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Beyond Eldred v. Ashcroft
I thought I'd grab up some of the many commentaries and responses to the Eldred decision. If you read only one of these links, see Lessig's blog. Jack Balkin, another law professor who contributed to the case, is discussing it in his blog. The NYTimes has two distinct news stories on the decision (NYT1, NYT2), plus a biting editorial about the decision. Copyright scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan has a piece in Salon. The LA Times posts one of the very few stories to present the decision in a positive light. Reason is one of several to mock the mouse.
Thanks for these links. Hopefully they'll do something to alleviate the sour mood most have been in since the decision.
Don't let depression get you down -- take the fight to the legislative branch!
I stand in a sort of perverse awe, trying to grasp the 'reasoning' of Justice Ginsburg's opinion...utterly perplexed as to how six other justices signed their names to it when they had the exact text of how the ruling should have come down by Justice Breyer's hand.
I want there to be some good that comes out of Eldred, but right now I'm very disillusioned. So, I'm following Lessig's advice and turning to blogging. Let your opinions be known.
-R
Million Dollar Duck (1971) A fairy tale comes to life in this wild Disney comedy about a family whose pet duck, after being exposed to radiation, acquires the ability to lay eggs with solid gold yolks, sending the U.S. Treasury Department into a tizzy. Stars Dean Jones, Joe Flynn, Sandy Duncan, Tony Roberts.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
20-Year Extension of Existing Copyrights Is Upheld
A Corporate Victory, but One That Raises Public Consciousness
The Coming of Copyright Perpetuity
Is sharing a journal of all your daily thoughts and emotions the best strategy to employ in order to win a court case as a lawyer?
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Thank God we're not in Soviet Russia then...
_
Best Windows Cursors Ever
What boggles the mind is how little this really benefits the corporations. With rare exceptions (Snow White, Happy Birthday, and Gershwin), what percentage of content revenues come from old material? For record companies, a good year comes from a big hit created that year, not the old stuff.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
The LA Times Article was a gag-inducing personal piece. I loved how the law is supposedly for little people and their legacy:
To quote the woman in the article, about her grandfather's films:
"I'm happy that people won't be able to take his art and show it in a way that would diminish or hurt it, or put it in a way that he wouldn't have wanted," she said.
From what I can tell, she's mainly worried about people selling tapes on EBay. How horrible. People VIEWING AN ACTORS FILMS! I'm sure that's the last thing he wanted.
I'm glad this woman cares for his legacy. I commend her work. But in the bigger picture, her win is the loss for many of us. I'm sure in 20 years, when the companies go to congress asking for a longer copyright extention, there will be some other justifications.
But in the end, I'd rather see a legacy for all. No man stands tall except on the shoulders of others.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Except for Justices Breyer and Stevens, the Supreme Court has sold out. They have given their Nihil Obstat to perpetual copyright, and ignored the Constitution, no matter what they say in Justice Ginsburg's majority opinion. We can expect another Copyright Term Extension Act every twenty years. Citing this precedent, the Supreme Court will do nothing about it. I guess I should have expected as much from the Supreme Court that decided to throw out the results of the 2000 election, and coronate Bush.
Soon, no one but historians will know what the public domain even was. We are all the public domain, and have all been robbed. An idea once expressed belongs to us, and is only on loan to copyright holders. Now, the loan can last forever. Copyrights frequently do not even go to the artists, scientists, and inventors who do the actual creating, but to parasites who exploit them. From now on, as the public domain, we should all engage in "piracy" as a form of civil disobedience, and take back what rightfully belongs to us. To hell with unjust laws that the corporations bribed Congress into passing, and bribed 7 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices into upholding. We, the public domain, must declare them null and void, and ignore them.
Imagine that the perpetual copyrights the corporations have created always existed. The King James Version of the Bible would be copyrighted. To print copies of it, you would need permission from the British Crown, or at least the Church of England, and would also have to pay them royalties. The KJV is so widely published because it is in the public domain, and anyone who wishes to may make copies of it. Now, nothing created after 1923 may ever belong to us all in this manner again.
It seems that Government of the people by the people and for the people has perished from the earth. We are left with government of the people by the corporations and for the corporations. I challenge Congress or the Supreme Court to prove me wrong.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Result? My spirit will haunt violators of my work, as I hold a copy of the DMCA over their heads and haunt their dreams.
DMCA + Eldred Case = All your works are belong to us. Soon enough "fair use" will go away too...then what?
No, but they've already lost the court case. What's needed now is for the general public to become more aware of the issues at hand and a journal is one way of doing that.
...by Seven of Nine. Resistance was futile.
That's Bigboo TAY! TAY!
Hey maybe you can all use one of them fancy time-reversal antenna to pick up the copyrighted material before its copyrighted and copyright it first for the public domain then you will really screw with the mouse, etc. It's so crazy it might just work.
Lessig in his blog sounds almost like there's nothing to be done. But I think there is, in fact, a lot -- just maybe not in the USA. The real battlefront is in Europe now, where a shortened copyright term of 50 years has held up since 1985. Is it in danger? This is tied with the bigger question of whether Europeans allow Bruxelles to become a business lobbying turf just like Washington.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
When your really think about it, the fact that they are trying to prevent stories from enterring the public domain is even more hypocritical.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
Suzanne Lloyd has spent the last four years refurbishing her legacy: 26 films made by her grandfather, silent film star Harold Lloyd. She has spent millions on digitally restored prints and full orchestrations.
now i'm sure suzzie has worked hard for her digitally remastered films, but just because they were grandpa's films doesn't mean they're hers. it's been said over and over and over again. usefull art and science... to the creator... for limited times... NOT to the creator's grandchildren for decades to come for century old media.
The US is only 5% of the population of the world. The rest of the world will be unencumbered by that silly decision; and the creative work will continue unhindered elsewhere in the world, and no one will notice. After all, there aren't very much creative stuff coming from the USA, most especially from Disney...
I snail-mailed and e-mailed my Congresscritters yesterday. The short version of it is:
Something like that...
-l
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What has the congress done for the people... Most of the recent laws that were passed are all in someway or other benefits only the corporations. Looks like they are taking over the congress.
The chances of a pro-Eldred decision from the Court were always slim. The contest has always needed to be waged in the political arena: Convince enough people that this issue is so important that it ought to determine which Congressional candidates they vote for. That will be very difficult -- most Americans have more pressing needs than shortening copyright duration -- but it's the only way to go.
