Slashdot Mirror
Public Domain Act Introduced Into Congress
AnElder writes "In his blog yesterday Lawrence Lessig said '...Congresswoman Lofgren (D-CA) and Congressman Doolittle (R-CA) have agreed to introduce the Public Domain Enhancement Act into Congress.' Today the Eldred Act website features two press releases announcing the act's introduction, as well as its immediate support by '...the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, and the Association of Research Libraries...'" We ran a link to the petition supporting this Act a few weeks back.
According to the page about the act (see old /. article... RTFA?), it can only be renewed every 5 years until the end of the copyright term. Therefore, when the term would normally have expired, it would expire. People just have to pay extra for it this way.
Another finely moderated comment by a nonRTFA user and a bunch of nonRTFA moderators.
The Decline of Western Slashdotization continues.
Why must this be so... 75 years of profit of one exact thing is enough, let it go... if your book/art/whatever is still making money out of 75 years; you've made enough. You're famous. Just sit back and watch as it becomes public domain and even more famous.
They aren't renewing the copyright, because Copyright in the US is Creator's life + 70 years, or in the case of Corporations 80 years, or something like that. This is merely a provision which allows a work to fall into the public domain after 50 years from the copyright date, unless the work is commercially viable, in which case, the copyright holder pays a small fee to keep the rights until the copyright term is completed.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
"Public Domain Enhancement Act"?
Isn't that what they called the establishment of Communism in the Soviet Union?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
At really obvious Karma Whoring.
Link to the proposed bill is here.
(Not to be nasty or anything, but if you'd have clicked the link in the slashdot announcement you would have found this link immediately.)
Following the links from the posted article, I found the text of the law in PDF format. The THOMAS Congress web site does not yet have the bill online.
Isn't 50 years kind of a long time to wait before even *considering* the copyright null? Sounds like a lot of work to shave off the last 20-30 years of a copyright.
Public Domain Enhancement Act
PDEA.
Does that make people who like this bill pdeaophiles?
They say in the FAQ that this doesn't violate the Berne Treaty, because it isn't formally a "formality" nor a "registration", but you have to file a registration document and pay a fee to the US Copyright Register, which appears at least to this (NAL), that it is a formality and a register and in violation of the Berne Treaty.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
Given that the record and film industry appears to have invested heavily in buying some congressmen, perhaps its time for the open source/public domain movements to do the same. All the good will in the world wont lead to actual passing of legislation when Time Warner/Sony/EMI/Bertlemann/Conglomokorp actually owns people on Capitol hill... we have a petition, but they have votes in Congress.
I don't see why the EFF and similar groups can't 'invest' in a few reelection campaigns. The business model is established by numerous corporations and special interest groups - all it would take are funds. In fact the same applies to all progressive social and political groups... how come the bad guys are smart enough to heavily influence politics with their money but the good guys aren't?
Read Pynchon.
So now we know conclusively that Disney owns 2% of the copyrights between 55 and 75 years old.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The idea is to end the regime of "perpetual copyright" by ensuring at least some works, which should by rights already be in the PD, get there. Right now, none do.
This is about 50 years in the past, not 50 years in the future.
=googol=
IP Law in two easy lessons
Theft by value: I take something that is yours.
Theft by reference: you think of something; I think of the same thing.
... so we're not going to bother explaining it again. - OK ?
Or bad editing ?
It'll be "Copyright will last for 5 months. After that expires, the author must pay $50,000 to renew it, for another 150 years, or eternally, whichever's longer."
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
The key to the ammendment is the word "commercially viable." The works that people want to get their hands on, of course, are the commercially viable ones. Most of the rest is white noise.
There are a few cases where party x knows how to make a work of party y commercially viable again. The problem is that party y will cry foul when party x performs his magic.
This is a good step forward.
I wonder if slashdot could come up with that kind of money if it made the attempt.
In other words, this Law doesn't do jack shit.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Is there a number of times that they can renew it, or could a company in theory renew a copy right on into eternity?
They can't renew it past the normal expiry date, so this won't make copyrights last any longer than they do now. But this isn't meant to stop or shorten corporate copyrights - the intent is to make copyright holders show some interest in keeping their copyrights, and to ensure that the copyright office knows who owns the rights (they can be inherited, reassigned through contracts, etc.).
" We ran a link to the petition supporting this Act a few weeks back. "
/.'ers!!!!!!!!!!!
A few weeks later it gets officially put on the table. Coincidence? I think not.
WAY TO GO
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
An uncompromising conservative who has forged a reputation as a reliable ally and savvy lawmaker, he's got a wide net of influence that makes him considerably more powerful than he would seem at first. If anyone can get this thing on the agenda, it's him; his relationship with DeLay and Hastert will ensure that.
With the conservative flank well-protected, it's the Democrats -- who, let's tell a hawk from a handsaw here, have often been craven in their defense of entertainment campaign dollars -- that need to be courted.
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
Copyright is currently Life of Creator + 70 years. This amends current copyright law, such that the copyright can fall into the public domain after 50 years have passed since first publication (or 2004 whichever is later). This greatly benefits us because it enriches public domain.
Therefore, your assertion that this law does nothing, is incorrect.
(I was going to say something about your (apparent)inability to read, but I decided against it because I'm a nice person.)
Black and grey are both shades of white.
However, all the good intentions in the world don't matter if the bill doesn't get up eventually. Does this bill have any chance of getting through the two houses of Congress?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I cannot believe that this even gets any attention. It's completely absurd! If in fact it costs $1/year to extend a copyright past 50 years, then I think something that one of the Supreme Court Justices said is probably correct--98% of copyrights aren't earning more than $1 and most likely will not be extended. That's great. But can anybody think of one copyright that will not earn $1 in the next 20 (or whatever the rest of the copyright term is) years that anybody would WANT to have in the public domain? This is just silly. Nothing that's not worth a dollar to the copyright holder (who could easily hold the copyright up for a $5 ransom and in the process earn $4) is going to be worth a fucking cent to anybody else. Get real...these numbers are just too fucking small to do shit.
The U.S. can't nullify a copyright before 50 years without violating the Berne Convention, which requires at least 50 years of copyright protection without registration.
Imagine: Disney pays the fee for "Steamboat Willie", but not for any other Mickey Mouse cartoons -- and then argues that all other Mickey Mouse cartoons are derivative works of "Steamboat Willie", and are naturally covered by the copyright on that work.
Is there a reason that can't happen?
What?
Oh.
Well I'm against public domain too!
