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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.
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"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
I think its interesting (Maybe the right word is insane?) how technology (specifically, the internet) is supposed to "bring us together", but laws such as the DMCA, and orginizations such as the RIAA and the MPAA push to limit how we can come together, as far as music (which is held by many to be the "universal language") and movies.
I dunno. Just a thought.
The aurthor of the letter reprinted in the article forgot something:
The people in power wish to stay in power and they do that by bending to the will of the people that fund them (RIAA, MPAA, Disney, the like). The government does not serve the people anymore, if it ever did, It serves the businesses, the people who make the "campaign contributions," the holders of the intelectual property.
Help I'm a rock.
Greatly limiting the "brief [few years] economic advantage" for authors and inventors would destroy the ability for someone to live off their work
You call life plus 70 years (USA and EU copyright term) "brief"?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've been talking up the problems of extended copyright for a few years now, without much success. My problem? I haven't used the argument that extending copyright law works against creativity and the authors. Copyright law, today, works for the corporation. Corporations, in turn, work hard to control congress which, in turn, controls copyright law. Is it any wonder that most of the complaints about sharing, copying, and otherwise circumventing copyright come not from authors but from corporations?
As for me, I'm a teacher. I break copyright every day. I hand out copies of poems, I photocopy sections of books, I encourage students to read books out of libraries instead of buying them. (I use libraries as an example of defeating copyright because they do what p2p does in a system that is legitimate only because it has been around for a long time.) At the end of last week I saw that kids had been downloading Kazaa and Bearshare to the school computers in order to get music. Good for them.
I like that the author likens this battle to the drug wars. The government has illegalized pot. The kids have no trouble getting it. They get in trouble when they are caught, so they do it surreptitiously. This puts them in more danger than the drug itself--by far. The over-reaching copyright laws, outrageous price-fixing by the music industry, and the control of the radio airwaves have brought about an underground system that works very well, will not likely be stopped, and will, eventually, be legitimate even if it's not legal.
Chalk this up to the short-sightedness of business, the reactionary nature of current politics, and the creative drive of people. The saying goes that information wants to be free. I'm not sure if that means that information wants to be free of charge, but I'm willing to bet that if a major music label started a Napster-style server through which we could download the new Peter Gabriel album for one dollar, there would be a line at the server for quite some time. That they have not done this means that many of us have either copied a friend's disc or downloaded the songs over GNUtella. And exactly how is the copyright law benefiting Gabriel and his label?
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
...tho simple and in many minds the right thing to do, would be difficult to achieve. But, hey, what the heck?
Only single persons, not organizations can hold copyrights and patents.
Laws are designed around human beings, who die. Corporations have the potential to be immortal.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
If these people are so brilliant and independent, then they should crank out some new creative works if the copyrights on their old ones expire. It doesn't mean that they're forced to get a corporate job.
The reason for copyrights is to stimulate creative production, not to let a few lucky artists and their heirs or corporate sugar daddies sit on their collective asses for a century or more.
I think it's funny how you magically moded your post to be rated interesting just based on your subject line of "interesting"...
Back to the topic, I think you're right. If you look at musical history, you'll notice a lot of borrowing going on. I mean, even now. Danny Elfman's Batman theme resembles in no small way a piece of music for piano and orchestra by Rachmoninoff. I forget which one, but I think it's the 2nd...
An interesting point of the suppression of ideas created by this: Mozart was accused and had to stand in front of the king (mebbey) when he was a younger child. His crime? He had copied the mass music at church by keeping it in his head and writing it out when he got home. So, could we give Mozart the credit for being the first person to violate some form of artistic licensing? I would've liked to see the RIAA there on that one...
Now, let's think. If artists of that time period weren't allowed to copy from each other (Mozart was commended after he demonstrated how he did it) would we have even heard of any classical European master outside of the Bach family? I'm probably exaggerating (and I'm sure anyone who thinks so will prove me wrong) but the point of the matter is: the same technology (music in their days, computer in ours) that is supposed to bring us together can either do so, or can seriously put a cramp in my style.
Target
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
Yes, this is true. But consider that the argument being posed in this article (and before the Supremes with Eldred v. Ascroft) is not for the destruction of all copyright but a foreshortening of terms. After all, I won't argue against Gershwin profiting from Rhapsody in Blue but IMO his children shouldn't.
