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Supreme Court Accepts Eldred Case
Patrick Fitzgerald writes: "The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to intervene in a fight over copyrights, deciding whether Congress has sided too heavily with writers and other inventors. The outcome will determine when hundreds of thousands of books, songs and movies will be freely available on the Internet or in digital libraries." Openlaw's Eldred v. Ashcroft page has more information about the case, which seeks to challenge the most recent retroactive extension of copyright terms.
The jury selection process has been completed, and a leak from a reputable source indicates that Dr. Dre, Eminem, and members of the band Metallica have already been selected....
Got Rhinos?
Possession is 9/10 of ownership.
Maybe this will mean copyrights will no longer be enforced after authors are dead, or that the government will no longer try to prevent people from copying a CD for their person use, or maybe even that a computer class could examine source code without having to sign non-disclosure agreements and sell their soul to the devil. Copyright is essential, but it has been taken a bit too seriously lately.
If you were going to propose a reform to current US copyright, what would you do? On the top of my list is that stupid law that says that a work is not public domain until 75 years after the author's death. That, in my opinion, is ridiculous.
:Peter
The Constitution authorizes Congress to give authors and inventors the exclusive right to their works for a "limited" time. In 1790, copyrights lasted 14 years. Now it's 70 years after the death of the inventor, if the person is known.
Lawrence Lessig, attorney for the challengers, said the latest 20-year extension approved by Congress in 1998 is ill-timed and unconstitutional.
Key to this is limited times. The current copyright laws are nigh limitless, as far as human lifetimes are concerned. And it only takes an act of Congress to extend terms again, 20 years at a time. (Thanks, Sonny Bono!)
I do believe that authors and artist should profit from their works. But there should be a balance struck between the rights of producers of IP, and the consumers. Reverting to shorter terms (perhaps the original) would fill the bill nicely.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
With a name like "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act", it's got to be bad news...
Got Rhinos?
What, like the descendants of Martin Luther King, who are freely wielding copyright over MLK's speeches? Or the Left-packed Hollywood elites?
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
The United States Supreme Court is packed with more right wing fundamentalist than a Taliban prayer meeting. You gave me my first good laugh of the day. Thanks.
1. If you read the _original_ ruling in this case you will find that the judges said something to the effect of - it's not up to use to determine if 70 years is "too long". Utter hogwash of course, it is up to them to determine whether a specified amount of time is constitutional under the limited time provision. The whole ruling was just ridiculous - you are encouraged to read it. Pay particular attention to the comments of the (lone) dissenter.
2. If the supreme court rules in favor of the copyright extensions it's going to be a dark day indeed - there will be no _legal_ recourse left to the forces of good.
Absolute statements are never true
"yeah, when I heard about this case, I told 'em, 'I don't give a rat's ass about some law. If someone tries cloning me, I'll shove a GNU up their ass.'"
Petitioners are various individuals and businesses that rely upon the public domain for their livelihood. Some, such as the lead plaintiff Eric Eldred, build free Internet libraries based upon public domain works; others, such as Dover Press, publish public domain works in high-quality commercial editions. All depend upon a rich public domain to support their work, and many make their work freely available to others.
Isn't this about another group of people that thinks it needs to make a profit? Sure, the current handling of copyrite is absurd, but do we want to see a case won in this way? Couldn't a case be made for the enhancememt of society as a whole -- not some company -- that would justify the taming of current copyrite practices?
I guess my question is, in the fight against bad laws, do the ends justify the means if we're to score a trule moral victory in court?
Method of processing duck feet
14years should be long enough for anyone to milk a product dry, and if not it wasn't worth that much in the first place.
I disagree. The court may be conservative on social issues, but conservatives also believe in a strict interpretation of the consitution. That combined with the free thinking liberals may make this not as open and shut case as you believe.
Veramocor
I don't think so. The major argument is if the change can be retroactive to works already produced.
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Umm...I can see how you could argue that republicans tend to be pro-business (I don't think it's often to quite the extreme as some people here think...but anyways....), but what in the sam-holy-fuck does their religeous preferences have to do with their opinion on the MPAA? I don't think that one is in the ten commandments....and them siding with music? You do realize that a right wing fundamentalist would actually rather dislike most of the music coming out these days? (I can't say I disagree with them on this one...most of the stuff has sucked in recent years especially IMHO
Typical senseless liberal response...take your blinders off, and as a side note: Quit trying to blame religeon for things it has NOTHING to do with.
There's an old saying that there's nothing new under the sun. I think the publishing industry would like to repeal that notion. In fact, if the publishing industry had its way, you'd have to pay to find out that the saying existed.
Consider, if copyright is extended indefinitely, then there could never be the notion of "classic" literature, freely available in many forms. Instead, there would be controlled literature that could be served up time and time again to a paying public.
Indefinite residuals. An attractive notion.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
This is a cool chart showing what could happen to the amount of public domain work available if Public Domain is unrestricted by term extension. It really shows how we (as a people) are crippling ourselves and restricting knowledge.
Pretty interesting concept. Is a greater public domain worth the cost of less restrictive copytights? I think so. You may not, and that is fine. But just think of the possibilites.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Copyright was meant as an incentive to encourage creativity. It was not considered to be one of the "inalienable rights" that the Constitution was created to defend. The mistake that's being made today is to treat intellectual property as a natural right, which I do not believe it is.
I like having protections for my works but there are limits. Generally, unless you are a Stephen King, a book will go out of print in 5-7 years, usually less, as sales fall to a trickle. Additionly, once an author is dead, who really cares? Books are written to read, appreciated and shared. I don't care if people steal my book, as long as they read it. And read really, if no one is reading your book, or if you are dead, why not release into the public domain. Copyrights should last 25 years, no renewals. Coporate copyrights should last even last less, to spur innovation and inprovement of abandoned product s(Really, why would really want to keep the source code to CP/M in a vault for 99 years)? Just my .02
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
...that we're all going to be disappointed by the outcome... there's too much money on the line for it to go the other way....
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
I've always thought the current copyright system was pretty much indefensible. There's no rational way to reconcile "for a limited time" with copyright terms approaching 150 years, with no end in sight. I don't have too much faith that the Supreme Court will come down on the side of the people and the constitution, but it's our best shot.
Many scholars in the legal community have taken to referring to the Sonny Bono Act as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, reflecting the fact that every time major corporate interests in IP (such as Disney's in its early content) threaten to fall into the public domain, these interests run to Congress for another extension.
Of course, this wasn't really about bringing us in line with EU directives; it was just a convenient cover to save Mickey's ass. Hence, you can bet your bottom dollar that in twenty years, when the most recent extension runs out, the IP lobbyists will once again descend on Capital Hill.
What this case is all about is whether this is unconstitutional. Activists like Prof. Lessig and others have argued that the Copyright Clause of the Constitution is limited by the First Amendment. Because IP rights have to be granted in the name of "advancing progress", there's a real question about whether or not giving Disney another two decades of revenues advances anyone's interests but their own.
Also, because the Constitution only grants authors rights for "limited times", granting an unlimited number of extensions, (20 years, every 20 years) constitutes a grant of an unlimited right.
And I don't think anyone needs to be a lawyer to figure that one out.
It may be cold, but at least it's clear.
Fortunately most of the people perceived as right wingers are also strict constuctionists. Scalia is one of the more right wing of the justices but he's very much a strict constuctionist. If you look at what the constitution lays out for copyright protection, it sets a very clear balance between copyright owners and the public. He's probably somebody would strike down the concept of fair use without a second thought, but if you look at the literal wording of the constitution this is what it says congress has the right to do:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and invetors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
The first part of this phrase is the key to victory. There's no evidence that the items being retroactively considered for copyright extension will have any benefit to the progess of science and useful arts. If anything they are guaranteeing that items that might otherwise be useful to that progress by being released in to the public domain are being allowed to decay beyond the possibility of recovery.
Ultimately it's going to depend on where the balance is struck by the court. Technically speaking the terms of copyright are still limited even under the Sonny Bono extension. It's just a question of how far can congress go before it's violating the first part of the clause.
My feeling is that the supreme court may rule that newly created works may have this extension applied to them, but that there should be no retro-active application. Since this law is to incent production of creative works, it's very hard to suggest this is needed to incent already created works. Such a ruling would maintain the spirit of the law, assuming that they don't believe that the term of copyright has breached the threshold of being limited.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I am glad that this case will be heard, the application to the sciences will be great. It is unfortunate that there are resources wasted in abundance trying to further lines of research when that research has already been done by other companies or agencies.
I agree that creators should have exclusive rights to their material for a while (everybody needs to make a living) and then it should be pushed out in public domain.
Capitalism is the best system available for the short term allocation of resources, but I believe we need to rethink parts of it if we are going to have better long term goals and plans for the whole of humanity.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Not only am I not a lawyer, but I'm also not American... so take any Supreme Court comments from me with more than a grain of salt.
That being said, I seem to recall Lessig commenting that this is not a Right vs. Left issue, especially in the Supreme Court. He made the comment that the argument to the conservatives of the court (notably Scalia, for whom he clerked I think?) might be the easiest...
Aka: The intention of the Framers (limited time) is being subverted by Congress' perpetually-extending copyright term limits.
(And this is one time Valenti may not have helped his own cause, since he is on the record saying that in his book 'infinity minus a day' is an acceptably limited term)
Oh? What about Star Wars? going on 24 years! Should that entire property have just become public domain a decade ago? It's truly disturbing to see how many people are all for limiting the ownership of creative properties when all they want is to profit from it themselves. You want profit? Then create it! Create it, pay for it or slag off! There is absolutely no reason that anyone should EVER profit off of any star wars merchandise without the permission of the copyright holders. Without them it wouldn't exist in the first place. It's your choice to pay for it, or ignore it. Taking it or forcing people to give it away is absurd.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
PDF format only seems to allow 32767 pages. 32767 should look familiar to some, to others it's the maximum positive value for 16 bit integer.
So when the DoJ was talking about it being a burden to publish items in the Federal Register, pertaining to a certain other case, there's probably a point.
For other long works which could be published on the internet, how would this be addressed?
Last but not least: A 16 bit integer? $#@!, that is so &%#* early 80's!!!! #@$&!!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Me thinks your are a bit confused. Where in the post did it ever comment on the supreme courts religious preferences? It compared their level of conservatism to a taliban prayer circle(maybe not the best comparision, but eh), it didn't say anything about their religions.
Also, what does "You do realize that a right wing fundamentalist would actually rather dislike most of the music coming out these days?" mean? that sentence makes no sense, not in that i don't agree with some point in it, but i really don't know whats trying to be said....
So correct me if I am wrong here but, if a copywrite gives a copywrite holder exclusive rights to their work then why does anyone even need 20 seconds much less 20 yeas of copyright after they are dead? are they collecting royalties in the after life? Do you need protection from copying when you are dead?
the answer is no, if your dead then you also are not doing any business and have no need to make money, the only thing that you need to do after death is to decompose so the flowers can grow thats it, anyway IANAL and i am not sure if rights transfer but it just doesn't make sense to me.
