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Lessig Legal Team Needs Your Copyright Stories
Joe Gratz writes "Lawrence Lessig and his legal team are asking for your help. Kahle v. Ashcroft is a lawsuit that challenges changes to U.S. copyright law that have created a large class of 'orphan works' -- creative works which are out of print and no longer commercially available, but which are still regulated by copyright. To win the lawsuit, we need more examples of people being burdened by these copyright-related barriers to the use of orphan works. Visit the Kahle Submission Site and tell us your story."
as being "burdened"? There were a lot of fun games way back in the day that are now abandonware, but since they are copyrighted you really can't do much about them. Either you can't find them anymore, or if you can find them(and pay an arm and a leg for them on eBay) you usually have to keep old hardware laying around to play them.
The U2 single by Negativland! I am burdened by its lack of availability!
Seriously, they are probably looking for a work which over which there has never been a legal firestorm, and which can easily be demonstrated to have a demonstrable value (or the lack can have a demonstrable negative value). Censored music and software abandonware need not apply--sorry Slashdotters!
Sometimes a company may cease distributing a product because they want to focus consumer attention on their new offerings.
However, I definately support returning the ownership of IP to the employees that authored it...assuming their employer went out of business.
On a more speculative note, it'd be interesting to see a system where patents and copyrights had to be in the name of individuals, and ownership of that material followed the individual wherever he went.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Sometimes comercial unavailability is not a burden, but a blessing.
I do this for a living, photography printing and scanning. I have a very hard time telling people that I can't copy a picture because it isn't 75 years old yet. This stands true for any picture taken by a company that is still in business regardless of whether they are even able to make reprints anymore! Now with the digital age the copyright has been quoted to me as 100 years from the date of creation.
As a computer, I am amused by the faith you have in technology.
If they don't have evidence that it's causing a problem, why are they starting a lawsuit?
From the website:
Browse Submitted Stories
None submitted yet.
Am I misunderstanding this, or are these people just being trolls?
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
Hmmm - There are a good many "niche publications" out there that it is no longer possible to find the author for... Less so in mainsteam works however.
Lots of specialized technical documents are in this category. However, people generally don't challenge the copyright of something obscure like that.
I ask the question what is this group looking for? What motivates this case? SInce it is a legal group, they are motivated by money, so I would want to know more about why they are truly doiong this before I would support this effort.
Can anyone "follow the money" and find why this is being done?
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
While you're at it, write your congressperson and ask them what year you will be able to perform "Happy Birthday" in public without paying royalties or getting sued.
Something to bear in mind folks: the court will likely be much more impressed with "significant speech" issues that with games and the like. (I know that many consider games and entertainment to be quite significant - and I agree with them. But the court will be much more impressed with academic, religious, or political examples.) in that vein, here's what I contributed. Not much, but the best I've got. Beginning Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek originally submitted by Patrick Narkinsky: This work is a frankly revolutionary New Testament Greek Grammar published in the 70's. It has been out of print for many years, but is still widely appreciated. I spent the past several years trying to locate a copy to buy at any reasonable price. (A copy on Ebay recently went for $222). The publisher is not interested in republishing it. However, very recently they have allowed that if someone else paid to transfer it to a modern computerized format (Unicode/MSWORD) they would consider making it available on their own terms. The value of this grammar is such that a number of people are working on it, but requiring us to convert the work to their format so that they'll distribute is a pretty onerous version. There are certainly many other Greek students who would be willing to contribute their stories on this work. Stifled uses Patrick Narkinsky: First, read it. Second, have it on hand as a reference. It contains revolutionary ideas on the categorization of BIblical Greek that are simply unavailable elsewhere.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Zoolander is one of those things which should not be available AT ALL, commercially or otherwise.
No need to find original Scorched Earth source code, because there's xscorch, the free software clone.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
by John Kerry, out of print, used ones are between $420 and $1200 on Amazon.com...
So does this mean that if you're a hermit author, then anyone can copy your stuff because you aren't selling it on Amazon? That doesn't seem fair. Or am I misunderstanding this?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
'Censored music and software abandonware need not apply',
Why not,
I've had a number of CD/vinal stolen in my time and have had to resort to possibly ileagal distribution methods to be able to listen to them,
since:
a) I don't know where my copy is.
b) I can't get a copy from anyone because they won't do a run of one out of print piece of vinal.
This to me has been no great loss, but I'm sure there are people who have lost more valuable copyright materials due to fire or thieft.
The only time I have ever wanted to get a copy of an Old book I was able to, because it was more that 75 years old. I'n this case I, and the distribution company benifited because the book was out of copyright.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I hate to be the Devil's Avocado here, but if they're trying to stop a certain thing from happening, and their reasoning is "Look, it happens so much! It's futile! You need to not do this anymore!", shouldn't they already have lots of evidence to prove it?
At the moment (I didn't RTFA) aren't they saying "Look! It happens so much! Well...we think it does...I'm sure that if we ask people they will give us the evidence we need!"
--
The last digit of pi is four.
But I seriously doubt this case has any merit from the POV of a judge (yes, I did RTFA). Free speech simply does not apply to using someone else's copyrighted work, and the U.S. Congress has the Constitutional authority to make copyright laws. The laws may be burdensome and unfair, but that's Congress's responsibilty, not the courts, and if you've studied the recent history of the Supreme Court, you know that they're not going to interfere with something that is indisputably within Congress's authority under the Constitution, regardless of its burden on society, because the court does not make laws, it simply interprets them.
The resources spent on this would be far better spent on other courses of action, like lobbying or a public education campaign. This is just expensive windmill-tilting.
...that lawers make way more $/hour than I do. And now they want me to give them my time rather than research this stuff on their own. Oh, wait, I could do it from work...I'm sure my BOSS won't mind funding a copyright case. Better post as A.C., just in case he does.
This guy's name just keeps coming up, over and over.
You have to hand it to this guy - he doesn't give up on *anything*.
How much better this world would be if there were more like Lawrence!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
...Exhibit A: X-COM.
Sounds good to me.
Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
I tried to reinstall it, after 12 years. One of the disks was unreadable. I wrote to the manufacturer. They told me they didn't sell it anymore. Got it from a warez site. Fuck the law. As the Romans said, non omne licitum honestum, i.e. "not everything that's legal is honest". Or, as Heilein's professor Bernardo de la Paz said in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress":
"But I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; If I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am responsible for everything I do."
