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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"
Wait I'm confused, isn't this a bad thing?
Why is this "Go Mexico"??
They're extending copyright and abolishing the copyright domain.
Let's fix that typo: BOO MEXICO!
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Its not like there were any groundbreaking inventions coming out of mexico... besides maybe the double-sided bong?
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.
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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.
cant wait till the RIAA starts making the argument "it is completely unacceptable that mexican authors have more protection than american authors".
They made the same argument about europe when they put in the latest copyright extention act.
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?
Nailing my great-great-great-great grandkids for more tax is not acceptable just because they are not born yet.
Grrrrr.
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Seems to me there are a few things at play regarding this. It could be a test of public opinion, as another reader suggests. It's done, rather shamelessly, here in the US *all the time*. Other thing it could be as well, that since the US and Mexico are trying to be a bit closer together, who knows what deals are being made with them regarding copyright. Look what we're trying to do to ourselves. If certain parties who intend to serve self intrests are global, or at least multi-national, wouldn't they try to influence governments in each region they had a stake in?
So back to my question above, who set the precident first of life-term + some number of years for copyrighting works? Seems to me the US is to blame for this, even though it will really, really, really, hurt our youth and generations to come. It's poison in the resevoir. Beware Mexico.
--SuperBug
Mexicans:
Write your Deputies (by party, unfortunately) and your Senators (by state).
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).
Mexico may /not/ be the best place to go if you enjoy various liberties!
Im from México, and guess what, I laugh everytime I see that "Welcome to the land of freedom" bullshit that welcomes you to the USA.
Say whatever you want, I can reverse engine al the crap I want and dont need to worry about the DMCA, Patriotic Acts or any other thing like that, USA is proud of the liberty slogan, but as we say here "el gobierno los tiene de los huevos".
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
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!
Why should anyone be surprised by this news? Governments always get bigger and more intrusive until they are overthrown. It's the nature of the beast.
When have we seen governments decide, "Hey, we don't need [fill in some social program] anymore, the citizenry can take care of [fill in something people want] all by themselves without our help."?
The taste of power only leaves the unquenchable thirst for more. And government power is the ultimate power, for it is the only power which wields the legal right to use deadly force to acheive its goals.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
... 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.
This will never become law. The prior "administration", whose party (the PRI) ruled the country for 80+ years is simply doing what they do best - make empty populist gestures and try to push crap through congress to see what happens.
And the current administration is unabashedly pro-business (and unfortunately pro-church as well) and since the system is similar to the US, I doubt the prez will sign it. He'll just veto it because along with his party (the PAN) he's in bed with everyone from EMI to Coca-Cola.
And the company doing this? I know them - my brother used to work here. They're used by the various families who own newspapers in Mexico to hassle each other with stupid copyright claims all the time. Of course "OLIVARES & CIA." obliges gleefully since they take a cut. Ambulance chasers of the 21st century.
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?
In Mexico, politicians can be bought... but at least there we can afford it. :)
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.
The Disney Corporation[DIS] has moved its official corporate headquarters along with the contents of the infamous Disney Vault to Mexico City, Mexico. In a press release the company stated that in addition to retaining existing intellectual property under Mexican law, Disney would be introducing a brand new character, "El Ratón Mickey." The new character's copyright is not expected to expire until 2525. The copyright's official and legal creator, Servando Marques, is a Mexican citizen and cartoonist, bioimagineered for unnaturally long life.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
All in all, it's a bad thing but in practice in Mexico it makes no difference at all.
-- American living in Mexico for last 7 years.
The hits disappear as soon as one adds amendment, proposed, proposal to the search terms.
Those should have turned up hits even in Spanish, I think. While my Spanish sucks rocks, that's one of the languages for which machine translation sort of works.
As far as I'm concerned, given that someone else checked Mexican government sites and didn't find it, the burden of proof that this isn't a troll is on the original author.
It would be a suicidally stupid thing for a national government to do. Imagine a 6 year old having to do an intellectual property search on the Net every time she was assigned to write a story for school and then try to find the intellectual property owners... if they can be found after 100 years.
While it's hard to quantify or model the economic loss due to the inability to use public domain work as a basis for further creativity, if I wrote fiction for a living, I'd be packing if this passed where I lived. Or if I were a parent.
