Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Lessig on the Future of the Public Domain

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stuff-to-read dept.

hank writes "The O'Reilly Network is running an interview with Lawrence Lessig -- author of "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" and "The Future of Ideas" -- on the future of the public domain, reaction to his calls to arms, and his next venture, Creative Commons, "machinery to build licenses that allow people to mark their content as available in any number of ways to the public domain.""

2 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is it *that* bad? by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 5, Informative
    See the chart of:

    The Growth Rate of the Public Domain

    This chart is a visual representation of amici's understanding of the decline of the growth of public domain as a result of repeated copyright term extensions.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

  2. Re:The Eldred case... by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 3, Informative
    I think the best argument they have going for them is that extending the copyright of already created works cannot possibly meet the constitutional requirement that copyright law "promote the progress of science and useful arts".
    I'm not a lawyer. But, careful, that argument has actually lost (by 2-1) in the Appeals Decision
    (emphasis added)
    Such guidance as the Supreme Court has given further confirms us in this view of the matter. The Court has made plain that the same Clause permits the Congress to amplify the terms of an existing patent. As early as 1843 it established that the status of a particular invention and its protections must depend on the law as it stood at the emanation of the patent, together with such changes as have been since made; for though they may be retrospective in their operation, that is not a sound objection to their validity; the powers of Congress to legislate upon the subject of patents is plenary by the terms of the Constitution, and as there are no restraints on its exercise, there can be no limitation of their right to modify them at their pleasure, so that they do not take away the rights of property in existing patents.

    McClurg v. Kingsland, 42 U.S. 202, 206.

    Within the realm of copyright, the Court has to the present era been similarly deferential to the judgment of the Congress. "As the text of the Constitution makes plain, it is Congress that has been assigned the task of defining the scope of the limited monopoly that should be granted to authors or to inventors in order to give the appropriate public access to their work product;" that "task involves a difficult balance between [competing interests]" as reflected in the frequent modifications of the relevant statutes. ...

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)