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Copyright Rumblings
dcunning writes "The Economist has a short opinion piece entitled Copyrights: A radical rethink that suggests (horror of horrors!) going so far as reverting back to the original copyright term of 14 years, renewable once. The article suggests that, in exchange for this, the 'content industries' be given 'much of the legal backing which they are seeking for copy-protection technologies.' A worthwhile and fair tradeoff?"
especially given that 90% of attempted use of such material happens within a few years of its release
I hate having to debate people who use static scoring to argue against things. If the copyrights on modern living authors started expiring one-by-one, their public domain works are more likely to be taught in schools, where presently they're not because a 30 year old copyrighted book is just so expensive to buy, compaired to a fully public domain author such as Mark Twain or Charles Dickens, who has seen most of the use of his work occur long long long after their death.
Kazza might actually have something legal to do if some of the early MTV music videos were in the public domain...
It's simple to fix... require that those who release works with legally-backed copy protection file an unencrypted digital version with at least the quality of the protected version with the Library of Congress, who will place that version on a public web server the moment the 28 years are up.
when it comes to rolling stones i think some of their oldest stuff is whats still defining them, but i dont know if they go back 28 years
Um, dude, this year the Stones are celebrating their 40th anniversary as a band. They've released a 40-track double-CD collection called "40 Licks" in honour of the occasion.
-- Alastair
You are absolutely right. The point of copyrights is a trade -- we all give up our rights to make copies of some work, in order to promote the creation of new works which we all can eventually prosper from. We should only extend these copyrights to people who are fulfilling their end of the trade -- creating new works with which we all can (eventually) do whatever we want.
The point of the various DRM technologies is to take the issue of making copies of works completely out of the legal arena, and make it an issue completely controlled by technology and whims of the big copyright holding companies. Only even that doesn't completely describe it, because they aren't willing to COMPLETELY give up the legal side -- they want to make sure they can throw you in jail if you win the technology side.
That is why I will never adopt or support some lame-ass "compromise" such as The Economist suggests. The whole system has to come to an end, until the publication and entertainment industry is run by normal humans. The current bunch of mafioso will take every inch you give them and then also take every inch they were supposed to give you; they no more understand a reciprocal agreement than did Al Capone.
Ahhh....no. That's still copyright theft. You may use that as an excuse to pirate software, but it won't protect you then the BSA comes along.
Fair use is more like using clips from a movie in a school report, quoting part of a book in a magazine article, etc. You're not using the entire work, only a reasonable portion of it. While fair use may be defined by some (myself included) to allow you to use media for purposes it was not originally designed (watch DVDs under Linux), few would say fair use allows you to actually steal works.
The authors are indeed every single person who contributed to the code. That's why it's nearly impossible to re-license any open source project after a few people have worked on it, because you need to get permission from every single person who worked on it, or remove their code. c.f. Mozilla's dual-licensing efforts.
If a piece of software is continually updated, the copyright for that incarnation will be as well. This should make sense. If you go back X years (where X is the copyright expiration) and download a copy that is exactly as it was then, then that is in the public domain, even if elements of it survive unchanged in the current version.
Basically, the rules are straightforward, it's just that some actions (like relicensing) because prohibitively expensive because they require too much agreement from people that you may not even be able to find again.
Fair use is a privilege, not a right. I'm not sure if it's a judicial decree or an actual law, but it's not enshrined in the Constitution.
Therefore, the Congresscritters can indeed take away your privilege to fair use if they choose. They have, to some degree, already done so with the DMCA.
Ummmm. Ever hear of Metallica?
Metallica didn't even care about Napster until their unfinished work started showing up. The same thing was what got Dr. Dre, Madonna, and every other artist who cared to come out against Napster.
Oh, and Al Gore never said he invented the internet, Geroge W. Bush isn't an idiot, a good slice of Rush Limbaugh's audience are democrats, and sometimes Microsoft is better than Linux.
*sigh*
The "reset" would only apply to the /new version/.
/good/ DRM would be really useful for this sort of thing. Software that gave you the source code when the timer expired would be good. Of course, that's like saying that a total dictatorship could be good. Theoretically possible, but...
Ie, Win2004 would expire in 2018. Win2004SP1 (released in 2005) would run until 2019. So the expiry date on the original version wouldn't change no matter what you did to modify it later. Obviously this could cause some problems of its own, deliberately making changes that break backwards compatibility just before the old version is due to expire is the first sneaky MS style trick I can think of.
A fourteen year term for software is still pretty long, (how much actual use is software from 1988 anyway?). Makes sense for most other things though.
Actually,
But the copyright wouldn't be reset. You could still get the pre-patch software after the copyright expiry limit. The patched version would have its own copyright duration as a separate entity.