-snip-
Microsoft? Oracle? Doesn't matter, really. Hell, even game developers are beginning to exploit game communities and user modifications as features to market the game -- before said things exist. I fear a burnout at some point down the road...
-------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The 50 years is necessary so as to not run afoul of the Berne Convention. This requires that copyrights miust last 50 years without any registration.
Another problems is that public domain media will ultimatly compete with copyrighted media.
So by not renewing their copyrights they will be creating a competitor to their commercially viable products.
So for them it is then worth it to pay the buck or 5 bucks to renew it.
You have to remember it's not just if the copyright will make them money, but if the public domain stuff will cost them customers. Since ultimatly it would, they will of course always renew.
Right now I can't just download a old movie from the 30s from the net to watch when I'm bored so instead I go rent some recent release from the store for 3 bucks. If they let the copyright go on the 1930s movies suddenly there would be competitor to what they are selling. That's not in their interest. They will renew the copyright. When they start selling movies on the net do you think they want me watching All Quiet on the Western Front and Alexander Nevsky for free as public domain when instead I would be forced to rent some more recent schlock movie?
So in the end the total amount of media freed by this will be miniscule.
Ever notice how, when an IP law (smart or stupid) is introduced in Congress, it's nearly always by 1 Democrat and 1 Republican? It's not due to the wonderfully happy beautiful spirit of bipartisanship that's permeating the air of Washington. Naw I'm more cynical than that.
Here's why. The RIAA, MPAA, etc. make sure they toss around large amounts of money to both parties (as all good interest groups should do) to get the laws they want passed. As IP policy is not addressed by the platforms of either political party, those who are going to sell out and fuck america up the ass for lots of campaign money realize that it will not only look better if they introduce said law in bipartisan pairs, but it is much safer, too. A bill sponsored by 1 republican and 1 democrat is much less likely to be attacked by either party as a whole. In fact, such a bill will never be attacked by either party as a whole. If, say, the republicans were the ones passing all the "destroy their computers and send them to guantanimo" IP laws, the democrats would immediately campaign against it, and vice-versa. So since both parties know the other doesn't care, and since both parties have plenty of members willing to whore themselves out for money, those who introduce these bills know it's mutually beneficial for both parties to do so in pairs.
Of course the same thing does for good laws, such as the one that's the subject of this thread. If two Republicans introduced the Eldred Act, the Democrats would immediately accuse the Reps of supporting criminals.
Insightful. You bet your ass.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Yeah, young turk 10 years ago when he rode into
town on Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America".
If he really believed in Term limits, he'd have
moved on by now. Microsoft owns this guy
click here and explode the Communications/Computer Equipment and Services widget. They paid him
to vote against American tech workers.
Dump Doolittle. Dump Lofgren.
And here we see the inherent conflict between individual and societal interests.
For example, it is in your interest to provide your children with a source of income.
However, if your children are so worthless that they need a monopoly on your work for seventy years after your death, then it is in society's interest that they not get that monopoly, and hopefully die cold, lonely deaths. Preferably before they reproduce.
I wouldn't shed any tears if the US decided to abandon the Berne Convention. It was a bad idea to begin with -- different countries tend to have different priorities with regards to copyright to begin with, and that's okay, and it's far too European a copyright system anyhow.
I think we were doing better under the 1909 Act, particularly when Congress took a look at the B.C. and rejected it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
it takes two minutes!
I agree completely that getting the works in large open databases is good.
In some ways, I think the copyright laws should stop being viewed as static rules, but be designed as a process that ultimately ends up with the work in large public databases.
The first phase of the process has the objective of getting money into the hands of the artists to cover production. The last phase makes it so we can query and cite large collections of works.
The trick is design the process so that the database does not end up being a toe to toe competitor with the author's sellable work. This is very hard to do in a system that only has two states: total monolopy and total public access.
There probably should be steps between absolute monopoly of the work by the author and total public access.
The process might even consider rights separately, for example, the right to reprint a work in book form might be different than database search rights. Movie rights are big money. They might be considered separately as well.
To keep things uniform, the copyright office could even have set prices or limits on some actions. For example, pulling a MP3 from library for a single listen might cost a nickel.
The 50 year rule is moving in the right direction. It starts to recognize the different attributes of different works...ie some are no longer commercially viable.
Berne Treaty limit is life of the author plus 50 years. This is a hack, using the world "tax" instead of registration. The 50 years from publication was decided on just to make it friendly. Of course, this is all just information I stole from the faq that an earlier comment linked to. :)
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
Its gotta be a hoax, I mean come on congressman doolittle? Isnt that implied by the first title? Next thing youll tell me theres a Senator Brownback. ;-)
michael != CmdrTaco
I understand that basically this is a tool to help with current copyright issues. Maybe getting some currently copyrighted works into the public domain... but... If you're going to go through all the effort why not just do it right and think about the future of copyright also.
My economic stimulous plan is to push copyright to 14 years renewable one time for another 14 years for a fee. Berne Convention or not! Most companies should easily be able to make a profit off of their works/work for hire within a 14-28 year period. If not what in the hell are they doing in business - learn how to balance your books.
My thought is that if you have a fairly short expire date for those profits to be reduced then the companies will work harder to produce new works which means new sales to maintain profits. New works will be easier to churn out because there's plenty of newly released fodder from the expired copyrights.
Companies that can't innovate in that market don't deserve to be in business and shouldn't be able to legislate themselves into staying in business.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
I'm surprised at the comments that suggest this bill doesn't matter because it can only hope to free up those copyrighted works with no commercial value. Here we have stories about the Intellivision operating system drawing hundreds of comments, articles all the time about classic console and arcade video games, news of public domain audiobooks, and talk about a huge amount of "content" that clearly has no commercial value but is still really interesting, fun, and/or enlightening.
Yes, some of the stuff I've mentioned does sometimes make an appearance in a commercial product like a 25-in-1 game controller or something, but there are still huge amounts of old computer games, books, films, music, and other media that are never going to make anyone a cent again. Some of these still would be nice to have around and have access to. Some of this stuff might be "sampled" or otherwise incorporated into new works of art, some might be used for historical or other academic research, and some of it might just be watched or read or listened to or played with by a small group of people who aren't much of a "market" but who still appreciate this work being available instead of lost in an corporate bureaucracy.
Ok look at it this way...
If the work is really commercially worthless then no one is gonna waste their money trying to sue you over it right? So that means you can use it however you want anyways.
On the other hand if it's worth it to hire a lawyer for $100 an hour to threaten people then it's obviously still worth it to pay the $1.
So really this doesn't do a whole lot.
