RFC Deadline Looms For "Orphan Works" copy

psychonaut writes "As previously reported on Slashdot, the US Copyright Office is currently reviewing the law as it applies to "orphan works" and "abandonware". The question is how to treat works (books, films, software, etc.) for which the copyright owner cannot be found so that permission can be granted to republish or create derivative works. "The issue is whether orphan works are being needlessly removed from public access and their dissemination inhibited. If no one claims the copyright in a work," they write, "it appears likely that the public benefit of having access to the work would outweigh whatever copyright interest there might be." The Copyright Office has been soliciting comments from the public since 26 January 2005. Now, as their 25 March deadline draws nearer, the EFF, along with freeculture.org and Public Knowledge, have teamed up to produce a website,Orphan Works, which gives some background on the issue and makes it easy to submit comments directly to the Copyright Office." And while you're at, contribute to the EFF. Good organization.

Comments

What's wrong with the current system?

[bigtallmofo]

Why would anyone have a problem with a totally unaffiliated company buying the copyright of a work from a bankrupted company for pennies and then holding that copyrighted content hostage for the next 75 years?

Anyone that has a problem with that is applying too much common sense to the copyright system.

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[Ubergrendle]

With the way copyright laws are going, we're lucky we see anything from the 20th century in the public domain. If the latest new copyright laws were grandfathered (e.g. 75 years after death of creator), we'd be looking at the 1850s.

"Get your 100% royalty free cotton-gin blueprints right here! For an unlimited time only!!!!"

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[Cylix]

I don't believe that is the issue.

It's simply cost prohibitive for the little guy to locate the rights to an obscure piece of footage or film. (two examples I'm familiar with)

Say for instance, you find a nice picture you want to incorporate and maybe it looks quite old, but maybe its unclear whether copyright has expired.

It seems more to be a CYA directive and would ease some tension when using /most likely/ interesting works that have been locked away by age.

Right now, it's not even an option to use such things even if the owner or estate owner has long since been gone. Simply because you just don't know and you probably can't afford the time or investment in something like that.

This sorta implies that older copyrights would have to be protected much like trademark. You can just buy it and forget it. (Now you have to catalogue it and forget it)

So if you did the leg work and came up with nothing you would have some defense in court should an issue arrise.

For someone with not-so-unlimited resources tracking down something like that can be tough. In the end, if you are cautious about being sued, you can't use it.

I believe the idea is that if you pursue a reasonable course of action to attempt to locate the owner and find nothing then it can be classified as abandonware.

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[zotz]

"Say for instance, you find a nice picture you want to incorporate and maybe it looks quite old, but maybe its unclear whether copyright has expired."

What about this idea?

Can't find copyright owner?

Compulsory license applies. Fees paid to government. Invested by government in safe investments. Government keeps half of profits on investments and other half goes to pay authors who create copyleft works. Actual copyright owners who find their works being used under a compulsory can claim monies fgrom the government. (Can't get the profits earned in the meantime though.

Compulsory license still applies to the works in question and to any derivatives.

all the best,

drew

Tone of words is interesting

[barrkel]

"If no one claims the copyright in a work," they write, "it appears likely that the public benefit of having access to the work would outweigh whatever copyright interest there might be."

This indicates that the copyright office leans extremely strongly towards copyright interests. Is there any indication that they (the US copyright office) have the same perspective as most of the rest of us re copyright as enforced monopoly etc.?

Other copyright issues

[sandstorming]

I'd like to see the laws also fixed on how long it is before works pass into the public domain. The so called disney effect (the extending of copyright periods after authors death, being done just before disney stuff reaches public domain) really needs to be fixed. Someone (and I can't remember his name) did a fantastic conference somewhere on copyright issues. http://free-culture.org/index.html has some great info.

Re:Other copyright issues

[Anonymous Coward]

The so called disney effect (the extending of copyright periods after authors death, being done just before disney stuff reaches public domain) really needs to be fixed.

It is fixed. The Constitution is pretty clear that copyrights have to be time-limited. The Supreme Court has ruled that that doesn't really mean anything, because Congress can extend them arbitrarily, but unfortunately, that's the Supreme Court. By definition, there is no higher appeal. "Fixing" the loophole would pretty much require some kind of "No, we really meant it, guys" amendment to the Constitution, but fat chance of that. The people with the power to amend the Constitution are too busy worrying about the total destruction of society that will obviously and inevitably result from giving same-sex couples the tax privileges currently reserved for heterosexuals.

Re:Other copyright issues

[Have Blue]

It wouldn't even need an amendment- all that needs to happen is for Congress to not pass another law extending existing copyrights when the issue comes up again in 20 years.

Why doesn't Slashdot start a PAC?

