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as a trustee for my local historical society: http://omeka.org/
"Create complex narratives and share rich collections, adhering to Dublin Core standards with Omeka on your server, designed for scholars, museums, libraries, archives, and enthusiasts."

It was good enough for the Grateful Dead:
http://www.gdao.org/
http://omeka.org/forums/topic/looking-for-digital-project-mgr-grateful-dead-archive
http://www.cni.org/topics/digital-curation/building-the-grateful-dead-archive-online-the-golden-road-to-unlimited-devotion/
http://library.ucsc.edu/grateful-dead-archive

Although I have my own stuff I'm working on too (the Pointrel system) but that is more about federating social semantic desktops and supporting sensemaking than specifically for museums doing interpretive presentations about selections from their archives etc...

What really made a difference was all the institutions, the colleges and universities and developmental labs out there, who (by hook or crook, usually through a casual contact) hooked into the budding ARPAnet. Remember all those minicomputers and old mainframes that appeared everywhere, all the Seven Dwarf names? All the file archives with unbelievable wonders, source code, yet another version of STARTREK or Colossal Cave?

There were actually damned few military organizations on the net in those days. I know my XVIII Airborne Corps and 82d Airborne at Fort Bragg were, for very limited functions. There was a contractor who managed the whole thing. As an S2 NCO I discovered this terminal connected to a big old DEC-20 mainframe out at Berkeley, with software running that supposedly managed our security access rosters.

That was all very nice. But then I discovered DEC BASIC and found I could write my own stuff! And the other geeks (although the word wasn't well known then) pointed me to the games and fun stuff. From then on there was no holding me back! Ah, what a wondrous place it was .. and all free! You had to know your way around, there were no maps, only friends and acquaintances. Software was free, source was everywhere. The BBS's were budding at the time, for the Apples and then later the CP/M and early IBM systems .. but nothing was as great as the ARPAnet! Anyone else remember SIMTEL20? The huge microcomputer software archive stored on an underused DEC-20 at White Sands Proving Grounds?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simtel
http://old.cni.org/docs/farnet/story149.NM.html

Good times, I'll tell you. We all knew ARPA had started it, that XEROX had made a lot of contributions. But it was all the grad students running all those Vaxen and old IBMs out there, hacking and coding and communicating, keeping the USENET distribution going ... that's where the real credit lies. And the universities and colleges that funded them.

Toad

17 USC Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 :

(a) Relationship with Domestic Law.--The provisions of the Berne Convention--

(1) shall be given effect under title 17, as amended by this Act, and any other relevant provision of Federal or State law, including the common law; and

(2) shall not be enforceable in any action brought pursuant to the provisions of the Berne Convention itself.

Since 1988, therefore, you have not needed to register works to have them copyrighted under US Law. Whether this is a good thing or not is debatable, but it is US Law, so Apple did not have to register OS X. (Note : IANAL and this is not legal advice.)

once I purchase a CD I can do whatever I want with the music, which the RIAA wants to prevent

enforce a licensing model of music sales where they can charge you every time you listen to a song

It has been a long time, a very long time, since copyrights expired after only fourteen years.

In 1831, U.S. copyrights wwre extended to twenty-eight years. in 1909, renewals to twenty-eight years. In 1976, the U.S. adopted the Berne formula of life plus fifty years. Copyright Timeline

>Tell me again, since when copyright infringement became theft?
>> Whenever it deals with something under the GPL being infringed.

No, violation of the GPL is not theft - it is violation of a gentleperson's agreement to give back what you take. Mainly, it is commercial and closed-source exploitation of ideas that belong to everyone that has given to the project in question. So people get angry because their work is being used counter to an agreement while simultaneously being denied access to closed source information based on their collective work. That's exactly why Stallman wanted the GPL in the first place. You have to play nice.

Bringing up the GPL specifically raises the issues of commercial versus non-commercial exploitation of ideas, and I think it's useful to think about those things.

When congress created copyrights in the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, they did so with the following limitations: "the Congress shall have power . . .to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" The First Congress implemented this copyright provision with The Copyright Act of 1790. It granted authors the right to print, re-print, or publish their work for a period of fourteen years, renewable for another fourteen years. The law was meant to provide an incentive to authors, artists, and scientists to create original works by providing creators with a monopoly. At the same time, the monopoly was limited in order to stimulate creativity and the advancement of "science and the useful arts" through wide public access to works in the "public domain." http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html

Okay, so let's get this nice and tidy.
1. The idea of copyrights doesn't exist by itself, separate from the legal entity that creates it - in our case copyrights are very closely linked to certain ideas in the U.S. Constitution, ideas like the "public domain" and the promotion of science and the useful arts.
2. Copyrights were originally intended to secure monopolistic commercial rights to a given work for 14 years, at which time it could be renewed (presumably if the copyright was understood to still be commercially useful) for another 14 years.
3. When a copyright lapsed, the work in question entered the public domain so that the ideas that had proven useful could stimulate creativity and advancements in science and the "useful arts."

