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Eldred Transcript, Bookmobile Experience
Patrick writes "The transcript of the oral arguments in Eldred v. Ashcroft is now online." Such exciting lines as: "CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST: Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy verbatim other people's books, don't you?". See previous stories about the oral arguments and Lessig's thoughts on them. chromatic writes "The O'Reilly Network has just published Richard Koman's Lessons from the Internet Bookmobile about his travels with Brewster Kahle to Eldred v. Ashcroft. I particularly like how he describes the universal positive reception."
This will help me a lot with my paper i have to write for my 11th grade social studies class. But does anyone know where more info like this is? Whats another good site to other than the basic www.eff.org and atandard "anti-DMCA/RIAA/MPAA".
Damn im lucky that crusing around on slashdot is homework.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
It doesn't appear to be the "real" transcript, but rather a reconstruction from memory:
"Thanks to some friends, I've been able to get a copy of the Eldred case transcript. I've cleaned it up, added the names of the justices where possible (searching my memory, the responses in the text, and press reports) and HTMLized it."
That is a quote from the site it's posted on Here
http://thomas.loc.gov/
One of the best sites to keep yourself informed. This gives you the good and the bad.
Sites like the EFF, ACLU, RIAA and MPAA are good for getting differnt view points, but their information will always be slanted in one way or another. That's what lobying groups do.
In arguments it's good to know both sides of an issue but it's even better to look at the issue itself somtimes.
Ahhh.. the bookmobile... isn't that the one where the driver goes around town in a rainbow colored jumpsuit, screwing chickens?
I think we've got 'em Barbrady.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
IANAL, but am really interested in the outcome of this case. Anyone care to summarize? Thanks in advance.
Get Firefox!
This is swaying off the specifics of the case a bit, but ... As someone who is a firm lover of art and literarure, as well as a believer in an author/artists ownership of their creation, I don't understand the belief that copyright should be extended past the creater's death. I'm assuming it started as income for the survivors. However, a window washer's widow does not continue to take in income from her late husbands previously washed windows. And children ... should probably learn how to earn their own living. I don't see why being the son of an author that had to work hard their whole life suddenly makes you able to sit on your ass your whole life.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Well, I arrived at 5:15am in line, waited till 9:30 when the first 50 people where let in to see the arguments. I was 54...so I didn't quite make it.
The guards told us to wait...in case there were openings, so the other 25 people waited in line. I had made friends with a few law students over the previous 4 hours...who were all in the same boat with me. About 9:40am, we were looking down the steps to the Supreme Court, and up hurriedly walks this stalky gentleman, with snuggly fitting pin striped suit, grey hair...just a little too long, slicked back. As he approached the front of the line...he sideglances the group of law students that I'm standing in line with but quickly looks away. He walks right up in front of us to the two guards and announces, with authority "I'm Jack Valenti (pause). I'm on Scalias list."
Wow...did we all really here that right? Yes we did. We laughed our tired laughs, joking that we thought Scalia was "on our side"...and silently wishing that we had snuck in behind this Man, famous in our small circle for his accurate prophetic visions.
*** MAKE A STAND. NOW!
They forgot an EASY target. "Life of the author". So if you copyright some book, and then you cryogenically freeze yourself, you get the coypright for as long as you are alive, right? So then your children get to inherit that money for all time, while you're alive in stasis.
It's intresting how the justices ask each side hostile questions, probing the validity of the argument.
:P I often think there's a lot of twisting involved. But you can almost see the lines of argument and the points and counterpoints in this script.
:P The judges seemed receptive during their questioning of the government, as the least.
I'm not into law.
All I can say is 'bravo' to Lessig
*crosses fingers*
Well, hurrah for our side. Here goes nothing!
...but my latest thoughts on-- and inspired by-- Eldred v. Ashcroft went to my journal. While I haven't finished reading the transcript, (I've only read through Lessig's first arguments) what I've read so far hasn't changed my thoughts one bit so I'm not posting them again here.
I do have to say this case has really made me see the truth behind the "kill all the lawers" jokes-- that most people don't want to live in a world of such detailed and precise thought. I, for one, will take the lawers and all the evils that go with them if it will get me away from the sloppiness of thought and/or expression that produced the DMCA and is pushing for Digital User Restriction Management in all our computers.
Do you like Japanese imports?
