Slashdot Mirror
Lessig's "Creative Commons" @ The FAA
tramm writes "The
FAA, working with the
EAA have put together
a proposal to release old type certificates and blueprints once the copyright holders no longer exist. Sort of like
Abandonware
for
airplanes.
This very closely resembles
Lawrence Lessig's idea of a
creative commons, into which source code would be escrowed. Once the copyright expired or became abandonded, the sources would be released.
"This set of legal guidelines will help the FAA develop a set of
procedures to legally release what had previously been unnecessarily
protected as proprietary data.".
Hopefully the Copyright office will take note of the success here, as well as the Supreme Court's hearing of
Eldred v Reno."
This is a damn good idea. Lots of planes are flying long after their original designer and manufacturer are defunct, and anything that helps that is a good thing. People may even take this occasion to bring well loved classic aircraft back into production.
However, I would like to take this occasion to point out one very worthwhile extension of copyright. J.M.Barrie, creator of "Peter Pan" bequeathed his royalties to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. When the copyright was due to expire in 1989, a special case was made in UK courts that the copyright be held in perpetuity by the hospital.
Now that's a good copyright extension. It helps people.
"Information wants to be paid"