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Kahle v Ashcroft Appeal Filed
An anonymous reader writes "Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive has announced that the appeal of Kahle vs. Ashcroft has been filed.
Here is the appeal.
Kahle vs. Ashcroft concerns the constitutionality of changing from an opt-in copyright system (which existed for almost 200 years in the US) to the current opt-out system, where every doodle on a piece of paper is copyrighted for 95 years. Yes, they used the word doodle in their appeal.
Previous stories here, here, and here."
I personally fail to see any reason to change mid-stride like this anyways. Was the old opt-in copyright law in some way broken?
If you want something copyrighted, you should be responsibile to take care of it. I don't give a shit about your Intellectual Property or otherwise if you can't be bothered to copyrighted.
This isn't a Constitutional issue. It's a Congressional issue. Congress has the Constitutional power to establish copyrights. In order to change that system, Congress simply needs to pass a new copyright act.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
I doubt that opt-in copyright will be stricken from the records - the rest of the world uses it, it would create a legal nightmare for any company that spans US/international borders.
Perhaps the real thrust is to force a 'compromise' deal, either to get a hard and fast limit of 95 years agreed (for when Mickey Mouse needs extending) or even to try and reduce that period of time.
When you're shooting against the wind, you have to build in some compensation in order to hit the target...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Aah, but you're just an individual and don't have enough money to buy^Wpersuade judges and politicians, so it is different.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I believe the current copyright law is
A work that is created (fixed in tangible form for the first time) on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author's life plus an additional 70 years after the author's death. In the case of "a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire," the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author's death. For works made for hire, and for anonymous and pseudonymous works (unless the author's identity is revealed in Copyright Office records), the duration of copyright will be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter
In geek-terms, it resolves a race condition. Under the new system as soon as you create a work it gains copyright from the date of creation. If somebody steals your work and passes it off as their own and you can show proof of the date, they've violated your copyright.
Under the old system, somebody could steal your work by taking it and copyrighting it under their name. Even if you could prove you had the earlier work the other guy had a better chance of winning because he had actually applied for, and gotten, the copyright.
Since when can the dead benefit from finacial gain? Heck, since when should someone have exlusive rights to work they release to the _public_ for their entire life? We live in sad, sad times. I would love to see copyright and patents drop down to 10 years or so. While I don't agree with software patents, I would have a _lot_ less to complain about if software patents dropped to 5 years or so.
Sadly, we will never see these days since our _whole_ government (both republican and democrat) are pretty much paid for by big business or special interest goups.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
No, it's authors and science. And in 1789, when that clause was written, science meant something like general knowledge. So yeah, a pretty picture is perfectly within the bounds of copyrightable subject matter.
The useful arts are the subject matter of patents. Useful arts are useful technical knowledge. The idea of an art being a kind of skill area is still common in the patent field (e.g. persons having ordinary skill in the art) and even in some idioms in common use, such as 'state of the art technology.'
-- 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.
Before you all start freaking out about evil corporations, corrupt governments, and everything else (too late)...
Understand that this is not some change that happened overnight while you were asleep. We have not had an "opt-in" copyright law in the United States since January 1, 1978. And the law was changed even before that -- Congress actually elected to amend the old copyright law in 1976. So I'd be willing to bet that this is the way copyrights have worked since before many of you were born.
Breakfast served all day!
When you use modern technology to do the exact same thing as quotation, there is no protection for the action. That's a key place where modern copyright law has gone wrong, IMHO. If I copy a paragraph from a book and quote it in another book, nobody sweats it (in fact, it's expected). But if I quote a piece of a beat from a song in another song, or a segment of film or TV in a video art piece, I'm expected to get the permission of the copyright owner (and often to pay lots of $$$, if they agree to let me use it at all).
I won't argue that life +70 is too long etc, but the point that I wanted to make about opt-out verses opt-in copyright is that under the old system, a creative work was unprotected from plagiarism until the work was officially registered with the copyright office. Here in Canada, I mail myself a copy of my work to prove date of creation (left unopened) and I'm done. Maybe the current US copyright law went too far, but opt-out copyright as a system ain't all bad.