Greatly limiting the "brief [few years] economic advantage" for authors and inventors would destroy the ability for someone to live off their work...
Depends on how you define "life off their work". If you mean "write one story and use those royalties to get filthy rich" then I'm dead set against it-- would you be happy with only one Tom Clancy, Michael Chriton or Stephen King story? But if you mean "write many stories, perhaps spaced a few years apart" then why do you care if copyright on the first book exends past when you write the second or third?
Now, I'm not really arguing about forshortening copyright that drastically-- maybe down to 28 years or so-- you could have 8 or 9 books on the market across that timespan. Surely you can't argue that extending the copyright another ~80 years on top of that will "promote the progress of
Do you like Japanese imports?
Collectivist nonsense my ass. If you want to own an idea, keep it to yourself. Besides, it's not like you were born in a vacuum. There is no such thing as a pure original idea. Greedy people like you want to take from the public domain, but you want the buck to stop at your "creativity".
So 'the public' owned the telephone, and just leased it to Alexander Bell?
In a sense, yes. No one, Bell included, can come to an idea completely on their own. There has to be knowledge, inspiration, and feedback from others to make ideas viable. Like it or not, a collective (oops, I said the c-word) is from where ideas originate, and where ideas eventually will go in an infinite loop we call "building knowledge".
However, human survival relies on private ownership of tangible resources (at least in this country), whereas ideas are not tangible resources that can be locked down, or else they're not resources. The Founders realized this as well, so they struck a compromise. Since knowledge cannot be privatized for human survival, the use of knowledge can be legally restricted (at least in theory). This is for the good of the creator to be able to create, not to profit. Ideas were originally held in common, and then an innovator would come along and build on an idea in the public domain (e.g. Bell making the telegraph better). That innovator would get a legal monopoly for a short period of time to get resources to get better ideas, and those old ideas would go back to the public domain eventually for the public good.
If ideas really were private property, then there could be no innovation and no progress if powerless individuals had to pay royalties to the original holders of ideas (or more accurately, the corporations that bought/seized them) for eternity.
When 'the public' thinks it has a right to the product of my effort, then they can try and pry it out of my mind. I'd rather keep it secret than give it to someone who demands it's his.
If you keep your idea secret, which you have every right to do, then the idea is useless to everyone, including yourself. It's your intellectual and moral obligation as an innovator and a human being to share your ideas to allow general knowledge and wisdom to progress, but it's also the public's obligation to give you a limited monopoly on that idea to innovate, so long as we live in a capitalistic economy.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Although I agree with the latter positions of the infoWorld article, I did not find it particularly persuasive. I find an earlier MSBNC (admitedly a most unlikely source) arcicle to be far more enguaging and persuasive as it evaluates more even handedly the historical purposes of copyright and whether or not it has served it's purpose. The article was Copyrights and copywrongs , a historical examination of Copyright which is definately worth a read. Along the same lines you might want to read the letters between Jefferson and Maddison on the issue which are archived in various places around the net.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
The 'public' had no telephone until Bell invented it. It cannot lease him those thoughts, or that creativity. He earned it on his own.
The legal right to make implementations of telephones was held by the public before they were invented. Patent is not about lease of thoughts, it's about the right to build implementations. Please don't confuse the two.
When 'the public' thinks it has a right to the product of my effort, then they can try and pry it out of my mind. I'd rather keep it secret than give it to someone who demands it's his.
Frankly, good ideas are not the product of one man working in solitude; they are the product of many many people sharing their ideas and developing them and improving on them. The US has this fucked up habit of trying to find a single person whom they can claim "invented" or "was totally responsible for" something. It is a habit used to justify large wealth descripencies; "well so-and-so invented such-and-such" -- Bill Gates invented the computer, you know. It's also complete bunk.
If you don't wish to participate in sharing your ideas and building off the work of other people's ideas then go hide in a hermit hole. You are replaceable. A bit of humility would do you some good.
It's just as bad when RMS complains he has a right to my source, whether or not I want to give it away. This talk does not enhance freedom.
He makes no such claims. He claims that if you wish to distribute computer programs, you should make the source code for those programs available to whom ever you distribute the program to. And this is required so that that person is no longer at your whim for upgrades, changes, and other such things. He believes that programs shouldn't be used as a mechanism to control people by not having the ability to fix what they have rightfully purchased.
