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It arguably should be subsidized (we're subsidizing copyright already just from all the extensions) and the Office in charge would have one year from enactment of the Act to establish procedures to collect the fees, minimize the burden of submitting the form, and make the information in the forms publicly available.

Also check out Lawrence Lessig's weblog for up-to-the-minute happenings in the good fight. (and for the extremely lazy, here's his RDF feed.

And ( if that weren't links enough) you should go and sign the petition to Reclaim the Public Domain.

yrs trly, linky karma whore

http://www.eldred.cc/eablog/000074.html

I don't think you can give one good example of how society is hurt by paying for the work of our hands and our minds.

What about films that deteriorate into dust because restoration societies cannot locate the copyright owner or because the copyright owner refuses to let the film be restored? Read this PDF for details.

we need your help

About a month ago, I started sounding optimistic about getting a bill introduced into Congress to help right the wrong of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. I was optimistic because we had found a congressperson who was willing to introduce the bill. But after pressure from lobbyists, that is no longer clear. And so we need help to counter that pressure, and to find a sponsor.

The idea is a simple one: Fifty years after a work has been published, the copyright owner must pay a $1 maintanence fee. If the copyright owner pays the fee, then the copyright continues. If the owner fails to pay the fee, the work passes into the public domain. Based on historical precedent, we expect 98% of copyrighted works would pass into the public domain after just 50 years. They could keep Mickey for as long as Congress lets them. But we would get a public domain.

The need for even this tiny compromise is becoming clearer each day. Stanford's library, for example, has announced a digitization project to digitize books. They have technology that can scan 1,000 pages an hour. They are chafing for the opportunity to scan books that are no longer commercially available, but that under current law remain under copyright. If this proposal passed, 98% of books just 50 years old could be scanned and posted for free on the Internet.

Stanford is not alone. This has long been a passion of Brewster Kahle and his Internet Archive, as well as many others. Yet because of current copyright regulation, these projects -- that would lower the cost of libraries dramatically, and spread knowledge broadly -- cannot go forward. The costs of clearing the rights to makes these works available is extraordinarily high.

Yet the lobbyists are fighting even this tiny compromise. The public domain is competition for them. They will fight this competition. And so long as they have the lobbyists, and the rest of the world remains silent, they will win.

We need to your help to resist this now. At this stage, all that we need is one congressperson to introduce the proposal. Whether you call it the Copyright Term Deregulation Act, or the Public Domain Enhancement Act, doesn't matter. What matters is finding a sponsor, so we can begin to show the world just how extreme this debate has become: They have already gotten a 20 year extension of all copyrights just so 2% can benefit; and now they object to paying just $1 for that benefit, so that no one else might compete with them.

If you believe this is wrong, here are two things you can do: (1) Write your Representative and Senator, and ask them to be the first to introduce this statute; point them to the website http://eldred.cc, and ask them to respond. And even more importantly, (2) blog this request, so that others who think about these issues can get involved in the conversation.

I have given this movement as much as I can over the past four years, and I will not stop until we have reclaimed the public domain. Stay tuned for more litigation, and more ideas from Creative Commons. But please take these two steps now.

I just wish Larry would mention Gutenberg more...

This is the text of the letter that I just sent to my congress people. The only way I feel like I get heard is when I snail-mail my congress people. I get a nice form response in about 7-10 days that usually talks all around the issue that I bring up, but at least I made someone in their staff think about what I said.

And you should too! :-)

Here's an excellent site for finding the particulars of your congress people: Vote Smart

Text:

Dear ,

I writing today to ask you to take up an issue that has the potential to vastly improve the quality of public domain works out there. A strong public domain gives people a creative background and a collective sense of culture. A strong public domain will offer an alternative to whatever the media is pushing as the "special of the week." Ultimately, it is what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they created our country: "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."

Right now, that "limited time" is much longer than the average life-span of anyone alive when the work was created. By the time the works come into the public domain, they are no longer relevant. I'd like you to introduce legislation that allows authors to be fairly compensated for their works, but also brings works into the public domain much more quickly.