We are living in a world where this careful balancing act of competing ideas and needs as originally intended has utterly collapsed in favor of meeting the needs of the deathless and psychopathic "persons" we call corporations, which now have most of the rights of individuals and some we never dreamed of attaining (like the possibility of virtual immortality as enjoyed by the likes of Lloyd's). It makes sense to a deathless entity like a corporation to want copyrights to be extended nearly forever if it can get those kinds of rights legislated on its behalf - and it turns out that it can. U.S. Congress works for the lootocracy that gets it reelected and not for you and not for the public domain.

But what about the public domain? The sad fact is...

WHEN YOU GRANT COPYRIGHTS AND PATENTS TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR,
YOU TAKE FROM THE COMMONS.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163846&cid =13682728

So there are real victims here. We are ALL OF US the victims of corporate control when overweening corporate desires become untenable. When the corporation overreaches with copyrights, it denigrates the well-intentioned purpose behind copyrights and foments disrespect for the law.

THAT'S WHY PEOPLE ARE DOWNLOADING - THEY DON'T RESPECT THE LAWS CONCERNING COPYRIGHTS AS THEY ARE WRITTEN AND ENFORCED RIGHT NO

Original copyright terms were 14 years, in both England and the USA, with the option of renewing once for a further 14 years.

"The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labour of authors, but [t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work. This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art."

-- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

I believe all copywritten works should go to the public domain after 20 years. Period.

How about 14 years with the option to renew for another 14? You know, how it was orginally way back in 1790.

Since we're on that note anyway, Copyright Timeline

14 years with one renewal for another 14 year = 28 years..

1790: Copyright Act of 1790

The First Congress implemented the copyright provision of the U.S. Constitution in 1790. The Copyright Act of 1790, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of Such Copies, was modeled on the Statute of Anne (1710). It granted American authors the right to print, re-print, or publish their work for a period of fourteen years and to renew for another fourteen. The law was meant to provide an incentive to authors, artists, and scientists to create original works by providing creators with a monopoly. At the same time, the monopoly was limited in order to stimulate creativity and the advancement of "science and the useful arts" through wide public access to works in the "public domain." Major revisions to the act were implemented in 1831, 1870, 1909, and 1976.

from A History of Copyright in the United States

I think you are confusing patent terms and copyright terms.

Patent term in the United States used to be 17 years from the date of issue, now it's 20 years from the date of filing.

Copyright term in the U.S. was originally 14, extendable for another 14. Subsequent developments have lengthened the term to what it is today.

See this website for the history of copyright http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html

I've been the victim of financial crimes twice in the past two years. Both times, law enforcement wouldn't give me the time of day. Both times, I had a desire to know who was behind the crime and how it was done so that I could avoid being a victim in the future. I would have paid for that information. One time, I did -- I hired a private investigator. But the private investigator couldn't get to all the information a law enforcement officer could. And, of course, there was no justice served.

(Side note on copyrights: I support the notion of copyrights for a "limited time" (as proscribed by the U.S. Constitution) -- such as the 14+14 years of the Copyright Act of 1790. Presumably, pirated DVDs would have fallen under the Copyright Act of 1790, and so I support the prosecution of the DVD pirates. I even support the MPAA paying for the law enforcement. I don't support the individual officers pocketing the MPAA money -- it should have gone into the treasury to reduce taxes.)

ha ha. You obviously know nothing about American history. Copyright law is in our Constitution.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S.
Constitution: "the Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

And. the Copyright Act was passed in 1790.

Here's a place for you to learn about all this stuff: http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html

Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer. Anyone who really knows about this stuff please correct any errors. "how people use p2p to break some new laws that the big corporations passed recently in Washington DC that protected their soi disant intellectual property." US Copyright law has it's roots in the Constitution and the first copyright act was passed in 1790. Copyright Timeline I think that you were referring more to 1998's Copyright Term Extension Act and Digital Millenium Copyright Act and 1999's Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999. While the more recent acts are (IMHO) jusifiably vilified, the fact remains that "sharing" recorded music, movies, computer programs, etc that do not specifically allow it (ex: CopyLeft) is forbidden under earlier copyright law.

That's just more deliberate conspiracy-mongering by the loons who run Slashdot...

Au Contraire:

Here is a U.S. Copyright timeline.

To summarize (from the link above):

"In 1710 Parliament enacted the Statute of Anne to address the concerns of English booksellers and printers. The 1710 act established the principles of authors' ownership of copyright and a fixed term of protection of copyrighted works (fourteen years, and renewable for fourteen more if the author was alive upon expiration)."

In 1787, 'Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, "the Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."'

"The Copyright Act of 1790, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of Such Copies, was modeled on the Statute of Anne (1710). It granted American authors the right to print, re-print, or publish their work for a period of fourteen years and to renew for another fourteen."

In 1831, "The term of protection of copyrighted works was extended to twenty-eight years with the possibility of a fourteen-year extension. Congress claimed that it extended the term in order to give American authors the same protection as those in Europe. The extension applied both to future works and those current works whose copyright had not expired."

In 1841 the supreme court defines the concept of fair use, stating that is is sufficient to show infringement if "the value of the original is sensibly diminished, or the labors of the original author are substantially to an injurious extent appropriated by another".

The Berne Convention "treaty has been revised five times since 1886. Of particular note are the revisions in 1908 and 1928. In 1908, the Berlin Act set the duration of copyright at life of the author plus 50 years, expanded the scope of the act to include newer technologies, and prohibited formalities as a prerequisite of copyright protection."

