[audiodude]

Another annoying thing about the 1976 Copyright Act/Berne Convention is that copyright is automatic. You don't need to register with any organization, any "original work of authorship fixed in a tangible form" is copyright. This is the real problem with public github repos that don't have a license file, because they also likely lack a copyright imprint with a date.

This is not related, but another problem with current US copyright law is that there's no exception for companies that go out of business. The works are still copyright encumbered even if no one exists that can enforce that right.

Based on the former two points, you end up with works where you can't find out who holds the copyright, and it doesn't matter if they're dead or whatever because it's still copyrighted. This leads to the "assume everything is copyrighted" posture that stifles so much creativity.

[kmeisthax]

That's not the most annoying thing about the 1976 Copyright Act.

The most annoying thing about the 1976 Copyright Act is that copyright is only nominally automatic. To be clear, it casts a huge shadow over all creativity that would have otherwise been uncopyrighted. But on the other side, there's still a registration system. You need a registration in order to sue infringers, and you don't get statutory damages on infringements that happened before registration[0]. This trips up loads of creatives, and especially photographers, because it's a lot of boring bureaucracy that never gets explained to them up until they've already talked to a lawyer who says "no you can't get $$$ out of this big company that used your Facebook uploads without permission, because copyright lawsuits are never worth pursuing without statutory damages on the table".

The cruel irony of US copyright law is that, while we only half-implemented Berne, we still use Berne as a thought-stopping cliche for why we can never claw back copyright protection from the half-dozen publishers and creative artists that actually benefit from owning your childhood. Because the base assumption of copyright is that only the creative upper class is worth protection. Protecting artists as a class requires syndicalism and mass unionization, not atomizing everything into individually held psuedo-property rights that are financially ruinous to assert against anyone who won't fold immediately and settle.

The orphan works problem you're talking about is deliberate. Publishers like the idea that when they knock out a less-scrupulous competitor, their creative works spill out onto the ground like Diablo loot, and they can collect all that up and just idly hoard it forever. At the very least, a work that nobody knows how to license or can't afford to license is a work that has been taken off the market and can't compete with them.

Funnily enough, GitHub repos without a LICENSE file are covered by a fallback license in GitHub's ToS that basically says you're allowed to fork and PR. They've probably also explicitly added a "and we can train GPT on your code too" EULA ruffie in there too.

[0] There is a short grace period for this, of course. I think it's 90 days.

[jpc0]

> But on the other side, there's still a registration system.

This a thing in the US? It isn't in my country, you just need to be able to prove you own the copyright, a stamped letter or certified document is good enough.

You cannot make blank statements about the US on a platform that has an international audience.

Copyright law is cross border and the US does respect other countries Copyright acts just like other countries respect the US

[kmeisthax]

Yes. As far as I'm aware the US is one of the few countries that still has some vestigial copyright formalities.

>You cannot make blank statements about the US on a platform that has an international audience.

I'm not sure what you're saying - I was very clear that this is US specific law.

That being said, while I don't exactly know how it works for works created by Berne signatory country citizens, I suspect foreigners still have to register in the US before suing in the US. "International copyright law" is generally just a pinky promise to let foreigners use the copyright system as it exists in other countries, so the rules you have to follow depend on what forum you sue in. For example, if you can get standing to file a copyright lawsuit in Japanese court, then your defendant can't mount a fair use defense, because there is no fair use there[0].

That being said, I do have to wonder if you could get SCOTUS to agree to "foreigners don't need to register but Americans do", because that's the sort of blatantly stupid ruling that only a law-huffer would love.

[0] To be clear, fair use is generally a concept borne of the Anglosphere and it's weird obsession with common law and precedent. Other countries don't have it. But those countries will still codify exceptions to copyright that do similar things. Japan is just unique in that they didn't even bother doing that, so it's illegal to, say, review anime if any Japanese fans might be watching your reviews.

[jpc0]

> I suspect foreigners still have to register in the US before suing in the US

Generally that wouldn't be needed since it's no US copyright law that is being violated but the country of the copyright holder. Being in violation you would not be tried in the US but in the copyright holders country.

There is this whole thing where in general Copyright is unenforceable but when it matters it is enforced, since nobody really cares if you as an individual infringed on my Copyright since to be fair there just isn't enough to be claimed in damages for it not to be a frivolous suit.

But when the amounts become significant enough it is quite serious.

https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2006/02/article_0006.h... for reference to an influential case on copyright law, there are other more modern cases as well

[TheRealDunkirk]

It is a fundamental truism of American "capitalism" that, if there is a law for something, it was written to protect established "capital" from competition. There are no free markets in the US.

[kmeisthax]

Capitalism is a necessary transition from feudalism to feudalism.