If the owner will bother to sue you for using it then they obviously will renew the copyright.
If the owner wouldn't bother to renew the copyright then they wouldn't bother sueing you either.
You hit another nail on the head. There are a lot of copyrights on materials that have no real viable commercial value (you won't resell the work if you try to reprint it), but the copyright owner might be holding on to the right for some type of political power, or to simply prevent others from making derivative works, etc..
Who is eligible to reregister, and when can they do it? If something like "its a wondeful life" goes into the public domain, and then 20 years later beecomes a big moneymaker again, can anyone pay $1 and put it back under copyright? Can the original owners do so? Can somone hijack a copyright once its up for renewal? Its only good if once something goes into the public domain it does so in perpetuity, and can never be returned to copyright.
While you might have been making a joke, the concept of paying for copyright protection might not be a good idea. With a short enough durration and a high enough cost, established publishers can effectively block out new entrants. It would also castrate the GPL when developers have their code co-opted because they can't pay to maintain their copyright. Patent fees like this are how Wittle lost his patent on the jet engine, which was much more reasonable than our current schedule. Fees might look reasonable if you are sitting someplace with money. Most people can't afford them and they have a way of doing just what your joke implies.
Let's just roll back to a 14 year copyright protection. It's better to simply reduce the term so that anyone might publish an author's work within their lifetime. This maximizes the chances of useful works being published cheaply while they are relavant, while rewarding the author for publishing. 14 years was a good idea when publication was far more expensive and it's not a bad idea now. The GPL is still needed for 14 year copyrights because that's like 100 in software years. A hundred year copyright protected work might be widely published for the benifit of my great grandchildren and they probably won't want to read it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"but I *want* my children to benefit from my work"
So here's what you do...
This valuable copyrighted work you've produced... (I'm laughing out loud here, but go with the premise). You take the money you earn while you're alive, invest it and leave it to your kids.
But the idea belongs to society once its out there. Its only because congress is charged with furthering arts and sciences they give you a limited license to make money from your work.
Whether or not you personally make money, or leave some to your children is not society's concern, and its not congress's charge to provide for your children because they are too lazy to work and create on their own.
In fact, your world view provides no impetus for your children to produce any work of value, because they have daddy who had a moment of lucidity providing for them forever.
I love the idea of this bill.
But there's a problem, as far as I see:
Doesn't this mean that someone can just pay their $5 immediately upon creating the work, thus registering for the ~50 year extension? That seems bad to me, since essentially every book publisher (etc.) will just pay that fee when they publish. I thought the idea was that works "abandoned" after 50 years would have nobody around to bother to "renew" them, and then they would pass into the public domain. Even with an ammendment to the law, would someone just be able to set up a service that would automatically send in the forms and payment for subscribers' works when it's due?
However, even if most people still pay the fee up front and get the full length of copyright, the database of such works will be extremely useful for things like project Gutenberg, where one of the hardest parts is simply finding out whether a work is still protected.
LOL... You ass. You said it anyways, then thought you'd preempt any comeback with your disclaimer. No, you're not a nice person, you just don't want to get any shit. Well, as a non-involved party, I thought I'd give it to you.
Have a nice day.
Don't just sit back and hope this law passes. Write to your Congressman and your Senators and ask them to co-sponsor, or, failing that, at least to vote for it.
That's exactly why I put it in... because I'm an ass.
Have a nice day, yourself.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
First, lemme say that it seems that those who hold different opinions on the State of Things than I seem to think that anyone who posts an opposing opinion and who is passionate about issues are trolls. What nonsense. I am simply a person passionate about freedom and the downward spiral of the American Dream.
We need a strong public domain. A real public domain. We need to put out of the Berne Convention and repeal the Sonny Bono Act.
Now, if I was a troll, I would come back and look for the flames that I incite. I will not and I will not reply to your flames.
I am not a troll. I am a patriot who believes in the ideals of the Founders of these United States.
all this does is make copyright holders pay a nominal fee every few years to avoid forfeiting their copyright. This makes it so that when the creating entity is defunct or doesn't need the copyright, it will pass into the public domain quickly rather than a century later.
Repeal the DMCA!
(And mod my original post down while you're at it...)
Ooops... My memory was wrong then. The reasoning that the wording as a "tax" gets around the Berne Convention sounds shaky to me, thoguh I'd have to read it to find out (which I would really rather not do; legal documents are tangles of words).
If Steam-Boat Willie falls into the public domain, then it's possible that you'll be able to make a derivative work using the character of Mickey Mouse and Disney can't stop you.
Mickey is trademarked, so it doesn't matter what happens to Steamboat Willy. You still can't use Disney's trademarked character.
Anyway, the whole "cheap knockoff" argument is overrated. There are plenty of legitimate, authorized "cheap knockoffs" of all kinds of characters. Go buy a "Kids Meal" at McDonalds to see what I mean. And endless copyright prevents new and interesting ideas just as much as it prevents cheap knockoffs. (For examples, see Dan O'Neill and Berkeley Breathed.)
I know, I'm not actually disagreeing with anything you said. I just wanted to make the point.
I doubt my "representative" Senator Fritz Disney is going to vote for this...
//m
This is definitely beneficial, and it is virtually impossible for even the most rabit pro-Intellectual Property advocate to argue against it, however it is worth remembering that it is a very small step indeed.
Does it drain one of interest?
While you might have been making a joke, the concept of paying for copyright protection might not be a good idea. With a short enough durration and a high enough cost, established publishers can effectively block out new entrants. It would also castrate the GPL when developers have their code co-opted because they can't pay to maintain their copyright.
:P
Yeah, that was precisely the point of my joke. But you got my damn karma!
I know you were joking, but I want my Karma, so I'm going to reiterate your post in a serious tone.
Whittle didn't deserve his patent. There was prior art as far back as 1910.
Stupid patents were issued back then too...
I'm in support of shorter copyright terms, even if it means my own stuff isn't protected forever, but I dislike the idea of someone claiming authorship and a new copyright because they tweaked a couple of lines.
But, I think there should be a few changes made to copyright law to support this.
1) Works derived primarily from a public domain work are themselves in the public domain.
1.1) Up the reasonable ammount of quoting that falls under fair use (and thus doesn't put the new work into the public domain).
A commentary on Shakespeare's Hamlet should be copyrightable, but a new printing of Hamlet with the odd footnote shouldn't be.
2) Add a "moral attribution" clause that means you can't take credit for a work in the public domain (unless you base a new work on it and change it enough to deserve a copyright) and so that you don't claim your work is someone else's.