There is a billed called "The Public Domain Enhancement Act" that aims to do just this. It proposes a tax of just $1 on any copyrighted work over 50 years old. If this tax is paid, the copyright stays enforced. If not, then the work enters the public domain. You can read more about the bill at a web site set up for this: http://eldred.cc/

Please help reaffirm the Constitution's concept of "limited time" and create a larger public domain by working to make this bill become a law.

If you take up this issue, the media companies will lobby, and lobby hard, against it. They'll see it as competition for the attention span of our citizens. And they're right. But competition in our society is a good thing. In the end, it's the quality of life of the citizens, over the short and the long term, that is the most important issue. A strong public domain, provided by a simple statute like this will secure a creative commons for all of us.

By the way, thank you very much for completing the National Political Awareness Test (NPAT). I appreciate your clear and concise explanation for your position on the various issues it covers.

Thank you,

These issues have been so widely discussed on Slashdot that you should have been able to follow a few of the links and do somesearch. For privacy/copyright/patent/piracy issues start reading through and following links from this starter list:

EFF
Lawrence Lessig
EPIC
Consumer's Union
Forbes (search for articles on copyright, patents, or intellectual property
Eldred

I'm "anti-bono"

Have you written your legislature in support of legislation like the Eldred Act? The Eldred Act seeks to apply only the bare Berne minimum copyright term (life + 50) to works whose copyright has not been registered, as a starting point for future reductions.

In some cases the testing period eats up almost the entire patent period. Rather than a global extention on patent durations they should "stop the clock" during any government mandated testing procedures.

They already do in the USA. A patent holder can apply for a term extension of up to five years to account for time spent waiting for regulatory approval.

D'oh, I must have mis-clipped. Correct link to FAQ here. Sorry.

Small artists can afford to pay a dollar every three years. If they can't, then they have nothing to lose from the work falling into PD anyway.

The only reason there's that dollar charge at all, is to subvert the Berne convention's terms by making it a "tax" instead of "registration."

Scale, again, becomes an asset.

A technical asset (in some cases), but not a legal one. All the technical superiority in the world doesn't help any if the government decides an entire category of technology is illegal. (Small numbers of dedicated persons can skirt a law, but the majority will have to comply)

The RIAA and MPAA have a demonstrated ability to influence lawmakers. For any clever tricks you can cook up, they can argue that the mere installation of the related software is a circumvention device.
Then you could be hauled to court not for any specific act of copyright infringement, but just for having the ability to do so.

Depending on your interpretation, the present-day DMCA might not support such prosecutions. But if the trends which created the DMCA are not reversed, future laws will "correct that loophole".

IPv6 is an attempt to return to the principles that gave the internet it's growth and democracy in the beginning:

Dumb network, smart edges.

When IPv4 was designed, there was no plan for exponential user growth outside of military/R&D/education. If there had been, addresses would've been 48+ bits from 1980 onward.

The failing with pre-existing networks which IP was meant to surmount is that the interior of the network was too intelligent. That sounds like a good thing, but it means that the network as a whole is less flexible- the inner nodes (routers) cannot be easily upgraded to support new applications and features. Under IP, all interesting computers are into hosts on the edge of the network. Each can be upgraded by an end-user, without supplication to the network templars- be they Bell Atlantic frame relay technicians, or Novell NOS admins. Those smart edges are served by a dumb cloud- the rest of the network just passes data from one place to another, without translating or modifying it in anyway. In the past, network application growth was slowed because users couldn't easily tell what was going on inside the cloud. IP made the cloud's job boring, so that you were no longer interested in seeing what went on there.

That change triggered the explosive growth of computer networks until they combined into the shared entity we all know and love.

NAT betrays this heritage

NAT boxes move intelligence back into the cloud- instead of IP packets being routed to the desired host and no other, there are now entities hidden in the cloud which waylay your packets. They seize them, pull them apart, inspect their innards- then, maybe, they'll deign to alter the packet and send it along further.