His solution, GPL, is very clear in this regard. If you don't want to play in our game building on the work of others in a free and non-biased manner, you don't have to. But don't use GPLed stuff -- it's quite simple.
RMS is spot on. If you want to live by your rules, where everyone thinks of themselves as a unique irreplaceable creator and not wanting to give up source code; go for it. You just can't play in our land.
The article is essentially correct. The matter is made most clearly in patenting, due to the generating idea: expose your information to the public, and in return you are granted a monopoly for some time. The force of government is used to enforce the matter.
That age has passed, however. Government, owning classes and certain involved subclasses of citizenry no longer believe that patents, trademarks and copyrights are marks of exchanges of value. Instead, PT&Cs are considered to be owned assets, and as such, they are to be preserved for as long as possible, and are not to be surrenderd to the public for any reason. For instance, the trademark on Mickey Mouse (c/o the Disney Corporation) will never expire to the public domain since the corporation continually and successfully petitions the Congress to keep extending the term. We the People don't even see revenue from a (sizable) fee to renew the trademark.
Given this trend, I am now preferring to junk the USPTO. If the public receives no value for granting a patent, trademark or copyright, then why grant them?
If the previous solution is perceived to be too draconian, alternatively I propose that the USPTO can be shrunk down into a building of a couple of hundred file clerks who simply file statements and process associated fees as they come in. The system of monopoly can be kept, but all the brouhaha over preliminary evaluation can be junked. Patents are tested in court anyway, and patents are granted almost unwittingly anyway, so why bother checking the patent app? PT&C court battles will come down to two basic checks: (1) is the PT&C itself just bullshit, and (2) if not, then who filed first? The idea of public domain will be long dead, of course, but at least the government will see income from the slimmed-down USPTO, and court battles might be less costly all around.
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
...anyone's freedom. The notion that I "need" to be able to make money by usurping someone else's creation is ludicrous. I say the Founding Fathers were exactly right in what they did.
What's happened though is that things are taken to excess and Congress, as usual, is way below the intellectual standard needed to make decisions like this. They think in terms of publicity, and in terms of financial contributions to their election campaigns, unfortunately. And, so the RIAA and the MPAA and all the rest are running wild and free, seemingly unfettered to crush small freedoms for the sake of the Almighty dollar.
That is what is so ludicrous about the entire position of the RIAA, etc. They seem to be suffering under the incredible delusion that every "illegitimate" copy made of their stuff is a lost sale. Why they have come to this rather idiotic conclusion is anybody's guess. It's not true that deprived of any other means people would be forced to buy this music, film, etc. Nope, most of them would exercise their remaining choice in the matter and refuse to buy it and simply live without it.
Doesn't the RIAA know that people who *want* this stuff badly enough to buy it are *already* buying it? The rest of them don't want it badly enough to pay for it, and deprived of any choice except paying for it, they'll choose not to pay for it and live without it. It's only when they perceive this stuff is "free" that it becomes worth having--it's not worth buying to the great majority of these people I'll wager.
It's kind of like software piracy. Miscrosoft bitches and moans about piracy and puts Product Activation into XP. The central problem with the argument, however, is that Microsoft got to its present position by selling non-Product-Activated Operating Systems! The contradiction is glaring, for if Microsoft had been victimized by software piracy on an institutional scale, the company would never have survived long enough to write Product Activation into XP, let alone long enough to write XP in the first place. Therefore, despite no controls on piracy at all, history convincingly demonstrates that the vast majority of Microsoft's customers want Microsoft's products badly enough to pay for them and did exactly that. There's simply no way to argue the negative there.
So here's what I think all of this is about, whether it's Microsoft's Product Activation or the RIAA's sabre rattling: GREED. Pure, old fashioned, unadulterated, unblemished GREED.
I think the position will backfire on the RIAA in a big way if it is successful in shutting off avenues of free distribution for those who will accept it no other way--it will likely do an extreme amount of damage to the industry it proclaims it is trying to protect, because the principles behind these issues are economically flawed in the first place.