3) To get copyright protection for non binary works (DVDs, Software) "source" must be provided in a copyable and reasonable form, to allow the work to actually enter the public domain in a real way once copyright expires.
and possibly,
4) Geometrically (starting very low) increasing fees for renewals, OR, a requirement that a work must be actively marketed during each 14-year term to be eligible for renewal.
This would prevent someone from pre-paying (through a trust perhaps) a thousand $1 extensions just to spite the public.
Anyone suing someone over a DMCA violation has to pay $1 after they've owned the protection system for 50 years. The federal government has to pay $1 after holding an enemy combatant in prison without trial for 50 years. The RIAA has to pay $1 after ruining an innocent college student's life for 50 years. Spammers have to pay people that they spam $1 after spamming them for 50 years.
Just think of all the dollars we'll be getting 50 years from now!
The Washington Post ran a story about this also this afternoon.
...because you never know who you're dealing with.
Seems as though GNU licensed software should enter the public domain 10 years after publication.
This will prevent some vulture like group of lawyers from buying GNU or some lesser set of open source software and then doing a SCO like lawsuit against everyone.
RMS has a master plan to do this in 2010 to put many large commercial software packagaes out of business.
you can't use Mickey Mouse because he's still under copyright.
Mickey has already fallen into the public domain for reasons other than the expiration of copyright. Try lack of notice when it was required.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Mickey is trademarked, so it doesn't matter what happens to Steamboat Willy. You still can't use Disney's trademarked character.
Not true. At my local Walgreens store, I find VHS copies of public-domain films starring Bugs Bunny. These films were first published before 1964, but Warner never got around to renewing their copyrights at the 28-year mark. (Copyright in all works first published in 1964-1977 was renewed automatically by a 1992 law.) The boxes of the tapes have the text "Bugs Bunny" and a drawing of a rabbit on the front and "Fresh Hare, Falling Hare, The Wabbit Who Came To Supper; this video contains public domain audiovisual works and is not sponsored or endorsed by the original authors of the works." No, I don't remember the citation of the relevant court case. Anybody else?
If Warner wants to compete, it can still compete on technical quality. The video I bought had a crappy transfer with blown highlights; Bugs often looked all-white instead of gray and white as he is supposed to appear.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The reasoning that the wording as a "tax" gets around the Berne Convention sounds shaky to me
As far as I know, if a copyright owner who derives value from distributing copies of a work doesn't pay the income tax due, the government can seize his property. I'd presume that the government can seize intellectual property in a tax case as well. Would you interpret the Berne treaty so as to shelter all copyright-related income from taxation?
Will I retire or break 10K?
If you want the EFF to buy off a congressman, send them a $20 check
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a charity. Charities do not make political campaign contributions. Political action committees (PACs) are not charities and can and do give money to candidates. Does there exist a PAC in the United States that focuses on the same issues that EFF follows?
Will I retire or break 10K?
You can still buy him a beer.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I think that there's a simpler explanation - that America is governed by essentially one party, called the Democratic-Republican party.
Darn right. It goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, the first U.S. President from the The Democratic-Republican Party. Since 1801. The modern Dems are direct descendants of the Dem-Reps; the GOP comes from the Whigs, which (on paper) broke off from the Dems.
Actually, Jefferson supported 19-year copyrights, but we have a castrated "limited Times" instead of a clearer "no more than twenty years" because IIRC, Jefferson was away in France when the Constitution was drafted.
Will I retire or break 10K?
With the current setup, the stronger copyright is, the stronger copyleft is. For example, if copyright terms are 90 years, it will be 90 years before Free software can copy Unix code, but it will also be 90 years before Unix can copy Free software and make it closed source.
Under the proposed act, if one assumes the Free content is less likely to have a revenue stream than the closed source content (an invalid assumption?) it is more likely that the Free content's copyrights will lapse while the closed-source content's copyrights are renewed.
Okay, software will probably be obsolete in 50 years, but the same applies to music, films, books and other forms of content which don't go obsolete as quickly.
End result: Closed source content has a chance to use Free content while Free content doesn't get a reciprocal benefit.
I'm not necessarily saying it is a bad thing. It might turn out that the boost Free content gets from all that new public domain material is bigger than the loss, but it's something to think about.
I just used the form to send a message to The Honorable Mark E. Souder, which went something like this:
To Slashdot readers residing in the United States (citizens and lawful permanent residents): Rephrase the above message in your own words, look up your representative, and send it to him or her. If your rep has already signed on (e.g. Lofgren or Doolittle), change the end to something like "Thank you for sponsoring the Public Domain Enhancement Act." However, if you live in 45th California, don't expect much of a response out of Rep. Mary Bono.
Will I retire or break 10K?
At my local Walgreens store, I find VHS copies of public-domain films starring Bugs Bunny.
Yeah, and those particular images of Bugs Bunny are now in the public domain, but if you try to make your own brand-new Bugs Bunny cartoon, you're still going to fall afoul of the Warners lawyers, because Bugs is still a trademark of Warners. Which was my original point.
You're right that it's not quite as simple as I originally implied, but trademarks are still a very important factor. If Steamboat Willy went into the public domain, then we might see cheap knock-offs of Steamboat Willy on the market, but not cheap knock-offs of Micky in general.
Way back when, when they were proposing an income tax "Well, the tax would only be on the rich folks, and not on the poor folks. After all, poor folks don't have money."
... we're going to wonder why our system is so messed up.
Nowadays, the loopholes are all in place, rich folks *don't* pay the tax, quite legally, while poor folks carry a gigantic burden that gets larger every year.
So in ten to twenty years, when the copyrights and patents are *only* for those who can afford the yearly $2000 filing fee from the get go, and they are abused more than ever...
That said, people *didn't* fall for that scam regarding the income tax. Most states voted it down, in some cases repeatedly.
I, for one, do not favor this law. I favor repealing all patents and copyrights, or reducing their term to a much shorter period.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I wasn't able to get through the l3g4l sp33k, so I didn't get if this bill (or existing copyright law) requires things to be made available for distrobution under public domain, but I think it should, since copy prevention systems (DRM and such) could create "mechanically" inifinite-length copyrights if not governed. Anyone know?
I don't see why the EFF and similar groups can't 'invest' in a few reelection campaigns. The business model is established by numerous corporations and special interest groups - all it would take are funds. In fact the same applies to all progressive social and political groups... how come the bad guys are smart enough to heavily influence politics with their money but the good guys aren't?
BECAUSE THEY CAN'T!!!
