals would just make an illegal copy, but a library seeking
to scan a brittle book and put it on the web for the greater convenience
of its users can't do it. Maybe Google Books will end up making case
law that overturns it, but most libraries are a lot more conservative
legally than Google Books.

I would expect a change to extend it further in 2048. I would assume that
is when Mickey Mouse will go public without further intervention. We simply
must put Mickey on life support, otherwise who will entertain us? No
motivation, no entertainment. QED.

 

[lawrence.jones]

It's a PDF. Surely it could be configured as a single page 8.5 inches
wide and 642 feet 7 inches long (length based on N1570 draft).

Sorry, they have to be ISO standard A4 pages. (Although, come to think
of it, I believe I gave them US standard letter pages. I assume they
edited the PDF to make them A4 pages instead.)

 

[Patrick Scheible]

There's a short cut for such early works. Just check the Copyright Office
for a renewal. If there was no renewal, the copyright lapsed. End of story.

Go to your university library, ask them to pull the Catalog of Copyright
Entries out of storage, search through annual volumes from
when the book was published in the 1920s until 1978. Some shortcut.

Note that if the work was registered after 1964, renewals have been
automatic so the copyright is known to still be in effect, but it will
probably not be much help locating the copyright holder to ask
permission.

Some information regarding copyright is only recorded in the Copyright
Office card file in Washington. Go there, or pay the Copyright Office
staff to search it.

-- Patrick

 

[Keith Thompson]

Sorry, they have to be ISO standard A4 pages. (Although, come to think
of it, I believe I gave them US standard letter pages. I assume they
edited the PDF to make them A4 pages instead.)

Oh well, it was worth a shot.

My copy of the C90 standard (which is a PDF that appears to have been
scanned from a paper copy) is in US letter format, 8.5 x 11 inches.
My copy of the C9 standard is A4. I bought both from ANSI.