Lessig's Next Copyright Proposal

Fiver-rah writes "The Supreme Court voted for Disney in Eldred vs. Ashcroft. Lessig's next proposal is a policy solution which needs our help. He proposes that 50 years after publication, a work falls into the public domain unless a small fee ($50 in the NYT piece, but he says $1 is sufficient here) is paid to a governing board. This has two important effects. First, it allows the vast majority of works to fall into the public domain. Second, it gives us a publicly searchable database of copyright holders, so we could easily determine what was free and what was not. Support this proposal by writing to your elected officials! We couldn't make much of a difference with the Supreme Court, but we can with Congress." Update: 01/18 20:50 GMT by T : Related news: An anonymous reader writes "With the support of Lessig infoAnarchy has set up a wiki page devoted to copyright issues."

Comments

A partial solution

[pstemari]

The only problem with Lessig's solution is that works of merit would _never_ go out of copyright. It is one thing to pay a premium over the cost of reproduction to reward the author, but quite another to reward the corporation that bought out the rights from the author's great-grandnephew when he was a drunken bum on skid row.

Just as an example, consider Gilbert and Sullivan. Great comic opera, in English, easily accessible to US audiences, but it never gets performed here because of the onerous fees their descendants impose on performing the works. Can you imagine having to pay a royalty to some conglomerate every time the initial notes from Betthoven's Fifth are played?

Re:Don't make the date from *publication*

[KDan]

Make the expiration 50 years from the creation or publiction, whichever is earlier

I may just have misunderstood you, but did you just suggest that something can be published before it is created? Are you sure you thought this through?

Daniel

Just how original is Mickey Mouse?

[hackwrench]

Did Walt Disney create the concept of a mouse? No. Did Disney invent animation? No. Did the idea of naming any given mouse "Mickey" originate with Walt Disney? I find it hard to believe that no one in the history of the English language up to this time hasn't seen fit to name a mouse "Mickey"

What Walt Disney created was the "look and feel" of Mickey.
In order to determine whether Disney and interests should hold ownership to Mickey for all eternity, the question, "Did Walt Disney use prior works or things and events outside himself in his development of Mickey?" needs to be examined The first work Mickey starred in was "Plane Crazy" in May 15 1928, in which Mickey tries to emulate his hero, Charles Lindbergh, and woo Minnie with his own, homemade airplane.
Should everyone who wants to build an airplane or put one in a movie have to go back to the Wright brothers, their family or their corporation for permission?
Did Walt Disney invent hero worship or even the idea that someone might want to emulate Charles Lindbergh? No. Did Walt Disney invent the art of courtship? No.
Mickey's second work "Steamboat Willie" borrows heavily from the Buster Keaton work "Steamboat Bill" In a portion of the script for "Steamboat Willie," it is written "Orchestra starts playing opening verses of "Steamboat Bill"