(It's telling that the Court went out of its way to explicitly state that the Constitution's grant of powers to Congress doesn't mean that Congress will always legislate wisely. Obviously, the Court is telling us that they won't declare a law unconstitutional just because lots of people think it's a bad law. They're right about that. )
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
ii'm not suprised that there has been no media coverage. the only thing heard is "disney won" echoing from the mouth of ABC/disney news pawns. http://www.cjr.org/owners/disney.asp here is a list of all the other things in the conglomerate. this site is great when the man keeps you down.
That is the power we have, a power that is woefully un-utilised. Look at the power slashdotting has over websites that are unprepared. Imagine if that were translated into letters to representatives, letters to the editors, and dare I say it, votes. 'If we don't hang together, we shall surely hang seperately.'
Internet now included in publication ban
Like all laws, copyright law is a contract between members of the public. The agreement of copyright is that when someone creates something original, the rest of us are obliged to respect the copyright and pay fees for copies of the work for a limited time. At the end of that time, we the people will own the work.
It's the same as when you sign a mortgage contract. You agree to pay $xxx/month for 30 years and then the house belongs to you. It would be insane for Congress to come along 28 years later and decide that, because that house is still valuable to the mortgage company, your 30-year mortgage is suddenly an 80-year mortgage. The contract you signed 28 years ago is void, and instead of 2 more years of payments ahead of you, you have 52, then they'll do the same thing.
Yes, that would be insane. But the Congress doesn't think so and the Supreme Court doesn't think so. And that, my friends, is "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," as Americans accept it today.
Now, nothing created after 1923 may ever belong to us all in this manner again.
You forgot about one of the other milestones of freedom
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Here's an idea: I've got to wonder if anything that Disney/RIAA has used something that if applied to their own greed would place them in violation. In other words, before fourty years ago the right was twenty years (or whatever it was). Find someone's work that fell into the public domain and should have "fallen back" if they had the same rules that the companies today have granted themselves. After all, it's only fair that they deserve the same benefit and attempt to sue the hell out of companies for "legalized theft." I know it's a long shot, but it would be great to see Disney's greed bite back.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Like the one where the shrink finishes examining Minnie, and comes out and tells Mickey that he can't find any evidence that she is mentally ill. Mickey then says, "Aw, shucks, doc, I didn't say she was crazy, I said she was fucking Goofy! ha HA!" (drumroll)
You are not the customer.
1st off, the moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that not everybody can use something at the same time, not from monopolies granted by a king in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy
2nd, copyrights are a fraud in that they don't help creators that much. Often you'll hear it cried from the rooftops that the artist is king and that anybody who finds a need to copy is a self centered brat that offers nothing of value to society. Perhaps this is intentional as to distract from the fact that for every artist that makes it big, 10000 are in dirt poverty.
3rd, they are worthless as a free market property right. If I said I had no incentive to grow apples unless I could plant them in your yard, or I said that I had no incentive to grow cotton without owning slaves on the plantation - people would see it as the worthless arguments that they are, but if I say I have no incentive to bring things into the public domain without a copyright monopoly - they just take it on faith, they don't even question it. If the govt gave someone a monopoly on growing peaches and then called it free market because he could buy and sell shares of that monopoly - people would see it for what it is, a fraud. The same is true with copyrights. Since peoples activities have a natural limit in supply and demand, and not information, it is the activities that should be equated to market value and not information.
4th, information is so easy to copy and manipulate that we are quickly reaching a point where either all of it must be controlled or none of it. The copyright industries know that and so should you.
There was a long article in the NY Times earlier this month (relating to the expiration of copyrights in Europe) stating that record labels made significant portions of their revenue from stuff issued before the 90's--
For instance, if I rememeber correctly, the label that owns the rights to Maria Callas's recordings gets 15% of their revenues from her alone... And she's been dead for decades
For many film, record and book companies, it's the back list that provides the strong base to their revenues--a hit this year may turn out profits, but that's only because the stuff they did 20+ years ago is keeping the lights on
The "other" CTEA challange is Golan v. Ashcroft which has been on hold while Eldred v. Ashcroft was being decided.
The CTEA took some works which were previously in the Public Domain in the US and restored their Copyright. Golan, a conductor, lost the use of some compositions which were formerly in the PD in the US. This case will now procede.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The job of the Supreme Court is to implement and enforce the constitution. This document states that Congress has the authority to protect copyrights for a 'limited time'. Virtually any amount of time, provided it is explicitly named, can properly be called limited.
Whether this law is wise or not is another matter. If the Constitution prohibited Congress from passing unwise laws, the Supreme Court would be striking down laws as fast as Congress could pass them.
If you don't like it, the proper thing to do is complain to your representative in Congress. It these guys thought they'd lose even 1% of the vote by doing this, they'd turn around so fast you wouldn't see it.
NYT1 (20-Year Extension of Existing Copyrights Is Upheld)
NYT2 (A Corporate Victory, but One That Raises Public Consciousness)
Disney is on the vanguard of creativity. from their hits beauty and the beast all the way to alladin, they have created nothing but original, cutting edge entertainment
Allow me to summarize this "biting editorial":
1) The Supreme Court's decision that extensions to copyright were constitutional really just favored copyright holders. Holy fuck, no kidding?
2) Even the defense didn't really think that the laws Congress passed would be declared unconstitutional, but they still tried.
3) The public benefits from public domain. Also, an unsupported assertion about how the public domain is a "great democratic seedbed of artistic creation" is put forward. A fine sentiment, whatever, still nothing "biting".
4) The author concludes that this is a setback for the public domain, and adds some doom and gloom nonsense about how it's the beginning of the end for it.
Come on, people. Is this what "biting" has come to mean these days? No fucking way.
"Biting" would have been to call Lawrence Lessig a bumbling idiot for presenting such a ridiculously weak case to the Supreme Court. "Biting" would have been to further berate him for his self-serving commentary that basically boils down to "well, gosh, I knew I wouldn't win but I had to try. Ain't I such a great person for trying? Now, it's your turn. You go fix the problem."
What a chode. Opponents of the DMCA and other copyright extensions had a great chance to make a compelling argument about the benefits of the public domain, and Lessig fucks it up. How many similar cases do you think will make it before the Supremes now? That's right, ZERO. It's called a precedent and it now works against us. Thanks, Lawrence.
Moving on to other potential targets, a "biting" editorial could also have noted that Disney, who has drawn heavily from public domain, is downright reprehensible for refusing to give anything back.