You know what bothers me about this case is the way people are trying to knock down this copywrite law. I don't have any problem with people saying that the law is wrong - I can definitely see their point. But it does bother me that they try to say it is unconstitutional. It seems to me that they are really pushing the limits of what the first ammendment might or might not be supposed to be saying. Ultimately, if they succeed in getting this law declared unconstitutional, it would seem to me that actually they have circumvented democracy.
Really, it seems to me that the proper way to reverse this law is to attempt to convince the electorate that the law is wrong, and have the democratically elected bodies reverse the law.
Well, just my opinion.
The Supreme Court evidently expects you to pay money to read it now, rather than waiting a few weeks/months. The SCofUS gives Alderson a SCotUS recording monopoly and first dibs on publishing. Based on other transcript prices, you would pay about $200. As discussed on Copyfight, a legal blog, Alderson doesn't allow purchasers to publish on the web. So while we can get next-day transcripts of late night TV shows, we're expected to wait weeks to read the arguments of our most influential legal employees. Thank you Aaron Swartz for putting this up.
The real issue in this case is not whether there are limits on copyrights; all parties concede this. The issue is who decides those limits. Is is the elected Congress or the appointed Court? This is why the case will be won by the government.
However, a window washer's widow does not continue to take in income from her late husbands previously washed windows.
No, but she does inherit the window washing business, including any inventory or tools, receivables, contracts, etc.
So she inherits the window washing business, but she doesn't get paid unless she washes windows too. Giving copyrights to offpsring and then giving them money every time a work that they did not create is used is like paying the daughter of the window washer each time someone looks through windows her father washed. Property can be inherited, yes, but intellectual property cannot. The offpsring of a great author/artist does not inherit their ancestor's thoughts or revelations, merely the inclination and environment to do the same.
I did read the whole thing btw.
Well, I dont think that either side truely 'won' their arguments. However, I say the government guy scored alot fewer points than our guy. The gov guy's arguments took much bigger hits; the justices saw some pretty big problems there.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Life + 70 is bullshit. For one thing, the vast vast majority of the profits from a work are reaped in the first few years it is on the market. Very very very few pieces of copyrighted material (be they music, books, movies, etc) will be making significant profit in 10 years.
Another problem is the undetermined time of when a copyright expires. "Life" could mean 1 year, 10 years, 50 years, or 100 years, depending on how old the creator is when (s)he copyrighted his/her work, and on how healthy (s)he is. Copyrights should be a fixed time period. If they expire before the author dies or after (s)he dies, too bad.
These increases in copyright length have not increased productivity and creativity. No artist decides whether or not to create something depending on if (s)he will still own the copyright in 10, 20, 30, 50, or 100 years from now. 10 years would be plenty of time for creators to make significant profit on their creations... Almost all software is a complete non-factor 5 years after creation (how many still buy Windows 95? or Windows 98?...what about Descent 2 ('98)?). Almost all movies are a complete non-factor in terms of profit 20 years after their creation...Jaws, one of the best thrillers of all time, isn't a significant profit factor anymore...it wasn't a factor in 1990 either. Most music is a complete non-factor (again, in terms of profit) 10 years after its creation. How many people still buy stuff by Morris Day And The Time? What about Paula Abdul?
10 years is plenty of time for any work to make a profit; if something's going to make a profit, 99.9% of that profit is going to be made in the first 10 years. The only people who have something to worry about are people like Disney who have an interest in maintaining ownership over some stupid fucking cartoon character. For the few lazy companies or authors that are still resting on the fruits of one creation 10 years ago, I say to damn bad.
My scheme provides plenty of incentive to both young authors and old one's alike. Old author's will still get 10 years of protection; if they die, then the remainder of that term is set out to their family in their will.
If anything, my scheme provides MORE incentive for authors to create. An author can't just rest on his or her previous accomplishments, as they will only make him or her money for 10 years. Thus, my system provides incentive for authors to create new works more continuously.
The other benefit of my system is that works transfer to the public domain relatively quickly. This allows new authors to make use of the works of old authors, adding additional innovations to them, without having to worry about copyright problems. This allows for more circular innovation; that is, innovation which builds atop of previous innovation.
As one additional note, hopefully, the Supreme Court will rule retroactive copyright extensions unconstitutional, thus preventing this perpetual copyright extension. Hopefully, they will also rule excessively long (i.e., life + yy) copyright terms unconstitutional, as they are effectively indefinate and not limited.