Jon
Congress could always change the law. However unlikely that may seem.
Yes, and those very right-wing fundamentalists are our best hope for striking down the CTEA, as those right-wing fundamentalists have a strong propensity for telling Congress that they've exceeded the enumerated powers granted to them by the Constitution. Look up "US v. Lopez" in your favorite search engine. In that case, the right wing of the court (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas) and the "moderates" (O'Connor and Kennedy) struck down the Gun Free Schools Zone Act of 1990, on the grounds that Congress had no authority under the commerce clause.
Judge Sentelle of the Federal Circuit cited Lopez in his dissent in the ruling against Eldred, saying
" It would seem to me apparent that this concept of 'outer limits' to enumerated powers applies not only to the Commerce Clause but to all the enumerated powers, including the Copyright Clause, which we consider today."
I predict that those same justices will take one look at the words "limited times" and strike down the CTEA as making a mockery of the constitution.
(On the other hand, I could be wrong. Those very five justices found that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applied to their preferred presidential candidate, which is about as far from the original intent of the 14th amendment as one could imagine.)
From an interview with Lawrence Lessig:
"It is important to remember that work in the public domain not only supports those who freely distribute it, but also those who publish it commercially."
Yes, indeed, it does benefit those people, but the one person whom it fails to benefit is the original author of the work. A creative work (book, movie, computer program) takes a lot of money and a lot of effort, often invested with the intent of making a profit.
Why should that effort ever become yours to take, seventy years later or seventy thousand? If I write a book, why should the rights to it not pass on to my heirs, like my house or my money, in perpetuity? Or sold, like any other asset, to a corporation.
Slashdot seems to contain a great many people who like to do work and then contribute that work to the world. I applaud their efforts, and contribute some of my own. But that is their voluntary gift to the world. If an author chooses not to do so, I don't see why the law should force them to. I am not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like the removal of copyright protection is a "taking".
Much has been written so far about how society as a whole benefits from placing works in public domain. I do not deny this. Society would probably benefit from my other possessions as well, but they have no right to them and are not allowed to take them, no matter how long I've owned them.
A caveat: I benefit from the copyright freedom of classic works of literature. I am a Shakespearean actor, in a community theater troupe, and we can barely afford to pay for our space, much less royalties on a 400 year old play. It gives me great pleasure to use these works, and if I had to pay more than a token amount for them, I'd be out of luck.
But if I had to, and could afford it, I would. These plays mean a lot to me. If I couldn't, then it would be my loss, and perhaps also a smaller one of the foundation administering the copyright.
However, tacking on another 20 years seems to be a bit too much. Prior to Bono, people already had 50 years after the time of their death so that children can collect royalties, and corporate entities had 75 years.
It seems to me, though, that this is more than enough time, and another 20 years benefits no one. Moreover, what copyright owner really cares about what happens to his work 50 years after he's already DEAD?
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I know it's a little late in the game, but who has ideas on how we can help get the Sonny Bono act shot down? To whom should I give money? Should I try to write editorials and get them published in the judges' home town newspapers? Is there someplace to send comments?
I think the core of Eldred's case should focus not on Mickey Mouse, because as Valenti said, who cares if Mikey isn't in the public domain for another 1000 years. The argument should focus on the 10,027 books published in 1930, of which only 174 are still in print. Who is being harmed by these works being put into public domain ? Certainly Disney isn't hurt, nor the owners of the copyrights, since they aren't making any money anyway. We the people, thats who, each year there are less and less readable copies of these books. If these books are not put in the public domain, we are in real danger of loosing them. Project Gutenberg certainly isn't going to spend thousands of dollars to find out who owns a copyright, just to be told, no. As Lessig pointed out, it also stifles creativity, because no derivitive works can be done. He also pointed out two instances where an author has written a piece based on an older work, spent real money to find the copyright holder and been told NO, not, I will licence it to you for X amount of money, but NO. If we allow these extensions to stand, we get Mickey Mouse, if we don't let it stand, we get to preserve a whole body work for all time and we get a whole new body of work, which will never happen otherwise. This lawsuit should really be called Humanity vs Disney.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power - Benito Mussoli
It's very interesting to note how the AP story spins the issue. The very first sentence:
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to intervene in a fight over copyrights, deciding whether Congress has sided too heavily with writers and other inventors. [Emphasis mine.]
The phrase "writers and inventers" conjures up images of individuals, working alone, and immediately draws our sympathy. The fact is, that the major beneficiaries of the law are corporations, a fact that never comes out in the article. And, of course, "inventors" is completely irrelevent, since inventions are covered by patent law, not copyright.
Indeed, the article's favoring of the status quo shows up even more when they note that the Bono law brings us "in line with the EU," (those Europeans, always hip and up to date), and their characterization of the supporters of repeal as "businesses that specialize in former copyrighted material," (clearly a group that leeches off of those writers and, um, inventors.)
I don't know who'll win the war, but in the propaganda battle, Lessig et al, doesn't seem to have a chance.
I am often in disagreement with the most zealous anti-intellectual property sentiments found on this board. Perhaps because my livelyhood depends on my ability to copyright and sell the reproduction rights of my work (graphic design and illustration). Copyright and patent protections are important to protect financial interests of the creators and inventors in society. Information may "want to be free" but until food, clothing, shelter and a college education for my kids is free too I want to get paid. If you make my information "free" you will get a letter from my lawyer (I've had one company attempt to "liberate" illustrations I did even before the net. They just photocopied product illustrations I had done for their competitor & put them in their own ads.)
But, the current length of copyright protection is obnoxious - and counter-productive. 70 years past the life of the author has nothing to do with encouraging or protecting creativity and invention. It has to do with protecting the interests of estates and corporations that do nothing creative at all but live off of the efforts of some long dead ancestor. Most of the time these buzzards, in their efforts to get the last scrap of meat off the carcass basterdize and demean great works of art. How many times have you heard of an estate or corporation (usually a publisher) doing something with a work of art that must surely have the artist rolling over in his grave.
Why not have a two phase copyright system as follows:
phase 1: full monopoly on terms of distribution and reaping of profits. Lasts 50-60 years for a corporation and 70 years to life for an individual.
phase 2: full credit for the creation must still be given to the creator when distributed, but no monopoly on distribution exists anymore
Though I think 50 years is suffficent for an author to have exclusive control, congress has been paid differently.
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The day people can't abuse corporate figurheads, the terrorists have already won!
plif, God Blessm 'em : (go to http://www.plif.com/archive/search.htm and search by character)
Isn't this about another group of people that thinks it needs to make a profit? Sure, the current handling of copyrite is absurd, but do we want to see a case won in this way?
Economic and profit concerns have driven the wheels of Justice for a long time now. This shouldn't be surpriseing considering Right to profit is equated to life and liberty in of our constitution.
In my opnion this case is about people given full credit and ownership of an idea that couldn't have been created without the science and advancements to date of the rest of society.
You should get your cut of the profit for being first, but eventually you need to give whats due to the gaint whose shoulders your standing on. Hopefully this campaign finance reform bill will have the effect of preventing such one sided special interest laws.
just my two bits
--
What is the sound of this sentence?
Okay...if I was to write a book tomorrow and it had to wait until 75 years after my death, then we're talking (optimistically here) about 110 years. Now, assuming that I am like everything else - just a one-hit wonder flash in the pan - chances are that my book will not still be published 110 years from now, or even 11.0 years from now.
To me it seems that public domain makes works avail to people that would otherwise just be stored in a vault and not avail.
So, perhaps it should become public domain 1-2 years after last sale (sale being the time that a publisher made the item avail to a store for resell). This way if the publisher doesn't think enough of the item to keep trying to move it (ie. a useless item, not profitable) then it becomes public domain and the public can decide if it's worth it or not. This way, one way or another it is avail to the public. If it is a marketable item, then the creator is still making money. If it is not, then nothing is lost.
Books - well, if it hasn't been published, then the text of the book becomes public domain. This way if a book becomes a classic (Lord of the Rings) then every year or two it gets republished. Still avail to the public.
CD's - this would have to be done on a song by song basis - that way "Safety Dance" could be published on a "Greatest Hits" CD every so often, but any other song that noone's heard of (except possibly Pop Goes The World) would fall into the public.
Movies - same as books really - keep it avail to the consumer or let go.
I guess it comes down to shit or get off the pot with the items. Either use it because it is a valuable property like you claim, or let others use it.
Of course there would probably have to be stipulations in there that producing a one-off of a movie, selling it to yourself doesn't count, etc... and there should still be a max limit.
Just my idea. I dunno.
That's your opinion. Disney, who is still reaping plenty of rewards from Mickey Mouse, might think a little differently...
Got Rhinos?
There needs to be some balance here. Copyrights are not granted for the benefit of the owners of IP, they're granted for the benefit of society as a whole. History clearly shows a curve where no IP rights harm society (since few people are motivated to create new IP), as does excessive IP rights (since the IP holders ruthlessly suppress any competitors and progress stagnates). In contrast, society benefits when people have enough rights to get a good return on their effort, but can't suppress others for long.
14 or 28 years after publication is good - the new book that had a profound influence on you as a teenager can be the basis of your own book in middle age. But with the current rules, it's pretty much guaranteed that nobody will live long enough to respond in the same way to anything published once they were old enough to understand it.
On the commercial side, look at Dover Books. The original publisher has usually failed to publish the book for years because of limited sales... often because they're continuing to publish the work in hardcover editions, legal expenses in determining who would get residuals, etc. These expenses are so great that most books are unpublished and unpublishable.
Once it enters the public domain, Dover can publish the book in cheap paperback editions. The book is available, the book is affordable, Dover makes enough profit to make the effort worthwhile. Everyone benefits.
Is the original IP owner out of money? Not really - you can't make any profit if you don't make any sales. In the worst cases, the original IP owner may actually make more money once the material enters the public domain since it frees the IP from other legal encumberances.
Of course, that raises the question of the residuals paid to the original author. Again, there's not much of a difference between no money because the IP wasn't sold and no money because the material is now in the public domain. And even if there were sales, it's hard to justify people getting money for something their great-great-great-grandfather wrote 120 years ago (assuming he lived another 45 years and the 75-year rule was in affect). That's uncomfortably close to the classes of nobility that the US Constitution explicitly forbids.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
First, the Supreme Court could just as easily side with Copyright holders making the current extension of Copyright legitimate. Many fail to face this reality, assuming their "moral high ground" argument will automatically win the case for them.