[cybrthng]

Obviously in todays political environment Money Talks. Is there any interest in the collective pool of technically minded folks from Slashdot starting a Political Action Committee in the sense that we support progressive, technological and scientific issues & candidates with our money and not just our collective angst?

SlashPAC if you will.

It would be a great place for us to consolidate our beliefs (wiki) and put our money where our mouth is to support politics and issues that reiterate our beliefs and values as a community.

It would make calls for help like this easier to answer and give us some strength to lean on.

Re:Why doesn't Slashdot start a PAC?

[MurkyWater]

I don't know if this had previously been discussed but I've been thinking that something like this would be a good idea. We constantly see the effect Slashdot has on webservers. I would imagine a PAC consisting of even a portion of slashdotters could do great things. Especially if we worked together with other groups such as Citizen Works, the EFF, and the ACLU.

Part 1: What I find _ok_ about copyright

[Moraelin]

Personally I have no problem with "copyright as enforced monopoly", because frankly that was the whole idea with copyright to start with. You give them a temporary "monopoly", in exchange for getting those works from them in the first place.

Thing is, most people only work for money. Yeah, in open source too. Check out the email addresses of contributors to all major components of Linux. Most work _is_ done by people paid to do so, even if they're paid by some OSS company.

So copyright is a way to say "ok, if you do publish a book, here's how we'll allow you to make money out of it."

I see nothing wrong with that. I _am_ willing to buy a good book, or a movie, or a music CD, rather than not have it available at all.

"Why your work should be available for free" demagogue theories are good and fine, but in practice it never works that way: practically _noone_ works for free nowadays. The freeloaders actually get something paid for by someone else, not for free. E.g., everyone who downloaded a SuSE Linux ISO for free, rest assured that SuSE's work was paid for by people like me who bought the boxed distro repeatedly. E.g., everyone who has some free Linux distro installed on ReiserFS, can know that ReiserFS was sponsored by SuSE, so again, it was people like me whose money went into making that.

So, again, I have nothing against copyright as a way for authors to make money. Beats not having those works available in the first place. Maybe it's not the perfect system, but it's the best we have so far.

Re:Part 1: What I find _ok_ about copyright

[swv3752]

See, the problem comes in that my taxes are being used to enforce your copyright. The deal is, for helping to enforce your copyright, we get free access after a limited time. The problem is that it becomes unlimited for any practical consideration. Anything created during my lifetime I can reasonably expect to die before a copyrighted work becomes public domain.

Duplication of efforts?

[PornMaster]

Wouldn't it be wiser to support the EFF who's already working on these things?

Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[Moraelin]

What I find all wrong about copyright, as it is right now, is that it also gives the right to _kill_ a work of art or a program. You can buy the copyright to something for the _sole_ purpose of burying it 6 ft deep. I.e., making sure no more copies of it will be made.

Which was _not_ the purpose of copyright in the first place. The idea was to secure a source of income for those publishing books, _but_ that was only a means to another end: having those books available to society. Using copyright as a way to make them UNavailable, is IMHO contrary to the whole spirit and idea of copyright.

And just for the sake of a wanton comparison with Soviet Russia, I find it stupid that while we all were/are outraged when a dictatorship tries to suppress a book, we all shrug and find it normal when a corporation does the same via copyright. I mean, geesh, Stalin could have just bought the exclusive distribution rights in the USSR of the exact same works, and killed them via copyright, and we'd all suddenly no longer find it abhominable. It would be just normal business. Think about it.

So IMHO the copyright should only last as long as people can still order that book or program or music from you, for no more than the original price (i.e., no "yeah, it's still available, but we'll charge 10,000,000$ for it" scams), and have it delivered within a reasonable time frame. The moment that's no longer possible, the copyright should become public domain.

It would also be a self-regulating kinda thing. It's up to the company in case to decide when it's no longer profitable to keep that stock of old books, just for the 1-2 people per year still ordering it. When they decide it's no longer profitable to play that game, sure, make it public domain. But ffs, don't bury it.

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[zotz]

"What I find all wrong about copyright, as it is right now, is that it also gives the right to _kill_ a work of art or a program. You can buy the copyright to something for the _sole_ purpose of burying it 6 ft deep. I.e., making sure no more copies of it will be made.

Which was _not_ the purpose of copyright in the first place. The idea was to secure a source of income for those publishing books, _but_ that was only a means to another end: having those books available to society. Using copyright as a way to make them UNavailable, is IMHO contrary to the whole spirit and idea of copyright."

You are so right on this. There needs to be compulsory licenses at least to prevednt this practice. Perhaps they only need to kick in when the copyright owners refuse to keep the work available to the mass market at mass market prices.