In 1909, "A major revision of the U.S. Copyright Act was completed in 1909. The bill broadened the scope of categories protected to include all works of authorship, and extended the term of protection to twenty-eight years with a possible renewal of twenty-eight. The Congress addressed the difficulty of balancing the public interest with proprietor's rights."

1976 Copyright Act revision: "The 1976 act preempted all previous copyright law and extended the term of protection to life of the author plus 50 years (works for hire were protected for 75 years)."

1988 Berne Convention: "The major changes for the U.S. copyright system as a result of Berne were: greater protection for proprietors, new copyright relationships with twenty-four countries, and elimination of the requirement of copyright notice for copyright protection."

1992: "Congress amended Section 304 of Title 17 making copyright renewal automatic. The amendment dramatically curtailed the entry into the public domain of works protected by copyright before 1978."

1998: "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act...The law extended protection from life of the author plus fifty years to life of the author plus seventy years... The law's provisions applied to works under copyright on the date of its implementation."

1998: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act: "Among the most controversial provisions of the DMCA is Section 1201. According to Jonathan Band of Morrison & Foerster, LLP, Section 1201 "prohibits gaining unauthorized access to a work by circumventing a technological protection measure put in place by the copyright owner where such protection measure otherwise effectively controls access to a copyrighted work."

"1999: UCITA Passed by NCCUSL...the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State

Woof - here goes (this is only applicable in the US):

It is indeed a right, as detailed in the US constitution (one reference.)

It is called copyright because the holder has to right to determine the distribution - in any way they see fit. For a nice example that doesn't fit your definition, see the GPL.

I never suggested the copyright holder loses their status as copyright holder - I stated the copyright holder lost their right in the specific infringing case to determine the distribution.

I never called it theft - I just pointed out that the copyright holder has indeed been deprived of something.

Was your post intended to address mine? If so, I fail to follow how...

Apparently, this took place over a long time... I didn't realise just how long it takes to shut down a government website... (or how quickly it goes from necessary and useful to redundant...)

October 1999 http://www.pnl.gov/energyscience/11-99/art2.htm - PubScience opened.
http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/gov/pubscience02.html

2001 http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb010709-1.htm - they decide to cut funding, suggesting that the system be shut down.
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Arti cles/butler.html

2002 http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb020819-2.htm - decision to close... Comments invited...

2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename= article&contentId=A17568-2002Nov20&notFound=tr ue - it's closed...

No, "All Rights Reserved" isn't needed anymore.

Yes, yes I do. If I want to "try out" a physical object I can rent one. Point me towards some where I can rent some software. Ooops, wait, not legal.

Computer Software Rental Amendments Act of 1990 (can't find anything newer on this)

2) by striking paragraph (1) and inserting the following "(b)(1)(A) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), unless authorized by the owners of copyright in the sound recording or the owner of copyright in a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), and in the case of a sound recording in the musical works embodied therein, neither the owner of a particular phonorecord nor any person in possession of a particular copy of a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), may, for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage, dispose of, or authorize the disposal of, the possession of that phonorecord or computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program) by rental, lease, or lending. Nothing in the preceding sentence shall apply to the rental, lease, or lending of a phonorecord for nonprofit purposes by a nonprofit library or nonprofit educational institution. The transfer of possession of a lawfully made copy of a computer program by a nonprofit educational institution to another nonprofit educational institution or to faculty, staff, and students does not constitute rental, lease, or lending for direct or indirect commercial purposes under this subsection.

I can go rent a computer, I can go rent a car, apparently I can't rent software (or a musical work for that matter). As I and others have mentioned, some companies will allow you trial versions, in most cases, the most important bits of these are missing. So, yes, I steal the software. I also pay for a lot of software. I am afraid to add up how much money I have given to Adobe over the years, but, on the other hand, Adobe allows me to make a living.

Tough to find specific references to business subsidizing residential rates, but here's an old reference (Requirement 3), and here's another. (1996) It's discussed in this 2001 hearing at the US House of Representatives.

Don't forget that residential means rural, suburban, and urban. How much money does Comcast make wiring Oklahoma and getting $45 per month when they can wire NY, LA, or Chicago and get $100 per month from a business? Residential does not pay it's own way in communications.

Long post, try to follow...

SCO is claiming anything developed for (or on) Unix as their IP, based on the AT&T contracts that, through various purchases, SCO now has control over.

AT&T basicly said that anyone could license Unix, but with the agreement that anything developed for or using their IP (Unix) became IP of AT&T, and that the contracts were perpetual.

SCO is now claiming that anything except what IBM developed (they had an exception in THEIR contract with AT&T) would have belonged to AT&T if they had not sold their rights, and that now, because SCO owns those rights, those developements belong to SCO.

Further, because some of what was allowed into Linux by IBM was NOT created by IBM (instead it was IP aquired by purchase - IP that SCO is claiming was theirs based on the AT&T contract and that SCO did not agree to sell), IBM did not have the legal right to allow it to be used in Linux, and that by allowing it to be used, they (IBM) broke the law - to the tune of $3 Billion.

