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.

Comments

Re:We need a few congressmen in our pocket

[sn00ker]

how come the bad guys are smart enough to heavily influence politics with their money but the good guys aren't?

It's not about smart, it's about money.
The "good guys" generally don't have the money to take on the "bad guys". The "bad guys" are "bad" because they have money - LOTS of money. The "good guys" are "good", generally, because they don't.

Case in point, IBM vs SCO. There've been a number of (admittedly piss-taking) posts on here from people who say "Who do I support? IBM's mega-rich, but SCO're a bunch of fucktards."

Until the "good guys" have the financial wherewithal to take on the "bad guys", corrupt governments will be more easily influenced by the corporations - The exact groups that should have precisely zero say in anything to do with how a country is run.

Doolittle a valuable ally

[watchful.babbler]

John Doolittle's a major player on the Hill -- one of the uncompromisingly conservative young turks in the mid-nineties, he's forged a close relationship with Tom DeLay and attends the weekly House leadership meetings as secretary.

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.

Re:What a flawed idea

[Zaak]

...what will be put into the public domain that anybody actually wants?

There are many works which are not wanted by enough people to justify putting them back into print. However, if they were public domain, the few individuals who do want them would be able to print or otherwise distribute their own copies. The Gutenberg Project and others like it would benefit greatly from something like this.

TTFN

Problem with this?

[Tom7]

I love the idea of this bill.

But there's a problem, as far as I see:

Unless payment of the applicable maintenance fee is received in the Copyright Office on or before the date the fee is due or within a grace period of 6 months thereafter, the copyright shall expire as of the end of that grace period.

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.

Trademarks have nothing to do with it

[yerricde]

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.

EFF is a charity; PACs aren't.

[yerricde]

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?