Trying to be more reasonable about it: the decision for when a new entity under copyright is released would probably be decided by the copyright owner. A patch would then be rolled into the copyright period of the original product and be subject to the duration of copyright of the original. When a new release of the software is made (perhaps a +1 or +0.1 point version change) then a new copyright is applied. At the option of the owner the copyright can be shortened to that of a previous version.
This is talking about software where patching and incremental upgrading is a commonplace, and there is a readily identifiable version identification system in place. People might also be comfortable working with a known bug (because they don't use that particular feature). There may well be more complex definition issues when the fix has safety implications. IANAL.
Some very nice ideas in the grandparent article, with the largest loophole I can see in the mechanisms for release to public domain (as others have discussed in this thread). You end up either wondering "who watches the watchmen", or what happens when the gatekeeper and the lawmaker are identical.
Ian.
A physicist is an atom's way of thinking about atoms
If you actually read the GPL you'll find that it has nothing to say about using the software. Not that RMS would like it but using GPL firmware to control a baby threshing machine doesn't break the license as Theo so eloquently put it. Sure it breaks other laws but the point is the GPL has nothing to say about any use or private modifications made to the software. It even goes out of it's way to point out that agreement with the license is unecessary to use the software.
The default in copyright law is that no one other than the copyright holder can distribute a work. "Fair Use" does permit limited excerpting for commentary, criticism, or parody. The only thing that lets any copyrighted work be distributed is a license. All a would be corporate plagiarist would accomplish in legally attacking the GPL is to get the license ruled null and void in his case. The violator would not suddenly gain full ownership of the work and the right to do anything with it he wants...mu! ha! ha! ha! With the license invalidated, the software doesn't become fully public domain. It reverts back to the copyright law default...which says? Right! The copyright holder has the sole right distribute or license distribution.
How is the copyright holder going to feel after being manhandled by corporate shysters? Pretty pissed I'd imagine. The best possible outcome for a plagiarist in a GPL dispute would be to somehow prove he did not violate the license...this won't accomplish what we all assume GPL violators want to do: close source a widely distributed GPL derived work. Note, the originator of a GPLed work who owns the copyright to all parts of it can relicense subsequent distributions any way he wants.
Invalidating the license would be a pyrrhic victory. He would then have to satisfy the copyright holder and would only have two choices to do so. He can remove the GPLed bits entirely and reimplement them. The other alternative would be an alternative license from the copyright holder who's going to be thoroughly torqued by this point and inclined to insist on the most expensive terms possible.
An attack on the GPL is also an attack on the legal structure that currently allows draconian copyrights. It is not coincidental that we don't see high profile legal attacks on the license itself.
Here is what Al Gore said, quoting from Wired News:
If you're a Democrat, what he said was an unfortunate exaggeration. If you're a Republican, what he said was a boastful lie. Either way, he'll be mocked for it by so many people that you could spend the rest of your life arguing the point, and get nowhere.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
The European agreement you're probably thinking of is the Berne Convention, which sets a minimum copyright term for signatory countries of 50 years after the author's death. That is the term that much of the world (including Canada and Australia) still use. The US is actually in the minority, having increased copyright terms past this.
Living better through chemicals
The GNU is actually starting to have real effects outside of the free software world. circusnews is in the process of releasing a series of circus arts textbooks (used to teach kids things like acrobatic tumbling, stilting, juggling, fire twirling, clowning, etc), circus act scripts (the acts and routines performed), and other material for the circus an related performing arts community under a liceance inspired by the GPL. This circus-gpl is being adopted by a number of groups within the circus community much as the GPL has in the free software community.
I think you guys should read the law carefully. (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1201.html)
... traffic in any technology ..." At first, this seems to support your argument that any device that could decrypt copyrighted content would be banned. But a technology is only banned if it ...
There are two main things that the DMCA bans. One is the actual act of circumvention: "No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." Certainly, when a work has passed into the public domain it is not protected under title 17! (They are not talking about a "brand" of technology here, but a specific instance of it.)
The other thing that the DMCA bans is the distribution of circumvention devices: "No person shall
- "... is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title"
Well, if the technology can be used to decode a significant amount of public domain content, then it is probably not "primarily designed" for work protected under title 17.
- "... has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or"
Accessing public domain works is certainly commercially significant.
- "... is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
As long as you don't market it as a circumvention device for copyrighted works, you're fine.
So where do you get the idea that the DMCA prohibits work on breaking any DRM scheme?
Finally, your argument is simply impractical. Even clearly illegal circumvention tools are available easily on the internet, and once someone has anonymously done the dirty work of unshackling a public domain work, content industries would have no way to stop its distribution. Given that they barely have any impact on movie and music trading that is clearly illegal, it's not very likely that they'd be able to prevent the distribution of stuff they don't even have any legal claim to.
I wish people on slashdot would stop asserting misinformation with authority. Please at least reveal your sources and your reasoning with regard to the actual law! (as I have done..)