They seem to be claimng the legal theory of "the calf follows the cow (*) ", so all the talk of specific SysV code being in Linux misses the point, which is that even if the code is NOT in SysV, if it was developed USING SysV or developed FOR SysV, then it belongs to SCO (according to SCOs claim), and only SCO can allow it into other OSs - including Linux.

They are claiming that any tools developed on AT&Ts unix belongs to them, and any applications, tools, or code developed with those tools also belongs to them - and so on, and so on.

So if C was developed on AT&T Unix, then SCO claims they own C - AND ANYTHING CREATED WITH C, past, present, and future.

Was CP/M developed on AT&T Unix, or created using any tools created or evolved from tools developed for AT&T Unix? If so, then SCO OWNS Microsoft - at least according to the legal theory they are propounding. DOS took many ideas from CP/M, was bought by BG, was developed into MS-DOS, was the basis of Windows 3.1, which was the basis for windows 95 and 98, etc.

In the same way, if ANY PART of Linux was developed ON a platform that evolved from AT&T Unix, or was developed USING TOOLS developed on or for AT&T Unix, or evolved from tools developed on or for AT&T Unix, then SCO is claimng that IP belongs to SCO.

They are making the largest power grab I have ever heard of, and most are not even seeing it. If they succeed, it will be on the level of patenting sunlight.

I don't think their claims have merit, but I am not a lawyer, and there are many law decisions I don't agree with, either, but are still on the books.

Be afraid. Based on previouse legal decisions, be VERY afraid.

(*) An instructive legend is related in Ludwig Bieler, Ireland: Harbingers of the Middle Ages, London, Oxford, 1963, p. 11. In the 6th century AD, the king of Ireland resolved one of the earliest copyright disputes (between Columba and Finnian of Druim Finn) by ruling "As the calf follows the cow, so the copy follows the original" The Statute of Anne (England, 1710) is frequently described as the first modern national copyright legislation. While codifying protection for the author, it was, in fact, primarily beneficial to booksellers. See Mark Rose, Authors and Owners, Cambridge, Harvard, 1993, for a discussion of the origins of the notion of author as creator.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Well, no. It depends on the date of the work. Copyright law changes over time.

No, it doesn't depend on the date of the work. The principal of "You can't copyright facts" is based on the wording of the copyright clause of the US Constitution, it has always been the case in this country (and is not necessarily the case in any other country).

Today, all is "born copyright", though you still have to file for official copyright to sue anybody and get actual damages. Before the lawsuit. But this is a recent law and before about 2000, one had to copyright your work, there was no born copyright.

Yes, today in the US all is "born copyright", but the year 2000 has nothing to do with it. This change was part of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 which took effect on March 1, 1989 (Section 7, to be precise).

Merely stating "this work is copyright" didn't make it so,

Prior to the Berne Act, it wasn't much harder than that, all you had to do was write "Copyright 1956, John Doe" somewhere where people will see it.

and bluntly, the federal copyright law starts out with a warning that copyright law is a peculiar law and each and every case will be different and there is no real set
law as such, there are a set of tests.

No, the Federal Copyright Law starts out the same way most federal laws do, with a Section full of definitions, after that, the next section describes the scope of the law. Nowhere in the law could I find it describing itself as peculiar, nor any indication that there was "no real set law as such".

Music is treated far different than software, or written works, and it gets mighty complex indeed.

There are sections describing special rules and notes for music and software, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are treated "far different".

Whether a cutsey copy-left statment would stand in a court has so many if ands and buts about it, nobody can say anything about such cases in the abstract.

Sure you can. You can say that prose (eg. the comments) is covered by copyright, facts (eg. the data in the termcap lines) are not, and compilations of facts (eg. what order the termcap lines come in) is usually but not always covered by copyright, and all this takes effect before any "cutsey copy-left statement" is even looked at.

While the "This file deliberately has no copyright" phrase probably does nothing legally interesting, the phrase "It belongs to no one and everyone." does appear to me to clearly place the entire work into the public domain. "It" gramatically refers to the file, and the only reasonable interpretation is it refers to the copyrights on the file; "belongs to" indicates that we are discussing who holds the copyrights on the file; "no one and everyone" a description that only truly matches the public domain. If I were going to distribute this file, particularly if I were to distribute it commercially, I would run my interpretation past a lawyer first, but it certainly reads like a public domain declaration to me. If I were commercially redistributing it, I'd probably write ESR for formal confirmation that his parts of the file are public domain, and that nothing but facts were taken from SCO's file.

All of which wil make anything going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this a pure crap shoot for sure.

No crap shoot, since nothing is going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this. The

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Well, no. It depends on the date of the work. Copyright law changes over time.

No, it doesn't depend on the date of the work. The principal of "You can't copyright facts" is based on the wording of the copyright clause of the US Constitution, it has always been the case in this country (and is not necessarily the case in any other country).

Today, all is "born copyright", though you still have to file for official copyright to sue anybody and get actual damages. Before the lawsuit. But this is a recent law and before about 2000, one had to copyright your work, there was no born copyright.

Yes, today in the US all is "born copyright", but the year 2000 has nothing to do with it. This change was part of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 which took effect on March 1, 1989 (Section 7, to be precise).