Everybody seems to be focused on video games and music around here, but let's not forget one of the biggest areas where copyright becomes a serious problem with orphaned works -- television and movies. I bet each person in here could name at least 5-10 movies and 5-10 television shows that's they would love to be able to see again, but can't because the companies that own the copyrights to those works refuse to release them on video/dvd or air them again. So why is it illegal to buy or sell fan made copies of such works if there is no other means to acquire or view them?
:)
Obviously most of these things aren't in print because a lack of substantial demand for them, but lets consider that some of the films that are acclaimed for their worth in terms of art are also those that are the least popular among the consumer masses. Wouldn't it be fantastic if none of us could legally view "Casablanca" anymore because Viacom decided it doesn't sell well enough, but still held onto the copyright so nobody could watch it again?
I would name some movies and shows I'd love to see released again, but I'm sure I'd get laughed at. I have some pretty low-brow tastes
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
One effect of this idiotic law is the wholesale destruction of nearly all of the popular books from the first half of the 20th century. The very best stuff and well-known titles are still being published and read (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Raymond Chandler) but past a hundred or so titles, the books are just disappearing.
When the paper wears out or the book stops being checked out, libraries take the title off the shelf. Large cites will sometimes save a copy in the stacks, but usually the books get pulped or burned. In a technologically advanced civilized society, each title that is worth being published in the first place would be scanned and OCR'ed before being completely wiped out. But this is illegal under the Mickey-Mouse-protection-to-infinity US copyright law. So they just get pulped and burned.
I read a book by Florence King about how white people got to be so weird (a sort of laid-back but sharp quasi-anthropological study of Caucasians in North America) "WASP, where is thy sting?". In this book, she cites many of the books that were influencial on her and her parents thoughts and attitudes when she was growing up in the 1940's. It is impossible to find any of them now even though they were read and enjoyed by tens of millions of people and had a great deal of influence on how the depression generation came to view the world.
Now the rock'n'roll generation (the baby boomers) and the MTV generation and Kazaa generations would just say 'Fuck this stupid law' and then OCR and circulate their favorite books and videos anyway. But the WWII generation won't, they'll trust that the proper authorities are taking care of the preservation of their culture. But that is not happening and their entire culture except for about 100 titles is just evaporating.
Hundreds of years from now, people will marvel at the American empire and technological accomplishments from the end of World War II. They will wonder at what these people were like; what they believed; how they interacted with each other; what drove them. But they will never know because all the popular literature from this period is being destroyed and not copied as its media wears out.
It's all happening because of this insane US copyright law. And nobody seems to be aware that it's happening.
Sure, there's a copy of every book published in the US in the Library of Congress. Maybe. One copy. Somewhere in the vast warehouse stacks. But with the current ability to fit tens of thousands of titles on a single 89 cent DVD-R there's no excuse for allowing all of the popular books from the early and mid-20th century to disappear. Future generations will not think well of us for allowing this to just happen. Just because nitwit assholes like Michael Eisner have hundreds of millions of dollars doesn't give them the right to destroy the entire culture of generations.
At one time he was the most read mistery author in the world. Today, of nearly a hundred books he wrote, no more than five or so are in print, and all from the "Perry Mason" series. No "DA" books from Gardner anywhere.
No one got rich, yet it enabled the private sector to fund preservation through the resale of videos of long out of print materials. The output of famous movies stars like Clara Bow (the "It" girl) and Colleen Moore is becoming almost completely unavailable to the average person unable to arrange a private screening with the an archive.
It is no accident the the copyright law was pushed through to make 1923 the cut-off year. After 1924 movies became more "modern" in quality of camera and film, and adaptation of the standard speed of 24 frames per second. Also after 1924 phonograph recordings began to use the new electronic recording techniques which allowed for higher fidelity and sound quality compared to the old acoustic recordings.
The saddest part about the films is that the owners of the copyrights have no interest in preserving them. These movies are literally dissolving into dust as the nitrate based film stock decomposes. Copyright extension has been a complete disaster with respect the preservation of film and early sound recordings.
There's got to be skads of stories out there about people trying to reprint out-of-print magazines and fiction by deceased novelists (or books from now-defunct publishers).
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
I've taken many philosophy classes where the prof. has had to hand out inch thick stacks of photocopies because the work is out of print. If someone really wanted to, they could get them in trouble for this. Along the same lines, the Kemp-Smith translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was out of print the last time I checked. It is THE definitive translation which is refered to in all the literature. One pretty much can't study Kant without it.
What's more, even a $1 fee -- or a no-fee registration process -- can be unduly burdensome: imagine creating, for instance, a Half-Life 2 FAQ for the web and posting it up on Usenet. Under their proposed system as I read it, unless you go to the trouble of filling out the copyright registration for your FAQ there would be nothing to prevent a company like Brady Games from coming along and publishing your FAQ unattributed in their Official Half-Life 2 Guide(tm). For large works like a FAQ it may be reasonable to perform registration, but do you really want to have to go to the trouble to make sure that every Usenet and Slashdot post you make won't be reprinted for profit by someone else?
It's worth remembering that "copyright" refers not just to consumers' rights but also to creators' -- the right to say who can copy your original material and for what purposes. These are your rights too.
The summary is a bit misleading. It seems to imply that (if the lawsuit succeeds) if a work goes out of print, it will become public domain. This is not the case. The only thing that this lawsuit is aiming to do is to declare the three major copyright acts passed since 1976 unconsitutional, and basically revert back to the copyright law that existed in the US from 1790 to 1976. Basically, you would need to register works with the copyright office, renew them every so often, and keep records of all works that you have copyrighted. The copyright term would also be shortened significantly.
For big companies, keeping up with copyrights would be no big deal (although many would have a fuss about the shortening of the term, like say, Disney). That's why this talk about implications in video games is so silly. First of all, the oldest playable videogames are only about 20 years old, which is well under the copyright term, even with the old laws. Second, most videogame companies are still around, or have been bought out by other companies, in which case the copyrights would be inhereted. The fact that these games can't be bought commercially anymore doesn't mean anything, the companies would still own the copyrights, and the games would not be public domain.
The other thing to note is that any changes to copyright law are NOT going to be applied retroactively. The courts aren't going to say "Well, you didn't have to file for a copyright or keep copyright records after 1976 in order to legally have a copyright, but you should have been able to see into the future and see that these laws are unconstitutional, and done it anyways." It's impossible to say how many of the works people are talking about would still be under copyright if the recent laws had never been passed. It's theoretically possible that every work someone submits a story about would be under copyright if the new copyright laws had never been passed, and that they didn't file for a copyright simply because the new laws made it so that they didn't need to. That's why the courts aren't just going to say "Every work published from 1976 to now is public domain!"