Aside from duration, the other thing which needs changing in our copyright system is the scope of copyrights. The scope of copyrights has been blown way out of due proportion (refer to discussion by Lessig in The Future of Ideas). Now-a-days, if you make a movie and have a Nike symbol in the background in a scene, you have to clear that with Nike. What bullshit. There are other areas where the scope of copyrights is blatantly unjustified, and should be radically scaled back.
Of course, the real problem is the bribery and soft-money under-handed deals going on between the RIAA/MPAA and the Congress/Senate. The RIAA and MPAA basically pay to have the laws they want.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Lawmeme has a poll on how you think it Eldred will come out. Read the transcript and vote.
The transcript is well worth reading.
The clarity of the court's questioning was impressive. They found holes in both Lessig's and Olson's arguments. Lessig was able to minimize the holes to some extent, while Olson appeared tired or unprepared. Justice Breyer summed up the economic issue by citing the brief of the amici economists to illuminate just how Congress has achieved the "delicate balance" between content producers and the public: the content producer gets 99.8% of the value and the public gets 0.2%.
I think it's pretty clear that the Justices who spoke find the copyright extension reprehensible and inconsistent with the Framers' goals. However, they will not strike it down unless there is a strong constitutional argument for doing so.
Even if we lose the case, I'm glad the issues have been put on the table so clearly.
Olsen's argument in favor of retroactive copyright extensions is telling in terms of who's side he's on.
The justices repeatedly hammered home the point that retroactive copyright extensions do not aid in the "creation of creative works" because works from, say, 30 years ago that benefit from an extension have already been created, so the law does not incent the old author if his copyright has been retroactively extended. (in fact, just the opposite... the old author is allowed to rest on his laurels given that he has another 30 years of royalties coming in, rather than write something new)
Olsen replies that the beneficiaries are the publishers and movie-distributors who gain and incentive to make more money from publishing given the retroactive extension... he's arguing that large businesses (not individual creators/inventors) are the ones who will benefit by congress's granting of monopoly power by retroactively extending copyrights.
What I don't understand is why noone made the argument that releasing works into the public domain will _encourage_ dissemination of works that were formerly copyrighted, because there will no longer be an hurdles to dissemination. The technology argument is a strong one-- that by applying copyright extensions retroactively, we _prevent_ the wide dissemination of information in an age where anyone can publish cheaply. We no longer need to provide extensions for large publishers because anyone can publish public domain works cheaply.
i was refuting the first argument with the second
that extending copyright and patent coverage doesn't do anything to increase the incentive to create. Really, count the number of books originally published in 1950, and count the number still being published 50+ years later. When you make this comparison, you'll realize that its such a tiny fraction of people being "helped" by these extensions, that they're more harm than good. How many of these people are actually companies?
For patents, what is the value of a patent on the technology used by the 8088 processor today? Other than the coolness factor of owning the patent, continuing to extend an outdated patent does nothing to further the progress of science. All the patent is good for is to make it illegal for me to build an 8088, even as part of learning to build processors, in the pursuit of making scientific progress in building better processors. (I just picked this out of my head, I don't know whether there is an existing valid patent on the 8088 or not)
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The frankness of these comments was great.
-Dave
For what it's worth, I just received my November edition of MIT's Technology Review in the mail a couple of days ago and there is a short opinion piece detailing the Eldred v. Ashcroft Supreme Court case. The article, by Seth Shulman, is very much against the extension of copyrights. To quote, "Congress stole the public's access ti its own cultural heritage by extending copyright protection to benefit a few big media companies. Fortunately, the public has the Constitution on its side." I hope he's right.
If it wasn't beneficial to existing creative entities to draw upon shared cultural history residing in the public domain, such creative entities wouldn't do so already.
As much as I don't want to accept that Mickey Mouse should enter the public domain, I can't help but notice that The Little Mermaid has a bit more to her than shellfish and a talking crab sidekick.
In my mind, the bottom line is that every dollar Disney has ever made mining the public domain is concrete proof that there's value to having one. One could make the argument that a creation as actively maintained as Mickey Mouse should be granted a special exemption -- and I might even buy that, based on the idea that there's no sense dragging 20th century creative works into obscurity (and make no mistake, that's where they'll go!) so that one work might keep its trademarkability.
