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Lessig - Public Domain Dead in 35 Years
tcd004 writes "Lawrence Lessig, in an article on the Foreign Policy site, predicts that the public domain will die a slow death at the hands of anti-piracy efforts. From the article: 'The danger remains invisible to most, hidden by the zeal of a war on piracy. And that is how the public domain may die a quiet death, extinguished by self-righteous extremism, long before many even recognize it is gone.'"
Nothing has fallen into the public domain for almost a half century before I was born.
It's dead Jim.
Is this really Lessig writing or is he just regurgitating Ray Bradbury?
In any event, people simply don't care. As long as they have a cool ringtone, that is.
More
Public domain can't die as long as one can create a piece of work and renounce all copyright to it.
Geez. It's funny how people can predict what will happen in 35 years when they don't actually know what will happen in about... half a second?
Over my dead body.
that the main purpose of copyright, was to enhance the public domain.
Does it mean that Disney will have to actually come up with new stories instead of ripping off Grimm brothers et al?
Windows users:
Internet Explorer is obsolete. Please upgrade to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
Try one or two. Or zero. In my opinion is it's dead already.
--- witty signature
Public 'domian'?
Within every culture there are people that want to fight the system, and if releasing material into the public domain is one way of fighting back, people will do it.
This is why everything I write on Wikipedia is still released into the public domain.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
Isn't that supposed to sort of take over the task of public domain? Or would it be inadequate? Because you can always pick something in the PD up and polish it, then re-sell it again.
There will always be writers and artists who release their own works into the public domain. If anything, the trend is accelerating because the Internet is turning the masses into "authors" and "composers", and the traditional for-pay channels for distributing media are breaking down.
What a stupid thing to suggest.
;)
As long as people are out there sharing ideas freely, it'll survive. It may not get as much attention as it does right now (i.e. all the attention open source gets right now), but as a concept, it cannot die.
There, I had a thought and shared it. PD was just reborn
Piracy is constantly changing forms over the course of time and will always, always, always be around. How can you even BEGIN to prophesize the end of the public domain if you have any sense of history?
Isn't pretty much the point of an editor to screen articles, correct spelling etc. In general, edit?
(It's pretty obvious the job of an editor isn't to spot and avoid dupes)
In a free society the public domain will never die. It's part of our culture. There will come a point when things get so bad that people will just stop caring about the lawyers and self-righteous extremism. Look at what a joke patents are becoming. If it's get ridiculous enough and enough people care about, it will change.
Although, things aren't so great right now, and will probably get worse before they get better.
Surely the definition of PD is an application/data that the author freely distributes possibly with a small EULA asking that the app/data not be altered and re-distributed in its original form.
Many people write tools that are then distributed free as a hobby or because they think other people may find them useful, I fail to see how/why this would stop.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Lessig himself teaches that, since the failing of Eldred, public domain will die due to lobbying and retroactive term extensions. That's not an anti-piracy measure, it's just big companies controlling congress.
In addition to the war on piracy, current laws certainly aren't helping to grow the public domain. Until lawmakers adopt some common sense when it comes to copyright length, the outcome of the war on piracy matters little.
Public domain is just on hold for a while. Hey, we only have to wait until 2019 to get our hands on that hot 1923 copyrighted material.
:(
Congress wouldn't extend copyright again, would they?
Of course, new stuff locked down by DRM won't know when it's supposed to expire, so 90+ years when it's supposed to expire, no one will know what to do with the scrambled bits.
Few people on this site dispute that the ability to automatically have your work copyrighted by default helps Sam Slashdot by making it easier to cover his stuff. However, it also means that more and more areas end up having its entire body of work covered under copyright. With the practically indefinite term of copyright being bought^W lobbied for by Disney and others, it's no wonder that Lessig talks in this kind of language...
I think the only way to save the public domain is for serious reform - be it soapbox, ballot box, or revolution - to take place sooner rather than later.
But as we've seen from the chaos in new orleans, USA'ians are hardly the ones to dictate anything to the rest of the world about how to behave.
When I first read the article title, I thought this was going to be a story about how everything would be public domain in 35 years. You'd think a guy like Lessig would be more optimistic about things.
Anyway, I predict that in 35 years the pendulum will have swung. The zeal of the war on piracy will have gone too far for too long, and people will fight back. Sure, the fight will start with copyleft, as it already has begun to do so, but once copyleft has won the establishment will be forced to move in the opposite direction, and lessen the stranglehold of copyright laws.
You know he's mostly right, except I think M. Jackson's going to buy half of the entire public domain for $73 billion in 10 years. Another 25 after that, he'll get sued by the financial firm he never paid back for the loan and only half of the public domain will be lost ;)
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
This is what happens when the motivating factor is to maximize profits. If someone can make a profit from it, it gets patented and copyrighted.
What is the incentive for people to give away things when the trend is to become wealthy as quickly as possible?