Non profit 503(c)3 "educational" organizations can't spend a single dollar on political campaigns. That's the tradeoff you get for knowing your contributions from them are tax-deductible.
The ONLY kind of organization that can raise money from the public
That's why EFF, Public Citizen, etc. can only wring their hands when shit like the DMCA passes. All they can do is beg and plead with Congresscritters for mercy. They get polite treatment. The people with the checks get results.
No, the major corporations don't always get their own way on the Hill. It is possible for people's organizations to get enough money from people in $5 and $10 and $20 and $100 contributions and disburse them in $1000 and $5000 and $10,000 checks, to hire full-time staff to analyze new laws so the members don't get blindsided, to hire lobbyists, to hire staff to open envelopes. And they can and do run political campaigns against people who persist in not getting the message.
The existence proofs are the NRA and the AARP. They are professionally run, they raise money, they represent their membership effectively.
What's the bottom line for us? A small group of people come up with a couple or 3 million dollars they don't expect to be tax deductible. Not to give to politicians, to hire top-bracket pros to build the fund-raising infrastructure to make it possible to raise money from us in $5 and $10 and $20 and $100 contributions to make meaningful contributions.
American high-tech types have the following choices:
- learn to bend over and take it with a smile and practice "Would you like fries with that?"
- Get it together and start doing the PAC stuff right fucking now.
- get ready to leave the US permanently for places outside the reach of Hollywood cartel-owned politicians.
- Hope the RIAA member labels go bankrupt before they do any more serious damage to the high-tech scene.
But without the startup money, this goes noplace. If nobody's willing to come forward with the price of freedom while it can still be paid in dollars, the only solutions to this problem are individual... figuring how to get out from under.Nobody's going to come forward with the startup money.
The people who can are under the delusion that the Hollywood cartel can be negotiated with, and after they come up with consumer devices that'll make Hollywood happy but that nobody will buy because they're DRM-broken to uselessness, Hollywood will make all their content available for pay-per-download for everybody that the Internet infrastructure can't support, and we'll all march off to a future of infinite profits.
I'm looking for . . . an individual solution.
Tech Public Policy stuff
"Berne Treaty limit is life of the author plus 50 years."
I just had a vision of public domain hit squads taking out copyright holders, for the purpose of cutting down their works' remaining copyright protection to that "plus 50 years".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
When you evaluate the strength of something, you have to look at not only its immediate action, but its long term effects.
One thing we know about government is that if there's a "temporary" fee, it will last forever. And those "small" fees are almost certain to grow.
By introducing this bill as a "miniscule" fee, they've effectively planted the seed that would all but defeat the existing "eternal" copyright insanities.
In short, we would have a say because government would have a reason to listen - $$ talks louder than any number of letters, faxes, and emails.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Song of the South is between 55 and 75 years old and Disney apparently doesn't see any commercial value in that.
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
Supreme Court Justice Breyer found that only about 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value.
Meaning "2 % of stuff that was published 55 to 75 years ago." Also, some corporations will claim that all copyrights they own, have a commercial value.
I'd be might surprised if even 1% of books published 3 years ago still have any meaningful commercial value. If I remember correctly, only about 3% of book titles published find their way into a library.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Note that Micro$loth is on the top of the list of donors.
If you actually believe that a letter from you and a letter from Microsoft have the same weight in determining how Senator McCain votes on any specific issue, you're as clueless as the rest of your post shows you as.
The fact that you got moderated up to 5 is a demonstration of why I expect the US high-tech community to lose its freedom to create in the long run and why the laws Hollywood wants, it's going to get. Geeks think of themselves as "above" the political process, and more importantly, above bothering to find out how it works. They actually take your ideas pulled out of some half-assed memory of a high school civics class seriously
Ask the guy at MS who wrote the check to McCain, "populist hero". He knows how the process works.
You obviously don't.
This bill actually has a chance to pass, as Hollywood needs a way to strip-mine the public domain, too, and it enables the content industry to keep anything with possible commercial value while work of anybody else goes into the public domain, for our use, and theirs.
Note the name of the sponsors. They aren't exactly known for being our friends.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Copyright to run for five years -- calculated from the date of the first royalty payment {if any}, or the date of publication if no royalty payments are made within that time. {Explanation: If a work has not made any money within five years, it's never going to. Let go of it and get on with something else.} After those five years are up, a copyright holder would be extend copyright by a further six months, on payment of a fee equal to half the annual median wage prevailing at the time. The fee for every additional six-month extension to be equal to the total amount of extension fees paid so far. {Explanation: the fee will be palatable at first, while a work is earning money, but by growing exponentially as the work's earning power diminishes, it will tend to limit misuse of copyright extension.}
Additionally, if any technical measures are employed to prevent copying, then a copy of the work without any such measures must be placed in escrow with the appropriate authorities. {Explanation: this is to ensure that a work actually can be released into the public domain when copyright expires.}
Once a work has actually entered the Public Domain, it must stay there. If any part of a Public Domain work is used in a Copyrighted work, the copyright holder must clearly state so. Copying of any of the PD sections of the work shall not be prevented. {Explanation: to protect works that rightfully belong to all of society from commercial exploitation by a greedy minority.}
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
However, there's a big difference between supporting a single lobbyist with minimal to zero budget for influencing legislators and starting the core of a NRA/AARP-style organization.
Also note that if I'm reading his statements on the site correctly, Bruce is basically, asking for help to cover his expenses in talking to legislators.
He is NOT starting a PAC (Political Action Committee) to collect and disburse contributions to political candidates.
Otherwise, he'd be talking about raising millions of dollars and filing the paperwork legally required to start a PAC in Washington,DC with the Federal Elections Commission and whatever state Elections Commissions (if any) whose filing deadlines haven't already come and gone.
If he actually does have this in mind, I'll retract the above statement as quickly as I can get here and post.
I wish Bruce Perens well, and have a great deal of respect for the guy, but we will NOT win the war without a PAC capable of both mass action and raising enough money to make our elected officials stand up and take notice of what's coming for them if they don't get with the program.
The price of freedom at this point is measured in megabucks.
The sad part about this is that as a user/developer community, we actually could raise more money than Hollywood. With a few corporate consumer products vendors on board, we could outspend them 5-10x in the political arena, spend enough money on mass media to make them treat us with respect, and dictate any terms we consider reasonable to Hollywood.
Tech Public Policy stuff
1) Works derived primarily from a public domain work are themselves in the public domain.
1.1) Up the reasonable ammount of quoting that falls under fair use (and thus doesn't put the new work into the public domain).
A commentary on Shakespeare's Hamlet should be copyrightable, but a new printing of Hamlet with the odd footnote shouldn't be.