The damage isn't just a theoretical one- real end-users are being held back by NAT and other violations of the IP promise. New applications which would be easier to deploy with real per-host addressing are difficult or impossible to install reliably. This is things like high-speed game servers, file/web servers, P2P clients, cheap VOIP, videoconferencing, VPN, and prehaps things that haven't been invented yet.

The internet should be about giving power to the users on its edges. IPv6 would encourage that, but NAT hinders it. There are forces who don't want to empower users- major content providers and big ISPs. (Which may be the same thing). Fearful of losing control of mass audience's entertainment patterns, they want to keep mass creativity centralized. AOL doesn't want users to download ClickNRun IRC-like servers to create TeenTalkDaytonville chatrooms, they want to sell them as a value added service. Time Warner doesn't want 100s of cheap FTP servers passing out free copies of 56 year old TV shows (which by rights are public domain), they want you to wait for the DVD or PPV options.

The desire exists. A chicken in every pot, and permanent IP address in every study! The powers that be are fearful, though. The existing entertainment/datacomm oligopoly was harmed enough by the Internet. End-users sharing data amoung themselves could ruin them- but the exhaustion of IP addresses provided an excuse to keep end-users cordoned off from the real internet. They could download, but not serve files- as long as the people remain "consumers", the corporations can keep them under control.

NAT boxes bring the internet a tiny bit back towards the shape of traditional TV and telephone networks, which is just how big business likes it.

During the time when copyrights needed to be renewed, most were in fact not renewed. The renewal rate varied at different times in history but was generally under 20%. See eldred.cc for details.

well in the us, the constitution gives authors control over their works for a "limited time". the reasoning being that people will make money off of these works for a "limited time" and contribute more art to society. eventually copyrights would expire and the work would go into the public domain. by removing this "limited time" (artists life + 70 year effectivly does this), this removes the incentive for the corporation and socitey doesnt benifit.

think of what life would be like if works would have never gone into the public domain: there would be no free access to the works like shakespeare, poe, bible, bach, beethoven, puccini. as a consequence disney wouldnt have been able to make things like snow white, the jungle book, peter pan, etc. people take these things for granted, but a world where nothing enters the public domain would be a very depressing one.

another issue has nothing to do with mickey. many works are essentially abandoned. they are sitting on bookshelves not being read and will disappear. eldred wants to take many old works, transcribe them into digitial form, and make them available to a new generation of readers. these works are making no money for the copyright holders, and in many cases the copyright holders are unknown. under the current copyright laws, these will never enter the public domain -- all this to protect mickey.

i'm sorry but a corporations desire to earn money does not trump the constitution in my opinion. it's sad the justices dont think in the same manner.

Having cheap knock-offs of your designs or technology made by China or whoever is fine for consumers, but who put up the money to create the technology in the first place?

Does the inventor of a novel information technology product (not a drug) really need a 20 year monopoly to pay for the product's research and development?

Does the author of an operating system really need a life + 70 year monopoly to pay for the product's research and development?

Some monopolies do benefit society. But like all things, monopolies should exist in moderation, and this is why Dr. Lessig has gone to court to argue against monopoly term extensions.

all this means is that lessig is right in eldred v. ashcroft.

copyrights should foster innovation. that is the only reason they should exist. they should exist to line corporate pockets. so they should expire with the death of the author. if corporations via sonny bono extend them unnaturally beyond the lifetime of the author, then copyrights instead suppress innovation. 50 years? 95 years? whatever. copyrights should rightly expire when the author is rip.

this expired here but not there bs is just another example of why extending copyrights unnaturally by greedy corporations is a bad idea.

Schlafly isn't new to the copyright issue. Her "Eagle Forum" filed a pretty good amicus brief (pdf) supporting Eric Eldred in Eldred vs. Ashcroft. Check it out.

The ongoing case against the retroactive extension of copyright duration is also very important to many people, including The Mutopia Project. Though of course, which cases are most important depends on your point of view.