Merely stating "this work is copyright" didn't make it so,

Prior to the Berne Act, it wasn't much harder than that, all you had to do was write "Copyright 1956, John Doe" somewhere where people will see it.

and bluntly, the federal copyright law starts out with a warning that copyright law is a peculiar law and each and every case will be different and there is no real set
law as such, there are a set of tests.

No, the Federal Copyright Law starts out the same way most federal laws do, with a Section full of definitions, after that, the next section describes the scope of the law. Nowhere in the law could I find it describing itself as peculiar, nor any indication that there was "no real set law as such".

Music is treated far different than software, or written works, and it gets mighty complex indeed.

There are sections describing special rules and notes for music and software, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are treated "far different".

Whether a cutsey copy-left statment would stand in a court has so many if ands and buts about it, nobody can say anything about such cases in the abstract.

Sure you can. You can say that prose (eg. the comments) is covered by copyright, facts (eg. the data in the termcap lines) are not, and compilations of facts (eg. what order the termcap lines come in) is usually but not always covered by copyright, and all this takes effect before any "cutsey copy-left statement" is even looked at.

While the "This file deliberately has no copyright" phrase probably does nothing legally interesting, the phrase "It belongs to no one and everyone." does appear to me to clearly place the entire work into the public domain. "It" gramatically refers to the file, and the only reasonable interpretation is it refers to the copyrights on the file; "belongs to" indicates that we are discussing who holds the copyrights on the file; "no one and everyone" a description that only truly matches the public domain. If I were going to distribute this file, particularly if I were to distribute it commercially, I would run my interpretation past a lawyer first, but it certainly reads like a public domain declaration to me. If I were commercially redistributing it, I'd probably write ESR for formal confirmation that his parts of the file are public domain, and that nothing but facts were taken from SCO's file.

All of which wil make anything going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this a pure crap shoot for sure.

No crap shoot, since nothing is going on in court between SCO and IBM on any potential copyright aspects of this. The

[They] "might be a conspiracy of lizard-like aliens here to steal our water, but I doubt it."

In case you're too young to recognize the Subject line...

"Belonging" means ... To have exclusive rights over.

Do you believe that such exclusive rights, as they are currently defined by law, match prevailing moral standards? Including the ban on singing "Happy Birthday to You" in public without the permission of AOL? Most people I ask are surprised that some older works are still under copyright, which can only mean that the exclusive rights in those works exist only in the legal code, not the moral code.

If you're using "theft" in a moral sense, match it up with a moral code. For rights such as the Bono Act and the DMCA that exist only in the legal code, only the legal definition of "theft" (the taking of physical property, such as larceny, automobile theft, robbery, and embezzlement) makes sense. Mixing legal and colloquial senses of a given word willy-nilly would in Microsoft executives getting life sentences for "killing" the competition. Though many Slashdotters would like to see that happen, I don't believe such a punishment would remotely fit the crime, morally or legally.

Since 1992, the U.S. Government has collected a tax on all digital audio recorders and blank digital audio media manufactured in or imported into the US, and gives the money directly to the RIAA companies, which is distributed as royalties to recording artists, copyright owners, music publishers, and music writers:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/ch10.html

In exchange for those royalties, a special exemption to the copyright law was made for the specific case of audio recordings, and as a result *all* noncommercial copying of musical recordings by consumers is now legal in the US, regardless of media:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1008.html

"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."

From House Report No. 102-873(I), September 17, 1992:

"In the case of home taping, the [Section 1008] exemption protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings."

"In short, the reported legislation [Section 1008] would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use."

Napster tried to use this law to defend their case, and the court ruled this law did not apply to them because they are a commercial company. But as a consumer it seems to me you are perfectly within your rights when you make a copy for noncommercial private use.

IANAL, but my term paper this semester is about copyright law, so :P

Several people in the main thread mention that the original banned comic was a work of parady, which is protected in copyright by fair use. However, the Rome Act of 1928, which amends the Berne Convention, does recognize the right of copyright holders to object to malicious modifications of copyrighted material. The key is whether or not it _might_ prejudice or decrease the copyright holder's reputation.

Sorry, folks, I don't like omni-mega media corp smacking around the little guy either; but, it looks like they might actually have a leg to stand on legally that wasn't "purchased" recently.

• A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design ... that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.

The ruling said that the 20-year copyright extension ("Sonny Bono act"?) was not unconstitutional. RTFA.

Well, not "ever" as it currently stands, but because they've extended the copyright several times in the past century to the point that it's pretty much beyond our lifetimes, and the Court has now said that such machinations are legal, we can expect never to see copyrights expire again.

Assumptively, the Supreme Court said "It's not unconstitutional for such a law to pass, and if you don't like it, go pass a different law." Which is entirely correct, we could always have legislation in the future to reverse this.... but don't hold your copy of Steamboat Willy at the duplicator anytime soon.

The problem was the implication that once you'd learned how to solve your problem you couldn't divulge the information to third parties, in other words help others.

Not only is this against the spirit of free software, it can arguably be a violation of the GPL:

Suppose you fork the project, but couldn't have written your mods without reading the documentation. Is this a violation of the NDA?

Or more bluntly, if for all practical matters the license terms forbid you to post a makefile if you've read the documentation before writing it, is this really free software?