-- Cheers!
Perhaps I misread your phrasing, but my understanding has always been that copyright is not the legal recognition of natural rights, but rather a legal fiction devised to further the progress of the useful sciences and arts and thus society as a whole.
Certainly, there's nothing natural about not being able to copy a music CD...
Now, your childhood paintings will be automatically copyright until 70 years after you die!
If a 5-year-old who grows up to be 90 made drawings today, they will still by copyright in 2160! Along with just about every other doodle, plaster handcast, home movie and blog entry every made.
If a researcher wanted to make a book of public domain children's drawings, they'd have to wait a really long time...
Patents: 17 years.
Hmmmm... something is a little off.
Clearly copyright need to expire at sometime, having them extend to infinity is simply unrealistic. The Grandparent post merely feels that the current copyright term is too long and frankly I agree.
Clearly from your post you are one of those that thinks that copyright really is a right. You are wrong in this. It is not a natural right and it is not the same as owning real property. It is like owning air, a thought, or energy. It is not even possible. It is possible for the government to force society to restrict the ability to distribute works, and that is what happens. The goal of this is to give incentives to inventors/creators/writers so that these creations will lead to the progress of all of society. If there is too much protectionism, it can stifle creation. If there is too little protectionism then a market is created in which nobody wants to invest in works of creation. The key is to find the terms of protection which lead to the most progress for each type of intellectual property. I agree with the grandparent in that the current copyright term is far too long. However, I agree with you that 10 years is probably too short for copyrights on photographs.
If you tried really, really hard, you probably could be more wrong than this. But you'd have to seriously bust your ass to pull it off.
Property rights are fundamental. They're basic to our society and our culture. They're inherent in everything that makes up our system of laws and norms.
You're saying that they're not natural. This is, to put it bluntly, fucking ignorant.
Have you ever taken a political science class? Have you ever read Locke?
Property can only be owned by one person at a time. If someone takes the property, the previous person is deprived of it. This is not so with artistic works and such.
Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Isaac McPherson, said the following: "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."
Believing that copyright is a natural right is absolute folly. Copyrights expire (that is, after all, the subject of the article above). A natural Right does not expire!
Let's look at the United States Constitution: "[Congress shall have the power] 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;" A Right, as recognized by the Constitution, is inalienable, endowed by our creator. What the aforementioned passage does is gives people the privilege of a government-granted monopoly over their idea as an incentive to think up more ideas. You need to go here and watch the first video, which covers the difference between Rights and privileges.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
I'm sure you would have no problem accepting the limitations of real property rights too - namely that you can sell said property once and only once.
Exactly. Copyright is about having your cake and eating it too.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Opt-out copyright has the very important benefit of providing coverage to all individual creators without requiring registration or meaningless copyright notices. Contrast this to the patent system, where only corporate entities can regularly handle the legal hassle and expense of registration. If we go back to an opt-in system, expect to see corporations claiming ownership of every scrap of paper they produce on the one hand while on the other ripping off any material they can find that isn't legally nailed down.
If you want fair use exemptions for archiving, fight for that. If you want shorter copyright terms, fight for that. Don't push for a change toward a system that pollutes the world with even more useless copyright filings and notices than we have already while punishing those who don't have a legal department to handle the issue.
I'm suprised more people have not pointed this out.
However the solution is to have a fairly short default copyright that you have to opt-out of. Not just for GPL but to get rid of the legal loophole that *anything* somebody writes is apparenty free for the taking until they manage to get the paperwork done. In a practical sense a short default copyright would stop a lot of unnecessary paperwork because the contributors could think about whether it is worth copyrighting or not, rather than being forced to submit it as fast as possible.
I'm not sure but a length of perhaps 5 years or so would be good. Even a five-year old copy of Linux is not much use so it may not matter for GPL code if nobody filed for the copyright. After that you have to opt-in, and you have to renew the opt-in every 10 years or so after that.