Second, when the original framers of the Constitution wrote the copyright clause, 28 years was a lifetime. The average life expectancy wasn't that long and assuming you didn't actually have the funding to create your inventions, scientific discoveries, author books or songs, or paint pictures until you were 30, add 28 years to this and you might expect to live 10 years without copyright protection. Put in this light, the copyright extensions isn't that much of a stretch, we just happen to live longer.
If the Supreme Court sides against copyright holders, it STILL won't be a boon for applications like Napster given that the material transferred over these networks was generally current works and applications, images and music sent over other peer to peer networks would still be protected under original copyright provisions. This will NOT be a free for all, grab the intellectual property you want some here seem to be making it out to be.
My proposal would be to keep the extensions but make them renewable every 15 years after the first 45 or death of the author, whichever comes first. At the beginning of each renewal period, if it can be shown by a third party that the works are no longer profitable and releasing them into the public domain is the only recourse to ensuring the works will be around for the public to benefit from in the future then the works are released.
By placing the burden on third parties to argue for the public, this will hopefully alleviate the pressure on the legal system as each and every copyright will not likely be contested, only the ones there is a strong case for the public to benefit from. After the current copyright period is up (life + 70) there can no longer be any extensions and the intellectual property will be released to the public.
I definitely suffer the "free is for me" mentality, but.......
First off, copyrights and other restrictions are a cornerstone of capitalism. The make it free to everyone approach is the foundation of communism, not capitalism.
The second thought, is that if I devote my life to a project and produce a great work, shouldn't I be able to enjoy the spoils and decide the future of that great work? Shouldn't I be able to go to my grave, comforted by the fact that my magnum opus will provide for my children's future?
Let's face a little fact that we keep forgetting. Rarely, if ever, is a great work supressed or lost. Most often the works *ARE* available to any and everyone. But, you *do* have to pay for it. If it's not worth it to you, then perhaps it is not such a great work. Even the touted "research" that gets bandied about so often *is* available. But, alas you do have to pay Bayer or Pfizer millions to license it.
This is capitalism at its finest. Accept no substitute as you may be the one that is disappointed.
> but also the extraordinary pro bono work of the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.
Well, what is needed is an anti-Bono work, in that case...
Cheers,
--fred
Just burn all old books, problem solved. No need for copyright preservation on them.
20 years is sufficient. 20 years from creation of work. One of the stated purposes of copyrights are to encourage creativity by assuring a reward for the author. To continue copyright protection beyond 20 years after its creation means in part that an author will have less reason to create new works.
In addition, long copyright protections rob today's youth of some of their heritage. Classic literature, classic movies, classic tv shows, all covered by copyright protections cannot be studied in school without paying the author. Our schools have plenty of expenses without tacking on more. (Books not under copyright protection are often available in very cheap versions and many are available for download from http://www.gutenberg.org)
After 20 years the work has made its money. Let it into the public domain where it can do some good.
Coding Blog
I would expect the current Court to be sympathetic to the interests of publishers who wish to reap profits from copyrighted works. They tend (broadly) to support the maintenance and extension of property rights.
The so called "Sunny Bono Act" extends copyrights for works that are already existing. Now the people that created these works obviously did not need that 20 year extention as an incentive to create them. In fact that extra 20 years is quite pointless, even for people creating right now. I mean how in the world would any one know wheather your work will be worth squat 20 years after 70 years after the day you die. Thats like between 100- 150 years for most people. You cannot even be sure that people will be cinsuming the same kind of art forms after 150 years. And certainly you will not get a corporation to pay you anything extra for those extra twenty years. Now you think that you should have ownership rights to your works in perpetuity, not only for incentive reasons but for moral ones. Because you created them your grandchildren should own them etc, etc. Well you are free to have that opinion but that is clearly unconstitutional. Congress only has the power to give those right for a limited time. And if congress decides to extend that period indefinately it will not be for a limited time. I think there are good reasons behind this constitutional rule, and it should be given power and not scuttled.
One of the things that irks me is the idea that the right is behind the copyright term extensions. Consider this: where do Hollywood's campaign contributions go? Generally, Hollywood has sent more money to the Democrats than to the Republicans. The bulk of copyright extensions have been signed into law by Democratic presidents and passed by Democratic Congresses.
Yes, Sonny Bono was a Republican in a Republican Congress, but he had a vested interest in the copyright term extension (how much a year was he making in royalties from his "hits" in the '60s?). The Republicans most likely let a bill designed to help Democrats (by making larger profits for many of the Democrats' largest contributors) through as a quid pro quo for something they wanted passed.
From what I heard before the Bono Extension passed, there were miles of historically significant film rotting away in vaults and basements. There were also archivists eager to get their hands on that footage, so that they could preserve at least some of it before it deteriorated entirely.
The Bono Copyright Extension passed, and it's quite likely that now those pieces of history will be gone, forever. But I guess that's OK, because Steamboat Willie will be safe in Disney's vaults.
I agree that this has to be interpreted along the lines of the original Constitutional Framers' thoughts, and that line appeals more to the conservative sides of the bench.
After all, if the mere ability to make money sufficed as a Constitutional argument, self-employed prostitutes should take their cases to the Supreme Court.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
>>The court may be conservative on social issues, but conservatives also believe in a strict interpretation of the consitution.
In theory. In practice, conservatives on the court have acted very differently, ruling in favor of police and corporations. Look at decisions involving police powers for example.
I have a feeling that at least Scalia, Thomas and Rhenquist will come down on the side of Disney et al. That means the case will likely be decided by Kennedy and/or O'Connor.
I am all for giving the creator a work a good, long time to benefit from it. After all, a lot of effort goes into anything, and if it's worthwhile, market forces will determine how much benefit the creator derives. It's there to promote the creation of new works.
But is certainly shouldn't last for the artist's lifetime plus seventy years. Seventy years is long enough for an entire second generation to reap the benefits from the work. That's just ridiculous! I suggest that copyrights be available under the terms of 14 years of until the death of the artist, whichever comes last. That way, if they artist dies a year after creating a work, his estate will benefit from it for the next thirteen years, as is fair to his family. Furthermore, if the original creator lives a long time, he can continue to benefit from his work for the duration, as is fitting.
The only reason I can think of that the copyright law should be as it is now, is because copyrights are transferable. That means that the artist or the family can transfer the rights to a non-perishable entity (like a record company) which will benefit from it for the entire life of the copyright.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
The briefing a little to nebulas for me to grok, so i googled up this link on copyright extension, this one is regarding Disney.
I think the main problem with IP law is that it is too cut and dry. For example I agree that Disney should be able to hold it's copyright to Mickey Mouse, but disagree that movies made by MGM 70 years ago are still not public domain.
Mickey Mouse is a very important piece of Disneys brand, and Disney is a brand based company, so it's essential to their survival. Where movies from 70 years ago are simply rotting away, and will probably vanish.
I think IP law needs to be based of need. A auction system would work better. Where after a relatively short period, say 20 years. the rights to the IP would become public domain, but are then up for auction. Disney would only have to be the highest bidder, which they could probably do, being that it's more important to them then to anyone else. The public needs to set a price however on buying it back, in case no-one else shows up to bid. I don't know how that would work exactly, but i imagine something based of it's past worth like 20% of the generated revenue from the IP. Of course calculating revenue from an IP isn't cut and dry either.
While IP that companies don't care about are not worth the time or money to renew, and then become public domain. A good example would be old video games, the company that holds the IP have essentially forgotten about them. When the time is up, they either have to buy it back from the public, or give it away.
-Jon
this is my sig.
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
Would you expect anything less from a person who was elected because people liked his crappy music.
--
What is the sound of this sentence?
Note: I don't agree with the ability of a company to hold an artist's copyright for so long. I think it's exploitive and defeats the original purpose of the copyright.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
It is my understanding we are talking about copyright here, not trademarks. The Star Wars movies might become public domain, but the merchandise would still be protected by trademarks. Any derivative works would be protected by their own copyright starting from the date of publication.
Furthermore, the constitution states that there is a reason for people to profit off the work despite the copyright holders: for the benefit of society at large.
Copyrights aren't a God-given right, they're a constitution-given right, and one that the creators weren't sure was a good idea either.
We are not forcing people to give something away. We are waiting for their temporary monopoly on the creative expression of an idea to lapse - a monopoly given to them by we the society so that they might benefit more than if it didn't exist.
It's a gift, and its for a limited time only.
Your reply seems to take as a given the concept of "Intellectual Propety". I for one do not share your conviction that such a thing exists.
I don't want profit. I want freedom of expression that allows me to include what are now cultural icons in my work if I think it will enrich the experience I wish to create. I want to do this without someone else being able to dictate how I use it.
---
Plif used to rock. He needs to stop doing those damn sock puppets and do more stuff like this : Anubis
He does do a good job at skewing idol worship, fer sure.
Capitalism is a way to remove individual bias from the distribution of resources by allowing markets to decide prices among competing vendors. Monopolies cause this system to fail because one person decides the price of a given good.
The idea ownership system people refer to as "intellectual property" is nothing but a set of government-sponsored monopolies over goods.
Intellectual property requires a monopoly, monopolies are inconsistent with free markets. As Linus is fond of saying, "...repeat until enlightened."
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
One of my biggest gripes about our system is the fact that works can completely disappear before they enter the public domain. I would suggest that anyone who wishes to apply for a copyright be required place a high-quality, unencrypted, unrestricted, and preferably digital (or easily digitized) copy of their work (1st-gen film print, HTML for books, 24+ bit audio masters, digital TV masters, etc...) in escrow with the Library of Congress, to be released into the public domain at the end of the copyright. This way, no matter how far they push the copyright, nothing will be truly "lost" in the long run. Under the current system, companies have a nasty habit of locking things away after their marketable life to prevent older stuff from competing with newer stuff-- which results in things disappearing completely.
This is not a solution to the problem of ever-expanding copyright terms, but it does prevent us from losing things irretrievably.
Please remember that the system of capitalism is founded on the concept of an element of trade being a tangible item. I own an apple. I sell the apple. I now have money, but no longer have an apple. The buyer has lost money, but now has an apple.
"Intellectual property", a recently coined term, is very different. I own a program. I sell a copy of the program. I now have money, and I still have my program. The buyer has lost money, but now has a program.
I disagree that the idea of capitalism even covers "intellectual property", and believe that espousing freedom of information is not communist. It is also my opinion that having a system in place to protect it does more harm than good.
I would like to offer my congratulations to Lawrence Lessig and the contributors to OpenLaw for even getting this far; the Supreme Court does not agree to hear every case that is submitted to it, and therefore it is probably felt that there is at least a cogent argument that the time period of copyright is unacceptable. Whether he wins or loses, to continue thus far is a great achievement, although I for one would be grateful if copyright were weakened.
That there should be a period of copyright is not in doubt; there is no argument that a period of protection should exist for which authors are compensated for their work. However media is the only product which a craftsman can make, where the design can be protected for 95 years. Everything else you are free to make an (almost) exact copy if you have the materials to do so and provided it is not protected by patents (15-20 years) and trademark (which just prevents you naming your copy the same as the original).