Even if Disney's Treasure Planet does rake in some dough late into its theatrical release, or if it sells exceptionally well on DVD and VHS, DisneyCo is in danger of losing two of its cash cows: the copyright on Mickey Mouse (© 1928 Disney) and the USA copyright on Winnie the Pooh (© 1925 Milne, licensed exclusively to Disney).

While you're waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on whether or not to free the mouse, you can civil disobey right now.

Eldred v. Ashcroft
... 10 had a favourable piece on Lessig and the lawsuit. ... October 13, 2002 - Amy
Harmon of New York Times: uphill battle over copyright. more news ...
eldred.cc/ - 7k - Cached -

The Limits of Copyright
... it an offense to write code to interfere with this use-controlling code, regardless
of whether the use would be considered fair under the copyright law. ...
www.thestandard.com/article/display/ 0,1151,16071,00.html - 34k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached -

Copyright law and roasted pig.
Communications Copyright law and roasted pig Lawrence Lessig on Eldred v. Ascroft
By Lawrence Lessig October 22, 2002. In 1930, 10,027 books were published. ...
www.redherring.com/insider/2002/10/ roast-pig-copyright-102202.html - 29k - Cached -

O'Reilly Network: Free Culture: Lawrence Lessig Keynote from ...
... A flash version of Lessig's presentation, including audio and other source files. ... their
works) instead of exercising all of the restrictions of copyright law. ...
www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2002/08/15/lessi g.html - 27k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached -

High court weighs copyright law - Tech News - CNET.com
... Lessig and his allies are hoping not merely to overturn this law, however, but
to build momentum for an all-out legal assault on many recent copyright ...
news.com.com/2100-1023-961467.html - 28k - Cached -

Lawrence Lessig
... Declan McCullagh of CNET News.com mentions Professor Lessig in Left gets nod from
right on copyright law, on a speech given by Appeals Court Judge Richard ...
cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/ - 23k - Dec. 12, 2002 - Cached -

Home--Berkman Center for Internet and Society
... Also see: Digitial Copyright Law on Trial [CNet]; Google Excluding Controversial
Sites [CNet]; ... the Hard Questions: On October 9 Lawrence Lessig appeared before ...
Description: The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is a research program founded...
Category: Computers>Internet>Policy
cyber.law.harvard.edu/ - 13k - Cached -

Techdirt:Copyright Law And Roasted Pig - Lessig Pushes His ...
Copyright Law And Roasted Pig - Lessig Pushes His Campaign Forward.
Ramblings Contributed by Mike on Tuesday, October 22nd, 2002 ...
www.techdirt.com/articles/20021022/1311202.shtml - 5k - Cached -

you can always check here

I mean, if it's okay to break an e-book for fair use (I'll trust Henry V .009 here), is that work still considered "protected" by the DMCA?

Yes. The publisher's argument: The translation of the original text into a restrictions-managed eBook constitutes a new derivative work that deserves a new copyright term. Whether this will fly in court is anyone's guess.

If it doesn't, then there exists a legal attack on DVD CSS: try decrypting Charlie Chaplin films, or if Eldred wins, try decrypting "Steamboat Willie". Then try selling a distribution of free software that checks the DVD against a list of titles known to contain public domain works and, if so, decrypts those public domain works. You still haven't violated DMCA because your product as shipped isn't capable of breaking access control on works under a subsisting copyright. (The implication here is that the check against the list...)

So, Mickey Mouse and Winnie The Pooh are no longer copyright protected in Canada?

Wrong. Walt Disney died in December 1966 and was cremated; the copyright on Mickey Mouse does not expire until January 1, 2017, under the copyright term in force in Canada and Australia. If the Supremes cooperate, the USA may get free Mickey before Canada does.

A. A. Milne, author of the Pooh books, died in 1956. E. H. Shepard, who created the original "classic Pooh" drawings, died in 1976.

