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Eldred Attracts Heavyweight Supporters
dipfan writes: "Opening briefs have now been filed with the Supreme Court for the Eldred v Ashcroft copyright case, arguing that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is unconstitutional. The anti-extension case has attracted some big name supporters, including Intel, and Nobel prize winning economist Milton Freidman, who argue it is "highly unlikely that the economic benefits from copyright extension" outweigh the additional costs, and that copyright extension reduces consumer welfare. (Previous coverage of the case on /. here and here)"
"Congress shall have the power... To promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
So a limited time will now far exceed several generations. I can totaly see how this will benefit all the people of the good 'ol USA.
Economic recovery, here we come!
If this doesn't prevail before the Supremes, then all hope may be lost.
The copyright extension can't reasonably be argued to server any Constitutionally argued purpose. After all, to be extended, the works in question had to be produced.
Absent a time machine, how do you encourage the creation of something that's already been created?
The only thing you can do is negate the other side of the deal: transfer of your work into the public domain.
This is not even an issue of being for or against intellectual property. Congress used its Constitutinally provided powers to grant intellectual property to authors, but demanded consideration in return. That consideration was placement of works into the public domain after the author or subsequent copyright holder had been granted an adequate opportunity to exploit the work.
We have delivered on our end of the bargain. The copyright holders must deliver on theirs.
Also, the FSF filed a "friend of the court" brief, though if, like me, you are not a lawyer, you might rather just read the press release.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Eben Moglen's brief for the FSF has a great quote:
``Actually, Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever.''
--Rep. Mary Bono
144 Cong. Rec. H9951 (daily ed. Oct. 7, 1998)
I have debated this hot topic on the Napster Forum at great length, with people ranging from typical ranters to a small record label owner.
The biggest issue I have is with the duration of copyright. Originally set to last 14 to 28 years from date of creation, it now stands as 95 years from the death of the copyright owner. The latest lengthening (the Sonny Bono Act) might have to do with strong lobbying from Disney, as Mickey Mouse would have lost its copyright in 2004. And to extend it again, 20 years at a time only takes a mere act of Congress.
On one hand, I'd like to see creators get just rewards for their work. But I disagree with a near-eternal guarantee, that might stifle creation in the future because current creative minds can rest on their laurels. In other words, they can stop working and continue to enjoy a revenue stream, while I need to keep working to get my next paycheck.
I am the evil aardvark!
I read the opening brief last night and I'm overwhelmed by the quality of the work. The plaintiffs have, over the course of the trial and appeals, clarified and distilled the essence of their case. Their arguments are very persuasive, and the writing is superb.
This is probably the most important copyright case of our generation. The government has characterized retroactive copyright extension as a "national tradition", and if this case fails, the result will be that Congress will be given the go-ahead to continue the "tradition", and the result will be perpetual copyright. The entire idea of a public domain of ideas will be destroyed.
Eldred is our last, best chance to prevent perpetual copyright. It's a tremendous effort, the best contemporary legal writing that I've EVER seen. I urge all Slashdot readers to read through the opening brief. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the issues behind copyright extension.
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.
Now I wish I hadn't snipped what Siva said about the Sonny Bono Act from the interview we did! Here it is:
JH: "In your book, you refer to the DMCA as an example of what you call a "thick" copyright law. Can you explain the difference between "thick" copyright law and a "thin" law?"
SV: "...One way to measure the thickness of a copyright law is to look at the duration of protection. If works enter the public domain before an author's life expectancy expires, then it's a thin and democratic system. If the duration of copyright protection is absurdly long and potentially indefinite, then it's way too thick.
"JH: And the DMCA does this?
"SV: Not exactly. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which added 20 years to almost all active copyrights, does this. The Copyright Act of 1976 did this as well, but it took people a while to complain about it. Before THE 1976 ACT, copyright terms were for a fixed amouNt of time: 28 years per term, renewable once. Since the 1976 act, the term has been life of the author plus 50 years, and now 70 years. The Supreme Court will hear a case in the fall about the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Act. And many of us on the public interest side of copyright debates are hoping that the justices revert to the first principles of American copyright: that copyright is meant to promote creativity and expression, not retard it. Copyright has become corrupted to such a degree that it's now an instrument of censorship, as Dmitri Sklyarov and Edward Felten can tell you."
-- haaz, who will think twice before snipped for brevity's sake.
-- haaz.