I am unfortunately an EU citizen (and a UK subject), and the change in the US law was designed to match European law (amongst other reasons). I hope that a change in US law will bring about a similar rolling back of copyright in the EU.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
How is creativity stifled by the restriction of derivative works? Being that a work is derived from another work, I would consider that LESS creative than if some author were to CREATE a wholly new work.
Congress got paid off to extend copyrights by a big corporation that owns the copyright to a little mouse. said mouse was copyrighted in the early 1930's and his inventor died over 30 years ago. How Congress can arbitrarily and retroactively extend said mouse's copyright smacks of bribery... But then again...all this was done when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, which meant that EVERYTHING was for sale...for the right price.
It's called a copyright. It's been around for years and is used in most of the worlds free or at least capitalistic societies.
But, so many here are thoroughly disgusted with the term of the restriction because they cannot have it for themselves, right now. They're not interested in their kids having it for free, they want it for free, now!
It never ceases to amaze me how little things change from generation to generation. The "kids" or those "without" always demand, gimme gimme gimee and postulate their communal ideas. Yet, inevitably, they grow older and begin developing their own means. Suddenly the communal mentality swings to: It's mine and I'm not giving it away.
Most don't realize this change happening. They don't hear it in their own words, as in the above posts. They say no, my children shouldn't be provided for. The kids should work for themselves and not be lazy. Yet these very same posters themselves cry, "gimme gimme gimme". Why don't they work for themselves? Why don't they stop being lazy? Why don't they make their own great work? Why should they have mine????
No sir, I like the present system. I can make my work freely available or I can control its use as I see fit. The Supreme court will review this case. The Supreme court will find in favor of copyright protection and this will continue to be a Great Nation.
Really? I had been under the impression that trademarks of copyrighted characters et al by necessity either became weak or nonexistant, in order to accomodate the more important interest of establishing a public domain. Copyright, after all, is Constitutional -- trademark is merely statutory.
After all, how do you sell Star Wars movies that are in the p.d. if you can't use the Star Wars name?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
when the supreme court went against all principles of strict interpretation to deny Gore a recount. Regardless of whether you think there should have been a recount or not, noone can argue with a strait face that their decision, which created a new very specific constitutional right to overturn a state court ruling on state law, was the result of strict interpretation. I think the SC is just conservative.
A copyright lasts 1 year. (that's right only one).
It is not transferable to any other person or entity, but is only available to the original author.
A copyright can be renewed indefinitly, each year, for one year, but must be renewed before the copyright expires.
As copyright does not have to be registered, it makes sense that a renewal does. If the copyright is important to people, they will renew it. If it isn't important, then it will lapse and become public domain.
This way, the original authors are protected (as copyright was originally intended) and the public domain's rights (if there isn't such a thing there should be!) is also protected.
Disclaimer: IANAIPL.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
why is there a Microsoft Visual Studio .NET banner at the top of the page here?
I have seen a lot of strange things in my time. This is one of them.
he will have to argue in front of them after all. It is bad practice to insult judges you are about to argue in front.
The system of capitalism is founded on the concept of trade of anything that is deemed of value. Regarless of whether or not it is a tangible item. How tangible are stocks or better yet, futures? How tangible is insurance? How tangible is interest?
We as a society place value on all sorts of items both tangible and intangible. Hell, we pay for "peace of mind", how intangible is that? So long as it is of value to someone then they will pay a price for it. Capitalism lives on!!!!!!!!
The government's case in Eldred v. Ashcroft depends on at least three lies. We need to expose them and debate the real issues in order to have an informed public decide on proper copyright law.
1. CTEA "harmonizes" U.S. law with the E.U. No--it is not possible to have the same copyright term as the E.U.'s, because until 1976 term was measured from first publication, not from author's death, in the U.S. but not the E.U. The 1998 retroactive extension was not harmonization. In any event, E.U. term still differs substantially in works for hire, film productions, and anonymous works. As an example, a work first published in 1923 might be in the public domain in the U.S. if not renewed, but protected until 70 years after death if author was European. No way to harmonize this--it is just protectionism for U.S. works in Europe, for which the U.S. public pays.
2. Perpetual or lengthy terms are needed in order to preserve old films and other material. Not so--currently, film studios don't preserve even all the films they own copyright on--you see ads on TV where they try to collect money from the public for preservation. In fact, two plaintiffs in Eldred v. Ashcroft are film preservation groups who argue that the term extension makes it impossble from them to find copyright owners in order to preserve old films.
3. Authors benefit from longer terms. No--the difference between 50 years after death and 70 years is not enough incentive to cause anyone to write a book now. See the brief by Berkeley economist Hal Varian at http://openlaw.org/eldredvreno.
We assert that the ones who benefit from the CTEA are large corporations not authors--they are the ones who lobbied for the bill and paid large sums to campaigns of legislators to buy the bill.
The ones who will be hurt if we fail are authors who wish to prepare works that are derivative or try to enjoy fair use of existing works. And the public will not enjoy the fruits of their publication--innovation will be stifled if the public domain is privatized. The Internet now and the next Internet, whatever it will be, will be threatened--instead, big corporations will own all content and license our popular culture to us as pay-per-view.
Down with capitalism! Tell you what... draw me a pretty picture, and I'll cook you dinner. How's that?
Or are you scared of "Reds"?
Uh, huh. And where was the Democratic president with the "Veto" stamp?
And what about this in the congressional record? - "10/7/1998:
Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent. "
"Unanimous" doesn't sound like "The Republicans but not the Democrats" at all, does it? Sounds like Democrats were hanging out at the Big Media(tm) crackhouse quite happily as well. In short - This isn't a 'political party' issue!. This is a "Big Media offers Big Bucks to ALL politicians, and ALL mainstream party senators (and, presumably, representatives, but it's hard to say, it passed the house by voice vote) are happily taking bribes.
Pointing at whichever of the two mainstream parties you hate most and saying "it's all THEIR fault" just makes your least hated party happy to have the attention drawn away from them, whichever of The Two Parties(tm) they may be, and keeps this sort of thing "business as usual".
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
On the other hand, look at it as evolution in action. The guy died because he skied into a tree. A little research yields OT7-48, where he'd be instructed to "Find some plants, trees, etc., and communicate to them individually until you know they received your communication.".
Hey, maybe if he'd paid his $300,000 to said nut cult, the tree would have gotten out of his way.
Let's apply some government moderated capitalism here.
Copyrights are obviously valuable, otherwise corporations would not be prepared to spend so much defending them. However, they cost nothing to create. The government is missing an obvious source of revenue here - simply tax the ownership of a published copyrighted work that is itself sold. If you don't pay the tax, it becomes public domain. Copyrights for free items would be free of this tax.
To add spice, double the tax each year the copyright runs. For example:
Tax in year 1 - 1 cent
Tax in year 2 - 2 cents
Tax in year 3 - 4 cents
...you know where this is going.
An up-front fee (or pre-payment of tax) of $10.23 protects your copyright for 10 years.
An up front fee of $327.67 preserves your copyright for 15 years.
But you can see that after 25 years, the next fee is $335,544.32 - you need a serious income to preserve the copyright. If you don't pay, it becomes public domain.
You get the opportunity to profit. The government gets a revenue stream, and items become public domain after a reasonable time.
Obviously, the starting point and the exponential could be varied, but explaining it with a pile of pennies and a chessboard - move one square per year and double the number of pennies - keeps it simple. The fees in the early years are very reasonable, encouraging people to profit from their work quickly.
Problems?
This line intentionally left..uh..blank?
A reasonable argument that I can stomach. You're such a realist.
;)
What are you doing here??
You're a total idiot. You obviously don't have ONE SINGLE FUCKING CLUE what the school-zone gun law was about. Will you please shut the fuck up, read about it (instead of just pulling its meaning out your distended ass), and come back when you have at least one coherent thought in your brain. Jesus fucking Christ, wake up, dipshit.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Any public domain material protected by a copyright protection mechanism still protecting copyrighted works (and you can bet MPAA will release a DVD every 50 or 100 years until hell freezes over to make sure that it does) is still legally unaccessible. It's impossible to extract the work in question without violating the DMCA.
Other than that I'm from Europe and we've got 70 here, but I don't like laws being applied retroactively. Note - it's not retroactive as in an ex post facto law so it's not unconstitutional for that reason - Congress is within their full right to change the copyright length of a work.
Personally I think life + 70 is way too long. If I wrote a work today, lived to be a hundred or so it'd enter the public domain in 2150. 2150! Maybe your grand*x-children will read it someday...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Second, when the original framers of the Constitution wrote the copyright clause, 28 years was a lifetime
No it wasn't. Thomas Jefferson lived to the ripe old age of 83. George Washington died of throad infection at the age of 67. What skews the "average life expectancy" statistics is infant mortality which was much higher in the olden days. That's why it's called "average".
I recommend that you, and others, buy this fabulous little book. There you will learn about this fallacy and more. Astrology is also debunked, which is a good thing.
My spoon is too big.
NO! Intellectual property is not property. The Founders never called it property. You don't own it - you only have rights in it, for a fixed period of time, or so long as it is useful to the public (depending on whether its copyright, patent, or trademark).
When you start calling it property, the MMPA (Mickey Mouse Protection Act) advocates have won half the battle.
The solution, of course, is for all Slashdotters to move to Montana and take over the political scene there...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The copyright on characters expires with the expiration of the first copyrighted work containing that character.
For instance, the first publication of the Mickey Mouse character was in 1928. This created a copyright on the Mickey Mouse character. When the first Mickey Mouse cartoon's copyright expires, then the copyright on the character expires also.
This doesn't mean that all of the copyrights on all of the Mickey Mouse cartoons will expire, but when the 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon copyright expire, anyone else will be able to use the Mickey Mouse character in their own, original cartoons.
If the Supreme Court sides with Eldred, this will happen January 1, 2003.
If the Supreme Court sides with the government, this will probably never happen, because it is trivially easy for the entertainment industry to simply buy off Congress every 20 years and get a new 20 year extension added to their existing copyrights.
This decision will, among other things, determine whether the copyright industry will continue to grow in power and control perpetually. If copyrights are allowed to expire, then even a company like Disney must continually create new works to justify its existance. If the Supreme Court endorses "perpetual copyright on the installment plan", then companies like Disney will simply continue to exist forever, drawing money from government enforced monopolies over the increasingly ancient works that comprise our culture and history.
Things weren't always this way. The seeds of the copyright crisis was created in 1976, with the ill-advised copyright reform act, and the problems with the act are just beginning to come to light today.
Prior to 1976, copyright:
1) Required registration with the government
2) Lasted for 28 years
3) Allowed an additional re-registration for a second 28 year term
4) Required a copyright notice specifying the year of copyright, and the copyright holder.