Maybe in something like this example the text of the play should be public domain, whilst the footnotes are copyright of whoever wrote them.
2) Add a "moral attribution" clause that means you can't take credit for a work in the public domain (unless you base a new work on it and change it enough to deserve a copyright) and so that you don't claim your work is someone else's.
Also tougher penalties for "copyright fraud".
While I think this is a good idea for enriching the public domain, why couldn't we do something similar for artists? While this may seem impractical since many forms of art and media are collabrative works, would you not agree that an artist deserves protection from corporations just as the public does? It seems to me that we should be able to protect all three of these: the public, the artists, and the businesses. Perhaps work for hire should include automatic profit sharing equal to the artists salary as a percentage of (double?) the total project cost with that percentage of the copright returning to the artist automatically after 20 years. Sure coporations would find ways around ideas but the loop holes could hopefully be plugged and hopefully in a way that doesn't create byzantine beaucracy. anyways that's just one idea and I'm am sure there even better ones out there that make for a better balance that would enrich everyone's life.
/rant
Seriously though, think about it. If you achive a good balance where artists are well provided for, and corporations are well provided for, as well as public domain being provided for, do you not create more competition? Thus loosening the grip of corporations on the public as well as on artists? Thus media would not be so sensationalistic homoganized and formulaic? Thus more people would achive more prosperity? Thus society would see a rennaisance of creativity?
All I ask for is that corporations be limited. Not limited to the point at which they cannot do business but limited to the extent as to their power to push against the artists and public. There is no need for them to have that kind of power. Would the world be so much worse off if disney was like half it's size?
You know, the more I think about it the more I convice myself that the only way to make this happen would be to start a company that worked in this manner and beat the competition so badly that it becomes more of a social norm. ie: well paid employees = happy employees = successfull company. sadly though it seems to me there will always be good and bad companies that are successfull because they are good and because they are bad -- because that's the way humans work; Some take well to "tough love" while some learn to prosper though nurturing...
oh well,
-ac
The GPL is more necessary, I think, for the point at which software leaves copyright and enters the public domain. Software released under the GPL is guaranteed to include the source so that if/when the software enters the public domain, future generations can still build on it. As far as I know, there's nothing keeping a proprietary software author from "losing" the source just before copyright is supposed to expire on a piece of software. In fact, I'd be surprised if this hasn't already happened with a lot of abandonware. As long as the law sees the binaries and the source as seperable items, we're going to have this problem with software. The GPL is, in essence, a way to create a legally-enforcible link between the two.
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Seriously, you have a lot of passion. But you are giving up from the get-go because you think it will be impossible.
I ask you: if a person like you, who is obviously informed and passionate about this stuff, is beaten right from the outset, how can you expect an average joe or even someone who mildly cares about this to get involved?
We need you, and everyone like you, to get active and make as much noise as possible. I totally agree that some sort of organizational structure would be the best bet... meet me at the docks tonight. You will say: "Are you a turtle?" The man in the green sweater will reply: "You bet your sweet ass I am."
Read Pynchon.
Basically you want the old European copyright system, with moral rights. The Berne Convention basically took the worst part of US and European copyright protections and combined them, leaving out the good ideas. US brought the "anything can be copyrighted, no matter how trivial", Europe brought the long copyright terms.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I agree with Cpt Kangarooskie. I'm sure international treaties have their uses but they can also be a pain in the ass. Witness the remarks in Rep. Lofgren's statement about having to consult with the Secretary of Commerce to see if her proposal would violate a trade treaty with Chile and Singapore. There comes a point were these treaties tie our hands more than they promote commerce. Frankly, if we have to upset Chile and Singapore to, as one of the organizations supporting the bill said, "to preserve our cultural heritage" I find I can live with that.
I'm pretty sure 1 and 2 are already true, aren't they?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
No, the reason the bill doesn't run afoul of Berne has nothing to do with the tax/registration technicality. It doens't run afoul of Berne because it only applies to works produced in the United States. Berne only requires you to grant the works of foreign authors life+50, no registration requried. It places no restrictions on what copyright term you offer your own authors.
eliminate free public access to any works previously in the "Public" domain, and minimize the inclusion of any future works in that venue.
That's just the way bills in Congress works: the result of the bill is always exactly opposite of what the title of the bill implies.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Yes, that would be a problem, if the purpose of the Bill were to put works in the future into public domain. However, this bill was created to fight the ~retroactive~ extension of copyrights from >50 years ago. If there is anything I don't like about the bill, it is that it is adding a fee retroactively, something I'd be pissed about if it was foisted on me. But I understand and approve of what the Bill proposes: that retroactively extended copyrights have a retroactive fee imposed upon them.
You see, the author of "The Scandalous Hussy" can't go back to 1937 to prepay the fee on his bodice-ripping pulp novel, so if he doesn't pay the fee now, then it becomes public domain. THAT is the purpose of the bill.
Actually, Eric's FAQ says the Berne treaty has a term limit of "life of the author plus 50 years."
Judging by the FAQ alone, the registration is seen as a formality, while the assumption is that a tax may not be viewed as a formality. The formality is what is at issue here. Since the Berne is concerned about this, and since the law as currently proposed seeks to avoid conflict of whether or not a tax is a formality, I say just call it a registration and be done with it. The recommendation that the IRS become involved in this is, IMO, silly.
The assertion made is that whomever choses to maintain a copyright is already paying income taxes on it has problems. What if I owned a non-profiting copyright but did not want it released into the Public Domain yet? I would not be paying income taxes on it--yet I would have to go through a rigamaroll tax form to appease the IRS. If you think this will never happen, remember that we humans are fickle like that.
Additionally, IIRC, the Library of Congress monitors copyrights, so what if there is a failure of communication between these two bureaucracies? Don't expect them to be responsive to the needs of the former copyright holder. They'll inadvertently release the copyright on the work and "Big Entertainment" Pictures will make a block buster movie based upon said work and will win in court because they, "did not know they were treading on a tax delinquient's copyright."
I like the idea. Grant copyrights automatically for the first fifty years, or so; then levy a nominal registration fee to extend. If the Berne Treaty is in the way, find out how to renegotiate said treaty. Hell, make our law at twenty years "or the minimum imposed by the Berne Treaty" and fight to conform that treaty to US law. I mean, it looks like we probably did that once before, anyway.