Like Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny beating up Tojo.
And all those anthropomorphised crows........
I grew up watching this stuff and now its locked up "for the good of society.
And don't forget Disney's Song of the South the movie based on Joel Chandler Harris' work.Hell you have to go to a Civil War show to get a bootleg copy.I saw it in the theater as a child.......
It's there in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 8: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". So, if the laws do not promote the progress of science and useful arts, they are unconstitutional. Hmmm, did you note that "useful" thing about arts? Suppose someone argues that computer games are useless?...
Towards the end of the writing of the declaration, happiness was inserted instead of the original thought of property, taken from Lockes works. It was still intended to assume property as one of the "happiness" things. Lockes writings are part of the "natural law" ideals that took hold in merre olde englande, and greatly influenced Jefferson, the primary draftsman of the Declaration. The natural laws ideals were intended primarily to protect generic "mankind" against the natural state of government-which always tends to tyranny sooner or later, and the usurpation of all "rights" into their favor. Locke himself didn't go that far,pretty wishy washy that man was, he was still more an autocrat, but some of his ideas were adopted.
Unlimited copyrights were never intended, but a reasonable time period copyright was extremely intended, as it is your property. Pursuing your happiness, part of which is to own your stuff, your property, is a "natural right" further delineated in the articles in the constitution. The Declaration of Independence is the original statement of natural rights,enough to get the ball rolling, after all these were learned men of letters and HAD to put something in writing, and the rejection of perpetual aristocratical "rights" was paramount, and they had only a few choices left, and individual soverignty won the day by a squeaker, lucky for us. The Constitution then went on to clarify and delineate these rights, and that document was designed to place explicit restrictons on government "rights", with the default being all natural rights went to the soverign individual,that he is born with them, they are not granted by any government or any piece of paper, and some to the states, with a very limited amount to the federal government, who's 'absolute' area of soverignty is within -notice I said "within" not just plain "in"- the district of columbia, the territories, and in the foreign embassies and a very few other places, such as federal armories, etc.
Interesting historical trivia, somewhat relative to the conversation to help understand the meanings and intentions of the document.
Disney outright uses it as a marketing ploy:
"Buy X now! Available for the last time ever on video!"
They deliberately orphan older movies to force consumers [who may not want to buy them just yet but equally don't want to never be able to buy them] to purchase them in a given format.
Mind you, using Disney as an example might not be the best move as they can (and do) buy better/more politicians.
True. Now ask yourself the REAL reason people are pursuing this endeavour? Bet that will be a far more enlightening discussion.
---
"Sorry, but according to our tests, you are trying to post from an open HTTP proxy. [so we will violate your inaliable rights to post to "/."]"
"If you have questions, mention that your proxy is at [privacy violation] on port [privacy violation]."
psychologist friend of mine recently pointed out that treating a corporation as a 'person' might open them to other possibilities ... in fact he pointed out that if you look at the behaviour of modern corporations and analyze them using the normal psychological diagnostic criteria (DMS-III) the diagnosis 'psychopath' often comes out ....
Remember the Charlie Brown/Outcast video that was created a few months ago? This is what this case is fighting about--They want to be able to create these types of work-AND who is it hurting anyway?!?!
The Constitution states that the purpose of patents and copyrights is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Well, I can understand that books do serve this purpose. But how exactly does binary executable software promote this progress? If the source code remains a trade secret, it will be lost forever after the company no longer exists. And copy-protected works? They will disappear if the devices needed to play them are no longer available. So, the logical thing, would be to declare inconstitutional any sort of DRM on copyrighted works. Trade secrets need no copyright protection, they have their own protection in the secret. Copyrights, like patents, are an incentive for people to reveal how their creation works, not a license to get profits from secrets.
Add to that virtually all of the works of Charles Sanders Peirce. They exist, but you can't go to the bookstore and buy them. It's a big royal pain in the ass.
Well said.
I would like to add that this also does a disservice to the memory of the creators of the works. Copyright seems to be working to insure the anihilation of their memory.
An extreme comparison, but imagine taking the graveyards of your ancestors, destroying the headstones, and putting up some parking lots. I don't particularly care about gravestones and ancestors, but that seems somehow very wrong.
"So, if the laws do not promote the progress of science and useful arts, they are unconstitutional."
According to who's time schedule? The copyright holder can "promote" anytime between the beginning of copyright and it's end. Another symptom of our "instant-on", everything must happen NOW society. If you don't get it NOW? Sue! "Promote" NOW, darn it!
I was wondering if the old credit card processing software my startup company wrote, most recently owned by Red Hat, was still available for download to users who already had license keys. No new license keys will ever be available, but for users who already had them, it's conceivable that they'd need to redownload the software if their credit card processing server crashed, or if they migrated operating systems (for example from SCO, which we did support, to Linux).
So, I wandered over to Red Hat's anonymous FTP server, and there it was -- a piece of closed-source software that the company hasn't supported since 2001 is still available for download at the same location it was at when it was a supported product.
Kudos to Red Hat for this. There's an extremely slim chance that some ex-customer could have been screwed if this closed-source copyrighted software had been removed from their download servers, but it hasn't been. It's still there. I applaud them.
(And it's not Red Hat's fault it was closed source. The NDAs that the banks and credit card companies required pretty much gave no other options to anybody who tried to do this sort of thing in a legit manner. There were pseudo-open-source efforts to do similar stuff, but none of them had the approval of the banks, and as far as I know they actually violated the terms the banks set for using their merchant accounts.)
(By the way, if anyone at Red Hat sees this message -- I'd love to re-obtain the rights to that old source code. To some extent I'm screwed by the copyright on the thing's source code. I've signed the NDAs, but I can't get my own source code back, even though I'd like to continue fixing bugs and updating clearing house compliance for free. But the customers were not screwed, and in the end that's much more important.)
Then the elite white ruling class looked around and realised just how many poor non-landowning folk and slaves there were, and thought better of it.
I've seen other companies buy a competing product just so they can kill it.
Should copyright law be used as a tool to suppress information? What if I am a rich, but terrible, writer of fantasy epics. Should I be able to buy the copyrights to the Lord of the Rings, and then prohibit anyone from printing the books?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
There are different rules for making copies for a class -- copyright's fair use clause gives a lot of leeway to making copies for educational purposes. I don't know, without more information, if what you're talking about exceeds fair use or not. If entire books are being photocopied, that likely is illegal without permission. If it's individual chapters or essays, that could well be OK.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Are you referring to *this* Zoolander? If so, I shall have to ask you to step outside!
- Derek, to tiny cellphone: "God?!"
