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."

Comments

Start with NASA

[owlmeat]

I'd love to see acutual engineering documents and code for stuff like the Saturn V, the lunar module and the ground control computers

Re:Start with NASA

[Caraig]

Unfortunately, you won't be able to. At least for the Saturn V.

Y'see, the blueprints and engineering docs for the Saturn V were stored on microfilm. Time passed and, unfortunately, the ability to build the Saturn V was lost -- financial reasons, mostly. The aerospace industry had been given the financial equivalent of 100cc's of adrenaline with JFK's "space race." By the time the Apollo program ended, we were already unable to build the Saturn V. (This is why NASA moved on to cheaper, unmanned launches and the Space Shuttle.)

If you really want them, though, I think we can work something out. Supposedly I live a few miles from the Saturn V's plans' final resting place. Legend has it that they are located somewhere in the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, New York City. This is probably incorrect, though. More likely, they were incinerated.

Re:Start with NASA

[Waffle Iron]

The patents on the J5 (I think, it's been a long time - the engine used in the second and third stages of the Saturn V anyways) expired in the late 70's so those engine designs are fully in the public domain.

That's right, if you've been craving more power for your vehicle, you can now strap a genuine moon rocket motor to it with no restrictions or license fees.

However, being a practical-minded guy, I'd use the Saturn-V's first stage F5 instead. It's a whole lot more powerful, and it uses kerosene so you won't have to wait around for the "hydrogen economy" to refuel it.

Bring your credit card along, though, because it burns something like 3 tons of fuel per second.

Sounds Great

[sasha328]

Just so people don't get confused about what this will achieve: It will only help vintage aircraft oweners. Most of the old vintage aircraft have no manuals (IPCs etc); and the repairs would generally be applied through FAA approved engineers. Most, if not all newer aircraft will not be affected by this. I do not think that the FAA will let any one build an aircraft using these blueprints because the certification nw is totally different than earlier last century. They may however be built as experimental aircraft. That is where I think te EAA comes in.

not quite the same thing..

[thesupraman]

While it may be perfectly sensible in this case (hey, aircraft and software are very different), I think a LOT of people would be nervous if their source code was automatically made available once their 'copyright' was over, this is a MUCH more serious step than just loosing your copyright.

if you loose a copyright, people can copy the program, but still need to reverse-engineer the source if they want to know your implementation.

of course, I'm totally supportive of fully open source, but we should remember that copyright is peoples right if they decide to go that way, and we should not assume that when this lapses we have the right to ALL of their work, they just loose that particular bit of protection.

there is a world of difference between copyright on a particular implementation, and the massivly 'general' patents currently being handed out in the US over quite obvious software techniques, the second are much more... stuipd, dangerous, ridiculous, etc, etc.... however copright is a MUCH simpler concent, so long as it's length is kept reasonable, and it's extent is limited.

of course, in the case of the copyright holder 'ceasing to exist' the case becomes much more hazy.. since ther is noone to defent the copyright, I guess all bets are off, but should their 'source code' (or exact plans/designs) be automatically made public? and who do we trust to hold these? hmmm... I personally think that would be excessive.

Re:Great idea, but what about security?

[Ryu2]

September 11 happened because of poor airport and airline security, not because the terrorists had knowledge of the design of the aircraft itself.

Besides, we are talking about old aircraft that are no longer being flown by airlines.

Re:How soon does the GPL Copyleft expire?

[Phroggy]

The GPL is based on Copyleft, which is just an construct on top of copyright law. When the copyright on GPL'd software expires, does the software fall into the public domain?

If copyrights are to be shortened to, say, 7 years, does GPL'd code then become public domain after those seven years?

Copyleft is a made-up word, not a legal concept. GPL'd software is copyrighted, with a license that grants permission to use the code in certain ways (which you normally wouldn't be able to with a copyrighted work). If the copyright expires, the software falls into the public domain, and you can now do those things with the software without using the GPL to do it, and thus not being restricted by the terms of the GPL.

However, since a GPL'd app can be copyrighted by many people (each contributor is a copyright holder), you'd need to wait until all the copyrights expired, or all the copyrights that pertain to the section you want to use. If copyrights have been assigned to the FSF or some other group, that would simplify things.

Re:What about the Bono act?