Similarly "biting" remarks could have indicated that the Disney films which drew most heavily from public domain material (Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid) have been enormously successful, while those which come from the febrile, impotent imaginations of the hacks at Disney (Pocahantas, many others ad nauseaum) tend to do quite poorly.
One might also "bitingly" observe that if Disney would just throw these harebrained plots back into the public domain pool and let them profit from others' efforts for a decade or so, by the time Disney ripped them off once more they might be halfway watchable.
Such a "biting" editorial could also have targeted those jackals in Congress who routinely sell out the public's interest in these matters to Disney and other megacorporations. Fuck you, Senator Hollings.
I prefer a little more bite in my "biting" editorials, thanks all the same.
Here's a tip, Michael: if you're going to throw in snide, jackass remarks and unsolicited observations, at least do everyone the courtesy of making them reasonably intelligent.
"Biting editorial" my gangrenous left testicle.
Like with computer security, you are not going to win a lawsuit like this based on keeping your strategy a secret. Although you give your opponents more time and information from which to formulate an attack, the process of discussing the approach is likely to expose flaws before those flaws can do damage in a court of law. No?
Cindy Webb, author of the Filter column on washingtonpost.com, surveyed the media landscape in her column on Thursday.
The NYTimes editorial characterizes public domain as an experiment, and criticizes the decision for making it likely to end. The reality is the opposite: property rights to ideas and expressions were an experiment. The natural law is that you can only take property if by "taking" property, you deprive the owner of the use of the property. For example, if I steal your car, or your money, they are not available to you to use. Except in the most colloquial sense, I can't "steal" an idea, or a tune, or a movie plot, because doing so does not remove it from the use of its originator. It is a shame that we Americans on the whole appear to have basically come to believe that our best interest is served by simply giving up any hope of having individual Rights and Liberties in favor of having the government infantilize us - sorry, care for us. Bleah!
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Mod me down for repeating what people have pointed out already in the thread about the decision, but certain things are worth repeating:
Maybe it's time to start lobbying. The CTEA is going to stand, but there shouldn't be another installment, and another one, and another one.
I have no problem with the Mouse. (Well, I do: I hate those warmed-over cutesy good-vs-evil fairy-tale fun-for-the-whole-family romanti-comedy-adventure-musicals Now-Available-On-Disney-DVD. Should I ever be forced to choose between seeing the latest Disney Animated Feature or an Adam Sandler / Rob Schneider "holiday" movie, it will be the Sandman and the Robmeister. But I digress.) I have no problem with Disney keeping the copyright on the damn Mouse forever and a day as long as they are actively behind it. If copyright is supposed to be an incentive for creating new works and they continue to create new Mouse droppings, fine, just don't expect me to watch it.
Copyrights are currently worse than submarine patents. You have to apply for a patent and once it's granted there is a list and it's theoretically possible to keep track of who owns what patents. Not so with copyright. A work may be out of print and unavailable and there may be no commercial interest behind it, but it's still protected. There's no obligation for the copyright holder to respond to inquiries or keep track of the work. But should you decide to do something with it beyond fair use, the copyright holder can then come forward and sue. This doesn't strike me as right.
So the radical proposal is this (it's never going to fly in this form, but you get the idea): copyright terms are 14 years by default, with an option to register and renew it on an annual basis afterwards. Registration would create an inventory just like a list of patents and trademarks. Renewal fees would be set at a certain minum high enough to serve as a deterrent against gratuitous copyright filings; fees for commercially highly successful works would be higher.
Oh, and a boycott of the music and film industry is not going to work, so forget about that right away. In the worst case, if CD and DVD sales were starting to drop, this would be attributed to online piracy and lobbying efforts would increase to find a legislative "solution" for that.
What I can never get over is how incredibly inexpensive it is for these companies to massively influence legislation. From another excellent Reason article, linked from that marsupial interview:
Say it with me in your best Dr. Evil accent: "One *thousand* dollars!". And from Disney's bank account? Boy, that's gotta smart. For that matter, why are the legislators and parties affected in the least by these paltry sums? They may not be paid huge salaries, but they can't be that broke. If this is all it takes to get laws passed, perhaps all we need to do is take up a collection. Even I can afford $1000 for some juicy bill.
(The same thing impressed me with the Salt Lake City / IOC scandal - so you can get your own Olympics for a few pizzas now?).
First - The Sierra Club had it's biggest membership when James Watt was Secretary of the Interior under Reagan.
Two - even though we just had mid-term elections, make it a political issue for upcoming elections. Presidential candidates are already lining up. Send emailto their campaigns and find out where they stand on the issue. Or, go back and see how they voted on this issue (and the DMCA).
It's the weekend. Beer is calling.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
While it appears that any effort to repeal the Sonny Bono Copyright Act will be an uphill battle there is one way to give ourselves a vibrant creative commons.
Artists, we can place our works under the public domain, FDL or a creative commons license that allows for redistribution and modification. If we can't count on our collective governments to stand up to the entertainment industry then we'll have to build our own open body of work much as the Open Source and Free Software movements have. There is already a very good head start available in the way of material available on the internet to download which is in the public domain.
G. Washington on Government "it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
I can't wait till the cool people (eldred, lessig, etc) win and .cc is made a domain name extension for creative commons!!
At this point and for the near future, I suspect that getting the copyright situation corrected will be pretty much impossible. But maybe there is something we can hope for, a form of copyright reform that doesn't cross Disney too badly.
Proposed: The owner of a copyright must be actively engaged in "use" (publication, distribution, derivation, etc) of the work, or it goes into the public domain after a period of 14 years. (The original copyright term)
Unfortunately it "allows" Disney to keep their works effectivly eternal. But at least it minimizes collateral damage. Disney's IP isn't that big a chunk, it's all of the other stuff that gets taken out of the public domain in Disney's quest to keep Steamboat Willie that's the real crying shame.
Really, my suggestion to be an official sanction for the "abandonware" concept and applies it more generally. In Disney's interest, it keeps works going into the public domain for them to harvest. To Disney's dismay, it forces them to do something about, "Song of the South." OTOH, it also gives them an out, because it lets them release it and pass the blame onto new copyright law.