However, Mickey may have actually fallen out of copyright in the United States due to a faulty copyright notice.

That is why you should support the group that most aligns with your own ideals. In my case, it would be the EFF, and Ashcroft.

I support Eldred. Those who support AG Ashcroft are Sonny and Cher fans.

owned his own land, consumed his own food, raised his own seed and even made his own farming implements. Yet when he grew a federally banned crop they cracked down.

Wickard v. Filburn was not about a banned crop but rather about private growth and consumption competing with a rationed crop. Marijuana, on the other hand, is banned; therefore, the precedent may not strictly apply.

Besides, the Lopez case seems to represent a turnaround in the Supreme Court's view of the loose interpretation of Congress's enumerated powers. A win for the "good guys" in Eldred v. Ashcroft would also show that there still exist some things outside Congress's enumerated powers.

http://eldred.cc/howyoucanhelp/

Funny that no one has mentionned Project Gutenberg so far.

Project Gutenberg, unfortunately, has had its hands tied by the late Sen. Sonny "Watch out for that tree" Bono.

Or are you so sure that Eldred will win?

So how's that affecting Dover's business (Dover produces no new titles, apart from original translations of non-copyrighted work)? They're booming.

Heck, with those sort of results, Dover ought to be providing financial support for PG (or at least releasing edited/translated titles into the public domain). Though I guess I'll settle for that nice brief they filed in Eldred's behalf.

Slight disclaimer here, Dover was bought by a big printing company that's really helped them with distribution (just came back from the beach and all the little bookstores there were well-stocked with Dover thrifts), but every other publisher on the planet has seen sales fall, while Dover's sales, since the acquisition, have grown tremendously.

I was going to do a research paper on something similar, but I couldn't find enough scholarly writings on the topic. My paper was going to go through how the music industry and technology interface, and how the technology and contract laws give them large ownership of music, and how if they moved to a digital distribution model (which they could) it would violate their previous business model based on artificial scarcity and monopolistic competition.

I don't know what books you have read but I urge you to read the following two books. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading them and I plan to re-read them as soon as my friends return my copies back to me:

• Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (ISBN 0375505784 and 0375726446)
• Siva Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity (ISBN 0814788068)

Around February 2003 you should be able to find Vaidhyanathan's new book The Anarchist in the Library (ISBN 0465089844) in hardcover. Given how approachable and clearly written Copyrights and Copywrongs is, I fully expect Anarchist in the Library to be worth everyone's while.

Lessig's book is the more scholarly of the two, but that takes away nothing from Vaidhyanathan's excellent book. I would not hesitate to cite, quote, and paraphrase from both of them in any research paper.

In case you're not familiar with Vaidhyanathan and Lessig check out Siva Vaidhyanathan's brief interview on Slashdot a while back. Lawrence Lessig's name might be more familiar as the lawyer who argued Eldred v. Ashcroft before the US Supreme Court on the side of Eric Eldred. Lessig has also done a Slashdot interview.

a monopoly on his creation for a limited time

A copyright term subject to extension of subsisting copyrights by 20 years every 20 years is in no way a limited time. Name one computer program that has fallen into the public domain upon expiration of a copyright term.

free the mouse

No doubt, the public policy of well-monied interests getting special treatment granted to them by Congress every so many years at the expense of the public domain is of dubious value to society. No doubt, the "social contract" between authors and the public that is Copyright hardly requires such overreaching. To the contrary, the Sony Bono bill was bad law, bad policy and generally bad bad bad.

That isn't the question in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Here, the question is whether it is unconstitutional. I say this, because I would like my colleagues on Slashdot to realize the high likelihood that the Supreme Court may not opt to overturn this law, and can do so with the highest appreciation for all of these concerns. Deference of the judiciary to the Congress to make decisions, even bad decisions, is the rule, and it is highly likely that the rule will be followed in any given case.

But here, as the various briefs filed on both sides might indicate, the issues are far from trivial. I would commend to my colleages a careful reading of ALL the briefs, and all the issues before concluding that the Supreme Court has an easy call to "do the right thing." Legally, it is far from obvious that Eldred has the best of the argument.