It may also help that the threat that your stuff will go into the public domain if you don't change it and you don't do the paperwork will get some of the authors to work a little more on their stuff and keep it up to date.
however. there's a better metric for describing copyright duration: pre-MICKEY MOUSE creation: public domain. post-MICKEY MOUSE creation: copyrighted for eternity.
if they keep altering it the way they've done so far.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Does the constitution really indicate a preference?
No, but the founders did, by instituting an opt-in system. Moreover, the argument is that copyright should only go so far as to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, and no further. Congress doesn't have the power to promote doodling, as it were. As the appeal notes, you don't need an incentive to doodle anyway.
Actually, I am a fairly creative person, and yes, I want to leech off the works of others. Trying to create something great without relying on the works of others makes absolutely no sense at all. There is nothing wrong with leeching off of anothers work whether that means paying for use of it or if it has passed into public domain. And yes, protectionism can stifle innovation. Lack of protection can discourage the appeal of investing in innovation because it may lower the returns you get on that investment. Too much protectionism can also discourage investment because it can create a barrier to entry in the market. If competitors are holding defensive patents whether applicable or not, you now have to budget for things like legal expenses and you may also have to purchase rights to use certain technologies.
If complete protection is what is best for society than we should just extend all intellectual property to last forever. Luckily, even the talking heads in Washington realize that complete protectionism would be bad and limit the terms of protection. I merely advocate adjusting those terms of protection to ones that I feel would benefit society as a whole. Those who want to make protectionism vertially limitless are the extremists.
What is said in the home is private, what is said on the internet is public.e .html
Should web browser caches be illegal?
btw, the whitehouse.gove opts out of the archive cause they have been caught before trying to revise history. http://www.spinsanity.org/posts/2003_08_24_archiv
If intellectual property is property, why not make it subject to property tax? Paid annually. Like I have to do with the property I own.
You need to register your copyright to begin with which gets you five or ten years, and then renew your copyright once every five years for a fee of, say, a dollar. You can renew for as long as you like (which would keep Mickey safe and sound) but if your copyright on a work isn't worth a few minutes (we could just have a web based renewal system) and a dollar once every five years, then let the public have at it.
I disagree strongly with this proposal. The worst effect of extended copyrights in my opinion is that publishing houses sit on large collections of works that they refuse to publish, yet prevent anyone else from doing so. There are two reasons why your above proposal will not solve this.
First, it is cheaper to renew all copyrights in their possession for $5 a year then it is to have someone review their catalogue and see what is worth renewing. Second, It is worth $5 a year to keep all the old works from competing with their new releases. This applies to books, music, and movies.
"Opt-out" is appropriate for copyright: I have the right to control copies of my unique expressions, but I can give up those rights with an express statement to that effect. "Opt-in" means a central registry is required for the default state, a huge overhead on all copying transactions for clearance; more prone to errors of omission (rather than the less common error of incorrect inclusion). An opt-out registry would be smaller and more manageable for everyone.
The real problem is the length of copyright. The original term of 17 years should never have been extended. If anything, it should be much shorter, now that the time to generously compensate creators for their work is so much shorter in our vast, rapid mediasphere. Something like 5 years, with an option to renew only if no income has been received, to get another chance at compensation for an idea ahead of its time. FWIW, the Internet Archive (which I love) would be a great place to host the opt-out registry, along with MD5 hashes of their free media objects.
--
make install -not war
I'm not sure what country you are posting from, but in the country I dwell in, (USA) there are other laws that prevent people from following each other around with video cameras.
When engaging in a conversation in a restaurant, one should be cognizant that conversations can be overheard, and censor ones self accordingly. If I am in a public place and speaking loud enough for others to hear, they may do so. They may also what they hear in accordance with fair use. Posting on the internet is like speaking very, very loudly, so loudly that the entire world can hear. If this prospect is unsatisfactory then you must lower your voice i.e., use measures that prevent everyone from viewing your speech.
Freedom of speech also includes the freedom to listen and remember.