Eagle Forum/Phyllis Schlafly
Milton Friedman
Hal Roach Studios
Intel
Wendell Berry
Ursula K. Leguin
Barry Lopez
Peter Matthiessen
David Foster Wallace
National Writers Union
The United States Public Policy Committee for the Association of Computing Machinery
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
The Apache Software Foundation
The Domain Name Rights Coalition
The Center for The Public Domain
Public Knowledge, The Digital Future Coalition
The Public Domain Research Corporation
The Center for Book Culture
The Computer and Communications Industry Association
The Consumer Electronics Association
(The arguments against severability are that Congress wouldn't have passed just the future extension, all the lobbying was for the extension of existing works, and the Court shouldn't be in the business of rewriting flawed legislation.)
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
True, and it makes perfect sense. The DMCA and its buddies are direct assaults on the concept of general purpose computing. If things continue on their present course, it will eventually be illegal for you to open the case of "your" computer, or use it in any other way that Disney or Microsoft disapproves of.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
The justices had better not be swayed by petitions -- their job description includes interpreting the law as it is written, not as how anybody else (including the justices) thinks it should have been written.
Even if the justices think that a law is a pathetic, weak, idiotic law -- if it's Constitutional and all, they need to uphold it as is. It's the other two branches' job to reflect the populace and consider bending to petitions.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Being NAL as I am, I would like to see some discussion of how limited term copyright is expected to work in a future where copyright is enforced by perpetual technological means.
As more information is published on digital media, DRM is becoming a means of enforcing the copyright on the information. However, I know of no DRM systems which provide for expriation of protection. So, while the legal protection may go away after the granted term, the data is still protected technologically. I wonder, what are the legal implications of this?
Copyright was granted on the grounds that after the granted term, the information was to enter the public domain. If the information is designed by the distributors to never enter the public domain, does it still deserve copyright protection? It seems like this is analogous to patents vs. trade secrets where trade secrets have no legal protection because there is no obligation to disclose the way they work. You have to trade one for the other.
Theoretically, they get paid depending on their contracts, without which they shouldn't have transferred copyright. Of course, if there's a conspiracy among the labels to present only highly unfavorable contracts, then there's a bit of a problem.
The labels, of course, have a huge problem -- the public's tastes can be quite fickle, and advertising a new potential talent is likely quite expensive. Those costs have to be borne by somebody even if the music doesn't sell -- either because it's drek, or because the public simply didn't latch onto it in sufficient quantities to justify costs. I don't know what fraction of artists actually do well enough to justify marketing costs, but if it's low, ugh.
That means that, realistically, either the labels have to be extremely good at picking (or deliberately building bands -- for instance, composing new boy bands aimed specifically at female pre-teens and early teens, by choosing what they hope are photogenic young males of specific ages, et al, or choosing female artists according to jiggle factor and mid-riff exposure) bands, or artists should be willing to share the costs, because otherwise the marketing machines collapse.
And without marketing, many obscure artists won't have much of a chance. It may have worked for Wilco, but what happens when there are no major labels and everybody is in the same boat? Then there's no prevailing culture to be "counter-cultural" against; opposing the labels isn't anything special, because there aren't any. That means that bands trying Wilco's approach would no longer be entitled to free publicity because they're trying something different. End result: Probably many bands with smaller audiences and smaller releases driven by word of mouth.
Keep in mind that nobody's entitled to an income on only their own terms, no matter how much they think they deserve it. If an artist's work is niche, lousy, or underexposed -- then it doesn't matter how much he loves the music. Love != quality or appeal. I'm reminded of the Elaine character on "Seinfeld" -- she loved to dance, but only masochists would have paid to watch her at the Bolshoi. If an artist seems promising enough to get a favorable contract, however, more power to 'im.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
From the list of signatories to the brief :
George A. Akerlof
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 2001
Kenneth J. Arrow
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1972
James M. Buchanan
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1986
Ronald H. Coase
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1991
Milton Friedman
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 1976
Impressing!!!
___
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
A while back, there was an excellent article on Lord Macaulay's speech to the British Parliament. Macaulay lays out both a solid case for copyright and against unreasonable extensions to copyrights.
The speech was made over 160 years ago.
I believe that the case law establishing that corporations are "persons" goes back to the 1860s when certain railroads were allowed to receive land grants which Congress had promised to "persons" satisfying certain requirements about using the property.
I do agree with your general sentiment that it is easy for these very rich, very long-lived "persons" to abuse laws intended for mere humans.
I know of no DRM systems which provide for expriation of protection.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides no protection against circumvention for works that have fallen into the public domain. From 17 USC 1201: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" (emphasis by yerricde). Works "protected under this title" include works under a subsisting copyright.
This means it's lawful to sell DeCSS programs designed to decrypt the pre-1923 content on Charlie Chaplin DVDs. And without copyright term extensions, it would also be lawful to sell DeCSS programs designed to decrypt "Mickey's Early Years" and other pre-1946 content. (Actually, Mickey Mouse cartoons have fallen into the public domain due to a copyright notice flub-up.)
Will I retire or break 10K?