However, we have no credible evidence of such. What we have is a blog posting that doesn't cite a verifiable URL from a government source. This is a credibility killer given that the subject is a proposed act of public law.
The article shouldn't have been accepted without one from either the author of the original article or the poster.
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This is the real problem that I have with neoliberal capitalism. It isn't liberal, it isn't capitalism, and if I read history correctly, it isn't neo.
It's part of the privatize/nationalize cycle that wealthy and powerful people use to steal from not-so-wealthy and not-so-powerful people.
There is NO WAY that this form of dominance benefits those around the world. It's called stealing, and it's as old as the hills.
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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.
I clicked on the link and was presented with an e-mail message which states at the bottom "Please circulate this important notice." I usually delete chain letters and yell at the people who send them to me. Why does this one get posted to /. with no confirmation?
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Most of your posts (and bad jokes) about Mexico are besides the point.
Mexico can pass all the copyright laws they want to but it isn't going to affect the average José. Reason being, Mexico has one of the highest piracy rates in the world. Geez, there are illegal software markets, like open air markets only for wares, apps, and games. And the police don't do anything about this. I've seen police at these illegal markets, not arresting, but shopping there. This isn't going to stop anytime soon, as it is an embedded part of the culture (open air markets that sell pretty much anything).
How do I know this? I've lived here for the past 7 years. I know about this. There is no problem with this new proposed bill. Unlike the US, copyright laws aren't really enforced. The cops are underpaid, there aren't enough cops to counter the software pirates, etc. You might as well stop extrapolating what goes on in the States to what goes on in Mexico.
If anything, copyright would be a problem if you had money. If you own a disco or a bar, then maybe you'd have some explaining to do. Since there isn't a big middle class like in the states, this law won't affect anyone but the big guy. We are all the little guys here.
This has more meat than what the paltry email in Mr Lessig's blog implies.
First of all, this is not a hoax.
You can find the text of the proposed ammendment here (paragraph regarding "derecho de autor").
I will not invoke the Fish, you can do that yourselves if you are so inclined, there are several interesting points:
Article 29: Yeah, 100 years. I will begin to pester the right people, not that they will care (or maybe they do, this may pass under their noses and then the leaders of the parties tell them how to vote).
Then later on, the most interesting bits, in synthesis:
Article 40. Copyright holders have the right to be compensated for any copies that are made without their permission for private use and with no intention of profiting from them.
I. Compensation will be paid by manufacturers or importers of any machines that can store, compress, duplicate or reproduce (as in play I guess) the copyrighted works. Same thing for blank media manufacturers and importers.
The big surprise here is that this seems to legitimize your MP3 collection on stacks or burned CDs as long as you made it from sutff you legitimely own. I believe this may be a first worldwide.
Nowhere says how the compensation will be calculated.
II. Any sellers (retailers, wholesale buyers, etc) have to make sure that compensation was paid, otherwise they are obliged to pay the compensation in solidarity with people in point I (second translation: we can't police all of them, so we force retailers to police manufacturers and importers. Maquiavelian).
IV. Money goes to, surprise, the associations representing the copyright holders. 20% should be used for a nebulous item called "cultural activities"...
V. Stuff with copy protection mechanisms does not pay this tax (i.e. DVDs ant their ilk).
To check the public domain situation you have to go to the ammendment to article 152, first of all anybody can use public domain as long as there is no intention to profit from the work, otherwise who is intending to profit form a public domain work should pay a tax that will be divided 50% for the respective association of copyright holders (writers, composers, etc.) and should be devoted to social spending (whatever that is) and to promote the reperotire of their association members (uhm). The other 50% goes to, yes, you guessed it, the goverment.
Nowhere I found that public domain is abolished, it is being restricted if you want to profit from it.
Finally this is going to the Culture comission in the Congress. It may die there, get uglier or get better.
Finally, even if you are not Mexican you can put pressure: just imagine my poor congress critters receiving loads of emails from North Rio Bravo (Grande) and beyond threateaning to boycott any Mexican copyrightable material if the terms that are clearly abusive (like the 100 year term) are not repelled.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.