From what I understand, copyright law allows libraries to copy during the last 20 years of the copyright. IMHO, there are two problems with this. First off, we don't really know when the last 20 years are, because none of us doubt that there will be another extension when Steamboat Willie's copyright next threatens to expire. Second, nobody is served by allowing a work to languish for the extra 50-70 years under allowed under current law, compared to my proposal. The public isn't served, and since the work has been abandoned, the copyright holder isn't being served, either. Perhaps we can question exactly *how* "promotion of the arts and sciences" are being served by eternity-minus-one-day copyrights on active works, but on inactive works it clearly isn't.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Please, Slashdot nerd - re-evaluate your life. Read these lyrics (song name:Loveless by The Crash)
Do you feel anything, heartless?
Do you love anyone, loveless?
Oh yeah
Take me, enjoy me well
Then throw away my shell
Ooh ah ah, now we're finished
Ooh yeah yeah, it's all over
Hey, heartless, we're finished
Go fool me, wear me out, heartless
Oh yeah
Empty all of me
Then call me your baby
Ooh ah ah, now we're finished
Ooh yeah yeah, it's all over
Hey, heartless, we're finished
But she lives in the heart
And she lives out of love
Yeah, she lives in the heart
Ooh ah ah, now we're finished
Ooh yeah yeah, I hope we're finished
Hey, heartless, it's over
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, said the ruling was "a victory for consumers everywhere" because "copyright, whose aim it is to provide incentive for the creation and preservation of creative works, is in the public interest."
In other news, Adolf Hitler claimed that the Holocaust was a great victory for citizens everywhere because killing innocent Jews, for the purpose of cleaning the human gene pool, is in the public interest.
Granted, the fact that the **AAs have a tremendous amount of power in other countries, but as recent rulings in other countries have shown, their courts are more willing to protect the rights of individuals over the rights of corporations. So while we may lose the battle here in the States, the "world war" may have a far different outcome.
"Blog" isn't any more of a word than "zpolit" and "phthoom". Jesus, michael, you're an editor for this site! Have some respect for your work and please stop using whatever the trendy neologism of the day is!
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse, are also trademarked and therefore can never be used as long as Disney continues to maintain that Trademark.
Then why can I buy copies of Bugs Bunny cartoons at Walgreens? The front of the package reads "Bugs Bunny"; the back has language to the effect "This video cassette contains copies of public domain works and is not sponsored by Warner Bros. Pictures, the former copyright holder of these works." As long as a publisher goes out of his way not to use trademarks in such a way as to confuse buyers of the origin of the product, the publisher's use of another's trademarks tends to be fair.
Will I retire or break 10K?
seriously.
If you really want to win this battle, we have to hurt the people behind the corporations. It's impossible for people to fight corporations. Corporations have more money, corporations will never die. The best way to fight corporations is to realize that they are made up of people, and to attack the people instead.
Lets bring law suits against Michael Eisner, lets tag his house with graffitti, lets let all the air out if his tires, lets beat him into a bloody pulp in the middle of disneyland.
When he gets tired of getting the shit kicked out of him everyday by a mob of angry PEOPLE, he'll change his mind.
Same goes for all the other evil corporations.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
So, I guess what I'm asking, off-topic, is why the hell is Disney not re-issuing movies that were actually very good, instead of releasing crap every 4 months?
Actually, Disney does re-issue movies on VHS and DVD every few months. But Eisner still isn't getting any of my business unless and until Congress repeals the Bono Act.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually if you read the majority opinion, you'll see that the court quite clearly recognized that they don't want to allow eternal coprights. And that this was just a measure to bring US law in synch with the EU.
If 20 years from now, this comes up again, guarantee that someone will point back on the earlier decision.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Only a socialist mind would hold that a copyright should automatically be bequeathed unto the masses after an arbitrary date.
If I create a work, I (and my heirs) should have exclusive rights to it, ad infinitum.
Anything else is... socialism!
-- BYTEBuG
People with moderate views about intellectual property could take a leaf out of the playbook of more radical groups like the FSF and Creative Commons. Why not come up with a license that encodes reasonable intellectual property claims?
For example, instead of delivering work immediately into the public domain (as the GPL effectively does) or keeping it perpetually out of the public domain (as a standard copyright effictively does) such a license could deliver works into the public domain after say 20 years, or whatever.
What is the advantage? Intellectual property released under such a license would have almost the same economic value as intellectual property that is not released under such a license (as many have noted the vast majority of copyrighted works make all of their proffits within a short period of time after release) which means that authors would not lose much, if anything by releasing under such a license. Why is that such a good thing? Because if they have little to lose then it ought to be very easy to presure them into doing it.
That's the problem. If Congress wanted to exempt Disney or a few others from copyright expiration, they could have done it with a specific law addressing lucrative works. Or they could have instituted a general copyright extension that requires registration. What they have done instead is like turning off the Internet to stop file sharing.
Ron Eldred was really good in Black Hawk Down. Great movie.
Inventions are not even covered by Copyrights. They are covered by Patents
How about making an analogy between copyright law and patent law? How about making an analogy between monopolies granted under Title 17, U.S. Code, and monopolies granted under Title 35, United States Code?
Patents which is handled by the USPTO not the Library of Congress (as copyrights are).
How about making an analogy between monopolies regulated by the LoC and monopolies regulated by the USPTO?
Are you delusional or just trolling at +1?
How about C. making an analogy?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Thank god someone else has said it. I gave up because no one is listening. "Blog" sounds like a bloody caveman word. "Ugh! Me blog you crag ooga unf!"
But then again, this is Slashdot, who pride themselves on being with all the hippest new lingo (WiFi, Bayesian, blog, etc).
A small correction: Dodie Smith wrote "The One Hundred and One Dalmatians." It doesn't belong in the public domain column, but neither is it entirely a Disney original.
Another of Smith's well-known novels is "I Capture the Castle," which was recently reprinted after J.K. Rowling listed it among her favourites.
just do what they tell you so that we won't get in trouble. Violence is not an answer. Corporations are why we have nice things. you should live in an anarchist world and not have things like /. and computers if it weren't for corporations raping us all the time. learn to enjoy it.
What's wrong with this decision? Why should copyright holder have to ever surrender their works?
John Kerry is a Joke!
Make a t-shirt... Pleeeaaaase. You heard it first here.
there's no place like ~
Two editorials today get it right:
Opting Out of Hypermass
and this one, which ran in the printed edition but on the WSJ site is only for paid subscribers, but appears for free on Yahoo! (go figure)
0.2% For The Mouse
And that this was just a measure to bring US law in synch with the EU.
And that this will be the loophole used to get the next term extension passed in the States.