Either way, the tax/fee should be based upon the copyright holder's ability to pay. If it's Disney, then make them pay according to their abilities. If it's Joe Schmuck Average, then a lower fee. This may not seem fair as all should pay equally, but what will happen is Big Entertainment will lobby that tax/fee to be raised to a level such that Uncle Joe can't afford, so he'll release his copyright into 'their' Public Domain. So, set the tax/fee according to the 'current economic earnings' of the work.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
It seems to me that this is more business as usual. The thing that I'm not understanding is what makes anyone think this is going to change anything.
A large company with thousands of copyrights will be able to automate this process and extend their copyrights into eternaty without even a second glance. The fee shouldn't be $1. It should be $10,000 to keep a work from the public.
This might not be much different, but if you have a work that valuble that the copyright needs to last 100 years, it should be worth 10,000 dollars to you, don't you think?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Can the author be a corporation?
This is dumb. First off copyrighted works aren't registered or stored anywhere. They only come into play when contested. So there is no way to track what has or has not been taxed and for how long. For example Disney has zillons of copyrighted items, however there is no list or database of them anywhere so how does anyone know which ones have been taxed or not and for how long? They don't.
Second problem is there is no definition for a copyrighted work. Once again with Disney, a cartoon could be considered copyrighted, each frame could be considered copyrighted, the script could be considered copyrighted, the music could be copyrighted, etc. Now is that all ONE copyright or 15? Once again it doesn't come into play until contested.
The original system was the best idea, after X number of years it goes into public domain period. Simple easy clean and no goofy taxes to track.
I've noticed that when I write a $10-$20 check to some charity, that they spend at least $20-$30 in postage/envelopes/paper trying to get another $10 out of me. I wish there were a checkbox that said: "Hey I really think your cause is great, but I don't have any more dough, so don't waste your time trying to get more" otherwise I feel that the small donation actually saps the cause I'm trying to help.
Eat at Joe's.
What about when the shoe is on the other foot? I suspect that you wouldn't have the same cavalier attitude towards Chile if they decided to reduce the terms of their copyright restrictions. Especially if it affected America somehow.
And, please. "Preserving our cultural heritage"? America's "cultural heritage" has spread over parts of the globe like a virus. Hegemony, anyone? Mickey Mouse harly needs protecting.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
We make the rules, goddamnit!
Nah, this is Slashdot, we're too nice. ;)
This bill was designed as it is because it's hard to find a downside -- the rich content oligarchs should have no problem extending those copyrights that are still relevant and therefore shouldn't mind if the rest pass into the public domain.
The problem is that they will mind. Consider the nature of entertainment content like movies and music. In today's society, people expect to be entertained. Shouting "Boycott the RIAA!" is easy to do, but ultimately most of us want to listen to music, and it's all locked up by copyright. Only the RIAA has the keys. Illegal actions aside, there is no real alternative. Right now, the public domain is so emaciated from its nigh fifty years of starvation that it offers no competition.
Now imagine if the RIAA had to compete with a well-endowed public domain. It would be a much less friendly market for them; when people get frustrated with high CD prices, bad-faith legal maneuverings, onerous DRM, and music that is all the same, it's much easier to bypass the RIAA completely. This is a future they will not want to allow.
An ingenious analogy (credit to another slashdotter, name forgotten) is the bottled water industry. Water is not a very rare substance, yet we all need it to survive. So the BWIAA (bottled water industry association of America) has a market, but it's very elastic. Price-fixing isn't a viable option for them. But imagine, thinks the CEO, if everyone lived in a desert. Imagine if municipal reservoirs and indoor plumbing shut down -- if we (the BWIAA) were the only source of water. Then our market would become rigidly inelastic and we could charge anything we want! A hundred bucks for a 24oz Sports Pack and we'd all be rich!
The RIAA and MPAA, like the hypothetical BWIAA, aren't in the business of collecting water -- they're busy building deserts. In their ideal world, every droplet of entertainment comes in their bottles. The public domain is their enemy, and they will viciously oppose this bill.
Irrelevant of the riches, companies which make their money from intellectual property tend to be more evil both inherently and in action.
Big money influencing the government is a problem, big money from media and software companies is a much bigger problem though.
It would be good if pure research were put into the "public domain", particularly when it is paid for by tax dollars.
There is an interesting NYT article today about a call for federally funded research to be more freely available, instead of in expensive and restrictive journals. It's about time- there are many expensive for-profit journals, whose worth is determined by reputations established primarily by the refereeing process. Referees are usually academics not paid by journals. Since the NSF or NIH is often paying for the researcher (who is doing the hardest work) and the universities are paying for the referees (who are doing the next hardest part of the work) and the labs and resources are usually paid for by universities (often the greatest expense) it is remarkable that the
journals have been getting away with making big piles of money for essentially being clearinghouses and middlemen. In mathematics, there has been some resistance, including some from bigshots, to these journal monopolies, but change towards cheaper/free/non-profit journals has been slow. I choose to submit my research to reaonable journals on this criteria, but that means that I will never submit my work to some of the most prestigious ones. In medicine, where journals often restrict researchers from even discussing their results with colleagues or media until the article appears, this could be a massive chage. Many scientific journals do not permit you to post your own research on your web page and hopefully this overdue movement towards free distribution gathers momentum.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
Take Linux -- multiple contributors who all hold copyright. Do *all* the copyright holders have to pay to renew their copyright, or the GPL shuts down the entire linux project? After all, you can't legally put Public Domain works under the GPL. For that matter, how does this cover derivative works of software code?
That explains why the folks who supported the "Patriot Act" only act like they're patriotic.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
However, I think a high-tech PAC would be dealing a hell of a lot more with e-mail fundraising than with paper and postage.
The economics of this would be similar to spam, but the delivery would be to double-opt-in mailing lists... which is OK by definition.
Tech Public Policy stuff
It is because I know far more about this than the "average Joe" that I say without the startup money, it is impossible. I've been involved in enough lost causes to know one when I see one. You want to play with a lost cause and "fighting the good fight"? Go ahead. I have something better to do, figure out how to arrange the rest of my life so I can stay in technology.
The bad guys have unlimited time and many people who care enough and have the money to give them the money they need to operate, even when they need megabuck chunks of money to work with.
We have no such people. Even after the dot.bomb crash, there are still MANY high-tech multimillionaires and for that matter, a significant number of high-tech billionaires who could give startup money to an NRA/AARP style PAC out of petty cash. There are far more high-tech people with serious money than there will ever be associated with the Hollywood entertainment cartel. Hardly surprising, high-tech is the dog, Hollywood is the tail, so why is the tail wagging the dog?
Anybody in the high-tech scene willing to give megabucks to political efforts won't do it without either a short-term ROI or immediate tax deduction.