But I don't think it's possible to argue the public domain is useless. If it was, Disney Wouldn't Keep Using It.
Pop Art didn't begin with Warhol.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
After reading the arguments, it's hard to imagine the court with rule totally in line with what the government wants...that only Congress gets to interpret what "limited times" means. In fact, it seems like they're agreeing that retroactive extensions SHOULD be wrong, but that it will upset too much existing law and cause major problems in the short term.
It's fairly obvious that Conress isn't unrestricted by the wording.. They can't simply decide that all works past and future have a copyright term of 999,999,999 years, but the government seems to be arguing that Congress does have that authority. It will be really interesting to see what the court decides on as a test to guarantee that future changes to copyright law both promote science and the creative arts and only last for a limited time.
I really get the gut feeling that in the future Congress will not have the authority to do retroactive extensions, and even this will be great news. At least we'll have unhindered access to most of our 20th century history and culture sometime in the 21st century. I may still be living when it's perfectly legal to stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial and recite the "I Have a Dream" speech without permission from MLK's decendents.
So what would be a good time limit for copyright?
If each generation is supposed to build on the creations of the previous generation, then a 20 year limit seems reasonable to me.
You write a book, and have a child on the same day. The book is now part of the culture that shapes the child's development. By the time the child grows old enough to contribute back to society (writing his own books), he should be able to draw on works that have been around his entire life.
So 20 years (or maybe 18) seems correct to me.
Well, but you want more than that. You want the right to copy verbatim other people's books, don't you?
,and Ginsberg at least, the concept of public domain is solely a "donation" by the existing copyright corporations, if not merely an artifact of a more primitive legal system. The concept that a corporation does not, or should not, own a copyright indefinitely is alien to them. (How you can "own" a right is beyond my legal comprehension.) They go on to conclude that retroactive copyright to existing works might be considered bad taste, but certainly within the rights of congress, by divine (or secular humanitarian) right (probably a purchased right), similarly as with electromagnetic spectrum, life, liberty, and property, to grant or withhold to groups or individuals.
The court, in this statement, is summarily dismissing the concept of public domain. To Chief Justice Reinquist, as well as Justices, Kennedy, Scalia, O'Conner
In short, all rights are granted by the state, and it's hereditary atheocracy, to whose citizens they owe no responsibilities. The state finds against Edred 9-0.
Well the arguments of the petitioners do not seem to be well prepared. However O'Connor is deeply wrong on making its starting argument on the fact that there were several extensions to the law. This can be seen on the History of Russian Law. While Russian and Anglo-Saxon judicial systems deeply differ in practices, on cases concerning the Constitution they are amazingly similar. The case is that if some law can be unconstitutional, but the law remains in force until someone questions it.
Frankly, there is something funny with Russian Constitution. The first one was created in 1918. It was a little clumsy and had several gaps but it was an historical difference between Imperial Russia and the new Russian state. Then came Soviet Union, its more reworked Constitution and finally the Stalin Constitution of 1936. It is a paradox but sincerly a fact - Stalin made the most perfect and complete Constitution of his time. Besides this corp of Law was so well elaborated that, for many years, it was taken as an example of how constitutions should be done.
However we all know Stalin as one of the biggest tyrants of History. Why? Because under the Constitution there were no laws supporting it. Stalin's Constitution was factually void because there was not a mechanism to check laws against it. The situation was so silly that, when Brezhnev changed the constitution, it did it by violating the old constitution and creating some piece of crap that some called American Constitution of the USSR (no offense people, but your Constitution is not useful for no one but you). Meanwhile, even this Propaganda Constitution was nearly void of action. Until 1993, Russian Constitutions were just pieces of paper. But in 1993, the Constitutional Court was formed and then many people started to give questions. And then, we started to see some cases very similar to O'Conner's arguments.
There were and still are laws that come from Soviet times. These laws were created, accepted, revised and changed many times. Some of these laws have more than 30 years life. Some of these laws are considered to be violating the Constitution. And you know what chaos is created? State organs that lived for tens of years under these laws, suddenly realize that they were violating the law and they should do things totally another way. So, sometimes we hear arguments that this law was here for so many years, everyone lived well with them and that there is no reason to change it. However the Constitutional Court is a final instance and no matter the pressure, it takes some rough resolutions.