Several of the European Union states do not have constitutional prohibitions on perpetual copyrights. If Rep. Mary Bono teams up with MPs and lobbyists in the EU, we'll see a bill introduced in the EU Parliament in 2005 that extends EU copyrights to life plus 100 years, and then Bono will claim that a corresponding "Chastity Bono Act of 2008" is necessary in the United States.
In fact, perpetual copyright has already happened in Britain. A children's hospital called GOSH receives a royalty every time "Peter Pan" or a derivative thereof is copied or performed in the UK, even by Eisner's company. The British Parliament could get away with this because the UK doesn't have a monolithic constitution with a provision prohibiting perpetual copyrights.
I find Marybono no less harmful to the public than Marlboro.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"As we read the framers' instruction, the copyright clause empowers Congress to determine the intellectual property regimes that, over all, in that body's judgment, will serve the ends of the clause..."
Perhaps she meant to say the end of the clause. That would make more sense in my mind, since Congress seems more disposed to disposing of it than 'serving its ends.'
This is a call to civil disobedience.
And this is a response to your call. It violates the Bono Act and no other laws.
Will I retire or break 10K?
At least we as taxpayers will get a rebate in state/federal taxes on the profits of Disney et al.
:)
Oh wait, the administration wants to abolish dividend taxes. And corporate taxes. Never mind.
The profits from these works is indeed substantial, all the more so if this Sonny Bono Act bootstraps Disney into the next round of copyright extensions less than 20 years down the road. I mean, will it really sound so unreasonable then to raise the corporate 95 years to 125? Mickey to the next millenium!
I'm sitting here to research our kitchen faucet valve (which is jammed, and remarkably has 30 parts) and saw that staid Kohler now has a Disney Collection. I can't wait until Mickey is legally required on all products.
Genetically engineer a plant to produces fruit or tubers that look like the mouse. Scatter its seeds all over America.
Ok, I am not a lawyer and I am not even an American so I'm talking out of my ass here but:
1. Before the SBCTEA (Sony Bono Copyright Terms Extension Act) copyrighted works were owned for a duration of N years (for simplicity) and then it was public domain (owned by everybody) from N+1 to the end of time.
2. Since the SBCTEA the "contract" (a very solid contract, it was signed in a law) about the copyrighted works that were produced before its enactment has changed and twenty years that were by this contract owned by the public domain (everybody) have been "seized" by the government* and given to somebody else.
3. The US constitution says "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." (fifth amendment)
Unfortunately, the government has grabbed public property (public domain) for a private use so it probably doesn't apply but couldn't there be a way to argue something along the line that by taking these twenty years out of the public domain they have to compensate the American public for the value of what they have taken because it wasn't theirs?
In other word, they give N years to some private party and the rest to everybody else and then they go back on their word (only talking about retroactive extensions here) and take back twenty years that they had given to everybody and give it to the private parties, shouldn't they compensate everybody else for doing that???
Wouldn't it be worth a try to nail them on that? Imagine, given that they would have to compensate you justly (that is, for at least the amount what they have taken was worth) they would have to compensate you for each time you purchase a license to that copyright (say, a tape or DVD of Star Wars Episode IV) or, to see it in another fashion, these works (from 1926 to 1996 or whenever the SBCTEA was enacted) would be tax deductible
Even if this doesn't work (quite likely), if it went far enough (say, it wasn't thrown out of court from the go) it would be a good way to attract the public to the fact that a retroactive copyright extension is the government indirectly giving their money to big companies.
Ok, somebody will probably point out why this is stupid but at least I will have it out of my chest.
*It can't be argued to be government's property so they can do whatever they want with it given that they have to put copyrighted stuff they write in the public domain because they can't own it themselves.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
"Tarzan" is in the public domain.
No it's not, which is why all "Disney's Tarzan" material says "© Burroughs/Disney".
Barrie's "Peter Pan" is still under copyright in the European Union, and Disney must pay royalties for every Region 2 "Peter Pan" or "Return to Never Land" disc sold in the EU.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Seems like this is one of the issues ./ users care a lot about though general public doesn't.
Why don't ./ users organize a voting bloc?
Like a third party. except it doesn't necessarily field any ego-bloated candidate like you know who. During elections, we vote/organize for republican or democrat candidate depending on which candidate would or has voted on our concerns.
It can be particularly important for tie breaker elections. But in general it's a good way of making ./ views heard by politicians.
One concern is fraud. But since this is not real voting, it should be no big deal.
This battle needs to be fought in congress, not in the courts. 7-2 isn't going to change to 4-5 any time soon. Let's start a PAC and start changing some votes already...
$G
-- $G
I've got to wonder if anything that Disney/RIAA has used something that if applied to their own greed would place them in violation.
Disney's Pinocchio was released one year after the European copyright on Collodi's novel expired. Disney's The Jungle Book was released one year after the European copyright on Kipling's novel expired and eleven years after the U.S. copyright on Kipling's novel expired. Since then, copyright terms have been extended by far more than that.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Artists, we can place our works under the public domain, FDL or a creative commons license
That won't help artists in the face of precedents such as Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs (learn about it here or here), which make even "original" works potentially infringing. "So what if you published your work under a free public license? We claim that your work is a derivative of our work, and we have 10,000 times more money than you have to defend our claim in court."
Will I retire or break 10K?
There are four major candiadates for worst bas guy here, and I'm curious who would pick which (and i have my own ideas):
Now, whatever you think of the Court, they're the only one in the list that didn't act of financial interest. My guess is the majority simply did not take the interests of the petitioners seriously, and vaguely relied on what's left of fair use to sweep up.
The Disneys greedily acted in the interest of profit, which is exactly what they're supposed to do in capitalism; their shareholders could rightly toss them out for taking a pass on billions in revenue. Arguably they only exploited the opportunities available, assuming they didn't outright bribe anyone. Remember, soft money regulation is a recent accomplishment.
The President
Sorry to be cynical (unlike Congress), as no one has mentioned it, but it did not hurt that the act was named after a tragically dead Congressman/singer and sponsored by his widow.
I blame the Congress first, last, and foremost. It should have been obvious that the extension was not in the public interest. I don't know how well anyone lobbied against the act, but the politicians should have taken a close look at a decision involving billions of dollars and backed by a handful of very wealthy sponsors. That Congress has so many members makes it difficult to focus on whom to blame. That they passed the act by voice vote (I didn't know you could do that) during a time of national distraction was a craven and venal act.
