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Lessig's Thoughts On Eldred v. Ashcroft Arguments
yokem_55 writes "Lawrence Lessig has updated his blog giving his thoughts on how the oral arguments for Eldred vs. Ashcroft went before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. He discusses the goals and methods he used in framing his arguments to convince the court to overturn the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, how he felt he did in presenting his arguments, and also provides some analysis on how he thinks the court might rule."
Why would someone fight to preserve a copyright that is not being used? It's too greedy.
All of this just causes people to look for ways to violate copyrights. Talk about inverse psychology. People will do whatever it is forbidden because it's tempting
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The problem with Lessing is that he doesn't understand that the problem *is* copyrights. And when you let people believe that they have the right to extract value by limiting the copying practices of others, then what we have today is bound to folow as those who own them will try to secure those "rights"
Oh how it reminds me of the people in the past who didn't want to believe that the problem was marxisim, but rather how it was implemented. Or the people who didn't want to believe that the problem was slavery, but how the plantation masters treated them. If only people would understand that the root of all these problems we're having is the belief system that copyright monopolies are somehow like property rights. That restricting what people can copy freely is some kind of basic right rather than the act of copying itself. Nothing he does will change the fact that the right to copy is a basic moral human right that will sure outlast any government that opposes it.
The government argument goes basically like this.
Who gets to decide what it takes to "promote", and what exactly "limited" means?
Congress, the Court?
Or, maybe you and I?
If Congress is doing wrong by the people, it is their RESPONSIBLITY to vote them out. Or so the story goes.
Fact is, the majority of voters are flat out stupid. Sad, but true.
Here's how stupid they are. I was at a party, 20 people or so. A friend underwent radiation for cancer and was told to stay away from their kids for 3-4 days. By the end of the arguments, the clear majority of the attendee's were convinced the reason was the kids would "get" radiation. Fact is, radiation kills the immune system and kids are loaded with germs.
That's a fairly clear insight into the way the "majority" of America "thinks". There's a reason propaganda works so well.
Sad to say, but the American system is broken and neither "judicial restraint" nor the people's recall of "congressional grace" (voting them out when they've gone evil on us) isn't going to save us.
Well the Court *can*.
What they'd do is establish a logical "test" which could be applied to decide what constitutes promotion (probably be called the Eldred Test). A good example of this is the Lemon Test, written by Justice Warren Burger in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), which can be applied to any future law concerning (in this case) school prayer.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
As the lead plaintiff in the case, I want to extend my greatest appreciation to Larry Lessig for taking on this case and arguing it so skillfully before the Supreme Court.
No doubt all of us will agonize over what we could have done better. But in the last four years we have raised the level of debate significantly on the role of copyright in the digital age. Today it would likely be impossible for legislation such as the CTEA to be passed.
What we need to do now is transfer some of the momentum from the Eldred case toward fighting some of the bad legislation beginning with the DMCA and including the Coble bills. After the Eldred decision, we can plan our next moves for new legislation that promotes the public interest.
Please support the public domain now by freely publishing your own ideas from your own website. Make new derivative works by digitizing works that are now in the public domain. Support the EFF, EPIC, Public Knowledge, Creative Commons, and Project Gutenberg and other online libraries.
And thanks for your support in all this!
Of course, when it comes time for Disney to give something back to the commons from which they've drawn so much, it's "different".
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
...Somebody ought to put together a little DVD collection of the earliest Mickey Mouse shorts that would now be public domain. And donate proceeds to the EFF.
A little thanks to Lessig, and a little fsck you to Disney.
Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
What this says to me is that copyrights should be non-transferable. No signing away copyright to some big corporation unless you're doing "work for fire". This, and a sane policy that recognizes that authors don't have any incentive to create Writings and Discoveries after they're dead, would pretty much wrap it all up.
IMO, Congress isn't really in violation of the Constitution.
;)
Except that the DoJ has admitted that in their case they see congress having total discression of the "limited time" that a copyright has. So, this looks a lot like saying limit of x as x goes to infinity would be supported here by their argument
Whether or not the court strike down the law, it will be interesting to see how they interpret this limit in general.
And a quick comment-- Whether or not we win this battle, we need to be thankful for Lessig because he has devoted 4 years to this fight and without him, the fight might not have begun or be carried as far as it has been. If we lose here, we are in for a long fight, outside the courts, though activism, legislators, etc.
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> If they consistently pass laws which the people of the United States hate, they will lose their jobs.
Not so. Just as history is replete with documented reasons why socialism is a long term failure, it is also replete with reasons why democracy is also a failure.
Humanity is, on whole, a nasty affair.
First, the masses are out to get something for nothing. Those without jobs will vote for the likes of national health care based on a tax they don't pay. I believe the quote is "The downfall of democracy comes when the population discovers they control the purse strings."
Second, the masses generally feel that "it's not their problem". If it doesn't affect them personally, and tangibly, they simply don't care and will accept the status-quo.
Third, the masses generally assume that any activity that they don't participate in themselves, isn't worthy of others either.
In combination, the notion that the electorate can, or will, "fix" a government gone awry is simply preposterous.
Germany was a democracy -- Hitler still happend.
Unfortunately, the authors of the Constitution hadn't had the experience of history to know these were the facts.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Actually, sheet music itself is a vigorously enforced area of Copyright. There are many ways to write the same essential tune, just like the Perl motto of There Is More Than One Way To Do It. Sheet music authors (and player piano roll creators before them) rabidly protect against their unauthorized reproduction.
Think of the sheet music as an image which represents the music. The older sheets may in fact be turned out to public domain by now, but anything printed since the 50s is just as locked up as Winnie the Pooh drawings and Elvis Presley recordings.
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> Anyone who dares to be successful enough to own a property where the public enjoys gathering--e.g., a shopping mall--is
Nobody is "successful enough to own" a property. Nobody.
Land for the shopping mall was undoubtedly stolen under emmenint domain.
Money for construction of the mall was undoubtedly hypothicated on a favorable tax exemption.
The ability to build the mall was undoubtedly had by changing zoning laws that abutting property owners had assumed protected them.
The fact the mall can sustain a buisness is owed to the fact someone other than the so called "successful" owner paid a s**tload of money to build roads getting peopele there.
The rights of way bringing power and telecomunications were stolen from people. Water and sewage service was flat out paid for by others.
I HATE people who think "ownership" in a black and white term. For almost all substantial corporate forms today, the ethics of "ownership" are almost totally corrupt. They don't "own" anything but that which exists having been built on the backs of others -- usually by force.
In other words the 'facto' of any copyright is the original publishing of the work. In other words at the time of the publishing of the work the creator got the right to use the work for X years and the public got the right to use the work after X years. In other words copyright laws give things to both the creator and the public. To, years later, delay the date at which the public gets the rights which they have had since the work was published in fact is taking something from the public after the fact
So in fact congress could set the copyright to whatever limited period they wished but what they couldn't have done is to apply that new limit to works that have already had their copyright length set.
As I said, there must be something that I am missing, because it seems so obvious. Can anybody explain?