- Dammit Derek, I'm a coal miner, not a professional film and television actor." (Jon Voigt)
- David Bowie cameo, proving that he transcends the nutty world of ultra hipdom even while being part of it.
- Christine Taylor
- David Duchovny as the former hand model
- Will Farrell
- "What is this, a center for *ants*?!"
You must be thinking of a different cinematic masterpiece.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Unfortunately, it's the *pursuit* that is guaranteed, not being happy.
meh
Maybe this is what Copyright law and the DMCA is really about. Namely, the destruction of the culture of our ancestors so that it can be replaced with the anaesthetizing culture that suits the current political establishment, such as, the current crop of movies being pumped out of Hollywood, poisoning the minds of an entire generation.
One effect of this idiotic law is the wholesale destruction of nearly all of the popular books from the first half of the 20th century.
It's not being destroyed. There are book collectors and bibliophiles all over the world collecting and saving these books.
However, the 'salvation' you speak of, scanning the works in, is well-documented as a means used by zealous librarians (who want to keep the 'bulk' of their 'collection' constant) to destroy books. They slice them out of their bindings, scan (poorly, wiping out illustrations) and pulp the pages. The myth that the pages are all crumbling is obscene, and here you are promoting it.
resigned
Turbo Teen... always loved that show, never sure why they cancled it... but, I guess I was 5 when the re-runs stopped running on USA...
Basicly, the copyright holder must either A.make the work available or B.if the work is unavailable to get copies of, they must pay some money to register the work periodicly (how often would depend on the type of work). Each time you register the work, the cost goes up a bit. That way, if someone wants to retain copyright to stuff, they can either make it available ot they can pay to keep the copyright.
That would mean that for stuff people are still selling/making money off, nothing changes. But for stuff thats not available, if the copyright holder re-registers it (and pays), they get to keep it.
For works where one cant find the copyright anymore or whatever, one of 3 things would happen;
1.the copyright holder would make the work available (thus allowing you to get a copy)
2.the copyright holder would re-register the copyright (thus allowing you to look it up in the database and find out who owns the copyright so you can try to get a copy from them)
or 3.the work would not be re-regisered (thus meaning it would fall out of copyright and you could copy it)
The other thing to note is that any changes to copyright law are NOT going to be applied retroactively.
I find that odd, as they certainly passed the extensions retroactively. I always thought that the way to go about fixing (parts of) the copyright problem was to attack the 1976 and Bono laws as ex post facto laws, which are expressly forbidden by the Constitution.
Oh God damn it! I have just released all of my stories as public domain!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
He was probably one of the most publicized people in the last year burdened by this by releasing The Grey Album.
My spoon is too big.
It's no myth, even if one grants that it doesn't happen as often as some claim. Sixty years ago long-lasting quality paper was no more used for run-of-the-mill publications than it is now.
When I was a kid back in the '70s I found in my grandparents' basement a book called "Stratosphere Jim and his Flying Fortress." I don't recall the exact date on it, but from the context of the story it preceded WWII. (The "bad guys" were obviously Nazis, but the author carefully avoided calling them that, or even identifying them clearly with Germany.) It was a kind of low-tech science fiction novel and entertaining enough in its way, so I took it home. The pages were brown and could not tolerate any new creases, and at the slightest mishandling the pages would start to flake away at the corners. At that time the book could not have been more than 40 years old.
I wish I knew where it was, as it's clearly one of the orphaned works this article's about. If anyone else here has ever heard of it, I'd be very surprised.
And the brethren went away edified.
I read the whole book tonight and Lessig definitely convinced me that there is a dire and pressing need to release all these abandoned works from copyright enslavement.
Copyright on works which have passed beyond their commercial lifetimes, basically does no good for society, and simultaneously does a lot of harm.
fucking slashdot comment filter.. NT for real
Not making it available when there is a demand is unacceptable, especially given the ease of making works available in digital format now.
AC comments get piped to
The Library of Congress used to receive a copy of each new copyrighted work, but that stopped with the enactment of the Copyright Act of 1976. The librarian of Congress made the point, with examples, that McDonald's (among other businesses) was copyrighting their tray liners, and dutifully submitting one copy of each to the Library of Congress. This wasn't, according to the librarians, quite what Jefferson had in mind. The requirement was dropped.
Under the Copyright Act of 1976, and subsequent revisions, copyright is assured as soon as the work is "reduced to fixed form" (printed from your laser printer, for example).
The Bono law is different. It grants an extra 20 years on copyrights. This can be taken away without infringing on any rights, because if the law had never been passed, the copyright holders would have had the same rights as if it was passed, and then later taken away. However, the 1976 law is different. If it had never been passed, many people would have just registered for copyrights, and then still held them legally. But because it was passed, they didn't need to register. If the 1976 law is then declared unconstitutional, and all non-registered copyrights are put in the public domain, even ones that would have been registered had the 1976 law not been passed, it would be unfair, and unconstitutional, because the law currently says you don't need to register.
Doesn't the owner of a piece of intellectual property have the right to make their property unavailable if they so choose? I realize that most of the examples that have been posted here involve situations where giving widespread access to the 'orphaned' IP wouldn't really hurt anyone, but there are also plenty of cases where a company or individual might want to deliberately make a piece of IP unavailable. If I were a publisher who had recently replaced "The Complete Geek's Guide to Posting on Slashdot" with "The New and Revised Complete Geek's Guide to Posting on Slashdot," I would probably take the original version out of print and wouldn't want it released into the public domain as free competition for my newer product.
Or what if I just decide that I don't want my book/photo/software/whatever circulating any more? Maybe I had a religious conversion and decided that my IP is no longer fit for use in any decent society, so now I want to bury it. If it's my property, don't I have the right to lock it away?
Yes that counts. Now go to their site and fill in the forms. Assuming you actually have TRIED to make your abandonware games legal. If your the typical person you don't see it at Best Buy so you assume it isn't available anywhere, and that doesn't count.
The way I see it, this move would end up being about media companies who own the means of dissemination scarfing up anything that falls out of the original copyright period. Sure, you and I could make copies, but really what will happen is all the songs, images, etc. will end up on cheap commercials.
I have noticed over the last several years that a lot of the great rock tunes of my youth are being licensed for TV commercials by big corporations. Often they turn the whole original context of the song on it's head and it becomes another craven sound-bromide. The Cure's 'Pictures of You' comes to mind. Geez, Robert Smith! Did you need to sell out that badly?
Advertising kills culture, and all I see Lessig's move leading to is the recycling and destruction of culture.
resigned
MST3k
So who owns it now?