I'm not saying I'm surprised Congress didn't do a better job. Which brings us to the vital need to get money out of politics.
So there. Talk amongst yourselves.
Wow. Thanks for pointing that out. I've never seen that one before. I'll have to be more careful in the future. :)
It is absolutely necessary to interpret the meaning behind what is said in the constitution. When this is done, people often accuse a judge of "legislating from the bench." But what if Congress had passed an extension of 100 billion years? This, according to the literal language of the Constitution, counts as "limited". If the judges agree that 100 billion years is too long, then the extension not only has to be limited, but effectively limited. This obligates the judges to decide what is an "effective" limit.
There is no hard and fast rule, so the judges have to decide. The Constitution makes it necessary to decide exactly what "limited" should mean, and it does not grant this power to Congress. What "limited" is interpreted to mean will have a drastic impact on what counts as Constitutional or not, but this does not imply that the SC can avoid making this decision. They are obligated to make this decision. In fact, they have made the decision. Their decision is that even an extension of 100 billion years would be permissible.
Now, something that most people miss is that there is a very easy way to weasle out of this. The Constitution says that Congress "may create limited monopolies." It never says what Congress cannot do. But again, the intention of the framers is paramount. The people writing the Constitution enumerated an ability of Congress. Taken literally, there is no limit applied to this ability. But they clearly intended there to be a limit to this ability. If no attempt is made to divine the intentions of the founders, then SC will leave themselves with very little work.
It's clear in his historical study that the granting of a copyright was intended as a two way deal between creators of works and the people. They get a limited time period (originally 14 years) of exclusive use to profit from, after which the public gets the benefit.
The only reason for the Government to originally issue the exclusive period is the payoff that the public gets it once that period has expired! If the public is not going to get access to the works in a reasonable period of time, than the government has no purpose in granting them the exclusive right to begin with.
Of course, since the Government now (mostly) only cares about the interests of the few who have their ear, most of them will never submit to the simplicity of this logic and we are probably stuck with a sham of a system.
Why couldn't I just have created Barney (TM) so I could be on the other side of the fence looking out!
Keep passing the open windows...
That seems to make the most sense. Don't tie something up for 70 years just because the author is long-lived, and don't end it right away or there is incentive to get the author to kick off.
Wait, 14+14 was the original constitutional term!
Let's assume that the this decision didn't occur
Lets assume that for example: Snow White is now public domain.
Shouldn't a public vote decide what happens to it.
I am not as disillusioned as some are here. I think that the SC has done something interesting which is not to draw a line-- to simply say that Congress did this because they wanted to have uniform standards with the EU. This is not an issue of perpetual copyrights to the court at this point.
:-)
If in twenty years, they extend copyrights again, then it should be abundently clear to the courts that this is going on, then they might overturn both.
I agree with you that the SC is trying to avoid making policy, and that they were simply not convinced that this was an attempt to circumvent the "limited times" clause. Maybe next time.
However, the real problem is not one that CAM be solved in the courts-- if we had won, we would still have excessively LONG copyright terms. This MUST be solved by going to Congress. This means that any time a proposal os floated, to call, visit, and/or write your congressmen (remember to do this to all three). Also organize, publish, and otherwise educate people as to why copyrights, while necessary, currently are afforded too long a term. Organize, educate, activate, and then we win.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
i agree with you, the way to get back at these corporations is (to use microsoft parlance) 'cut off their air supply' i.e. don't ever provide them with revenue
on your reference to toy story, i have never actually seen it, and am interested to learn that it is a disney film - perhaps that should give the debian community pause to think about whether they want to give a nod towards the film by using the names of characters from the film for each successive release of debian i.e. potato, woody, sarge etc.
perhaps it would be good to use a work that is completely in the public domain instead? - i'd like to hereby suggest the names of the brothers in the brothers karamazov by dostoevsky - alexei, dmitri, ivan, pavel
Testing for bug report.
No... in SOVIET RUSSIA, my gangrenous left testicle bites YOU!
:OP
Jeez... if you're gonna troll the funnies, at least get them right.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
The LA Times gives a good example of an advantage of extending film copyright. The grand-daughter of Harold Lloyd is spending a lot of money restoring and digitizing Harold Lloyd films. Without copyright protection, there's no way this could have been done since the guarantee of a return on the investment goes to zero if people can simply share the restored files over the internet.
Vote for Pedro
In Soviet Russia I'm Brian Fellows!
I'm Brian Fellows!
What about Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Metropolis, and other anime that they've worked out deals to distribute in the US? I'm not sure how those fit into the big picture, but they're the only cases where my money has gone to Disney for movies.
Oh yeah, I did buy Fantasia 2000 and Snow White on DVD, I guess they got me there. Dammit!
Posted on a message board, after Suzanne announces DVD will not be available yet (emphasis mine)
And another:
It goes on and on. A lot of Harold Lloyd fans are feeling stiffed by the trust, it seems.
Copyfight has the best set of links I found regarding the Eldred case.
What's really strange about this argument ("protecting the image of Mickey Mouse") is that parody is recognized as a form of free speech. That is, a porno version of "Steamboat Willie" is probably legal as long as it is done as a parody of the original. This just came up recently (past year or so) with George Lucas losing a ruling against a parody of Star Wars if I remember correctly.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
If I'm not mistaken, the copyright clause was put in the constitution as an exception to the right of free speech.
So, shouldn't someone now be able to challenge copyright on the grounds that it violates the first amendment because the time limit on copyright is unlimited to anyone now living?
It is the responsibility of the USSC to keep the government in line. It is the body which says "Whoa! Time out kiddies, this is not permitted by our nation's constitution!" If you have a government (Congress and Executive office) that is systematically violating the US Constitution then the USSC is obligated to make sweeping changes to correct their wrongs and bring the policies inline with the US Constitution. A Liberal (Locke, not Marx) court would have to nearly overthrow the US Government now to make it constitutional. And yes, that would be an activist court, but it would have to be activist to restore the integrity of the US Constitution
Congress throws out whatever shit it wants to and it sticks because the courts won't actively rip them a new one by reversing 75% of what they pass which is how it should be done. Congress doesn't have the authority to pass probably the vast majority of what it does.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Since the problem seems mainly to be corporations being giving the same right to copyright protection as individuals, I thought a little rant on corporate personhood would be appropriate.