"It is more accurate to say that a license is a promise not to sue someone for infringing your rights." - Robert A. Kreiss, University of Dayton School of Law

Paul Robinson < postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>

There's only a certain amount of songs that can be written within a certain level of complexity (i.e. if you just use the 3 rock chords

There are six rock chords (I, IV, V, and their relative minors vi, ii, and iii). "My Sweet Lord" uses ii, V, I, vi.

and string them around differently, you're bound to wind up with a song that closely resembles someone else's song)

Actually, US copyright courts don't look at harmony (chords) as closely as they look at melody. This case involved a nine-note match (Gq Eq Dw Ge Ae Ce Ae Cq Cq) between "He's So Fine" and "My Sweet Lord".

So how can I provide the guarantee of originality required by composing contracts?

Furthermore, can you even prove that you've never heard a song?

Yes. The easiest way to prove that is simply to have deeper pockets than the plaintiff. But when you're up against Warner Chappell Music (owner of, say, "Happy Birthday to You"), you're up against AOL Time Warner, a Fortune 50 company (heck, AOL(tw) owns Fortune), so your chances are quite slim.

The record companies have the rights to the sheet music I would guess

That's true if the record company and the music publisher are owned by the same conglomerate, such as Warner Bros. Records and Warner Chappell Music (owner of "happy birthday to you") both owned by Warner Communications, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc.

but they must not have any ownership if I listen to the radio and transcribe it myself.

No matter how you hear a copyrighted musical work, it's still copyrighted. Unlike with computer program copyright, there's no way to "clean-room reverse engineer" around music copyright. Even if you only unconsciously plagiarize a copyrighted musical work, you're still liable under USA copyright law.

Is this real?

It's real. It's not an urban legend.

Link please.

Here you go.

Unless one of them happens to be the owner of said copyright, the business can tell them to shove off.

The Warner Chappell division of AOL Time Warner owns the copyright on "Happy Birthday to You".

There are quite a few movies that have birthdays in them where that song is sung.

Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema don't have to pay royalties for that song because they share revenue with Warner Chappell.

But I can tell it's not the same "M" just by looking at it. Even if it was, fonts can't be copyrighted.

I believe that the problem is that he wants to post material that ought to have fallen into the public domain, but did not, due to the retroactive term extension.

Here is the original complaint where this is laid out.

I had, of course, no intention of appearing to side with term extension. I do not support retroactive laws of any nature, including those that outlaw possession of a particular good (i.e., prior possession of a drug or an image or any other proscribed item would constitute an affirmative defense).

I also think that our currently legislated "limited term" is way too long. Most copyrighted works seem to lose value extremely rapidly. The main exceptions appear to be those that involve media shifting, which is situations like re-releasing old audio recordings on CD, taking old films and putting them on DVD, or other dramatic shifts, like making a movie from old books (a great example of this is the recent "Lord of the Rings" movies-- if I'm reading this timeline of copyright correctly, the whole of LotR would be public domain by now. This was prevented in 1976, and again in 1998.)

In most cases, the people enriched by media shifting are not those who originally created the material. And with the exception of adaptive shifts like making movies from books, the main purpose of media shifting seems to be to resell the same content to the same customers in a different form. This also causes a lot of damage to the after-market for existing copies of those works.

AFAIK, the copyright of Steamboat Bill has expired which was only 14 years at that time

and Disney had to wait a bit until it was expired before publishing Steamboat Willie.

not everyone who supports copyrights, etc, are rich. whould you work for free?

You seem to be implying that copyrights ensure that the people who did the "work" would get paid. This is cerainly not true. In many cases, the people who did the work are long dead. I'd be delighted to work for free after I'm dead. Some are even copyrighting things which have already been placed into the public domain. The whole thing has become a mockery of the original intent.

Here's happy birthday [...]

Busted. That's a derivative work of a copyrighted song published by AOL. Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

I know this system will be reinstalled with windows as soon as my sister in-law sends them a "homemade" greeting card generated by some windows greeting card generator that produces a dancing bear and plays a midi of happy birthday all wrapped up in B-day.exe.

Then associate .exe files to Wine. Besides, AOL has an interest in making birthday cards that use "Happy Birthday to You" work on Linux because AOL's music publishing division owns that song.

I tell them it does not run Windows and they are game for giving it a go.

Wow! You managed to use the word "Windows" and the word "game" in one sentence of a comment about Linux without complaining!

Dear hikeran,

It has come to our attention that you published a portion of our copyrighted material. Namely the lyrics to the popular [but copyrighted] song : 'Happy Birthday To You'.

We would ask that you refrain from repeating this action and ask that you make the best effort to remove such violations made by you.

Should this matter be brought before us again we will demand a license fee payable to Warner Brothers.

The work has been subject to copyright laws since 1935 and doesn't expire until 2012.

For more details see here

Thank you,

Daffy & The Guys

If you recorded the Simpsons, removed the commercials, put in your own ads, and rebroadcast it, is it theft?

[Let's assume] you owned a furniture store and wanted to sell Lazyboy chairs, but you didn't want to pay for them. So you made your own chair, that looks exactly the same, and then put a lazyboy logo on it. [You then] sold it for next to nothing; is [this] theft?