[Rick the Red]

From THE MOUSE THAT ATE THE PUBLIC DOMAIN (reported here):

The CTEA extended the term of protection by 20 years for works copyrighted after January 1, 1923. Works copyrighted by individuals since 1978 got "life plus 70" rather than the existing "life plus 50". Works made by or for corporations (referred to as "works made for hire") got 95 years. Works copyrighted before 1978 were shielded for 95 years, regardless of how they were produced.

I don't think very many airplanes were designed prior to January 1, 1923; I suspect the bulk of the aircraft the EAA is talking about were designed between then and 1978.

I don't doubt that the FAA is going to do this, but I also don't doubt that they'll get their butts sued over it. Somebody owns the assets of those defunct aircraft companies, even if they're no longer supporting the airplanes, and Bono gives them the right to sue. Not that they will, but they could. I doubt the FAA has the authority to violate copyright law, even if the copyright holders don't care -- the RIAA and MPAA might just care enough to sue to enforce copyright law in general (although IANAL and don't know if a 3rd party can bring suit in a copyright case).

Copyright

[JimPooley]

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.

hold off on Creative Commons....

[EricEldred]

tramm is right in proposing that this abandonware project is similar to what has been discussed about the Creative Commons. But as one of the directors of the Commons, may I suggest we hold off much public discussion until the Commons is ready--maybe within a few weeks...

Re:Great idea, but what about security?

[cybrthng]

You actually believe your post?

Excuse me, but in order to fly a 767, you have to understand the principles of flight, navigation and controls.

It isn't like driving a car, and it most certainly wasn't simply "because of poor airport and airline security". Who was to know box cutters would be use to hijack and are we supposed to know a terrorist from a non terrorist by the way people look?

More people die every month because of drunk drivers then airplane accidents year round.

Its ignorance of people who never fly that give aviation and General/Private aviation a bad name.

Yes, to fly a 747 and 140mph over VNE takes some skill

Yes aiming an aircraft going over "terminal velocity" into a toothpick in all reality is HARD TO DO.

You don't just pull the yoke and fly'thabitch, you have to understand pitch, yaw, roll control as well as attitude and flight characteristics of the airplane to do what they did. Knowing how to use the GPS, knowing how to disable your transponder, knowing how to comminicate with other hijacked craft and having the skill to know your going to die and be able to control the aircraft is a death defying feat in itself.. i'm just glad the f***ers are dead and not able to do it again.

It was the lack of many factors that caused this, none simply the fault of airlines/aviation.

What this will bring to aviation.

[drink85cent]

Many of you have this all wrong.

This only really applies to homebuilders. The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is out there to promote building of homebuilt aircraft. They want these documents out there in the open to promote homebuilding, not lets build such and such WWII aircraft and know how to build this jet.

Most of these aircraft, most likely are little single-engined aircraft that most people dont understand one from another. This is really only applicable to you if you want to BUILD it and you want the plans or want to do some sort of coversion and you need the FAA approved STC.

These plans and STCs are very expensive to get so people like to hold on to them and charge for their usage. SO when you cant find the person anymore, you're SOL.

"Somebody" doesn't own them

[phliar]

Somebody owns the assets of those defunct aircraft companies, even if they're no longer supporting the airplanes

No - no one can be found. There are many airplanes from "The Golden Age" (the 20s and 30s) which are orphans. If you happen to own one of them (perhaps the only one still flying) you need FAA-certified parts. (Unless you want to fly the airplane in the "experimental" category which means you can't carry passengers or offer instruction except in a few limited cases.) For example, the "New Standard D-25" of the late 20s.

Then there are STCs - Supplemental Type Certificates. These are authorized post-production modifications. Getting an STC accepted by the FAA is expensive. For example, an STC might allow you to run an OX-5 in a JN-4 Jenny on "blue" 100LL fuel instead of "green" 135 (hypothetical example, I have no idea what an OX-5 likes to drink). If it's not a popular STC, it's possible that the company went defunct and no one bought the STC. If you now want to use blue gas in your Jenny, you can't use the data that's already been given to the FAA proving that it's safe (that was the basis the original STC was issued on) -- you have to start from scratch.

The important things about this: i) no owner can be found (and it provides for a 60 day search period) and ii) the data will be released under FOIA.