Many folks don't know two facts regarding corporate personhood:
1) The American revolution was in large part a revolution against the Govt. supported practices of large (British) corporations. In post-Revolutionary America, corporations were far more limited and were established primarily to serve the public good, as one can see from the various state laws regarding corps, the interests of stockholders was supposed to be secondary to the commonweal.
2) Corporate personhood was established in 1886 (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad) without debate by the USSC, either by accident in an extraordinary example of judicial activism (sources differ) that has in many ways set (non-incorporated) individuals back to the position wrt to Corps. that our forefathers rebelled against.
Refs & More info
Now it's pretty obvious that the framers never intended corporations to be given the rights of personhood, and thus the ability to extend their copyright far beyond the lifetime of the author.
But so long as the little slip the 1886 court that let corporations demand the full protection granted 'all persons born or naturalized' by the 14th Amendment remains unchallenged, the domination of mere mortals by immortal corporations is likely only to get more and more extreme.
Bill Moyers and his program NOW that will air on PBS stations 9:00 pm ET will talk about copyright, and Siva Vaidhyanathan is going to be on it as well.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
If a copyright is to be like real property, tax it annually to pay for the social cost (courts, jails, derived works defferred or never made, researching and negotiating rights, inefficiency, etc.). And let anyone put it into the PD by paying the owner the self-assessed value. Suddenly corporations might not be so eager to hold onto many IP hot potatoes. And if people fail to register IP and pay tax on it, it becomes PD immediately. The bargain of monopoly for a limited time has been broken and this remakes that bargain in a new way. Oh, and don"t enforce foreign copyright unless they pay this tax too (self assesment might need to be done for each country if this went worldwide).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
It seems to me that Paine is correct after all. Any government, no matter how well set up, is a double-edged sword. Unfortunately, his dream for American democracy is dead. In it's place is the old adage, Might Makes Right. Money, it seems, is not without its drawbacks. We as a nation are still dealing with the affects of the Industrial Revolution: an era which marked the rise of the corporation, and a proportional decline of U.S. democracy.
Our legislature is bribed into passing laws that are not only unconstitutional, but also demonstrate an unconscionable degree of avarice. Our Courts, charged with the review of the law to determine its constitutionality, have declined to remove this blight from our lawbooks. Jefferson was understandably worried about creating a political machine which has so little room for direct democratic participation.
And what are we left with? A legislature more interested in furthering the interests of the multinational corporation then the general Public? An executive branch that has asserted autocratic powers (For Further Reading)? Law enforcement that has a careless disregard for the law? And a supreme court which is derelict in its duty? Something must be done to restore the American way, and put power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people. Paine would say that it is inevitable-- violations of the 'natural law' concerning government do not go uncorrected. As computer techs, we should understand this. When something is broken, you fix it. What we need is a debugger!
I wish to note however, that you do not use a sledgehammer on a PC that doesn't work, nor do you perform any unnecessary drive reformats. In this manner, I do not advocate a use of physical force to solve our current dilemma. (There ECHELON, you can rest easy now.)
It is with no small irony that I choose to quote from an author whose works are in the public domain. Copyright does not mean, "eternal money," nor does it mean, "absolute power." Unfortunately, there are some people that construe it as such.
At our school, we don't earn a degree when we graduate—we earn pi/180 radians
Did you read THAT? Lessing was shooting for the votes of Rhenquist, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and O'Connor on some "limited federal government" bullshit ("Enumerated Powers")! Give me a break!
Does this man really believe that these justices are driven by pure principle? Did he ever read Bush v. Gore? Remember, these are the same justices that bent over backward to overrule a State supreme court on "Equal Protection" grounds - something only liberal judges ever paid much attention to (unless the issue is reverse discrimination).
Get real, folks. Abstract principles usually bend at the end of the day in the face of politics and economics.
And besides, as Lessig himself acknowledges, under the better principle of constitutional law, he SHOULD have lost this case anyway.
One thing for sure, is that I don't want anyone this naive as MY lawyer, and neither should you.
It was unfortunate indeed that this case was brought as it was in the first place, giving the Supreme Court the opportunity to cement this terrible policy into the fabric of constitutional law.
An in addition there are horrible statements in the majority opinion as to what the purpose of copyright protection is (essentially to make money for copyright owners).
A total disaster from beginning to end.
This stuff needs to be better thought through in advance by people with more sense, or we'll end up with no rights at all.
"It's a wonderful decision to have," said industry lawyer Carey Ramos. "In the various lawsuits going on, there will now be citations that the Supreme Court has endorsed copyright as the engine of free expression and means of promoting creativity." ...
Ramos mocked the idea that people would even notice the court decision. "Millions of people are not going to say, 'Let's have a day of protest where we stay home and download music.' It ain't going to happen. If three people do it, I'll be shocked," he said.
Hmm... google for "Carey Ramos" gives this web site.
Mr. Ramos' email address from this publically-available source is cramos@paulweiss.com.
Would the Slashdot-reading public care to challenge Mr. Ramos's perception of the world?
>Not because I don't support a right to abortion, but because it wasn't accomplished politically, and since it wasn't accomplished politically there's no compromise involved.
So? Either a woman has the right to do such a thing or she doesn't. I doubt your supposed "crowd pleasing" solution would do anything but produce the gateway legislation the religious right/anti-abortion groups keep trying to pass in congress. Not to mention your suggestion would still be abortion in the traditional sense and the anti-abortionists probably wouldn't agree on priciple alone.
Negotiation is great for contracts, but we're talking basic human rights here, not political appeasement. That's one of the points behind a Supreme Court, they're supposed to be apolitical interpreters of the Constitution, not deal cutters.
Judge: I'm sorry, Mr. Mouse, but the State of California doesn't grant divorce on grounds of insanity.
MM: I didn't say she was insane -- I said she was fucking Goofy! ha HA! (drumroll)
Suppose that the copyright lifetime has never been extended and remained at 14 years. Linus created Linux circa 1991 and its copyright will expire in 2005. Since GPL is based heavily on copyright to function, when the copyright expires, it will fall back automatically to BSD-style license (I guess, IANAL). That is, the source code protection can no longer be enforced. Is this what Linus wants? What about other GPL'ed programs like GNU Emacs, which was created in late 80s? What's RMS opinion about this?
¦ ©® ±
OK, I for one agree with the SC's decision. I've grown up with Disney, and grown up with the Mouse. I really don't want to see what might happen when people who really don't care for the characters or tradition start making derivatives. I don't think anyone can care about Mickey like Walt did. I know that on /., it's really unpopular to like corporations. Especially MS or Disney. But I have to go with Disney on this case. Thoughts?