The fundamental problem with the thinking comes about because of the nature of what we're dealing with. Information is trivially reproduced, even when spoken. I suggest you study the history of copyright, to fully understand the nature of the laws. Today, we have a society where such information can be reproduced for (effectively) free. It's my personal opinion that Copyright is a doomed concept. However, we have not come up with a suitable reward yet for authorship to promote the science and arts that is not Copyright. Until we do, we will be stuck with this system that so obviously maps so poorly to reality.

There are certainly cases where the line between copyright infringement and theft is very blurred. For instance, if one breaks into a computer system and makes copies of information that were never intended to be made public. One has obviously violated copyright in that case, since U.S. law regards all authorship as copyrighted. Is it theft? In that case, I don't know; just as "breaking and entering" is considered "breaking and entering" (vandalism and trespass, if you prefer), if you don't steal anything for entering, but instead copy important documents, you've not stolen the documents, but made copies in violation of the wishes and reasonable expectation of the holder. The company or individual never intended to release the information to the public for profit (the point of copyright), the information was reasonably expected to remain private, and consent for this action was implicitly denied. In that regard, information violation seems more analogous to rape than theft: one has expressly violated the wishes of the holder of the information, taken nothing from them, but used them in a way inconsistent with their will. Copyright infringement on released goods, however, is similar to using a hooker for her intended purpose, but refusing to pay her. One has no implied contract, the other does. The penalties for rape are spelled out in the law, and include government-sanctioned prison time. The penalties for not paying your prostitute are the same as for not paying any service person: if your bill is not paid, you are sent to a collection agency, which then may take you to court to seek damages. It is (often) not treated the same as theft, since the "goods" (a service) are intangible, you have not deprived anyone of anything except time invested (which has value, but is again intangible and cannot be stolen) and potential profits. In some cases, particularly where the one infringed upon believes the intent was to defraud (once again, fraud law, not theft), they may seek criminal remedies. Most don't, though, because by so doing they are depriving themselves of a potential customer, getting bad press, and preventing the infringer from quickly paying the damages by depriving him/her of income.

Note that the paragraph above is entirely my opinion, and not really part of my initial refutation. I simply think that most software companies and authors would do well to remember that they simply sell their time for money. Their "product" is a service, and our current model of copyright attempts to treat information as a tangible good, which it is not. Those prepared to acknowledge this fact (as Microsoft seems to be doing with their license renewal services) will probably do OK as the economy transforms to take advantage of new realities. Those who insist on treating intangible as tangible will eventually go out of business as realists (the customers) begin to treat it as the intangible, inherently value-less thing it is.

A few links for you to peruse:

• This is far more of a rant on why copyright is bad law than the history of copyright, but still worth a read.
• A useful timeline and overview of U.S. copyright law. It's useful to note that copyright was initially designed to prevent authors from attempting to enforce their rights to a particular piece of work interminably. Copyright was made to allow works to enter the public domain, not prevent them from doing so. A very, very important distinction we'd do well to remember in this age of 100+ year copyrights.
• 
  

  
  
  Fundamentally, it's a thorny issue with a whole lot of ramifications. Those who attempt to cast copyright infringement as a black and white case of theft are intentionally misleading you as to what is going on. It is its own legal domain with its own remedies and penalties, entirely aside from traditional laws regarding property theft. There is no such thing as "intellectual property": there are patents, trademarks, and copyrights which give rights to works based upon a well-established but sorely broken legal framework.

The mimeograph and later xerograph did eventually prompt changes in copyright law (1976 Copyright Act)--the additional restrictions were balanced by the codifying of Fair Use. The critical differences today are that people have the ability to distribute (virtually) unlimited copies. And there is essentially no thought given to consumers' rights in new copyright legislation.

This copyright timeline highlights some of the big events. Unfortunately, it stops in 1996, pre-DMCA.

Certainly anything that the Bono Act falls under is going to be next to impossible to find.

Here's your birthday present: AOL Time Warner owns the copyright on the song "Happy Birthday to You".

In addition, nobody can release his or her own recording of "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin (first published in early 1923) without permission of the Gershwin estate. Without the Bono Act, this work would have fallen into the public domain on January 1, 1999.

In fact, under one interpretation of copyright law, it has become nearly impossible even to write your own songs because all the melodies are taken. (Please read the argument thoroughly before rejecting it.)

NEWS: Eldred's side has posted the final reply brief in the Bono Act case.

Unfortunately, a whole generation is being brainwashed into believing that copying bits is stealing. I suppose the *AA have enough money to make them believe the sky is made of cotton candy, too. But those who have been around any length of time remember that the earliest misuses of this terminology were by greedy "rights" holders. And they pretend to tow the line around the ignorant, while doing what they please among themselves. As it was and always shall be.

OK, so you say you want only information and no hyperbole or buzzwords. I'll buy that, but I'll bet that few people would listen. When you get down to it, just about any argument at all that is aimed at getting the attention of a large segment of the population is about buzzwords today. That should include the arguments of the anti-RIAA people as well.

It's all fine if the Future of Music Coalition, and whatnot (including us on Slashdot) talk privately on their mailing lists and websites about the evils of how the RIAA is screwing artists, and if the RAC (Recording Artists Coalition) tries to sue the RIAA for union protection. In fact it's good. But the fact is that not many people will hear about it. We're all preaching to the choir here.