Why I took this example? Well, for some, an outside view may make a new view to the situation. Also, I'm trying to show the possible consequences of what will happen if the system of constitutional control becomes void. Maybe the US will not have its Stalin, but something worse may happen.
Porbably the law has been broken since that nefarious year of 1790. It is possible that even the first Copyright law was voted with some violation of the Constitution. Maybe it was violated on one of these extensions. So, it is rather problematic for O'Connor to claim precedence of Law under this case. The Constitution is the Law that cannot accept precedence of any kind. A law either is constitutional or unconstitutional, no matter the acceptance, the revisions or the traditions (btw that's a position Russian Court clearly took on one matter). Frankly, that's an ideal that goes above nations and traditions, and that's the fundament for the existence of a Constitution. A Constitution can only term times in relation to itself, all other laws should go in accordance with constitutional terms no matter their lifetime, traditions or revisions. That's what some people call the dictatorship of the Fundamental Law. If it is turned void then other tiranny may substitute it.
Constitution is not the same body of law as the anglo-saxon traditional jurisprudence. If O'Connor will play with this, then either he will be burned to the stake or there will be many questions about the effectivness of the American Constitution.
For instance, I think 25 years with no extensions for a copyright is reasonable.
Reasonable, but also against the terms of the Berne Convention. Breaking the Berne treaty could get U.S. copyrights de-recognized all over the world.
Not that I agree with the details of the Berne Convention or anything...
Will I retire or break 10K?
The SCotUS gives a monopoly to Alderson on recording the arguments *in any format,* you can't take notes from the public gallery from what I've read. Alderson's transcripts are eventually put up on the SCotUS web site, but it takes a while. Meanwhile, Alderson allows other companies like Lexis Nexis to publish the transcripts for a fee, but the others cannot put it up on the web. From Copyfight's discussions the transcription went from LexisNexis to ??? to Aaron.
I don't agree with this practice and think that the SCotUS should set up a non-profit to take care of transcriptions. Westlaw and others can still format materials for their own publications.
Domo arigato. :>
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Please mod parent up!
You are missing something very simple: only RETROACTIVE extension is under fire. Yes congres can decide on new terms ONLY FOR FUTURE WORKS. Otherwise the law is OBVIOUSLY meaningles.
Reasonable, but also against the terms of the Berne Convention. Breaking the Berne treaty could get U.S. copyrights de-recognized all over the world.
Did we sign the earlier Rome convention? I think we did, in which case we could go back to the pre-1976, 36 years + renewable for 36 years by the author and still have U.S. Copyrights recognized the world over(Clause 7). Not that it matters, WTO members must recognize each others copyrights, and IMF loans always specify such things, so that covers just about everyone except Antarctica.
The Berne convention doesn't provide the same protection for Films, only 50 years after release. Just making that reform to US law could save a lot of films from decaying before they can be saved. For other works the convention specified life of author + 50 years, or 50 years for anonymous works, but countries don't have to extend copyrights if they signed the Rome treaty, and don't have honor a foreign country's copyright if it's expired there but not in your own country. So if a copyright expired in Angola after 20 years, we wouldn't have to extend it to life+70 here like we do with copyrights claimed in the US.
Lessig's arguement is that a change in the law from life+50 to life+70 is unconstitutional because it represents a pattern by congress which makes a copyright, in effect, perpetual. As one justice pointed out, if this is true then the '76 chage from 28 years to life+50 is also unconstitutional, and should be stricken as well. Lessigs arguement is weak because a) two extensions by the congress over the span of more than a hundred years is a weak basis to establish a pattern of behavior and b) Lessig cannot prove that congress in the future will continue the pattern. On the other hand life+70 is a limited amout of time which is perfectly in line with the constitution.
Vote for Pedro
Just because some fascist says it's so doesn't mean it's so.
(Not that Atlas Shrugged is a bad book, I enjoyed a lot of it, though I skipped the 70 boring pages in both readings, you know the ones.)
She makes a strong arguement that I should be compensated for my work, even if it means I have to kill some of the less brilliant in my way. But there is also the part where all the dweebs living off their inheritance and their talented minions just tune out and drop out of the broken system and join a commune based around their charismatic figurehead. So they're not really motivated by power/money anymore, but human qualities like higher ideals mixed with some adolescent spite and cluelessness.