"And just for the sake of a wanton comparison with Soviet Russia, I find it stupid that while we all were/are outraged when a dictatorship tries to suppress a book, we all shrug and find it normal when a corporation does the same via copyright. I mean, geesh, Stalin could have just bought the exclusive distribution rights in the USSR of the exact same works, and killed them via copyright, and we'd all suddenly no longer find it abhominable. It would be just normal business. Think about it."

You are certainly racking up the good points. Perhaps he could even have used "eminent domain" theories to take the work in the first place.

"So IMHO the copyright should only last as long as people can still order that book or program or music from you, for no more than the original price (i.e., no "yeah, it's still available, but we'll charge 10,000,000$ for it" scams), and have it delivered within a reasonable time frame. The moment that's no longer possible, the copyright should become public domain.

It would also be a self-regulating kinda thing. It's up to the company in case to decide when it's no longer profitable to keep that stock of old books, just for the 1-2 people per year still ordering it. When they decide it's no longer profitable to play that game, sure, make it public domain. But ffs, don't bury it."

This would work. An alternative would be to have all copyrights pass back to the original authors under something like a CC BY-SA or some other copyleft license. This would allow the authors to try earning some more out of their works and at the same time let the general public get access to the works as well for copying, creating derivatives and making money if they can.

Check some of these legal proposals:

http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Copyri gh t_Term_Reform#Legal_Proposals

especially this one:

http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Copyri gh t_Term_Reform/Default

Again, great points.

all the best,

drew

This is humorous in a way.

[bigattichouse]

I was trying to secure rights to stream several movies.. and guess what, for all the MPAA and RIAA's heavy handedness over people not getting rights? I couldn't... couldn't even figure out who to talk to, and no one that I called could do more than refer me to some large outlets that said "We don't do that." So not only are they going after people for electronic distribution of their works, they make it damn near impossible to actually license said works for electronic distribution. silly bastards. To put this in the perspective of the post, I honestly felt that they had "abandoned" the electronic medium, I hope the law says "fire away" to people who can't find licensing channels for works.

The proper term of copyright.

[shimmin]

Let's give the creator the benefit of the doubt and say that whatever they have created is of enduring value, and the copyright on their creation is worth a perpetuity of some annual income A.

Then, the present value of the copyright is, and will remain, A/i, where i is the interest rate.

Meanwhile, at time t, the present value of the copyright they have already held is A/i * (exp[it] - 1).

So, at some time, it is fair to both the author and public to expire the copyright, because the present value of the copyright (that is being transferred from author to public) is equal to the present value of the copyright that the author has held in the past (that was given to the author by the public). This occurs when t = (ln 2)/i.

Then, the proper term of copyright depends on the interest rate, thusly:

2% 35 years
3% 23 years
4% 17 years
5% 14 years
6% 12 years
7% 10 years
8% 9 years

heh

[Moraelin]

Well, I never said I want it to be unlimited or anything. So we can easily aggree upon that part.

But on the issue of taxes:

<sarcasm type="heavy">
Yes, and _my_ taxes are used to protect your car from burglars and thieves. Hey, I don't own a car, so I shouldn't pay for it. Right?

_My_ taxes are used for government AIDS cure research. Hey, I don't screw everyone in sight, so why the heck should I have to pay for that? Let them just die, I say ;)

_My_ taxes are used to build highways. Maybe even the one you drive on to work. WTF? I always get a flat very near the company, so I don't have to commute. Why the heck should I pay for all those commuters? No, really.

_My_ taxes go into funding the school system. Piss-poor and under-funded as it is. Or to give a tax break to people with kids. Blah. I have no kids. Why should I pay for that? No, really? Did anyone even ask me if I want to subsidize everyone who's too stupid to use a condom? And let them pay out of their own pocket for their kid's schooling.
</sarcasm>

Again, that was sarcasm, if anyone can't tell. I am _not_ really advocating any of that.

I'm sure you probably get the idea already. Yes, society sometimes must use taxes to enforce things that are considered beneficial for society as a _whole_. Yes, there might be people who do not _directly_ get a ROI on their money, but the idea is that on the whole you get more good than bad out of it.

In this case, the whole copyright thing actually costs you _very_ little. Other than the copyright office itself, most other things are handled by lawsuits between companies. Or between companies and individuals.

You might notice, for example, that even the much villified RIAA lawsuits didn't involve the FBI taking the suspects into custody, nor a DA doing a criminal style prosecution. So that part has cost you exactly nothing.

So, well, I hope you'll excuse me if you're not getting much compassion out of me, over the fact that a couple of cents out of your taxes (and mine) go into sponsoring the common good. I do believe that on the whole the benefits far outweight those few cents.