In short, the vitreol may more properly be directed to the Congress that chose to pass the law than to the Court that may merely conclude that it is not its province to reverse a lousy decision made by the Legislative and Executive branches.

Absolutely, if you don't mind reading the actual papers filed with the court. They're still legal documents, but 100 times clearer than your average EULA. All of the briefs in the Supreme Court record filed by the respondents (Ashcroft, et al.) can be found here.

In this section, we have collected the legal documents involved in the case. The case began in a federal district court. We appealed the decision of the district court to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That court's decision is now before the Supreme Court. Click on a link below to read the briefs and decisions at each state.

District Court (Jan 1999-Oct 1999)
Court Of Appeals (May 2000-July 2001)
Supreme Court (Oct 2001-present)

How You Can Help

Contribute to the Eldred Legal Defense Fund

While the lawyers in Eldred v. Ashcroft are donating their time, litigation before the United States Supreme Court is still expensive. Your donation, however large or small, can support our fight to preserve the public domain.
If you would like to contribute, please send a check to:

Eldred Legal Defense Fund
c/o Carinne Johnson
Stanford Law School
Crown Quadrangle
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

Attach a logo to your web page

If you'd like to help spread awareness, take one of these sample buttons, save it to your site, and use the sample code provided to link back to this site.

The logos are on this page.

In this section, we have collected the legal documents involved in the case. The case began in a federal district court. We appealed the decision of the district court to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That court's decision is now before the Supreme Court. Click on a link below to read the briefs and decisions at each state.

District Court (Jan 1999-Oct 1999)
Court Of Appeals (May 2000-July 2001)
Supreme Court (Oct 2001-present)

How You Can Help

Contribute to the Eldred Legal Defense Fund

While the lawyers in Eldred v. Ashcroft are donating their time, litigation before the United States Supreme Court is still expensive. Your donation, however large or small, can support our fight to preserve the public domain.
If you would like to contribute, please send a check to:

Eldred Legal Defense Fund
c/o Carinne Johnson
Stanford Law School
Crown Quadrangle
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

Attach a logo to your web page

If you'd like to help spread awareness, take one of these sample buttons, save it to your site, and use the sample code provided to link back to this site.

The logos are on this page.

In this section, we have collected the legal documents involved in the case. The case began in a federal district court. We appealed the decision of the district court to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That court's decision is now before the Supreme Court. Click on a link below to read the briefs and decisions at each state.

District Court (Jan 1999-Oct 1999)
Court Of Appeals (May 2000-July 2001)
Supreme Court (Oct 2001-present)

How You Can Help

Contribute to the Eldred Legal Defense Fund

While the lawyers in Eldred v. Ashcroft are donating their time, litigation before the United States Supreme Court is still expensive. Your donation, however large or small, can support our fight to preserve the public domain.
If you would like to contribute, please send a check to:

Eldred Legal Defense Fund
c/o Carinne Johnson
Stanford Law School
Crown Quadrangle
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

Attach a logo to your web page

If you'd like to help spread awareness, take one of these sample buttons, save it to your site, and use the sample code provided to link back to this site.

The logos are on this page.

In this section, we have collected the legal documents involved in the case. The case began in a federal district court. We appealed the decision of the district court to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That court's decision is now before the Supreme Court. Click on a link below to read the briefs and decisions at each state.

District Court (Jan 1999-Oct 1999)
Court Of Appeals (May 2000-July 2001)
Supreme Court (Oct 2001-present)

How You Can Help

Contribute to the Eldred Legal Defense Fund

While the lawyers in Eldred v. Ashcroft are donating their time, litigation before the United States Supreme Court is still expensive. Your donation, however large or small, can support our fight to preserve the public domain.
If you would like to contribute, please send a check to:

Eldred Legal Defense Fund
c/o Carinne Johnson
Stanford Law School
Crown Quadrangle
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

Attach a logo to your web page

If you'd like to help spread awareness, take one of these sample buttons, save it to your site, and use the sample code provided to link back to this site.