Of course, unlike poor Rand, real Americans know that a plutocracy like we have now can be just as silly and inefficient as the democratic republic she preached against. Both are slightly more efficient than the English aristocracy based on inheritance and meritocracy that our revolution tried to prevent. (Sidebar: I read that Iowans actually manage to elect their representatives by not having the ruling party gerrymander the districts every 10 years, this small state has 4 competitive races, more than our 4 of our bigger states California, Texas, New York and Illinois combined.)
Find it here.
Yeah, right and I was sleeping. Good idea to post as AC while sleepy. Save that karma, hm. In any case I beg forgivnes!
One is, perhaps, allowed to sit with an attitude of reverential worship, basking in the glow of their fine arguments.
So you've seen people in the visitors' gallery, (not the press area), take notes? interesting if they realize that forbidding notes seems so, hmmmm what's the term... unconstitutional?
Only the Justice's names were added from memory. The rest, I'm pretty sure, is the official transcript.
When I was at the argument, they made two people in the audience stop taking notes. (They didn't confiscate the notebook, though.) Perhaps the thing you saw was before the guard caught the fellow, or from memory. But the rule is enforced.
You people are hopeless. Until recent changes to US copyright law, musical recordings were covered by common law copyrights, under which they never entered the public domain. The copyrights were granted in perpetuity. It is only very recently that federal copyright law has begun to be applied to music. So things are definitely, unarguably improving re music copyrights.
Lessig is just another legal loudmouth who has found adulation by playing upon public indignation over issues about which he is either ignorant or deliberatly deceptive. (I tend to suspect the latter) The current twenty year increase was granted to bring US copyright law into step with recent changes in EU law, so that US artists are able to benefit from the same protections domestically as they would have overseas. All previous extensions have been made either to bring the US into step with the international minimum for copyright law (in '78) or during the ten year deliberation over whether or not the US should adopt the international recommendations (nine temporary extensions from '68 to '78). The Eldred case will not be won because the Eldred case is stupid.
It's a trademark. Trademarks are granted under a completely different system, in perpetuity provided the company continues to defend the trademark. Disney owns the Mouse FOREVER. Lessig is a loudmouth, you are a dupe, and the only intellectual property of Disney's that is anywhere near entering the public domain is "Steamboat Willie". If you have any information regarding the incredibly lucrative industry Disney has built around maintaining control of this ancient animated film, I'd like to have it explained to me, because I don't think "Steamboat Willie" is quite the money spinner it once was.
I am dumbfounded at some of the Olsen's arguments. For example, his suggestion that an author might want to publish in Europe rather than the US if their work could be locked up by a publishing company for an additonal 20 years beginning 5 decades after their death. His explanation for why an author would want to do this was based on what a publisher would pay. But in an amicus brief it is shown that 99.8% of the total value of a work will be sucked from it under the current rules. Extending the copyright length any longer would give a mighty small return, so a publisher would have no economic incentive to offer the auther any more than 0.2% additional and would have to wait possibly as long as 140 years to recoup.
Contrary to the governments position, I can think of at least a couple of arguments why having a shorter copyright period than Europe would create an incentive for authors and other creative producers to come to America. They would have a richer culture from which to draw. They would have a public domain which contains cultural and scientific material 20 years closer to the contemporary thinking. They would have less to fear from holders of old copyrights who would try to extort money from an artist because he created a song or poem or novel or whatever that has vague similarities to one created some hundred odd years ago.
It makes me most sad to read this. The only reason that Berne has teeth is that the US fought long and hard to have it made a requirement for WTO membership.
Some information from previous slashdot posts I've made.
Fixing copyright
How large a fraction do you think the "so many cases" constitute?
Do you think it is large enough that people invest money and time in producing books, music or movies because it might become popular after a decade?
In the US, according to the constitution, copyright isn't a reward given to authors because they really deserve it for all their hard. It is a reward given to lure them into doing all the hard work. So the question is, is the chance of producing a "sleeper" large enough to lure additional people into creating stuff?
No Matter how much the left lives in denial, Rand's observation that Socailism, Communism, and Facism are mere variants of statism remains valid.
Nor was Rand a big fan of those who gained thier wealth by inheritance. In the "Objectivist Newsletter" she stated that heirs right to thier wealth does is not inate, but is derived from the right of the creater of the wealth to dispose of the properity that they created.
