Kahle vs Ashcroft: Copyright Battle Continues

Robotech_Master writes "People may remember librarian Brewster Kahle as the man behind Archive.org's Wayback Machine and the Internet Bookmobile. He was one of the big supporters of Eldred in the Eldred vs Ashcroft case. Well, he's at it again. A new lawsuit, Kahle vs Ashcroft, has been filed as of March 22nd. Lawrence Lessig comments on this case in his blog." Question number 3 of the FAQ explains that while the Eldred case challenged the length of copyright expansion, this case challenges the breadth.

Comments

Creative Commons

[v_1_r_u_5]

Musicians who are interested in this might also be interested in the creative commons license.

Re:Hasn't this already been settled?

[panthro]

Not really. This is with reference to works that are no longer available... basically, he's saying that retaining copyright restrictions on abandonware is unconstitutional, and I agree.

Re:Dear Mr. Ashcroft

[nycsubway]

Ashcroft is a nutcase. He spent $8000 of taxpayers money cover up the bare breasts on the lady of justice statue in Washington DC. Because, as Al Franken says "he didn't want to be photographed next to another boob."

He also has daily prayer sessions with his staff. Regardless of their faith.

There are also stories of him asking judges to annoint him with oil when he got into a new position... weird stuff. He's just an all around nut.

Re:Hasn't this already been settled?

[AnyNoMouse]

Who's to classify a work as "abandonware?" If the author doesn't want the work released, he should have the right to keep it that way. The burden should rest on the publisher, even if that means tracking down the current copyright holder and begging for permission. Just because you can't find it easily doesn't mean that it should be free for the taking.

The constitution originally provided that all works had to apply for copyright to be copyrighted and that these copyrights had to apply for a renewal at some point to maintain copyright. A recent law changed these requirements.

"Abandonware" would be a copyrighted work that was not renewed.

Yet again: Where in the world is Joseph Gradecki?

[cr0sh]

Have you ever tried tracking down an author or a publisher to obtain reprint rights? I have - and I have yet to be successful. I have been more successful in weeding out information from manufacturers of proprietary hardware (for hacking/mod purposes) than I have with finding authors/publishers.

My best example:

I have all of the back issues of PCVR magazine (a magazine put out from 1992-1994 relating to homebrew VR using the PC). I would like to republish and give away CDs or downloads of the articles, but to do so I either need to get each author's permission (then likely reset/retype/reformat the article), or contact the publisher. Both of these options have turned out to be dead ends:

First off, getting permission from each of the authors is nearly impossible: most authors didn't list contact information, the few that did either list compuserve or old AOL addresses, neither of which work anymore. The few that do list real email addresses, those addresses likely don't work either (its been 10+ years after all). To make matters worse, some of the articles were written by the publisher/editor himself!

To understand, the publisher/editor of the magazine started it literally in his home (likely in the kitchen or garage!) - the first few issues are photocopied and stapled. It was a real shoestring publication - more of a 'zine for VR than anything else. A great lot of the information presented in its pages has been lost to the community at large, which is a shame because it seems like every article about 3D this or that here on Slashdot, there are posts asking about how to buy or build an HMD for this FPS or whatnot, or other esoteric 3D hardware - and I would love to be able to point these people to the methods and devices already utilised, so that people don't need to reinvent the wheel (and hitting the same stumbling blocks that were already overcome). This is the information that I want to save.

However, I have been unable to contact the publisher: Joseph D. Gradecki. I won't go into any detail as to what I have done to try to locate him in the past (I have already posted that kind of information in long past articles). Let it suffice to say that he seems to have dropped off the face of the planet, or at least the internet. None of his last know address or phone number information checks out. His last publishers (he wrote a couple of more recent books in the late 90's) have no idea where he is (or if they do, they are not giving me any help, which is possible or likely). I don't have the money to hire a PI or anything.

This is one case where having up-to-date information about where the publisher or author was would help. Furthermore, if there was a small burden to keep the copyright up (like a small fee to be paid, as suggested), I have no doubt that most or all of the authors of these articles would have let them lapse into public-domain long ago...

Re:Another Possible Problem

[cpt kangarooski]

Yeah, that's a common misreading. Treaties enjoy equal status with federal law, not the Constitution.

For example, you could have a treaty that directly imposed a tax on Americans, but since the Constitution requires that the House propose taxes, and treaties only involve the President and the Senate, that treaty is not going to have any force.