Internet Archive Loses Copyright Fight

tiltowait writes "As reported on LISNews.com, the Internet Archive has lost a copyright lawsuit which challenged the Congressional lengthening of copyright terms and conditions. The ruling has implications for abandonware and other copyright-eligible materials that have no active owner. Brewster Kahle plans to appeal the decision." The decision is available. As we noted in an earlier story, the Eldred case challenged the length of copyright expansion, this one challenged the breadth, and so far, this one is going about as well as the Eldred case did. Stanford has an overview of the case.

Comments

Check out Wired

[elhondo]

For an article on how to join a PAC that is concerned with fighting this sort of thing. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65651,00 .html?tw=wn_tophead_1

Re:Abandonware is still copyright-eligible

[archipunk]

I thought abandonware was defined as software that was no longer commercially available or supported. What's that got to do with copyright?

Software is subject to copyright law.

The law states that copying, distributing, etc. that material, even if it is abandoned and unsupported, is illegal. But there are many individuals who want to use, modify, develop, etc. those materials who are presently prevented from doing so by the law.

If abandoned material was no longer encumbered by copyright, people with an interest could do new and creative things with those materials. Instead, though, the law acts to stifle and constrain new advances and developments, rather than to encourage them.

It preserves the rights of ignorance and suppression, rather than allowing and encouraging creativity, invention, and development.

Re:Abandonware is still copyright-eligible

[mopslik]

What's that got to do with copyright?

The argument goes something like this:

Consumer: "I'd like ProgramX, please."
Producer: "I'm sorry, we stopped making ProgramX a few years ago."
Consumer: "Oh, well where can I purchase a copy then?"
Producer: "I'm sorry, you cannot purchase a copy of ProgramX."
Consumer: "What if I copy ProgramX from a friend who has it then?"
Producer: "Copying ProgramX is illegal, because it denies us a sale."
Consumer: "But where can I buy ProgramX?"
Producer: "I'm sorry, you cannot purchase a copy of ProgramX."

Or something like that.

The Peter Pan Coyright

[westlake]

Barrie assigned the rights to Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity in 1929. Peter Pan will remain forever under copyright in the UK, under special legislation passed in 1988. Under the revised rules, European copyright expires in 2007, US coyright in 2023. Peter Pan Copyright

Bambi was released in 1942. The Bambi copyright was not secured until 1926. Disney fought and won on the issue of a "timely renewal" of the coyright in 1954. Amelia Translation Project