On one hand, there are the artists who are getting screwed by contract practices. On the other are consumers who are being denied fair use, computer and device manufacturers whose products are being threatened, and ISPs whose are being subpoenaed. The RAC, disaffected consumers, and the like have a good argument on their side, but they lack a large warchest of cash (on the scale that the RIAA and Big-5 have). The device manufacturers and ISPs on the other hand have the money. What I believe must happen is for these two parts of the debate to merge, which I don't see happening yet.

Once they do, the next step will be to get the message out. The only truly effective way of doing this I see is through television advertising, exactly as you are seeing anti-smoking ads by groups such as TheTruth.com and the PSA they have been airing since the tobacco settlement. (The other possibility is massive newpaper letter-writing campaigns, which will only be partially effective, IMO) Only then will a large enough group of people start to be informed and agitated about what the record companies are really doing, and will enough people start to realize what "DRM" really means.

On the CNI (Coalition for Networked Information) copyright list recently, there has been some talk of referring to "copymonopoly" instead of "copyright". The reason given is that it has more emotional impact and is more likely to get people's attention. Also thrown around has been the slogan, "DRM is theft."

Talking (or shouting) in ivory towers, complaining about the undue influence of money in the process, and complaining that the RIAA is using unfair emotional arguments to appeal to the great unwashed is okay, but we aren't going to reach that great unwashed unless we learn to harness those same emotional arguments. Call it fighting fire with fire if you will, but sometimes you have to burn a fire-ring to contain a raging inferno.

The copyright on the song "Happy Birthday" is owned by Warner-Chappell, the music publishing division of AOL Time Warner. Because the song was first published on or after January 1, 1923, it falls under perpetual copyright on the installment plan (19-year extension in 1978, 20-year extension in 1998, who knows what in 2018).

[ Read More ]

Of course I thought [urban myth] about the copy right on "Happy Birthday".

Yes, Virginia, there is a copyright on the song "Happy Birthday to You", and it is owned by a division of AOL(tw).

Of course there's a copyright on that song. Somebody had to write it, no?

After all, when you are a second-class citizen, you have NO rights at all, never mind a curtailment of your freedom of speech!

What is currently being set up in the United States is a new class system, in which some people have more rights than others. DRM is part of it, but it isn't all of it. The main thing I see is an attempt to set up a society in which insiders will maintain control of the majority of the wealth and outsiders will not be able to topple them. The insiders consist of a class of people who move between the halls of Congress and the top levels of major American corporations, the outsiders are everyone else. This type of plutocracy has existed in the past in many parts of the world, and it always has disasterous results. As has been noted many times, it is a major feature of colonialism. Both the first wave which brought about the American revolution and the later wave for which brought about the Indian independance movement that Gandhi was a famous leader of.

These revolutionary movements were primarily aligned against economic concerns. That's what the British East India Tea Company was about. The preferential treatment of the British East India Tea Company by the British government was a major factor in sparking the American revolution. (I can just see Slashdot circa 177X, "I can't believe that you are getting upset about something as trivial as a tea monoply when there are som many more serious injustices in the world, have some sense of proportion!!") Of course, later the British East India Company was to turn to the opium trade to expand its interests in China. This opium trade was used as an excuse to sieze parts of China for the British Empire.

Mr. Wells, in his "Middle Kingdom" describes the origin of this first war with England: "This war was extraordinary in its origin as growing chiefly out of a commercial misunderstanding; remarkable in its course as being waged between strength and weakness, conscious superiority and ignorant pride; melancholy in its end as forcing the weaker to pay for opium within its borders against all its laws, thus paralyzing the little moral power its feeble government could exert to protect its subjects. . . . It was a turning point in the national life of the Chinese race, but the compulsory payment of six million dollars for the opium destroyed has left a stigma upon the English name."

He also says, "The conflict was now fairly begun; its issue between the parties so unequally matched --one having almost nothing but the right on its side, the other assisted by every material and physical advantage-could easily be foreseen" and again, after speaking of it as being unjust and immoral, he concludes "Great Britain, the first Christian power, really waged this war against the pagan monarch who had only endeavored to put down a vice harmful to his people. The war was looked upon in this light by the Chinese; it will always be so looked upon by the candid historian, and known as the Opium War."

Within fifteen years after this first war, there was another one, and again Great Britain came off victorious. China had to pay another indemnity, three million dollars, and five more treaty ports were opened up. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin, the sale of opium in China was legalized in 1858.

1. New powerful cartels being formed by the United States government with global interests and quasi judicial/law enforcement powers.

2. A new openness about the so-called rightness of imperialism by politically connected intellectuals.

3. Propaganda campaigns designed to link copyright infringement with terrorism. (And thus justify the use of force, both in the domestic and foreign spheres.)

Of course, my pure self-interest leads me to worry about the effects this will have here in the U.S. of A. not just the rest of the world. I don't want to go to jail for fixing my computer so it actually works correctly after a law is passed that requires it to be shipped broken (and stay broken!). I don't want the RIAA/MPAA to be given special law enforcement rights without any accountability under the Constitution. Basically, I don't want any of what's going on. Looks like we are all going to get it though, whether we like it or not!