Why not change the law such, to make that practice legal?
That would give copyright owners all the usual benefits, but only for as long as they keep the work available (under reasonable terms).
When the copyright owner would stop making the work available, then with that they would at the same time waive their right to enforce copyright protection, or stop others from making it available.
Many, many episodes of MST3K will never be broadcasted again because the licenses on the riffed movies have expired.
In the case of Sandy Frank films, this is out of spite at the MST3K treatment, and not because the films have any appreciable value in the marketplace any more!
Then we should lobby for a copyright law that can't be changed, accept by 100% senate, 100% representative, and 100% congressional approval vote, which states a single point in time for a copyrighted work to expire. Additionally, in order to get a copyright on a book, movie, or piece of music, you have to 3 copies into the library of congress, who then immediatly OCR's the data, scans it into their vast database, and when the day comes along that the copyright runs out, they throw that puppy onto the internet with public funding on a phat phat pipe, or if you're old fashoned, you can request a copy of the media on a physical format and wait a year for them to get around to the request.
I'm sure every book published in the united states, once compressed, would probably fit on a 50-stack of DVD's. In a few more years, it'll fit on a disk, and in a few more years after that, you can contain all of humanities knowledge, in any format, on a single disk.
Unfortunatly, there's an evil that doesn't want this to happen. It's the same evil that has taken over our government, enslaved us, and is currently seeking total control. I call it satan, you can call it whatever you want; republicans, democrats, corporate bigwigs, linux zealonts, etc. It comes in many forms, but once you know what it is, you can identify and fight it. It's kinda like getting unix; takes awhile, but once you've got it, you've got it.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
"This guy's name just keeps coming up, over and over.
You have to hand it to this guy - he doesn't give up on *anything*.
How much better this world would be if there were more like Lawrence!"
The same could all be said about RMS. Both men who "don't give up on anything". However Lessig is revered, and great things are said. RMS however is denigrated and worse (much worse). I have nothing against Lessig, but I can't help but notice the differing treatment, and wonder the reason.
Isn't the whole problem here that because we don't have access to works that should be in the public domain, that we don't even know what we're missing?
How the hell was that redundant? It was the first post addressing the fucking issue! Jesus the mods here are fucking retards.
Props to GNAA!
Very true. But Lessig's point is that Congress does not have the *unlimited* right to continually expand copyright protections to the point that they harm the nation. That's the central message of Free Culture, Lessig's latest attempt to get people to wake up to the detrimental effect current copyright law is having on our society.
The book can be downloaded for free, and it provides plenty of examples of how the original intent of copyright has been warped almost beyond recognition in the past few decades.
The recent history of the Supreme Court does indicate that they're not going to interfere with something that is within Congressional purvue. However, it may be that the best way to attack the current copyright regime is to point out that Congress has overstepped the bounds of its authority by failing to properly take into account the negative effects of practically indefinite copyright extension.
The resources psent on this would be far better spent on other courses of action...
I'm not sure that you're wrong, but at the same time, I wonder if anyone would pay any attention to a public education campaign. With so many other vital issues on the plate right now, I doubt that most Americans would truly understand the need to reform copyright. It's just too ephemeral an issue, when you stack it next to Afghanistan, Iraq, interest rates, unemployment, Olympic athletes on drugs, and so on.
Lessig may be tilting at windmills, but at least he's trying.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
pretty soon there'll be no little kids who KNOW "Happy Birthday" to continue our pattern of infringement. Nobody will be singing it...nobody will infringe...nobody will care..oops!
Earlier copyrith revisions have allowed a grace period, for people to register works affected by the change. I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that the supreme court can sketch out a procedure like this in their decision as part of a possible solution, and congress can take such advice into account in either writing a wholely new law or amending the 1976 version. Earlier grace periods were as little as 6 months or a year, although I suspect that IP industry types would swiftly realize they should at least lobby for 5 years or so and hope for 2 this time.
Who is John Cabal?
The orignial terms of copyright required you to fill out a form & pay the fee for every work you wished to have protected. It wasn't till 1976 when much of the mass media took off that the library of congress shrunk under the load of processing all those petty requests. You also had to reapply after the initial 14 year period... That had the effect of progressively "pushing" stuff into the public domain. What happened in 1976 is the cause of much of our problems lately. Works aren't registered, so there's not authority of what is a work and what isn't...also that change changed things from being "communication was in the public domain UNLESS REGISTERED" to being "communication protected Until it ran out..even if not registered" [i.e. forever] which wasn't done before.
im part of that "rock'n'roll / mtv / kazaa" generation...
rock's still kewl, mtv never was, and kazaa was, but it the recording industry ass of America killed it.
i dont think iv watched > 15 minutes of mtv in a single day yet this year. i havnt used kazaa in 6 months. Bit Torrent <G>
Nathan Friedly
I'm a big Trekkie, but I've never even had an opportunity to see this series. I don't even know if it's any good, specifically because I've never seen it!
In fact, that's the problem in a nutshell: it's hard to come up with examples of orphaned works because nobody knows about them (or if they're worth saving), because they were orphaned.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Battletoads
You're probably one of those Dobie Gillis fans, or a "Time Tunnel" fan.
Me2!
There were several more sitcoms of the same period as Dobie Gillis that I'd love to watch as an adult. It's a pity I can't even remember the names of the shows.
QBASIC is one such example. First, it isn't even a quarter century old yet. Second, it is copyright by Microsoft. Third, it's only a trial version. Fourth, I'm sure he could find a copy of it on eBay or somewhere. There are thousands of copies.
Both stories come from the directors who spoke after their respective movie was shown at the Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival (known better to Champaign and Urbana, Illinois locals as "Ebertfest").
* Bernard Rose, director of "Paperhouse", had to (and I'm using the term correctly here) steal the reels to this movie after it was shown at Ebertfest a couple of years ago. Sony Classics was unwilling to distribute the movie in formats for home video and Rose wanted more people to see the movie. So he took the reels after it was shown in the Virginia Theatre (a theatre in Champaign, Illinois where the Ebertfest movies are shown).
* Jonathan Caouette directed "Tarnation" which was made on his computer for what is described as "an initial cost of $187" by the Ebertfest literature. Caouette later discovered that clearing the rights for the snippets of other movies used in Tarnation would cost roughly half a million dollars.
Digital Citizen
As a painter it would really make my life impossible if I had to register every painting I do. Some months I can do 2-3 paintings, some months I do hundreds; it depends if I'm doing sketches, the size of the pieces, if I have commissions, etc.