So you must not agree with Breyer's interpretation of the 1790 copyright "extention" not being retroactive at all but being necessary for the creation of US copyright? You must also not agree with the other dissenting opinion that sharply notes that copyright was designed for authors, not their hires or the rather insightful grasp of how this is a raw deal for everyone but current copyright holders?
Your primary beef here is that you think that restricting the will of congress as regards copyright is "legislating from the bench". That's pretty silly, given the long history of the court doing just that with copyright and patent law. This was a review of a law that congress passed that seems to violate the letter and spirit of the constition. It is the supreem court's duty to examine every law for consistency with the constitution as such inconsistency effectively ammends the constitution. Constitional amendments take much more effort and consent to pass than ordinary laws so no law may violate the constitution. Legislating from the bench generally involves creating whole new branches of law or prescribing specific action. This review would simply have tossed out Mickey Mouse's copyright protection. It would not have set up new offices for administrating that removal, it would not have required the raising of taxes or dictated their spending and it would not have created any kind of new laws. That's far from "legislating from the bench," and in fact it is exacly what the supreme court should do.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Not only does this perpetual copyright scheme dampen public domain-inspired work and therefore decreases creativity, it removes the incentive for copyright-holders to create as feverishly as if they had no federally-protected "nest egg." [Granted there is no way to measure how much creativity is diminished in either instance, but it has to be some.]
Nevertheless, I was relieved to learn the Ct. felt it was Congress' issue and responsibilty.
Mix in a little campaign finance reform, and there may be hope yet.
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
Read Lessig's analysis. Learn a little something about the case. At very least, do that before you post.
The issue had nothing to do with how long Congress could set that limited time at. It could be 100 years or 100,000 years. The only thing that the Constitution asks is that the time should actually have a limit.
And therein lies the problem: if Congress can retroactively extend copyright an unlimited number of times, then there is no limit to the terms. Think of it as an egg-timer that I simply wind back up every time it's about to expire. There's no limit to how long such an egg-timer might run before I let it run out, as long as I want to keep it running. Retroactive extensions violate the simple Constitutional requirement that copyright terms have a limit. And therefore they're not Constitutionally acceptable.
This was the number one argument in the briefs. It was the point made by the dissenting Judge in the Appeals Court (out of a panel of three judges.) This Court has claimed a responsibility to keep Congress in line with the Constitution, and they abdicated that responsibility by addressing every single argument but the biggest one.
That restoration thread amazes me. One of the disenting opinions touched on the matter but did not bear down on it because they said it was irrelevant. Restoration is not occuing right now, even though the works are under copyright protection. As you point out, the derivatives take their own copyright too. Now that the originals are "protected" for another 20 years, I expect them to continue to sit in the vaults rotting away until the next extention push comes up. What the extension really does is prevent people who would restore and presever these works. What incentive does anyone besides the "owner" have? "Owners" are likely to extort money even from non-profits and museums. It's show business and the motto is, "there's one born every minute."
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
wrong on 2 counts:
the story Bambi was written by Felix Salten.
the music in Fantasia was all PUBLIC DOMAIN !!!
I have what I believe is a solution to the problem of overly long copyrights AND patents that is both passable under the current administartion and congress.
This solution is based on two premises.
1. Corperations are not the dictorial ogres
we make them out to be but are basically
interested in two things, getting the
buck and even more importantly to this
idea KEEPING the buck, especially from
the government tax man.
2. Bush and the republican congress are
looking for ANY way to reduce taxes on
corperations.
With this in mind my proposal is simple. Pass a law that gives a TAX WRITEOFF to any corperation or individual that places "intellectual property" (copyrighted material, patents or trademarks) out of its form of "intellectual property" protection and into the public domain. This writeoff would be equal to 100% of the value of the "Intellectual Property" when it was being used and making a profit for its owner or $1000.00 for "intellectual property" that never made it big in the market and never made a profit.
Just advocate and pass this then sit back and watch the public domain start expanding like a springtime flood in the Mississippi Valley again.
Where's YOU FAIL IT when we need him?! Or her.
Lessig though Congress violated Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution when it allowed copyright owners renew the ownership rights to their works. That provision says that Congress "shall have Power To . . . 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 . . ."
Lessig lost the case this, and the gravamen of his complaint was that by extending the copyrights Congress acted unconsitutionally, as the Constitution says that Congress may only secure exclusive rights for "limited times" - an undefined term. It appears that Lessig wants SCOTUS to graft onto this provision a specific period of time. Without one, he claims, the provision is rendered meaningless. Yet lower courts have found that the phrase "limited times" does not necessarily preclude an extension.
Who defines limited? Can reasonable people disagree on what the term limited means? What is the plain meaning of that term? Did Lessig expect the Supreme Court to say that "limited" meant less than seventy years per se? I found it interesting that the court surveyed the definitional history of the word, including citations from eighteenth century dictionaries. (Lessig's initial blogging after the decision betrayed his belief that reasonable people CANNOT disagree on this issue.) But, come on, is he saying that Congress can never ever extend copyright protections? Is he saying that the Act was an abuse akin to the worst case scenario he depicted: a seemingly unlimited series of extensions? Is the Act an "unlimited" extension?
Lessig often quips that since Disney's copyright to "Steamboat Willie" - the first Mickey Mouse cartoon - was extended under the Act, new artists can't do to Disney what Disney did to the Brothers Grimm. However, even if this is bad public policy, it is not necessarily unconstitutional. As this is a plenary power of Congress, a "limited time" is pretty much whatever Congress says that it is. If they choose to extend the copyrights, so be it. Consider that in conjunction with the necessary and proper clause.
The solution is to vote out the Congressmen if you disagree. Perhaps those irate over this policy should cast aside their open source mantra for the time being, roll up their sleeves and pound the pavement for reform. It cannot be done through the courts.
If the restoration isn't trivial -- and it sounds to me like that's the case -- then she is creating a new work which is a derivative of her grandfather's work. Under that interpretation, she should have copyright to the restored versions. Any one else would be free to use the original. This means they could use the the script however they want, including filming a new version. If they can get hold of a copy of the original, they could do their own restoration. But they can't use the restored images or the new music without a license.
At that time, someone will throw back in the judges faces that the previous extension was a "one-time" thing, to bring things in balance. And that it should not, can not, continue to happen.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Shoes!! they're what's for dinner.
tcpa SUX!!!!