The logos are on this page.

Can't wait for the Supreme Court to get a case of somebody who is suing the government for destroying their fair use rights.

s/fair use/public domain/ and you get Eldred v. Ashcroft.

I think that [the postal "notary"] is/was a valid form of copyright that many aspiring musicians use.

Nowadays, copyright protects both unpublished and published inventions for life + n years. (Currently n = 70 in the United States and the European Union and 50 in the rest of the Berne Convention world, but most Slashdot readers who have replied to my comments believe that life plus 70 is much too long, and there are efforts in the U.S. court system to change the term.) If you register a copyright with the Library of Congress, you get more power against alleged infringers.

However, no copyright registration can save you from the fact that some publisher is going to sue you, claiming that the song you think is original is actually "substantially similar" to an existing copyrighted musical work. U.S. federal courts have found substantial similarity in four notes. And even if they lose, the cost of legal representation has bankrupted you.

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.

For those adopting open source, we have Peru...

No, Congressman Villanueva was clearly talking about Free Software, not Open Source (perhaps you aren't familiar with the difference between the two movements). He made explicit reference to this early in his response to the Microsoft rep who made the same error you did casting the bill in terms of the wrong movement. I explained this when it came up on Slashdot before. Given the language being used in the Venezuelan case, I have strong suspicions the same error is being made here.

Disney is a rather poor choice to cite in the context of "hav[ing]" something worthwhile. Disney is a major sponsor of the CBDTPA (née the SSSCA), a bill that seeks to further harm our ability to share. The Disney corporation speaks out in favor of infinite copyright power, part of the topic in the pending US Supreme Court case Eldred v. Ashcroft (née Eldred v. Reno). Disney is a vocal advocate of the ill-concieved concept of "piracy" and the claimed ills sharing brings to the movie and music industries. Gaining a small bit of camaderie with some Disney site admins who use Apache at the cost of losing our freedom to share is a very bad exchange.

The Norway example is typical of the misidentification of intention and statement some Open Source supporters often cite when talking about the GNU GPL. They say the GPL is an "Open Source" license, yet don't acknowledge it is only one because the Open Source Initiative chose to define its terms widely enough to include the GNU GPL in a list of approved licenses. If one takes the time to read the GPL and read what the Open Source Initiative says about the Free Software movement in its FAQ, it is clear the GPL does not say what the Open Source movement was created to accomplish. While I appreciate what Open Source movement supporters contribute by choosing to distribute their programs under the GNU GPL, I think it's unfair that the Free Software Foundation doesn't get credit for their work and the Free Software movement misses out on an opportunity to teach people about freedom and community. Please don't confuse people like Wired magazine does and cite the GPL as an "Open Source license".

Finally, your Mexico City example appears to be for Free Software when one reads the opinions expressed in the article you pointed to: "We agree with the philosophy of free software," said Valencia Garcia, aide to the city's technical coordinator, José Barberán. Just because Wired magazine misunderstands the difference between the Open Source and Free Software movements does not mean you should.

There is a law, the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA"), that provides blanket authorization to sue the government. However, the FTCA only allows suits based on "operational" aspects of government duties. "Discretionary" decisions are not actionable.

Really? Then what's ACLU v. Reno? What's Eldred v. Ashcroft? (I wouldn't have so much of a problem with the Bono Act that Eldred et al. seek to overturn, except that in some fields such as songwriting, there exist only a limited number of possible original works, and it's possible to run out of them.)

In general, if a fellow wants to sue the government over a "discretionary" action, he sues the persons in charge of enforcing the regulation, such as the Attorney General, the head of the USPTO, the examiner who approved the patent, etc. in their official capacities. Hence, ACLU v. Janet Reno in her official capacity as AG, Eldred et al. v. John Ashcroft in his official capacity as AG.