I also could _not_ afford to register all these paintings; even at $1-$5 per registration.
But if I didn't register them I wouldn't be afforded any protections for my work, so they could be used anywhere, by anyone. Imagine seeing one of your paintings or sketches on the menu of a café that you've never heard of.
I'm all for copyrights being made only 50 years or even less (that gives me enough time to sell the painting), but they should be copyrighted the instant they are created.
BobRoss
I will never never never support such a lame proposition. It's only being supported by the worthless of this world that can't create anything of their own.
/. denizens. Fog 'em.
And the history of these stories and discussions shows what slimy people they are - devoid of human value, value to humans, and all redeeming characteristics.
Slime-balls. Low-lifes.
For years, a directors cut of Ridley Scott's movie Legend was completed and ready for ditribution. However, it could not be sold due to the restored soundtrack composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith, Scott, and the studio all claimed they didn't own the soundtrack. Since they didn't know who to pay, they couldn't release the movie. (The movie was released after a couple of years, I assume they figured out who to pay)
I used Google.
May we never see th
Hardware for the landfills - not that a company has to be out of business to withold drivers for yesterday's hardware.
Uh, sorry you have typo in that line. It is supposed to read:
You have the right to purchase happiness.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
IMHO some people who legally own copies of some copyrighted work(almost everyone does) should get together and sue the government for damages.
Extending copyright practically means you take away the rights to copy from the owners of books and other media, and when property of yours gets taken away for the better of the public, you are entitled to compensation.
Taking away something without compensating for it is communist.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Perhaps your university should stop teaching pointless elitist dead languages like latin and pascal :).
...quite a while (late 90's)
I can see no other reason for your emphasis of 'alma mater'.
.
There are some sites which show schematics for consoles, computers etc. However, the problem is that these have custom chipsets, yes even the lowly Atari2600 has the Stella chip.
So if you wanted to do a project with these it's nigh impossible, yes some guys have made handheld 2600's, snes etc, but by gutting an old one.
Saving these chips may be equally or more important than saving than software, rom cart dies burn a new one, video chip dies YOU ARE FKED.
Really need a datasheets on their operation etc. so we can FPGA them for propserity, or properly emulate them without failable guesswork.
Remember Atari don't make 2600's anymore! Nor Commodore makes Amigas and C64's, Not forgetting Sega and Nintendo.
My wild guess is that it's not that they don't know it happens. We all do. Copyright law may have been penned as a means to encourage distribution, but we all run 10 times more often into situations where it's effectively used to destroy a work of art, book recording or photo.
The problem is that too convince the Congress, they probably need some damn good examples. With a government that bends over to corporations and invades a country or two to please the oil tycoons, you need to make a _very_ convincing case if you want any hope of them actually taking some corporation's lollypop.
You can't just tell them "Uh, but I can't download Daggerfall, even though Bethesda no longer sells it, nor any of Microprose's games, although Microprose doesn't even exist any more." 90% of them would probably not even consider that to be art or culture. (Even though a movie or printed story with the exact same plot, would get considered as such.)
So you need to give them some really outrageous examples. Not just any obscure book or song, but fundamental pieces of the nation's very culture which are being effectively destroyed by copyright. _That_ might just get the point across.
And for that, well, they need all the help they can get.
[RANT]
The funny thing is to think how wrong communist censorship was in those parts of the world. Instead of trying to outright ban or burn the work of dissidents, they could have just bought the distribution rights and used it to make sure noone is allowed to print or quote that book in the next 95 years. Works like a charm for US corporations, and noone throws a fit about human rights.
It's a funny world where banning a book to protect the ego of a dictator is rightfully reprehensible, but banning it to protect the greed of a corporation is perfectly acceptable and normal. Isnt't it just banning a book in both cases?
[/RANT]
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
So, this seems like a great cause to me, and I'd love to contribute, if only I knew of an orphaned work, and a good use for it. I suppose that I could go hunting for any number of orphaned works that I might find usefull, but if anyone could post a list, or searchable database of works that fit the bill, that would probably really inspire participation in this....
Can't be done without a consitutional amendment. Any law is automagically superseded by any subsequent law. So if such a law were to be passed, and the next year, the law were changed as part of the appropriations bill, it would quietly cease to exist.
Note that this is what happened to various "balanced budget" laws in the 80's. Law was passed requiring the budget to be balanced, but the next year, the appropriations bill ignored that law, and therefore superseded it (the appropriations bill(s) are laws too, once passed)
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Don't forget people like Tom Hanks who has purchased all the rights to his early work (Bosom Buddies) and allows no one to show it, much less release on DVD.
Oh yeah, they want your stories so that they can make a couple million and you get the privilege of saying "I made a fucking lawyer a couple of million dollars!"
They are modding you down because you have a GNAA link in your sig. Get over it
Second, most videogame companies are still around, or have been bought out by other companies,
You've _got_ to be kidding, right? C'mon. Having no evidence, I'd guess that these companies sprout and die pretty quickly, often going out with a disorganized little wimper. But I'll bite -- do you have some backup for your assertion? I know I have none for mine.
Here's this, though. Whenever a business is "wound up", some one receives "all remaining assets". Though none of the people involved might have realized it, this includes the copyrights. And that's part of the problem. Not only isn't anyone publishing the stuff anymore, not only is the content getting lost and/or degrading, but no one knows who the copyright holder is. Which means that if some one else wants to distribute, improve, or preserve the content, they can't do so in any safety -- not even if they're willing to buy the rights.
Lessig and co.'s problem with copyright extension is that _nothing_ is flowing into the public domain -- not the valuable works, nor even the near-forgotten works. The utility of these forgotten works, whether historic or commercial, is being lost and may disappear permanently. And, it's not being lost for any reason -- just as a side effect of companies wanting perpetual rights to a very narrow group of properties.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I was thrilled then the photographer my wife and I picked for our wedding told us that we keep the negatives. He said, "the pictures are ours, we're just paying him for the use of his camera and his eyes for that day." The fact that he takes fantastic photos made it even better. :)
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Let us sign a bargain with the devil.
The devil wants to own certain works, such as the mouse, the Beatles, etc. We want to release forgotten works and future works into the public domain.
Let us offer to the corporations perpetual copyright on anything they now own. We'll give them a year to make up a grand list of it all. In exchange, we'll demand a reset of the copyright period for new works to something much shorter (like the 1976 version of 33 years + renewal for 33 years). For old works not on the grand list, we'll reset their period according to whatever copyright law existed when they were first published (causing most of them to flow into the public domain immediately).
