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Copyrights/Patents are Public Domain?
x3 sent us a link to an article running on InfoWorld that talks intelligently about intellectual property and the public domain. Its an extremely well written piece summing up what many readers of this site probably feel about the subject.
Patents of course last something on the order of 17 years after invention to keep competition off of the idea. Copyrights last the lifetime of the creator plus about 75 years after death. Trademarks can last different periods based on what kind of trademark... Whther it is registered or simply has been in use by the company for a while...
An interesting thing to note is that a lot of institutions like universities are much more concerned over there rights to intellectual property outside of patents... Gatorade for instance has well run past a patent expire date. The trademark and the license to use it by Pepsico is worth millions every year to the University of Florida. 5 million I think...
I'm taking a course this semester in History in Tech PErspective. One thing I found interesting is that during the 1700's in Britan - Inventors would develop something, patent it, but not get called on to make more of the machine, not leading to the riches they envisioned. Instead of collecting royalties, prospective buyers simply made their own version of the patented device.
Few examples: 1733 "flying shuttle" by John Kay, 1764 "spinning jinny" by James Hargreanes, and 1769 "water frame" by Richard Arkwright. All three (at the time) were major developments in cotton processing mills.
Similar happened with the development of the steam engine. Though the expertise required got the key players more royalties than their cotton processing counterparts.
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Many people get this confused and think, congress has the power to grant copyrights. Copyright is a limitation of congress' power, not a power unto itself. If a copyright fails to "promote the progress of science and useful art", then congress is exercising a power it was never granted.
It's amazing how the terms of public debate on this issue have shifted towards the copyright holders. When you talk to an average joe about this they usually think there is nothing wrong with extending copyrights indefinitely, "after all it's their Mickey Mouse, they own it just like I own my car". People seem to be unaware about what the consitution says on this issue. In a more rediculous example of overly long copyrights: Did you know you could get sued for singing "Happy Birthday to You". No joke, see here. It does not run out for another 20 years!
It doesn't seem to have been mentioned in this thread, but the US Supreme Court heard arguments just this week on the issue of constantly extending copyrights.
See this and, of course, Slashdot it.
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There's a good article on Lessig and Disney in this week's Economist.
I was listening to the Monsters, Inc. commentary track recently, and there's a mention of a yodel that's heard in the background through one of the doors. They actually wanted to use a different (and supposedly funnier) one, but they couldn't find the rights holder to clear it.
So Disney's copyright extension lobbying effectively damaged one of the movies they distributed.
Concerning patents, the author says what I think. But please remember: Without the copyright, there couldn't be a GPL. The central point of the GPL (that you have to include the source with every distribution or make it easily available) couldn't be enforced without the copyright.
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