As a result:
1) Anyone could trace a copyright, by writing to the copyright office
2) Even though renewal was a simple as filing a form and paying a small fee, very few works were ever renewed, due to the negligable economic value of the vast majority of 28 year old works. Some valuable works slipped through the cracks, and other economically worthless works only became valuable again because they entered the public domain ("It's a Wonderful Life" was neglected and forgotten, before it entered the public domain, and was played constantly on television)
Now copyrights:
1) Do not require any registration
2) Last for 95 years for corporations, or life+75 years for individuals
3) Do not require any copyright notice whatsoever.
As a result, it is now, in many cases, impossible to even determine who owns the copyright to a given work. The problem is only becoming more difficult over time. The 1976 copyright reform laws have placed modern-day historians in a near-impossible position -- by creating "rights" that no one knows about, and are nearly impossible to track down, if even possible at all, and creating enormous penalties for "violating" those impossible-to-determine rights.
A true copyright reform would:
1) Require registration and notification of copyright, as prior to 1976
2) Have short, fee-renewable terms, instead of one long term.
3) Require publication as a condition of copyright. -- to avoid repeating the catastrophy of the movie industry -- where Hollywood was granted copyrights on films, without requiring that those films be sold to the general public. As a result, the studios leased the films, then destroyed all the copies, and as a result, some 95% of silent films are gone forever, with no benefit to the public.
I don't know about Scalia. This doesn't seem to be one of his pet issues, and his general stance is in, more or less, trying to set the clock back to 1789... when copyrights were minimal.
He might surprise you.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Well...you kinda implied it.
1.) You said right wing fundamentalist - see dictionary.com.
Fundamentalist: adj : (theology) of or relating to or tending toward fundamentalism
Fundamentalism:
1.) A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
Note the words religeous, which is what most people think of when they hear "fundamentalist".
Here's the alt definition:
a.) Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.
b.) Adherence to the theology of this movement.
Again...note the religeous connotation, a rather negative one no less.
How clear can this be? You responded reasonably enough so I don't want to be rude or condescending, but I am not sure you were thinking the same thing you were writing.
As for what I meant when I said: "You do realize that a right wing fundamentalist would actually rather dislike most of the music coming out these days?"...well...how blantant can it be? Most people you would call conservatives aren't down with P-Diddy and Rob Zombie...and especially not Marilyn Manson. Really...I wouldn't say the majority of mainstream music is terribly appealing to them. Why the heck should they like that industry?
We wouldn't want copyrights to end at an author's death, because then an industry would spring up for bumping off authors of important works.
It isn't often I encounter someone as or more cynical than myself. I salute you!
-- MarkusQ
Sorry about the original post...I read it quickly and thought it was a response from the original AC that posted it. My bad on that one.
By the way that wasn't a troll. The supreme court is packed with right wing fundamentalists, just like the Taliban, or any right wing organization. Any conservative who goes against his own principles (in recent examples States Rights were severely hurt by the pro-states rights SCOTUS judges who ruled to put Bush in office) in order to push into power somebody who is a political ally is in my opinion a fundamentalist.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
So when I'm forty, I no longer have the rights to something I wrote when I was twenty? How is that a logical, financially viable, and potentially useful solution?
Funny. The Founders thought that it would be okay if you lost your rights in your work when you were thirty four.
Man... what the hell were they thinking, eh? Obviously, Jack Valenti knows far more than they did. We should just do whatever Jack says. 'Cause he's a very smart man.
I was doing a bit of searching lately (specifically, I was wondering if the classic silent film "Metropolis" had dropped into the public domain yet. According to one "Public Domain Movies for sale" site (LSVideo.com), the answer boils down to "probably"...), and stumbled on a couple of sites offering "public domain" material.
This one, to my surprise, actually offered a number of cartoons that seemed shockingly recent (heck, I think I have some of them on commercial VHS!) - including even a handful of Disney shorts. Apparently, there was a window of time before copyright extension became automatic, where a lot of works evidently didn't get renewed, and therefore hit the public domain.
Unfortunately, that site vehemently denies any availability to normal people (i.e. they are a company tailored for and catering only to broadcasters with professional equipment who want some public domain material to broadcast).
Anyone know if archive.org will be getting any of this material? And for that matter, good pointers to other "public domain material" sites?
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
FYI This is the supreme court which consists of only justices and NO jury
It's not just the motivation clause. The dissenting judge on the appeals court argued that retroactively extending copyrights makes the term effectively unlimited, since you can just keep extending it indefinitely.
So public domain is taking things from authors? But doesn't copyright allow for taking from the public domain? Authors don't create out of nothing -- they take ideas that are floating around, put them together, bend a few, and come up with something new. So to say that public domain takes from authorship is to forget the other half.
Proof? How about the web? Public domain idea of computers, plus the public domain idea of the internet, plus the public domain idea of a decent user interface, and boom, out pops this gigantic thing. Yes, it's public domain, but it __could__ have been patented, with all the profit going to the person who put the parts together, and nothing going to the person whose thoughts went into the parts.
The purpose of copyrights is to allow the creator to prosper from his/her creative works. It is considered a bribe to be inventive. After which, the work is supposed to fall into the public sphere. The problem is that copyrights have now become a tool of the corporations, who have no incentive to ever be inventive, rather to use copyright to further milk the IP monopoly that copyright protects.
Professor Lessig often calls copyright extension in his texts the 'Mickey Mouse' law because Congress allows extends the copyright protection right before Mickey Mouse is supposed to fall into the public domain
It can (and will be) a copyright protection machanism for *other* copyright protected works. And all the force of the DMCA still applies, even if the works you wish to use this information on is in the public domain.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
One of the requirements of obtaining a copyright is that you send a copy to the Library of Congress. This is even true, technically, if you take a de facto copyright by labelling your work as copyrighted; in fact, it is a violation of law if you don't, though I've never heard of it being enforced. This is done in hardcopy, though, not digitally.
Just try looking up something at the LoC, though.
"The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law."
-- George W. Bush, Austin, TX, Nov. 22 2000
"Mickey Mouse is a very important piece of Disneys brand"
Yes. Mickey is a very important Disney trademark. Releasing the copyright on specific Mickey Mouse films does not jeopardize their ongoing trademark use of Mickey. In fact, it would enhance the value of their current exploitation considerably.
Given that "ignorance of the law is no defence", does anyone here actually understand UK copyright law?
0 04 8_en_1.htm
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_1988
Yes that's right, all 306 sections of it! Goodness only knows what commercial interests are hidden in there.
The copyright on characters expires with the expiration of the first copyrighted work containing that character.
If that's true that means that the characters of "Popeye", "Superman", "Tom and Jerry", "Daffy Duck", "Felix the Cat" and others are now in the Public Domain.
All fo these characters starred in cartoons which didn't have their copyrights renewed and are now in the Public Domain. http://www.retrofilm.com/cartoons/. Somehow I doubt that I could make a film or a comic book of Superman battling Popeye without having a ton of lawyers come down on me.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Scalia is one of the more right wing of the justices but he's very much a strict constuctionist.
Unfortunatly, in Bush v Gore, Scalia and the rest of the Nixon/Reagan appointees proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that their "strict constructionist" principles are for sale to the highest bidder at a moment's notice.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
"Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me to strengthen our copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you know, there is also Jack Valenti's [of the MPAA] proposal for term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next Congress."
"just like the Taliban"
Dude, you have to get your priorities streighten out.
Or are you already too far gone ?
After reflecting on the concept of copyright the past several months, wading through legal documents and laws, and the process that brought it to where it is today, I have begun to ask myself very serious questions about the direction the concept of copyright has traveled in the past 40 years or so. Initially, when copyright was first introduced to this country, the means to distribute copyrighted works was really quite simple? It was by horse or by foot. If it was sent, by mail or messenger, it arrived by horse or foot. This meant that it literally could take months or years to distribute to the "maximum market". The copyright term of 14 years plus 14-year extension must have been determined in part by the physical constraints created by the ability to distribute the work in a timely fashion. For the creator of the work to see rewards for his work would take years, simply because of the inability to get the work to the potential buyers any more quickly. It could take 14 years or 28 years to realize a return. Now fast forward to 2002 and here we are with copyright extension after extension, to the point where individual copyright is now life plus 70 years, and corporate copyright is 95 years. Yet, here we are with the internet, satellite TV, cell phones, Ipaqs, wireless networks, cable TV, newspapers are distributed to the regional printing plant electronically, Ricochet, Aircard, that literally provide instant access to distribution. Airplanes, UPS, Fedex, 18 Wheelers, fax machines, distribute products in mere days (if not minutes) rather than months or years. Rather than extending copyright, shouldn?t we be shortening copyright? Say to 7 and 7? Same thing with corporate copyright, shouldn't they be shortened as well?
As they say in academic circles "Publish or die" Talk about an incentive to create! If you can't sit back on your laurels, then you must continue to create. This would benefit the culture greatly. One has to ask what would Disney have come up with if Mickey and his pals where going into the public domain as scheduled? What would Mike Stoller and his partner Jerry Leiber produced in the years since "Stuck in the Middle with You" (1972), had there been an incentive to keep creating? At the very least in 1979 they would have started working again to produce more of those wonderful tunes they were so adept at producing in the 50's and 60's.
It's my hope at least one court in this land of ours has some common sense, and interpets the intent of the law.
In the context of Star Wars, you have my attention. Why should the rest of us or someone else profit off of George Lucas' investment? I know that limited copyrights were concieved to protect society, but how does allowing everybody to pirate George Lucas benefit society?
I doubt it would...
However, There are MANY other copyrighted works which truely benefit society. Did you bother to think to include school books, academic journals, trade journals and magazines, encyclopedias, instructional video, and other reference material in your example??? (We're just to scratching the surface)
I'm going to create a scenerio where we release this type of information to the public. For our example: We'll release everything prior to 1975. Now, keep in mind where technology, art, literature, education, and science was in 1975.
Keep this in mind: Information in the public domain is no longer READ-ONLY.
Out of that HUGE spectrum of information copyright up to 1975, we're going to take a small spectrum of that (education) and we're going to figure out HOW this information would be useful. Teachers from all over are now free to annotate, organize, use snippets, rewrite, and do whatever they want to the all of the curriculum of 1975. Some would mix the contents of 3-5 books to adapt to thier individual teaching styles, while others may use the best diagrams and problems from each book. Heck, with the Internet, teachers may even use the collaboration tools to share each others works and best ideas.
Some teachers might want to spend thier time teaching other teachers to teach better. Now, I'm pretty sure there were a number of good child-psychology books, elementary education theory, yada yada yada, available at the time. I'm pretty sure there are a number of people who would love to compile a Best Techniques from each one of those books.
Do you understand that this would create a new type of content industry where people create content based on existing content? The possibilities are endless in just the small spectrum of education. Why don't you consider the impact it would have on many other spectrums?