How's that for a deal? We give up the mouse forever and they give us back a functional public domain. I'm betting that it won't take long for "the locked works" to be forgotten by all of us.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Why don't we just pay them off? Suppose we create a tax deduction that says, "If you donate a work to the public domain, you may deduct the last 5 years of revenue from that work from your taxable income this year."
This would encourage corporations to donate a work whenever the expected profit on the remaining life of the copyright is less than the taxes on the revenue of the last 5 years. It won't do much for old works that already earn zero/year, but it'll do wonders for middle-aged works nearing the end of profitability. Right at the point where the rights-holder is ceasing to make much money off of them, they'll flow into the public domain. Goodness knows, bean-counters will do almost anything for a tax break.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
That's why this talk about implications in video games is so silly. First of all, the oldest playable videogames are only about 20 years old, which is well under the copyright term, even with the old laws.
If we are talking about 28 years, with an extension to another 28 years (after registering + paying), then the initial terms would be in sight.
Second, most videogame companies are still around, or have been bought out by other companies, in which case the copyrights would be inhereted. The fact that these games can't be bought commercially anymore doesn't mean anything, the companies would still own the copyrights, and the games would not be public domain.
Nonsense. I think that most videogame companies that still exist don't even know what games they sold twenty years ago. I bet that if you asked, they probably couldn't even find the source code anymore. Those companies won't register their twenty year old games, except for some long lasting series (ie. Mario Brothers). Most games would just go into the public domain. Remember that the registering of copyright is very important. That means that you can always find out whether something is copyrighted and by whom and if something is not registered, you can safely use it. This in contrast with the current situation, where you have to try to find the copyright holder and get permission (both are often a problem). You are completely at the mercy of someone who has no interest in helping you. This makes it such an enormous burden to reuse copyrighted material that much of it is simply abandoned (or used illegally).
If there was such a problem as stated by the lawyers, then why would they have to hunt for evidence? Hey maybe there isn't a problem and maybe there is not need to bring a law suit.
So use TeX or LaTeX. There are supporting utilities that convert the resulting .dvips files to many other formats. Plus, using TeX, entering those Greek characters becomes a breeze!
...you mean like the Star Wars Holiday Special? Yes, I've already posted that example to Lessig's site.
I am from the same generation and I am embarassed because of people like you. I really hope that was some kind of joke. "kewl"? IANAGZ (I Am Not A Grammer Nazi) but come on!!!!! You do not represent people like me. I hate generation X and it is because of people like you.
So is it now uncool to watch MTV. Is nonconformity the cool thing to do now. I won't touch the kazaa comment only because you are so stupid and everyone knows why.
The other thing to note is that any changes to copyright law are NOT going to be applied retroactively. ... That's why the courts aren't just going to say "Every work published from 1976 to now is public domain!"
Well, the last part's right (the works since 1976 would get at least the 1976 amount of copyright), but the first part is up in the air. If the recent laws were overturned, then the old law would return to force unless congress were to pass something to replace it. One of the likely effects would be that works whose term would necessarily have expired under the 1976 act (even assuming they'd been registered) would flow into the public domain quickly.
Congress would almost certainly pass some bill giving all copyright holders a period of time to get their registrations back in order before the new/old regime took effect. Thus, the abandoned video games (which are young still) wouldn't go public domain immediately, but they would go after not too long.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
...MTV (like their concert series that used to run every week, typically featuring "up and coming" groups), The Dukes of Hazard, etc.
I would say it's an issue of branding. Yes, even people should be aware of and maintain/pursue a brand image. It's a brand called you!
Does that go well with a devilled egg salad?
Don't know how you'd quantify the "burden" resulting from this phenomenon, but one example of copyright abuse that I find particularly galling and threatening is the "Church" of Scientology's use of copyright to prevent the dissemination of accurate information about their "religion" (which many would argue is really a New Age-inspired business masquerading as a religion to avoid paying Uncle Sam taxes). The organization claims to be a religion but then invokes copyright to protect its "trade secrets" (dubious behavior for a religion in my book) whenever somebody publishes excerpts from various books and manuals that it conceals from the public (making them available only to those who've been properly vetted and who've paid big $$$ for these high level courses where they are taught that human beings are descended from aliens). It seems to me that they use copyright laws to hide information from the public, which isn't its purpose. One possible way to quantify the impact might be to tally up all the legal fees and fines that have been imposed on this Church's critics for the supposed "crime" of sharing their real doctrines with the public. Lives have been ruined by their heavyhanded reaction to leaks. See www.xenu.net and www.factnet.org for more.
For more information about orphaned films, you can read the archives of USC's Orphan Film Symposium. This might also be a good place to look for people to contact on this subject. The 2001 symposium had a session on Preservation and Copyright.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
If quasi-anthropological analysis turns you on, try Southern Ladies and Gentlemen. I've never seen a more on-point explication of traditional Southern white society, top to bottom.
As for how *Florence* got that way (world-reknowned lesbian misanthrope), much becomes clear when you read about her mother, father, grandmother, and associates in Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady.
All of the above, of course, are absolutely hilarious.
You can't take the sky from me!
I for one would love to see neverwinter nights(oNWN) released into the public domain. Right now the server portion is just sitting somewhere doing nothing because of a copyright dispute between AOL and TSR. If they released the server program, I'm sure there would be thousands of people ready to start an oNWN server. It didn't use much bandwidth because it was back in the day where 2400bps was fast. You could probably host 500 users on DSL these days)
Ah screw it, you're not paying attention anyway.
Great idea! I'll help. How about cutting me a check for, let's see... $140,000 for registration and 6 months expenses. I'll pack my bags for D.C.
Oh, and can you schedule a few private parties at some Virginia Country Clubs? That would be great. Thanks!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
You were probably not around for the first year or two of MTV. It actually WAS cool, then. They played music videos (really!) and nothing but. There weren't even any commercials, at first. Most of the videos were just the band singing or playing.
Obviously, things changed rather quickly. But, it's not fair to say it was never cool.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I wonder why copyright law can't be simple, like: individual works become public domain upon death and corporate works become public domain after X years, where X isn't longer than a person's life expectancy. It seems current copyright law implies that our children/future executives should be able to get rich off of our creative work doing little for themselves, rather than just get our inheritence/assets and leave it at that.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
And I have to point out that it is the copyright extentions that, themselves, made things illegal, whereas repealing them would just make formerly illegal things legal.
However, while legal, it would certainly be unfair to public domain all works not formally registered since 1976. So the logical thing to do would be to give everyone five years or so to register them.