To me the litmus test for copyright ought to be profit. If a copyright is broken for profit the breaker should be prosecuted. If there is no profit involved it should be a moot issue. The trigger to invoke copyright law should be profit and profit alone being made on the copyrighted works. If no profit is being made it then becomes exceedingly difficult for the copyright holder to prove damages since no one actually paid anything to obtain the copyrighted material.
In fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think the trigger of the existing copyright laws is already profit and monetary gain. It seem to me that this is the "loophole" the RIAA and others hope to plug because they are proceeding from the patently false assumption that every copy out is a sale lost--which is absolutely untrue and therefore is an impossible proposition to prove.
I'll close with a message to Microsoft:
"OK, guys, you've had your fun and put PA into an OS. Therefore, you have eliminated any piracy of it and can therefore lower the prices as you've been saying for years. So when do we see the first $49.95 copy of Windows XP?"
Heh-Heh--my guess is that if they put chains on each CD and a microbomb in them to explode in case of copyright violation--we'd still never see the prices go down.
Saying that the people are empowered doesn't make it so. Being able to vote does not mean that you have any power. The vote in America is nearly as meaningless as the vote in Iraq. The very design of the vote in America ensures a plurality. (def 4a) Believing that does not make a person apathetic. But believing that, what is there to do?
And just what evil corporation is forcing people to buy all those CD's released by RIAA members?
/. poster would have us believe, CD and DVD shops would be going bankrupt by the thousands thanks to the public's refusal to buy.
Last I looked, music isn't addictive. If this issue was a important to mainstream America as it is to you, they'd do something about it. However, it isn't that important to them, for good reason.
If this issue was as important to real people as the typical
People have no more right to "free" music than they have a right to free books, free newspapers, free automobiles, or free whatever.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The public needs to be reminded that the purpose of copyright is to help spread new ideas, not make money.
The purpose of copyright (and patent) laws isn't to spread new ideas--that goal would be done much easier if it was simply illegal to hide an idea.
Copyrights (and patents, but not trademarks) exist so the creators of new ideas / written works CAN make money, and thus are encouraged to keep on making new things.
Ergo, the often-quoted balance between "public good" and "private benefit" that is copyright. The private party wants to enjoy as much economic beneift as possible from their works. The public wants to just enjoy the works, as cheaply as possible and as often as possible.
Copyright is how we pay authors, artists, and computer programmers. (Let's just ignore the GPL for this ONE argument, can we?). It's not that it's main purpose isn't to make money; it's that we as a society are "hiring" IP producers to make IP, and if they don't continue to produce a re-evaluation of their agreement (copyright law) might be in order.
I think an issue that we tend to overlook while arguing the merits [or lack thereof] of copyright laws, is the issue of who actually holds the copyrights.
My understanding is that the origins of copyright law came from individuals looking to have a legal recourse to protect and expand their options in a business environment. As it was stated, "Economic advantage is not in and of itself a valid purpose or justification for copyright or patent laws", but it doesn't exclude the notion that an economic gain can be made from IP and thus, provides a basis for encouragement and resource for further development.
Again, I have to emphasize that these laws were made to be exerciseable by the individual. If you know even a little about the process of songwriting and publishing, you know that the copyrights of these works get turned over to the corporation (non-person entity) in exchange for a split of the proceeds from a given work. Once that happens, the exerciseable rights are stripped from the person responsible for the work and handed over to a boardroom of fat cats whose only interest is to expand their bottom line.
I believe that had the rights remained with individuals, the option to return IP to a the public domain would have been exercised. I feel that its the sentiment of artists that once the financial gains have been exhausted under copyright protection of a work, they feel that there is no harm in reintroducing it "back into the wild" so to speak, so that other people might also be inspired to create.
Corporations are the copyright holders and as such they put a stranglehold on the material, making it financially unaccessible to anyone but them. If you haven't paid them for the right (or made an arrangement for them to benefit financially) to use their copyrighted material, then its hands off. Futhermore, they take it a step further and continue the exercise in inaccessibility years beyond a reasonable timeframe just so that any possibility for a few bucks to be made isn't overlooked.
With the exception of Metallica (and their situation is very different from most other artists), you don't hear the actual artists themselves coming out and raising the issue as much as you do the record companies and the RIAA because the fact of the matter is that they don't have a leg to stand on anymore. All their "IP" is under new ownership. They can only back their label's decision and even to that extent, what I've seen is far from convincing.
