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Mexico to Abolish the Public Domain?
Anonymous Mexican Coward writes "The mexican congress is considering a revision of the copyright law. Among other changes the law will extend the term of copyright from life-plus-70 to life-plus-100, and at the end of that term, the mexican government has the right to charge royalties for works in the "public domain."
Go Mexico!
Check it out"
Why is this "Go Mexico"??
They're extending copyright and abolishing the copyright domain.
Let's fix that typo: BOO MEXICO!
http://www.virtualvillagesquare.com/ Online Communities: The Next Generation
While I was learning that this type of article is a writing technique known as "situational irony" I could've been coding.
Just out of curiosity, is Micro$oft required to release the source of MS-DOS 1.0 when/if the copyright expires, or does just the binary form become public domain? The source is copyright too, no?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Imagine how efficient it would be if we all had to pay royalties every time we made a fire, or used a wheel. By the way, does anyone wonder what would happen if the government taxed the bible (which is in public domain)? I think it could get a lot of people angry.
The amendment has been strongly supported by authors and collecting societies but on the other hand; it has been rejected by the industry.
Really? Authors and their estate managers want longer copyright, but the industry doesn't. Isn't it usually the other way round in the USA? Does anyone who understands the issue in detail wish to comment on why?
Well, I would go to Mexico and protest this law, but I can't because it's against their constitution for a foreigner to do anything of the sort (Article 33).
I am a writer so obviously I value copyright because without it my work would be worthless. But I also value the fact that I am able to draw on hundreds of years of cultural and literary tradition for my inspiration. This is why the public domain is so important. If I want to use the Cinderella myth I can (Disney doesn't own it yet!).
The Mexican proposal would be a disaster! Copyright was originally meant to be about 20 years. It was a state-granted monopoly to compensate the person who wrote/invented the material and to provide an incentive for future innovation.
Fair enough. But it needs to be balanced with the public interest in free and open access to cultural ideas. Do you really think that the makers of Clueless (okay, not a good movie but it's an example) should have to pay royalties to Jane Austen's estate? (It's a retelling of Emma).
This is why I object to the extensions of copyright made to appease companies like Disney. The inventor of Mickey Mouse died a long time ago and I think Disney has made enough money out of him already.
Extending copyright for the copyright owner is one thing (bad) but the government sticking its grubby paws into it is something else again (much worse). It's completely outrageous! If I write a book, how is it fair for the government (let alone the Mexican government since I'm Australian not Mexican) to claim the benefit? If anyone is going to benefit it should be me (I plan to live forever after all) or my estate. (Or preferably it should truly be in the public domain after a fair and reasonable length of time).
So far we've only discussed copyright so we're just talking about arts and literature and popular entertainment. Just wait until they start extending this to patents!
... should be safe as long as anyone is contributing to that project (+ remaining life of that someone + 100 years).
If an open source project has not have contributions for 100+ years, then i don't really care if the Government of Mexico can charge royalties on it.
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On a side note, i suspect that the works of Aristotelis, Plato and Omero will become more expensive to buy in Mexico. Same thing for traditional Mexican music.
On the other hand, if there is a very rigid patent system, ideas never get into the public domain and every new product has a defacto tax built into it. The inflationary pressure would be incredible. Copyrights behave a little bit differently than patents in this scenario. An extensive protection period for copyrights provides an incentive for "monopolistic stagnation"1. Similarly, copyrights can be used as a form of censorship or to limit access by competitors. The effect can be rather chilling--no Project Gutenberg, information controlled by one source for extended periods of time, etc.
In the case of Mexico, or any country that follows a similar path, I think the business climate would eventually detoriate. There would be a high price of entry for new businesses and established businesses would feel less pressure to compete. Even foreign companies would have difficulty in entering.
An interesting read on copyrights can be found in the article by Lydia Pallas Loren. Maybe my argument is full of holes.
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1COMPUTER ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL, INC. v. ALTAI, INC., 982 F.2d 693 (HTML)
This policy would of course destroy anything like Project Gutenberg if such a project existed in Mexico. Kind of like killing the original open source, no?
I think you should check first the source of this information. There's not a single reference about this issue in the Mexican Congress site nor in the Mexican news sites I checked.
Besides, maybe there is a misunderstanding here. The Federal Copyright law states that the Government may collect the patrimonial benefits *if and only if* the copyright holder dies and there is no one who can legally inherit the copyright.
Anyway, any email from a alleged company formed by "almost 10 IP experts" (Almost? 9 1/2 maybe?) and with a final sentence asking you to "Share this important notice" sounds to me like yet another e-mail hoax.
First off, Mexico has not signed this into law yet, but since everyone is concerned wther the US would follow suit let me point out something.
This proposed law grants the government the ability to charge for public domain works. This would not be in the best interest of the **AA which routinely uses PD works as they like.
The government would also have an interest in letting copyrighted works expire into the public domain so they could make their money, hence no more copyright extensions. The **AA certainly wouldn't like that.