I think the case itself is more focused on the term of the copyright laws rather than on the good vs. bad arguments about copyrights.

An interesting editorial linked off of the Edlred case site has a good explanation of how this has worked through the judicial system. Two lower courts have rebuffed the plaintiff's argument, saying that the term of the copyright is up to Congress and the courts can't judge that. But one dissenting opinion in a lower court argued that Congress's actions (extending the copyright term, even for existing works, every few years as the deadline approaches for major companies such as Disney), amounts to a perpetual copyright, which is unconsitutional.

I tend to think that having a fixed term copyright, regardless of length, is better than having a copyright that just keeps growing and growing.

For those of you who don't want to download the massive 8mb presentation here are the links at the end.

eldred.cc

creativecommons.org

publicknowledge.org

eff.org

lessig.org

During the "golden age of film" 1920-1950 or so

More precisely, 1923-1950 or so. I'll explain the change later in this comment.

Today I'm guessing that the originals are tightly guarded, and well preserved.

No, they're not well preserved. Movie studios would rather see those old films DIE. They sit on the copyrights of old films and do not issue reprints on VHS or DVD because they would compete with box office and rentals of the newest $100 million blockbuster. Film preservation societies often have trouble getting the rights from the studios because of good ol' Sonny Bono.

Now about that 1923 bit: that's Sonny Bono's fault. All works first published in the United States on or after January 1, 1923, are under a perpetual copyright. To go around the Constitution's requirement of "limited Times", the US Congress sets only a limited term at any one time, but there seems to be a tacit agreement between Congress and The Walt Disney Company to pass a 20-year extension law every 20 years. There was a 19-year extension in 1978 and a 20-year extension in 1998; are you beginning to get the picture?

help (e)

But, my god, how can anyone argue with the economics of the situation. Pay $100 once?

Even though a CD-R costs well under a dollar (except in Canada, which taxes the crap out of them), that still doesn't change the fact that the author of the textbook needs to get paid. Say a textbook costs $10 to replicate (figure pulled out of my behind). Good. Now instead of costing $99.95 per copy, an electronic textbook will cost $90.15 per copy ("please insert the original CD and plug in the USB dongle").

I was reading a book the other night, that's been mostly out of print since the 1800's. Great book, but damn hard to find, even to order a copy online.

Was it on Project Gutenberg? If so, you've just showed the value of a rich public domain. Now go to eldred.cc and donate to a legal fund dedicated to making sure it stays that way.

Or you could just sue the attorny general for enforcing an unconstitutional law. This is similar to what was done with "under God" in the pledge of alligience.

Disney should be paying its dues in every country it releases Peter Pan!

Not necessarily. The Berne Convention only requires contracting parties to recognize a foreign copyright for author's life + 50 years. (USA recognizes life + 70 on post-1978 works.) The copyright on Peter Pan is perpetual, which is against the constitution of several non-UK countries such as the United States. (UK doesn't have a standard set of documents called "The Constitution".) Whether or not the US constitution contains a loophole that allows perpetual copyright on the installment plan is the subject of a Supreme Court case, Eldred v. Ashcroft, due to be heard on October 9, 2002.

Well, if this case succeeds, we might be seeing the first programs fall into the public domain since... well, ever. Correct me if I'm wrong, but has any piece of software ever fallen into the public domain unless specifically put there? It's a damn shame, now that I think about it.

So to heck with buying programs out of copyright prison. Eldred has the right idea in attacking the root of the problem - insanely long copyright extensions! (Of course, that won't necessarily free the code...)

but then [Michael Eisner and the Walt Disney Company] lock Mickey Mouse up through their continued efforts to lengthen copyright law

Even in the presence of a potential Bono Act every 20 years, the early Mickey Mouse films have fallen into the public domain because Walt Disney screwed up a copyright notice. Summary of the argument: Back in the 1920s (under the Copyright Act of 1909), a copyright notice was required on the first publication of a work, and "© 1929" wasn't sufficient; it had to be "© 1929 Walt Disney".