That's only the beginning. A lot of us programmers aren't great content creators, but we know how to process content digitally. With a little imagination, there are endless possibilities when one can freely blend software with content.
By allowing anyone to merge, annotate, index, simplify, mix and integrate thousands upon thousand of works, you'll end up with compound works that are increasingly more useful then the individual pieces themselves...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
You neglect to mention that Jefferson and Washington were wealthy and most around in those days were subsistence dirt farmers, indentured servants, or slaves.
This allows you to prepare a derivative work (such as an annotated version) to which you can attach your own copyright. Voila, you own the derivative, and the clock doesn't start until you are finished.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Wow, nothing like using the word "gun" to bring
out the nut cases on both sides of the fence.
For the record, I didn't say what the Gun Free
Schools Zone Act of 1990 was about. All I said
was that it was ruled unconstitutional by
the SCOTUS on the grounds that Congress had
exceeded the authority granted to it in the
commerce clause.
Which is exactly how I predict that the SCOTUS
will rule regarding the CTEA and the authority
granted to Congress by the copyright clause.
so will probably be dismissed by the court immediately.
States' rights don't include the right to arbitrarily mis-apply their own laws, thus denying equal protection. To wit, Florida has one law describing the voting standard required for the entire state. One standard -- a clear indication of the intent of the voter. It is a 14th-amendment violation to misapply the Florida statute by permitting multiple voting standards, by allowing one county to count dangling chads, another to toss them out, and so forth.
Believe it or not, you can use the 14th to send a traffic ticket dispute to SCOTUS -- if you can show that in your case, all lower-level authorities were denying you equal protection and instead were deliberately persecuting you. The same logic justifies the FBI coming in and nailing local officials who just happened to be Klan members conspiring to commit murder, if the local/state authorities won't clean up their own mess. And no strict constructionist should tell you otherwise.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Which was my point in my angry flaming reply - the SCOTUS wasn't ruling on whether guns in schools are good or bad, but on the legality of Congress's act. Of course, I couched it in enough rudeness and vulgarity to be almost unreadable, but hey, I've had a bad day...
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I never said that I thought it was okay to carry
guns in a "school zone" (defined in the law as
1000 ft from a school), nor did I even say the
law was a bad one.
What I said was that the Supreme Court ruled
(correctly in my opinion) that Congress had no
authority to pass such a law.
The question before a court is never whether a
law is a good one or a bad one. In this case, as
in the Lopez case, the question is whether
Congress has authority to pass the law, whether
it's good or bad.
After all, how do you sell Star Wars movies that are in the p.d. if you can't use the Star Wars name?
Once they are in the public domain you can distribute the original movies however you want. Trademark doesn't apply there but if you wanted to create your own Star Wars movie you would find that LucasFilms LTD still holds the trademark for Star Wars. You could use the characters from the movies but you couldn't call it Star Wars Episode 10.
The fact that she needed her staff to tell her that perpeptual copyright would violate the Consititution speaks volumes about the sorry state of our representation in congress today.
You'd think a representative would be at least required to have *read* the Consititution. I know I was required to in 11th grade government class.
The CTEA changed copyright for individuals to life plus 70 years. This is discriminatory toward older creators. Should Mike Stoller start writing again, his work will not enjoy the same protection, as would a Toby Slater creation , simply because of his age! Toby would have many more years to maximize the profitability of his work. Same thing applies to male and female creators of the same age at creation of their work; by averages the woman will enjoy greater protection. What about a creator who is physically disabled, or has aids? They will usually have a shorter lifespan than a creator who isn't disabled or ill. People of differing ethnic backgrounds have a different life expectancy than others. Just because you fall into one group or the other should you enjoy more or less protection? Is the CTEA discriminating due to age, sex, health and race? Certainly appears so.
but when the 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon copyright expire, anyone else will be able to use the Mickey Mouse character in their own, original cartoons.
They could copy the mouse but they couldn't call him Mickey. Mickey Mouse is still an active trademark and no matter what happens to the movies you still can't make a Mickey Mouse movie.
well they are not going to have time to write a novel or paint a picture or write music would they.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
If you take the clause at its most literal congress is authorized to extend the term of copyright for conceivably thousands of years as long as it isn't "forever". It could be argued however that in the case of something like film, having a copyright that is longer than the lifetime of the media it's recorded on, is effectively forever. Beyond that the only check against the congressional power here is your interpretation of the intent of the clause.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
To the contrary, much of the gorundwork for blues and jazz in America was from these "dirtfarmers". In fact, music was their form of entertainment in the evenings. You do realize they didn't have computers, televisions and radio back then don't you?
"Walt Disney Productions is grateful to the Hospital for Sick Children - Great Ormond Street, London - to which Sir James M. Barrie gave his copyright of Peter Pan."
The US Peter Pan copyright was originally set to expire in 1987. But because of the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, the copyright was extended to 2007.
I don't know whether Disney actually paid royalties to the Hospital, but I bet they did.
(In the UK, parliament passed a special act giving the hospital an eternal copyright in Peter Pan. It's debatable whether the Berne convention extended this ininite protection to all Berne convention countries.)
Indeed, the article's favoring of the status quo shows up even more when they note that the Bono law brings us "in line with the EU," (those Europeans, always hip and up to date),
Which isn't even a correct assumption. The EU is life +50, not life +70, which was taken care of by the Copyright Act of 1976....
What the Bono Act did, in part (as did the DMCA) is put us into position to accede to several international treaties on copyright-- the Berne Convention (which was ironically started in the 19th century to differentiate those oh-so-stylish Europeans from the US, which didn't even allow foreigners to copyright until 1870!), the TRIPS agreement, and the WIPO Copyright Treaty. (The WIPO Treaty is where the anti-circumvention language of DMCA comes from, though the WIPO Treaty is much less harsh.)
As I recall, many European countries were opposed to the Bono Act's increased terms for copyrights-- it took nearly 30 years for the US to match the European standard of life plus 50, (Adopted by the Berne signatories in 1948) and they didn't want another situation where copyright terms were different in the US.
I have an off-topic comment that is somewhat appropriate (great post by the way). Your usenamesake was a great proponent of free speech. John Denver testified against Tipper Gore's music censorship in front of a Senate Committee (along with Frank Zappa and Dee Snider - now there's a trio). I would also like to think that he would be just as quick to testify on behalf of shorter copyright terms.
Here's something to think about: consider copyright and the idea of copyright lifetime from a GPL perspective.
Suppose copyright was limited to the original 14 years for an author. That would mean that your typical GPL code would be public domain in less than 14 years, agreed? The 2.2 kernel would be public domain, for example, around 2014 or so.
Is this bad? I don't think so, if 14 year old code is still useful, it would be better to have it end up in the public domain for whomever to use however they wish. No need to limit to GPL at that point.
Anything is possible given time and money.
Yes! I'd make the term of the first phase shorter, but that's the right approach.
Suppose you write a novel. Consider a time far in the future, say, 30 years after you're dead. Your children are dead; you're grandchildren are old, and they would hold the copyright. How upset would if:
1) Someone reprinted the novel, but didn't pay your grandchildren, but kept the profits themselves?
2) Someone reprinted the novel, paid your grandchildren, but claimed to have written it themselves (without permission)?
3) Someone reprinted the novel, paid your grandchildren, attributed you, but changed the story so the moral and meaning were completely different (without permission, without noting there was a change)?
I, and I think most people, would be far more upset with (2) and (3) than (1). The credit and integrity of the work should be protected for a long time. Monetary rights aren't nearly as important, not in the long term.*
Still not convinced? Consider:
4) Someone wants to reprint your work, but your grandchildren, who own exclusive rights to your work, hold out for more money, and in the end won't let them.
I refer you to this interesting piece.
quoting from the paper:
Try 75% Republican, and 25% Democratic. And a huge amount of that came in the last few months, when Enron execs obviously realized how bad things were and wanted to avoid embarrassing the GW Regime. With those donations ignored, the ratio returns to something like 90% Republican, 10 % Democratic.
Both parties definitely both have their dicks up our asses. The difference is that Democrats use KY first.
RazzleFrog is right on the money. That argument is simply ridiculous. The notion of a copyright was never intended to provide financial support for a writer/artist's survivors. You can bet Disney, et al, don't give a damn about those people; they have other obvious motives for purchasing copyright extensions.
One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to avoid ever having to hire one. -SPYvSPY
As a matter of fact, yes, you are 9/10 of the way to owning it. Because you are (supposed to be) "innocent until proven guilty", he would have to prove that that particular TV was taken from his house. If he can't, you pretty much own it.
Let's turn you're example on it's ear. You walk in to a store with a candy bar in your pocket (no receipt). As you walk out, the store owner stops you and accuses you of stealing (he notice the bulge in your jacket pocket), turns out your pocket to find the candy bar, and calls the police. Do you deserve to be busted for shoplifting? All the shopkeeper knows is that you were walking out of the store concealing a candy bar that he has good reason to believe belongs to him.
The whole trick is, how do you "prove" that you own something? What the hell does it mean to "own" something anyway? Ownership is an idea that grows up from this idea that if I have something in my possession, you have no right to take it from me. From there, the idea is extended a little by saying that if I set the thing in my possession down and turn my back, you still don't have the right to take it from me because I "own" it. Simply put (sort of), ownership is a mechanism of security whereby our ancestors could gather what they needed to survive without having to hoard it all on their person or guard it constantly. When you say, "I own this TV," you're really saying implicitly, "I trust that no one will take this while I'm gone." When someone violates that trust, you are betrayed, and there is a small fracture in society (since society is based on the bonds of trust).
The genius of Karl Marx was in recognizing the ownership was an artificial institution. His folly/stupidity was in not realizing that you would have to replace it with something better in order to eliminate it. A system where everyone owns everything is the same as one where no one owns anything, and since ownership is a concept created by man, the state of no one owning anything must have come first. If a state of no one owning anything were really more efficient/better, then ownership would have never come about on such a wide scale.
BlackGriffen
Doh -- Apologies for the mistargeted comment.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
What is to keep a MegaCorp from stockpiling authors to keep their copyrights intact. I envision an X-Files room under corpHQ with rows of authors, poets and musicians in cryotubes with hearts beating once a minute. "See, they are still alive!"
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
The "limited time" argument in terms of saying whether it should be 10, 30, 50, 70 or 100 years is not the kind of question that the Supreme Court can well put itself in the position of answering. The "rational basis" test is really a very deferential one that takes little to satisfy. True, the current Court has taken to rapping Congress on the knuckles for overreaching a lot in the past 20 years, but not with the tool of the rational basis test.
The extension of pre-existing copyrights is the best attack based on rational basis review. It is a big transfer from my ability to read and disseminate to the ability of authors to maintain their works in a grip-of-death.