I Don't know where you dreamed up the part about the "dweebs living off their inheritance and their talented minions just tune out and drop out of the broken system" when there were only two people who inheirited money who moved to the valley, and they were invited for thier ability, NOT for thier wealth. Most of the villans in the Novel, including the primary antagonist James Taggart, were heirs with little ability.
If you managed to read "Atlas" from a neutral perspective rather than through leftist lenses you will find that Rand took as dim a view of Bussiness owners securing favors from the government as she did of any other group using the government as a means of securing privillages.
Rand was a champion of the indiviual against the state, and a proponant of severely limiting the powers of the state (Which is the reason the left hates her so much). She wasn't concerned with wheather a violation of a persons rights was the will of a leftist dictator, a rightist dictator, a group of wealthy heirs, or the will of the majority of the people. These were minor details compared to the fact that an indiviuals rights had been violated.
Nor was rand opposed to the idea of a "Democrtaic Republic", but to a Democratic Republic with unlimited powers. She clearly recognized that a Democarcy had murdered Socrates in the past and had abused the Rights of African Americans in her lifetime, and had commited these violations of basic human rights with the approval of the majority of the citizens of the "Democrtaic Republic".
Her ideal state was a Democratic Republic with severely limited powers over the indiviuals. One that was limited to providing a military as protection against foriegn invasion, a police force as protection against criminals, and a court system as a means of settling disputes between citizens.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Potential modern Shakespeares get to work from and adapt Shakespeare's works the same way Shakespeare did those of his predecessors (and contemporaries!).
I am admittedly not a lawyer. Are you a writer?
DNA just wants to be free...
Ordinarily I wouldn't respond to a troll this strong, but you introduce some legitimate information.
True -- but those are (P) copyrights applying only to a specific performance/recording. Just because Hogan Holler and the Hometown Hipsters record a Palestrina tune or "Happy Birthday" doesn't mean I suddenly start owing them royalties if I perform either one myself.
A (P) copyright only limits what I can do with their particular recording.
Until you get into things like sampled music (which is pretty new) I don't think moving (P) copyrights under the more limited federal copyright law really carries much benefit. Meanwhile, (C) copyrights on music (which apply to all performances of a song) have been getting more oppressive as they get longer.
I used "Happy Birthday" as an example earlier; it's more than 100 years old (the melody composed in 1859, original lyrics published in 1893), and its singing has since been adopted as the standard birthday ritual in our culture.
However, AOL Time Warner still holds the (C) copyright on it (the modern form of the lyrics was copyrighted in 1935). This is why restaurant chains often have their own birthday songs -- they can't legally perform "Happy Birthday" without paying royalties.
Sure, it's fine if you just sing it at home or anywhere private -- as long as it's sufficiently "underground" that it won't be considered a public performance. De minimis non curat lex...
There's a point at which copyright stops supporting an artist and becomes a tax on cultural participation.
"Because everyone else is doing it" is not a valid argument for why something is safe, let alone beneficial.
DNA just wants to be free...
I may still be living when it's perfectly legal to stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial and recite the "I Have a Dream" speech without permission from MLK's decendents.
You can today; Project Gutenberg has it as dream10.txt.
According to Michael Hart:
This speech has been through years of court cases to determine,
in various jurisdictions, whether it was ever copyrighted, and
the United States court system recently laid down their rulings
that this speech had never been copyrighted, since at that time
it was required to post a copyright notice on printed copies to
be distributed, and this speech was distributed without such an
extra (C) Copyright notice as was then required in the US. The
US revised this law in 1989, an no longer requires such notice.
The text you point out was published in March 1999. Unfortunatlely, the court case it refers to was reversed on appeal in November 1999 (Full text of appeal decision here.) I can't find any records of CBS taking this to the Supreme Court. I would assume CBS just shelled out some blood money after losing.
But that's not even the point. Copyright law is so incredibly confusing there is simply no way of knowing what is or isn't in the public domain. As this case shows, something that was public domain in March 1999 becomes private property again in November 1999. What happens when CBS or ABC realizes they lost something juicy that was released prior to 1923 and decides to get it back by changing the laws retroactively again?
I find it very troubling that MLK's speech would be licensed for use in commercials by his heirs. But, of course, they've systematically pimped MLK's legacy for profit.