Get this straight. There is NOT A SINGLE PERSON OR SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE HIGH TECH SCENE WHO CAN AFFORD THE STARTUP FUNDING REQUIRED TO GET A VIABLE HIGH-TECH COMMUNITY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE GOING WHO CARES ENOUGH TO DO THIS.
I used the word scene above where most people would use community.
I do not believe there is a high-tech community worth fighting for in the USA. A community pulls together in time of trouble, people step forward to do what is needed even when it's hard and even expensive in terms of money to do so. People who have made fortunes in a community will put them on the line when the shit hits the fan. Well, it has, and where are they?
Our high-tech "leadership" is the same bunch of people who are busy outsourcing high-tech jobs to India.
Don't look to our so-called leaders to help protect our rights or our community or for that matter, even to protect the future of their own industries.
All they care about is what'll bump up next quarter's profits enough to trigger their options and/or bonuses. By the time their current courses of action comes back to haunt their companies, they'll have cashed out and will either be in walled communties or estates or will have gotten out of the USA.
This scene isn't a community. It's just a leaderless and ineffective mob, and that's all it's ever going to be. At best, it's an army willing to be led but with no leaders and no firepower.
The money is out there given the leadership to mobilize it properly. Remember how few people it took to raise the money to make Blender Open Source?
I'd like to be proved wrong. There's even a chance that I could be proved wrong.
If within the next month or so (if you want an exact date, go look up the latest filing deadlines on the Federal and all the state Election Commission sites for the 2004 elections... when will it be impossible to file Federally and in at least 20 states?), someone or a small group comes forward with $1M for the startup funding for a PAC, then this "scene" will have proved that it has the potential to become a true community and will be given a chance to prove in the Darwinian sense that it is fit to survive.
If it's proved that there is a community worth fighting for, those of us with a clue about politics will show up for the fight, and the odds on winning are pretty good.
The odds on this are so low that you might as well start planning for the "we lost" future now at an individual level.
Do you have a family and a need to keep making money? Do you have to stay in the USA?
If you don't have a very de
Tech Public Policy stuff
Actually I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would give a tinker's damn what Chile decides to do with their copyright laws. If you could name one Chilean author whose works have serious merit outside a University setting I might change my mind.
As far as America's cultural heritage: I was quoting someone else but since you've thrown down the gauntlet I'll accept the challenge. You clearly don't understand the difference between "cultural heritage" and "pop-culture". I was speaking strictly of the former, i.e. the larger body of work that represents the thoughts and state of a culture over time. The current state of American copyright law will create a situation where the two become the same by preventing the preservation of works that can't maintain their profitability for 75+ years.
As far as American pop-culture spreading like a virus I would refute this as well. A virus is an external invader that enters an unwilling body. Not only is American pop-culture welcomed into countries around the world those country's citizens pay for the privelege of having it. If you object to this spread you should focus your hostility on those who demand it.
Ahhh, the second half of #4 is what I'd like to see, but with shorter follow-on periods or an availability clause.
Think of it as an aim at Disney's "Vault" method of distribution, or just the ability to get out-of-print, but in-copyright works. I'd allow 14 or 21 years unassailable rights, followed by sucessive 3 year periods in which retail material must be "in-print" and available for purchase for more than 1/2 the period, up to the Berne Convention limits. Okay, actually, I'd like to see it limited to 30 years or the life of the author plus 10 years, whichever occurs SOONER.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Umm... You mean like Chile suddenly (and hypothetically) enacting legislation to make that the place where you can make illicit copies of some Microsoft product or another? Heck. Legislators in any country can write what they please. Consider that "hundred copies" notion of things. What if Chileans decided that it would be fair to offer 100:1? A hypothetical average Chilean would pay MSFT one percent, and the other 99ish percent are "public domain". In that case, the accidental characteristic of MSFT shares being among the most widely held in the USA, what "affects America" is what affects the hoarders of ideas who kid us that they innovate and own innovation.
"Preserving our cultural heritage" is a sort of code phrase for right-tending anything. I'm sure there were Nazis convinced that was their, ahem, "goal", bottom line. Translated into Western-hemispherical Purtugese, "preserving our cultural heritage" might mean preserving Chilean wealth "from Microsoft's greed" in a hypothetical legislative push to look the other way when folks copy without paying. Then the MS-USA (2.0 as always) would be "preserving our cultural heritage" by raising hell and trade barriers and Navy alert status to maintain profits, i.e. "respect for private property", i.e., an integral part of "our cultural heritage." Does Microsoft respect my private property (whose principled superset is our cultural heritage)? Does Microsoft respect yours? Well, sometimes. This digression is not what it seems! The hypothetical condition of Chile looking the other way while folks there hypothetically make illicit copies means the same thing as disrespecting copyright laws and treaties to protect them and the property of their sort. Of course, the MSFT example steers away from the "50 years versus 14 years" debate, but the principles persist the "farcical" nature of the hypothesis.
It's about private property, the specific subset, intellectual property. I get nervous when people introduce fond expressions of preservation of cultural heritage while actually messing with the actual principles of honor, ethics, and justice that should (in a good conservative's heart) be as rigid as Plato's Forms, not some Shadow On Cave Wall 2.0 at US$480 per user license, the embedded turnstyles of which require some bending and altering of the conscience. Then comes social engineering: the cranking out of new nomenclature: "piracy". Is it piracy if I am a computer genius who solves some important algorithmic riddle and then brag about it on Usenet but still wind up sufficiently naive, say, that I sort of BSD-license an idea but forget attribution requirements or somesuch? If there is a legal crack, Microsoft will steal. You know it. Microsoft will steal from the public domain and its similarly liberal cousin domains. In some senses, Microsoft is really just the archetype as in "Microsofts and wannabes", and that is where I am discussing this stuff.
Mickey Mouse hardly needs protecting? If you have bet the farm on Disney stock, you would look at it all differently. I imagine that it would appear as if there is a hoard at the gates, seeking to loot the glorious (and gloriously private) Mickey Mouse there in the Magic Kingdom. The sad news (when it comes) is really just as simple as the ticket price falling down to zero for Mickey's image's use. "Sucks to be you, huh, Disney?" someone asks with a shrug. Meanwhile, someone's grandma switches from Ensure to Alpo, and nobody notices. Why? Too much was bet on how lucrative Mickey Mouse (of disputable necessity in protection of I.P.) would sustainably be. When "the rich" lose in various corporate ways, I suppose there is some grandma out there who can no longer afford human food. Hence, when my "l