We could well end up with a decision that "you can do that, but you can't do it retroactively." As for the "IP is bad" crowd, only Justices Breyer and Stevens are particularly sympathetic, and even they limit their depredations to narrowly construing copyright. (See Tasini case.) They are not Justices that are disposed to limiting Congressional power under the Constitution.
I know that it technically only applies to making things illegal after the fact, but isn't the spirit of that law the idea that the rules in place at the time of an action shall be the rules that apply to that action? Without that basic tenet, you quickly run in to some very messy and entangling problems...
BlackGriffen
In the context of Star Wars, you have my attention. Why should the rest of us or someone else profit off of George Lucas' investment? I know that limited copyrights were concieved to protect society, but how does allowing everybody to pirate George Lucas benefit society?
...
Two answers
First, limited copyrights were not conceived to "protect society." Copyrights were concieved first as an instrument of censorship and press control, and later reformed into an instrument to incite publication. The problem was that without any protection from piracy, certain authors of labor-intensive scientific works, such as navigation maps, that could easily be copied (think tracing paper), were reluctant to openly publish their works, instead resorting to proprietary licenses very similar to modern-day software licenses. Copyright was added to the U.S. Constitution to "promote progress" by encouraging the open publication of works. The purpose of copyright is not to reward authors. Authors are rewarded when they sign publication contracts. The purpose of copyright is not to protect society. Monopolies do not protect society.
Second, if we had 20 year copyrights, and Star Wars had entered into the public domain, then those persons copying the movie would not be pirating George Lucas. Either you hold a valid copyright, or you don't. If you don't hold a copyright over a work, then it isn't piracy when others copy it.
Third, George Lucas could always release a "special edition" of Star Wars, with additional footage and modifications, and take out a copyright on the "special edition." This wouldn't extend the copyright on the original edition, but if the new edition were more desirable, then Lucas would still have a valid copyright on the new work.
In fact, this may well have been the reason for releasing the "Special Edition" of Star Wars. Star Wars came out in 1976, just prior to the enactment of the copyright reform, thus placing Star Wars under the 1909 copyright law, which had a maximum term of 56 years. If Eldred wins, all copyrights may be restricted to their maximum term available at the time that the copyright was granted. If this comes to pass, Star Wars may be set to enter the public domain in 2032, as opposed to the Special Edition, which won't enter the public domain until nearly the year 2100.
I completely agree with your sentiments regarding derivative works. It's one thing for copyright law to stop unauthorized editions of previously published works -- that's what it's intended to do. It's quite another thing for copyright to extend to every fragment of our entire culture, leaving no raw building materials for the next generation of artists to build upon.
The Bush administration has come down on the side of Disney. I don't anticipate the future Chief Justice wanting to deviate too much from the President's desires.
But thanks for adding nothing to the conversation. ;)
-sk
The second thought, is that if I devote my life to a project and produce a great work, shouldn't I be able to enjoy the spoils and decide the future of that great work? Shouldn't I be able to go to my grave, comforted by the fact that my magnum opus will provide for my children's future?
Honestly, sir, that depends on what you think of your children. If you believe them to be nothing but animals that can be prefectly happy living a world of grunting, eating and pooping, and believe thier mental devolution is completely tangential to thier survival in the world, then by all means, you are thinking correctly.
If, however, you believe that someday they, or thier decendants, will benifit from living in a world where ideas and thought are thier primary motivators, then you need to rethink your argument.
If you really do write a pivitol work, something that can really inspire and affect people, then you are doing a DISSERVICE to your decendants. Sure, your children will have a little extra bread, but all the people they interact with (and breed with) will be that much dumber and less informed. If ever author thought this way, that means that YOUR children will not have access to those works, and thus not have the insights and knowledge that your peers could provide them with.
If you happen to be the next plato or shakespear, then you will be harming your decendants by limiting thier selection of quality thinkers to marry. You will be hurting"humanity", which you may not "feel" you are a part of, but your decendants surely will be.
Think of it this way, if you discover the cure for cancer, and you pass this knowledge only on to your children, then sure, *they* will be cancer free, but the men and women who could have been inventing the flying cars and the free energy machines or whever wonderful things that would make your children's lives better might die of cancer before they can provide these things. The men and women that they could be marrying and having children with could also be dead. You may think you have helped your children survive, but that survival will only be for a very limited time. After a few more generations, your "generosity" will be the end of your family line.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
The above argument is utter nonsense. In Communist society, the government decides how resources are allocated. In Capatilism, the government stays out of it, and people compete based on quality of product. They don't lobby Congress to protect their artificial monopoly. Many founders of the country thought we didn't need copyright at all, and most of the others viewed copyright as a concession to practicallity. That's why the phrase "for the advancement of the arts and useful sciences" appears in the constitution. The fact is that Capitalism is founded on the concept of scarcity based ecomonics. Intellectual Property does not fit into that system properly. Read the constitution. Copyright is designed to protect the public by motivating the private sector. In capitalism, you don't have a right to make a profit. The founding fathers viewed copyright as a necessary evil, but an evil none the less. The goal is to make works available to the public. Profit is only a mechanism, not a goal.
Heh...just been poking around in writings online about public domain, one of which pointed out the peculiar phrase everybody (including me - see the subject of my parent post) has been using about this - "falling" into the public domain. As if to imply that a public domain work is somehow "less" or "degraded" due to finally being released from the copyright-protection asylum...
Therefore, I think I'll be making an effort to call it "'Maturing' into the public domain" instead...unless someone has even better suggestions?
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Most of the copyright laws have been changed since Clinton became President, that's true. However, they were all passed in a REPUBLICAN congress. The Republicans have controlled the houses since the 1994 midterm elections.
The Generation
I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.
Who's the future Chief Justice? It's likely not Scalia -- the normal practice is to appoint a new C.J., not to promote anyone from within. Rhenquist is quite unusual in that he used to be an associate justice. That's only happened three or four other times, IIRC.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Uh, huh. And where was the Democratic president with the "Veto" stamp?
You mean the one who got a Lewinski from Hollywood types every time he set foot into California or they came to the White House?
"Unanimous consent" doesn't mean everyone voted yes, as I understand it--it means the people who shouted "yea" shouted louder than the people who voted "nay". This is a common trick when you're passing a law you don't necessarily want your name connected to.
But you've got a good point about that "veto" stamp... I wrote to President Clinton and asked him to veto it, but I guess he was busy with other things, considering this law passed right in the middle of the impeachment hearings.
Damn Opensecrets is a cool site...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No one's saying we should dress Mr. Lucas up as shitbeard and put a patch over his eye and cut off an appendage. Although...
It is just much harder. Get some lobyists and have Congress change the law again. If they changed the law retroactively once they can do it again.
the very fact that Jazz came from that music shows thatthe dirt farmers did not create it as a marketable product. they did not have the time to go and write it down so it can be copyrighted, then go to the big city to get it set up to be recorded...they also did not have the time to ture to get their music known (which is what was done befor the record was invented.
it still remains that they did not create the Jazz scene and all the popular songs that went with it because they did nto have the time to invest.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Since the copyright on Star Wars Episode IV has (theoretically) expired
Wrong. Even barring retroactive extension, that movie is still under copyright. The term under the 1790 act was 14 plus 14, but the term under the 1976 act (Star Wars IV was released in '77) was 75 years.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Which is why a Supreme Court appointment is a lifetime appointment: so you (theoretically) rule the way you think is right and not have political concerns affect your actions.
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
You want profit? Then create it! Create it, pay for it or slag off!
That may be true for movies, but eventually, it'll become impossible to create new music. U.S. courts have defined copyright infringement on a musical work as the use of at least four consecutive notes that are substantially similar to the melody of a copyrighted work. Given that there are only 27,000 possible runs of four notes under the "substantially similar" standard (transpose melodies to start on middle C, fold rests into previous note, fold notes outside an 11-note range inward an octave, quantize durations to short/medium/long), I'm afraid that the day will come when composers will no longer be able to write new music that doesn't infringe a copyright.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In Grants day (and for some time thereafter) there was no "life of the author" clause in copyright law. His wife inhereted the manuscript, and granted the publisher right to reproduce it -- a "copyright".
PS: I try to boycott MPAA members' DVD, but when they come out with something like that I end up not only supporting an MPAA member, but one of the worst behaved members. I'm not a perfect person.
The fix for that is simply to pay for the DVD, and then donate an equal amount to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Because more of the retail price of a DVD goes to the distribution chain than to the studio, you're supporting EFF much more than you're supporting MPAA studios.
Will I retire or break 10K?
With few exceptions, the extras come from the studio vaults, and are eligable for new copyright
Anything from the studio vaults is subject to the creation+120 limit. Under present U.S. law, the copyright term in most cases is life+70 for freelance works first published on or after 1976, and publication+95 or creation+120 (whichever is shorter) for all other works.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sounds like DeCSS has a very legitimate and legal use-- unencrypting matured public domain works.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm an author. I'm against copyright. I'm in favour of authors' rights for actual humans, for the reasons set out in the US Constitution - and because it seems to me that having individual authors taking responsibility would do something positive for the quality of publishing (etc). Publishers are welcome to *license* these rights, but they stay with the author. Problem of unobtainable works pretty much solved.
Fantasy? In fact, this is the essence of the law in Europe (except UK & IE), Japan... most of the world. One effect, for example: French TV news says who was responsible for each report in a subtitle, because they have to. Authors not only have the right to license their work, but the right to be credited and the right to object if it's manipulated (in a way that damages their reputation). Those are the moral rights that just barely exist in US law.
Since this is /. I'll relate the issue to code.
Sorry, authors weren't paying attention when
copyright on computer code was legislated. Imagine
it had been done on the same basis as books and
movies in France. Every time you saw a BSOD, it'd
come with the names of the people responsible.
Under authors' rights the GPL (et al) would be
a lot shorter and sweeter, because as you can
see by now it'd be going with the grain. And MS code would be the property of the coders...
Remember, too, that the EU has just codified parts of "fair use" - if a work is protected by encryption or whatever, there must a way round that for libraries and archives, people with disabilities and a fairly long list of other uses.
Of course, take anything I have to say with a grain of salt. IM ANAL--I, macrobat, am not a lawyer.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
Anyway, if that 21-year-principle is valid, maybe the same limit can be argued for copyright terms.
the site doesn't immediately say how to get an ID.
Elevating - The work was elevated into the Public Domain.
It isn't just the opposite of 'falling.' Elevation gives it a twist that the work has somehow become greater. Which it has.
When works are privately owned, often their popularity is controlled (to some degree) by marketing. When a work becomes public domain and still maintains popularity, there can be no greater honor - to the author (or his/her memory), the heirs, friends and fans. It means the work has been truly elevated - into the hearts and souls of the readers.
Don't just complain - DO something about it!
