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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 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...
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Agreed. From the article at the New York Times:
Once again we see that money interests in Washinton continue to threaten our culture and freedoms. Lobbyists for publishing industries keep upping the anti on copyright duration for their own greed and pride. Meanwhile the works themselves come under threat of extinction. I hope there can be some kind of rebound effect soon.
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
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
I don't think so. The major argument is if the change can be retroactive to works already produced.
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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
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/
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.
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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!
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
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
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...
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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.
If I can give my truck to someone in my will, why should I not be allowed to do the same for something I created?
Because a copyright isn't something that you created. A copyright is a government-granted monopoly -- an artificial right, in tension with the First Amendment, to prevent others from repeating and building upon your words. The authors of the Constitution considered government-backed monopolies to be extremely dangerous, and corrosive, and deliberately inserted language that restricted the government to granting them "for limited times."
Another argument against inheritance of copyright --
The Constitution specifically forbids the granting of "titles of nobility." The modern conception of "nobility" has more to do with ritual and pretense, but at the time of the Constitution, "titles of nobility" also had the characteristics of:
1) conveying special rights and privileges to the title holder, for instance, the right to carry a sword in public, or the right to participate in some aspect of government, such as the House of Lords.
2) conveying those same rights to the descendants of the title holder -- i.e. the son of the Duke would be the next Duke, by virtue of being born to the current Duke.
It is arguable that, by treating copyrights as inheritable property, Congress has created a new, Constitutionally illegal form of "title of nobility" -- where the children of famous authors -- and remember that in our society, the famous are our "royalty" -- are born into a special privilege -- the privilege to suppress others from repeating and expanding upon the speech of their ancestors, to the detrement of society.
The very nature of the works we are allowed to see is colored by this new hereditary privilege. For instance, the ancestors of Margaret Mitchell tried, and nearly succeeded in preventing any parody criticism of "Gone With The Wind." Similarly, you will never see white actors in a production of "Porgy and Bess", because the ancestors of George Gershwin are using their inherited, hereditary copyright power to wield control over the presentation of this work, created in 1935.
The concept of our culture being held hostage by the ancestors of famous authors is un-American and undemocratic concept, completely divorced from the letter and spirit of the copyright clause, and should be eliminated.
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This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
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 basis of property ownership is natural law, under which who has a thing owns it. However, under our civil law, we have said that merely taking a thing does not transfer ownership, thus to protect the original owners from unjust siezures of valuable property.
"Intellectual property" is a little different. The natural law right is to use any ideas that you come across. If you have a great idea about how to make a device to catch troublesome pests, I have not stolen from you to use that idea to make such a device. If I steal your book, I've stolen from you, because your property holding has been diminished, while if I simply reprint it, I have not stolen from you, because you still have the book. It was a novel point to our Constitution to allow for any concept of a monopoly on works of creativity or invention. The intent was to spur creative and inventive acts by giving those who created or invented a monopoly to earn money for a limited period. Then, the public would have those ideas and creative works for free use, which they would not have had for any use had the creator or inventor not had an incentive to create them beyond the natural desire to create or invent. The intent was never to reward past creativity or invention.
It is clear to me that the law has become skewed in such a way as to *reduce* the amount of ideas and inventions available for free public use, rather than to enhance it. Why should Disney create new characters and stories, for example, when the existing ones are so profitable, and can be rehashed essentially forever?
-jeff
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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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?
Most everything we do is derivative of the works of others. That's simply how people learn and are influenced.
While a direct rip-off, "The further adventures of Frodo" or similar, might not be very creative, pieces of older works can be used to great effect by skilled authors and especially musicians.
For an example in music, Carl Orf's "O Fortuna" was based on pieces of famous music and blended together to create something new. Later Apotheosis came along, borrowed heavily from Orf, and produced their own sogn, a techno rock version of "O Fortuna". Orf's estate sued them.
Now, it seems that it should have been fair, what goes around comes around, and all. But the copyrights are much longer now meaning that it gets harder to use anything contemporary.
Being that nobody exists, or existed in a bubble, but were shaped by the creativity of those around them, they should let their creativity shape the next generation as well. Seems only fair to me, as long as we ensure that they're also given a chance (though maybe not life + 75 years) to profit from their creativity directly.
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?
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"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.
We the plaintiffs of Eldred v. Ashcroft don't need money now, but you can support in other ways.
Add your informed discussion to OpenLaw at http://openlaw.org/eldredvreno and help us prepare legal briefs.
Read up on copyright law and the case there so you are better informed, then communicate with your friends. Write your local newspaper editor.
Support online books! See http://www.eldritchpress.org/support.html
Join and send money to the Electronic Freedom Foundation: http://www.eff.org
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.
That's an awful graph. What exactly is it measuring? Copyright extensions don't take stuff out of the public domain, so why does the unrestrained line keep climbing while the hindered line drops to zero. Why is it linear? I'm unhappy it's being used for my side - it's obviously meaningless.
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.
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.
"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.)
--One of the requirements of obtaining a copyright is that you send a copy to the Library of Congress.--
Not since 1976 - everything that is 'fixed into a tangible medium' is copyrighted. To register a copyright you must send a copy to the Library of Congress, but there is no requirement. The scribbles on my notepad have just as much copyright as a Stephen King novel.
Stupid, isn't it?
Don't just complain - DO something about it!
First, the US Constitution demands that copyright term be limited. When Congress retroactively expands copyright term, it breaks that limit.
As for the argument that it's not ex post facto -- well, I have heard that piece of hair-splitting argument (I won't call it "Jesuitical"--it's not!), and it helps me to understand where Bill Clinton's "It all depends upon what the meaning of 'is' is..." comes from.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
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.
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
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?
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