Actually, I'd keep that time limit. Let's let people have either 5 years from the passing of the law, or creation of thw work, whichever is later, to register a copyright, or the thing is public domained at the end. This removes the overburden at the copyright office, it stops people from being ripped off when they don't register, but it lets us just stop worrying about the copyright from works five years ago, unless they are explicitly copyrighted.
While we're at it, let's make that apply to pre-1976 works also...they have to go and register their copyrights again. That would get rid of all orphaned copyrights right there. Hell, let's make people re-up every 10 years, while we're at it.
Te gag is, really, all this could be fixed while leaving copyright term lengths completely broken. So I really have no idea why it's not happened yet.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"Weks--!!"
\@o@/
For example, the first 10 years are basically "free" with registration. Next 10 years costs $10 to renew. Next 10 years is $50. Next 10 years is $100. Then, follow with increments of $500 and $1000, topping out at $5000. Doing it in 10 year increments cuts down administration costs, while still guaranteeing that there are plenty of chances for things to fall into the public domain. It gives small authors a really great deal -- 40 years for $160. Even then, 60 years for $1600 is small stuff. Only after 80 years does it get above $10,000, which should be easily affordable for those whose copyrights are still collecting money after 80 years. The pricing may well change, but it seems to be self-financing, fairly easy to implement, while guaranteeing the intellectual commons.
Actually, this quote seems apropos:
"Money can't buy happiness, but it does allow you to choose your own form of misery."
This is the Constitution.This is the Constitution under the Bush administration. Any questions?
Project Guttenberg is already acting as a repository for scans of out of copyright works. How about a provision that for a work to be copyright a copy must be lodged with them in a closed archive (accessible for evidential purpouses)as well as the library of congress. The contents of the closed archive could be decanted to the open archive when their copyright expires. The British Library is already undertaking a similar project. BTW we brits have SIX copyright libraries and I bet less than 1% of us can name more than the British Library and The Bodleian Library.
ok, i suppose mtv was cool, but its not now
Nathan Friedly
Purchased copyright extensions and length of terms
Copyright as it stands now is one sided monopoly provided by the government, that requires no expense by the producer of a work for the monoploy, but gives potentially massive returns over increasingly longer periods of time. Originally designed to secure incomes of artists etc for a period of 7~14 years, while they were busy developing new products and works for the public good. This concept of public good and copyright has effectively been destroyed by corporate interest, copyright transference and long term extensions to periods of protection. Many people can barely even imagine a world without some form of Copyright anymore, but many know they do not like what exists at the moment. I believe it is time to revert back to something that approaches the original concept as devised 150 odd years ago.
I suggest that a new commercial approach is needed, one where only a short initial period of protection is given for free after which protection would become more and more expensive until it ceased to be in the owners good to stop the work progressing to the public domain. The system would put direct values on the copyrights. The system would be self funded or even better a earner for the Government just like old time purchased monopolies were for governments pre income tax days.
My suggestion would be that everyone receives free rights for a period (my preference would be 5 years) as long as they can prove ownership and a creation date. The producer of a work could register a work with a centralised authority for a fee. The fee would be enough to cover administration costs and would act as a proof of ownership. A major benefit is the fact that several copies of the work would have to be submitted and would exist for later for public release.
Now after the initial free protection period is completed the holder can reregister for another period at his/her/their cost, my belief is that $500 for example is not unreasonable for a written work.
Each iteration after the first multiplies the registration fee by a value. Again I think a factor of 5 is reasonable meaning most works would be released by their 20th birthday and almost all by their 30th.
The costs for registration would be
1st (5 years) - Admin Fee
2nd (10 years)- Admin Fee + Protection Fee
3rd (15 years)- Admin Fee + PF x 5
4th (20 years)- Admin Fee + PF x 25
5th (25 years)- Admin Fee + PF x 125
6th (30 years)- Admin Fee + PF x 625
7th (35 years)- Admin Fee + PF x 3125
I would expect the protection Fee to actually be different dependent on form of Work being protected. Lets say $500 for a written work, $1000 for an audio/software Item, $5000 for a movie, $10 for a Photograph/Image. The protection covers the period from the initial creation or the work and does not get renewed with new media or transformations for such. Of course added features can be protected separately, but the main work is still only protected for the given period. The Protection amount would also have to be incremented with inflation to maintain it's power to force the release of material to the public domain.
Now as most recorded musical works rely on initial hype for the vast majority of its sales this would cause most music to fall from protection after 10-15 years. Work that becomes Iconic and forever fashionable (music of a generation like the 'Beatles') could justifiably be restricted for 30 years but the 7th period of protection ($3,125,000) would be the (almost certainly) last period of protection for these. (A complete Protection to 35 years of the Beatles Library would be close to a Billion dollars vs. $200 million for the 30 year protection)
If the artist produces more and more iterations of the same musical piece then each needs to be protected separately but the first versions will probably join the public domain faster. Of course with new versions etc they are probably making more money out of the later versions. So numerous releases of live an
I honestly don't think congress is smart enough to be that conspiratorial, but what you said is right out of 1984, and very insightful if you ask me.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Thanks, yes it seems quite apparent to me that copyright is being used as a tool of censorship. I was discussing this with a friend who once managed a book shop. He explained that often he would have many people people enquiring about a certain book that they would love to buy and read only to be told by the publisher "Sorry it's out of print."
Maybe I would have liked to tone down my post from "poisoning minds" to "moulding beliefs" but then again maybe it is fair enough.
If the elite really is using copyright as a form of censorship I doubt that Lessig has a chance of gaining a relaxation of copyright for orphaned works. But if the public becomes sufficiently educated about this issue, who knows?
Actually I added that link after they modded that post down.
Props to GNAA!
Don't worry, be happy! - Bobby McFerrin
I was going to reply Bobby McFerrin commited suicide you insensitive clod! But I did a search to confirm it and I guess it isn't true, and as far as I can tell he is still alive. Goes to show you cannot assume the news you hear on the radio is true. That sure is a percistant rumor.
Promote Sensitivity on Slashdot, make me your friend.
Unfortunatly, there's an evil that doesn't want this to happen. It's the same evil that has taken over our government, enslaved us, and is currently seeking total control. I call it satan, you can call it whatever you want; republicans, democrats, corporate bigwigs, linux zealonts, etc. It comes in many forms, but once you know what it is, you can identify and fight it.
I'll tell you what they are. They are the Insensitive Clods!
We must track them down and kill them, KILL THEM ALL!!!!!
If anyone says that this is overracting just accuse them of being soft-on-evil.
Promote Sensitivity on Slashdot, make me your friend.