My hobby is genealogy and a (very elderly, probably now deceased) person wrote a book that covered my family line. I can't purchase the book anywhere, and the family won't acknowledge my requests to either republish the book or make it available free on the internet if I scan in the book (providing I can even get my hands on the book). Currently I have to game the system by doing interlibrary loans requesting a few pages be copied (until I can get the entire book copied.) I say the copyright laws are outdated. If a person has proof that the copyright owner will not republish a work for purchase within 10 years after creation the said intellectual property (IP) should be in the public domain. Yes, this person spent much effort in research. But what good is the research if no one has access to it? I want access to the data and am willing to pay for it, but it is currently unavailable. If an IP is not available for purchase within 10 years after creation it is obviously not generating any monetary revenue for the creator. Some might argue that the creator can't afford a republishing cost. Nonsense, you could make it available via the internet for a nominal fee. Have you heard of free web sites? The copyright holder should lose rights to their work if they have not made any attempt to provide purchase availability 10 years after the copyright date.
My argument is that the CREA96 is that the term granted was not shown "to Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" are required by the US Constitution. In fact, it can be fairly shown it hampers said progress since no incentives it gave could possibly have influenced past creativity yet the extention reduces creativity of those who would use the materials once they enter the public domain. Somebody might want to make a competing "Mickey Mouse" comic strip!
IMHO, copyright term should reflect the use of the work, and the likely motive behind creating it. For projects made for commercial exploitation (most mass media), this period should match that used by the company's financial analysts or stockholders. They seldom look beyond 20 years simply because the power of compound interest reduces the value of any future revenues to insignificance. So I would make the copyright period 20 years after first sale. This is generous, because most investors demand 2-5 year pay-back! For unsold works, some of which are potentially private papers, I would make the period longer, say life of the author plus 20-50 years.
Unfortunately, the "takings clause" doesn't apply since that only forbits the uncompensated taking of private property for public use, while CREA96 takes public property for private use
This Lessig fellow could really screw up my latest get rich scheme. I'm going to walk around with a tape recorder, and copyright everything that I say! Whoo hoo I'm gonna abuse so many colloquial expressions ya'll won't even be able to post to slashdot without paying me!
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Since the article says that the Bush adminstration is siding with those who have already held the copyrights for almost 70 years, you can be sure that Thomas and Scalia will vote that way.
Thomas and Scalia have other things in common also, like who appointed them and how little experience they have compared to the other justices. Though as far as I know, Scalia has not put any pubic hairs on anyone's coke can.
I wonder if their be enough impartial justices to come to a fair decision?
So, if I understand your argument correctly, you're saying access to the discarded photos devalue the best shot because the discards (regardless of number) are sufficiently close to the best shot. You fear this means in 10 years people won't want to pay for the good shot when they can get a 'close enough' discard for much less money.
Assuming I have that correctly (a shortcoming of discussing something in this fashion, I'm not trying to railroad you into defending against my incorrect interpretation) I can think of an easy way to allay your fears: don't publish the discards until the copyright term on the published shot (and thus its exclusive market) has expired.
Then don't get them developed at a place you can't trust to honor your wishes. Self-developing film is a great way to accomplish this. This scenario doesn't strike me as a copyright issue because people who make these kinds of photos (hello Laura Schlessinger!) don't want them published at all regardless of when the copyright on them expires.
But there are ways to address both copyright and privacy concerns: use a film you control completely: digital cameras are quickly entering the norm, self-developing physical film like the older "Big Swinger" camera film or more modern color Polaroid camera film have decades of acceptability behind them.
This abandonment provision may have problems but I don't think the particular counterarguments you've raised convince me that abandonment provisions are a bad idea.
I admit I like the abandonment idea because I wouldn't want to deprive the public of works the publisher has chosen to let 'go out of print' (or go out of publication, regardless of medium).
Digital Citizen
Would you like me to order you a copy of The Wind Done Gone? Just because somebody files suit doesn't mean they win.
Unless they have money and you don't. Without six figures in the bank, how are you supposed to hire legal representation to defend you from (possibly frivolous) copyright infringement lawsuits?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Naturally, this copyright length is not limited, since the author might never die! Don't worry though. When congress realizes that Stephen King has discovered the fountain of youth, they will have no choice but to change the law :-0
Could you provide a link or citation for that case? I can't seem to find it anywhere.
In a perfect world there would be no copyright, but it isn't. So I propose a compromise.
Overturn the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, thus restoring copyright lengths to their traditional duration (death plus 75 years if a person, a flat 75 years if a corporation). (This is one of the few areas of law where a person has more power than a corporation!)
However, make it possible for Congress to authorize an exemption, if a certain work proves to have significant commercial value. Perhaps a high fee (at least thousands of dollars) could be charged to grant the exemption, proving that the work still has commercial value enough to justify doing this.
This way, works that are forgotten nowadays could gracefully enter the public domain when their copyrights lapse. A good example is "Oswald The Lucky Rabbit". This cartoon character was popular around 1928, and should be due to enter the public domain soon. Another certain cartoon character of this time, who has a fondness for whistling while steering steamboats down the Mississippi, would be protected by Congress.
This is similar to what the UK did for the Peter Pan copyright. However, in this case, I propose simply extending the copyright term for another 50 years or so -- not forever as the UK did.
With this compromise, it wouldn't be necessary to perpetually extend copyright for all works... just the few rare ones that are still commercially valuable in the present day. And the public domain could continue to be enriched by the thousands of forgotten items that trickle in each year as their copyright expires. And perhaps this could help the government get some extra money without raising taxes, too!
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
Does this mean that "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" has little impact on the meaning of "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"...?
Yeah, but did you see that part where Legolas stabbed that orc with the arrow, and then nocked it and shot someone else with it?
LOL, Of course LOTR would be in the public domain so we would still get to see that. BUT, it wouldn't have the kind of "official" status that being authorised by Tolkiens estate gives it. The Tolkien estate treats old JRR quite well and there is no indication that he would have opposed the movie. I believe his thoughts on a movie of LOTR was that he wanted either artistic control or a boatload of money.
Unfortunately not all authors are so lucky. Take his friend C.S. Lewis - His publisher and estate want a new series of Narnia books purged of the chrisian alegory that was central to Lewis' works The have also attempted to influence (using their copyright protections) documentaries being done about Lewis to downplay his christianity. You can agree or disagree with the mans faith but ignoring it is like doing a documentary on Babe Ruth and downplaying or ignoring that he was a baseball player. It's a particularly outrageous irony since Lewis' works are filled with biting commentary and contempt for exactly the spirit that is motivating HarperCollins. I won't say that Lewis is turning over in his grave since he didn't believe that was his final destination. But unless emotions like exasperaation have been utterly purged in heaven I'm sure he has a few choice and characteristically biting and eloquent words he would like to share with his heirs.
Any discussion about the duration of copyright laws should, I think, include a mention of Spider Robinson's (Hugo award winning) story "Melancholy Elephants", currently in print in his collection "By Any Other Name". Spoiler warning: The characters discuss an extension of copyright into perpetuity. His argument against this is that we do not create (for example) melodies, we discover aesthetically pleasing sequences of notes and rhythms. And the number of such sequences is finite. "Eventually, the infinite number of monkeys will have nothing left to type but the complete works of Shakespeare."
Mashed potatoes can be your friends!
Making Scalia Chief Justice is the payoff for getting Bush into office.
The concept of abandonment being discussed here doesn't make sense where one is talking about unpublished works. With unpublished work the only people who have access to the work (the discarded photos, in the photography example) are people you can trust. These are people who have a market incentive to not distribute works they don't hold the copyright to because their livelihood depends on it. Also, keep in mind who holds the copyright to the work and who doesn't. The issue for distributing work you don't hold the copyright to doesn't change—if this point needs to be driven home to employees or co-workers, make a contract. In the end, the public isn't being deprived of the discarded photos under the new regime because they never had access to the discarded photos in the first place (you can't lose what you never had).
Correct—one has always has the issue of trust to deal with. This new copyright law (which we're assuming would replace extant copyright law) would not change that. Hence I said this doesn't strike me as an issue to be solved with copyright but with trust. One way of handling this is to create a market where the agreement for development includes notification telling the customer the photo developers will not distribute your photos unless required to by law (i.e., someone subpoenas your photos because they are evidence of a crime). But under the old or new copyright regime the photo developers have no right to keep or distribute your photos, hence there is no problem brought on by the new copyright regime that copyright law needs to be account for.
Nobody said you would lose all copyright power. The issue is whether this new copyright power grants untrusted workers authority to distribute your photos against your copyright. It does not. You still have a copyright on the work from the moment you create it (whether you publish it or not), just like you probably do now (I don't know where you live but this applies to Berne signatory countries).
It is not the job of copyright to guarantee access to high-quality developing or professional-grade equipment. The new copyright system being discussed here maintains the exact same exchange you have to make now regarding whom you can trust, how much you can spend and what quality you desire as output. Those choices have always been and remain yours to make.
Nobody said we were doing that. We are making the same argument that exists today—unpublished work doesn't have the same copyright enforcement issues as published work does. You still have a copyright on things you set in a permanent form just as you do now. The length of copyright and the ease with which works enter the public domain is at issue (but it seems we all largely agree on a 20 year non-renewable copyright term and a policy for opt-out abandonment).
I see this as Magic's business choice. The public should not lose access to Magic's cards because Magic's business model is based on limited runs. Magic's choice in distributing their cards this way merely compels them to distribute a new card set by the time the abandonment clause kicks on the old set so they'll continue to be in business. This gets at the point of the entire copyright system—giving copyright holders limited monopoly power in exchange for more published work. There's nothing stopping Magic from reissuing the same cards just before abandonment would occur (thus forstalling entry into the public domain until the copyright term expires). Again, this (and other silly business models) is not an problem for copyright.
No, that creates loopholes that didn't exist before. Determining what qualifies as "mass market" and "non-limited" are bound to be arbitrary, difficult for individuals and small companies to reach, hard to understand, and easily worked around. I think no matter what rationale you apply you'll find only large companies would be able to stop distributing copyrighted work but somehow not lose exclusive control under abandonment. For the sake of fairness we can't afford to have effectively different rules governing corporate and private copyright power.
Digital Citizen
i don't always trust the supreme court to decide these types of things, their past record is spotty to say the least
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
But why? The only particularly interesting thing that sets the C.J. apart is that he sets the assignments for who writes opinions, if he's in that majority. And there are a few functions related to impeachment hearings, and to his circuit.
It's a _nice_ position, I'm sure, but there's little difference between Justices in the way that there are between the President and Vice President.
Is there something else you're thinking of?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Are you really saying Shakespeare should have been allowed to trademark the characters of Romeo and Juliet, so that after his play's copyright expired, people could print their own copies but couldn't write any new plays using the characters?
I dare you to try to find a copy of the old vector arcade game "Asteroids" in the LOC.
The lack of enforcement makes this nearly pointless.