Copyright law may not need the reexamining as much as maybe who rights they are protecting.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
I think what was left out of this article is the fact that there are two types of intellectual properties. Ones that can help the progress of humanity (i.e. the cure for Cancer or AIDS) and the ones used for pure self-indulgence (things like pop music and blockbuster movies, etc).
Each type has a value, but the purpose it was created for is different. The cure for cancer is something that will help the whole world. While Britney Spears singing her lungs out is all about making money off something that if people enjoy they can buy, but could easily live without. It's not something that will help the progress of the human race. I know some people create for the sake for Art, but some also create for the sake of Profit. Both should be allowed to do so.
If something has no other purpose but to entertain, why can't this be copyrighted for life? It has not been created to make the world a better place. It was created for profit. A line needs to be drawn through the differences. Because there is a difference. Capitalism is based off the idea that you can make something for $5 and sell it for $100 if you wish. But the law of supply and demand will always dictate the price.
It's morally wrong to create a drug that costs $1 to cure Cancer and sell it for more then people could afford, because this is playing with peoples' lives. But to create a CD that costs $1 and charge $20 will hurt no one. People don't have to buy this music; the law of supply and demand will always dictate the price. But what's happened is technology has gotten to the point where one person can buy a copy it and give it away for free. This is also morally wrong, as the product was created to make money and not make the world a better place.
If the music created could not be copied and only bought off the owner, then the laws of supply and demand would work correctly. Because if the price was too high, no one would buy the product and the owner would reduce the price to where it will become profitable. The sweet spot for the price is as high as possible while still getting the most sales. This way people should not think it's cheap, but are still willing to part with their money. This is Capitalism!
But because people copy the music they have broken the chain of supply and demand, because they get the music for free. Meaning the only people who buy it are the people who could not copy it (this I know is an oversimplification but still valid). Meaning no matter how cheap they make it, it will always be available for free.
People need to realise there is a difference between things that help the world and things that are just consumed for pleasure. Copyright on the first is wrong, while copyright on the second is valid, the laws on copyright need to be updated to reflect this fact.
This got modded up? Yeah, Tolstoy, Goethe, Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Cervantes, etc. just got lucky. Copyrights shouldn't expire during an authors lifetime. How would you like it if the govt. took your business away after 10 years, saying, you've had it long enough, the public gets to make money off of it now. Next thing you know, we're a Communist society. Talk about lack of incentive to do anything. When you don't gain anything for what you produce, you created a sure fire way to ruin production.
Vote for Pedro
I agree 100% with what David H. Lynch says, and he certainly says it eloquently. But suppose the worst: what if the Supreme Court upholds copyright extension, the RIAA gets its hacking license, and the government embarks on a War on Piracy with the zeal of its decades-long War on Drugs. What do we do then?
I'm thinking what should happen is open defiance of copyright extension. As many people as possible should post as many pictures of Steamboat Willie as they can find, on as many webservers and p2p networks as possible. Give the courts so many cases to handle that they simply can't do it. Robert Cringely proposed this same idea , and I like it. But I wonder how many people would actually participate? The legal system's only trump card is that few people ever go all the way to the wall to defend a principle. That's a significant fact. Who wants to risk going to a real jail in order to share some music files over Kazaa?
I sure don't. I have a family to support, and if people started getting snatched out of their houses there's no way I am going to have my house seized and be the bitch for some knuckle scraping troglodyte in a cell. Even if those prospects didn't bother me, justifying my actions to my wife would be another matter. Actually, I'm not sure which would be worse. If the enforcement starts to get harsh, my p2p files are coming right down. And I bet 99% of you reading this are the same way. When the rubber meets the road, how many of you have stood your ground when you knew you were going to get your ass kicked?
That's one thing that gives me a really fatalistic feeling about all this. I sure hope the legal brains arguing Eldred vs Ashcroft are in top form, because I really believe that the fate of this issue will rest on the shoulders of a few heroes, not on the masses who will mostly run for cover if the shit hits the fan.
No BS about the public good? How about the first sentence: "insure domestic Tranquility... promote the general Welfare..."
Even granting your argument that greed is good: Dead bodies have no greed. So why should dead bodies have intellectual property rights?