People who already are wealthy are the ones with the greatest means and free time to create more wealth...it is a mindset.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Within every DRM system there will always be a way for the author to set the copy rights to allow freely made copies. There are always people who want their stuff copied or who don't care or who don't want the recipient encumbered by any restrictions.
That said, PHBs and paternalist OSes from Redmond may decide the implement restrictive DRM settings for their own idiotic reasons. I noticed more than one company annual report that uses a password protected PDF to prevent copy-past operations for who knows what reason. Yet the first time a small content creator's use of DRM causes problems for their big client, the small company will "turn off" DRM.
As long as there are people that want to be heard as far and wide as possible, there will be a public domain.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
It's very likely that Lessig is right. Meanwhile, personal casual copying will continue--on a reduced level. Average consumers will have DRMed gear.
Only about one in twenty or one in a hundred will go to the effort of buying the illegally chipped merchandise that will become available in flea markets, on the Internet, and via other black-market channels. This gear will be sold like the pressed-grape-concentrate bricks of the Prohibition era, which came with detailed instructions explaining that it was totally illegal to use them to make wine and giving careful step-by-step directions on what you must not do to stay legal.
It will create more social unrest, injustice, and disrespect for the law. As with prohibition, and with current marijuana laws, a huge fraction of the population will be felons according to the law. Enforcement will be inconsistent and selective. Most people breaking the law will not be deterred because they will feel that getting caught is unlikely and totally a matter of bad luck.
My analog cassette player died last year. My old CD player is starting to become unreliable. I'm not sure what the useful life of a solid-state laser is, but I'm beginning to suspect it's less than ten years. The next one I buy will probably have DRM.
Prohibition eventually ended, the "war on drugs" will eventually end, and the war on the public domain will eventually end. Probably not in my lifetime, though, and not until a lot of damage and misery has occurred.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
While I see the guys point he probably couldn't be more wrong if he tried. I never used to release anything I wrote or developed into the public domain. As restrictions increase though I am more and more inclined to release my material, in part, as a protest. Most of it is not really worth anything to anyone but me but there are a few gems in amongst it that potentially have value.
While I don't imagine everyone will follow my course I imagine that there are suficient like minded people that will do the same to ensure that we will always have a body of public domain work. As restrictions increase public domain works become more and more appealing. Public domain will never replace private domain as there is to much money in it. Public domain work, though, can certainly keep the private domain in check and limit its powers. The only danger is nutty legislation that effectivly bans public domain work and I can't ever see that happening.
I actually don't see copyright as being all that bad. In fact I would go as far as to say I quite like it. The length copyright applies for is far to long. IMHO it should be more like 20 or 30 years but I could be persuaded that it should be somewhat longer. I like the way the author doesn't have to apply to any central body to copyright a work. It just magically happens. That's great because it stops leeches making a quick buck of other peoples work.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
While it sounds catchy, it's not really as if public domain is _really_ going to die. What's going to happen is that copyright becomes stronger and lasts longer, and eventually copyrighted material might never enter the public domain again.
But plenty of people love to share their work and ideas. Some of these people are going to be putting stuff in the public domain. Also, with copyleft and similar policies, a lot of copyrighted material is going to provide similar benefits to public material (reusability).
All is not lost, and all won't be lost as long as enough people behave socially rather than trying to grab as much money and power as they can.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Unfortunately the article fails to explain what the specific threats are and how they will impact the public domain. I'd like to be better informed about how WIPO will unfairly take away my rights, but tfa doesn't explain anything...
I RTFA, and nowhere was the term "35 years" used. However, poking around the site I see this article was one of a batch on the themes of thngs happeneng over the last 35 years (since Foreign Policy magazine began), and the next 35. So Lessig didn't choose that figure for any real reason.
Most of the other articles listed on the magazine's web page are restricted to paying subscribers.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Throughout history there have been people proclaiming end of the world scenarios, and this person is no different. Like any new frontier that is explored, people are "testing the waters" for what they can and can't do. Once this frontier society has a good grasp of the inherent workings of the system, laws will start to be formed to govern it. Some laws will stay, some will go. But it seems short-sighted idiocy for someone to proclaim that one of the core driving forces of the system will be gone (public domain). It's like saying gravity will dry up. While it will most likely not look exactly like it does today, the public domain will still exist. There will just be laws in place to govern it better.
No more nambly-pab whining then. Thank god!
I hereby nominate Lawrence Lessig for current and upcoming vacancies. -ac
``In a free society the public domain will never die. It's part of our culture.''
I much more feel that society and culture are the root of the problem. Let me explain.
One problem is the political system. Winner-take-all is a way of counting votes that basically admits only 2 parties (a 3rd party will take away votes from the party closest to it, increasing the likelihood that the less-favored party wins).
Because there are only 2 parties, and it's hard to start up a 3rd party with a fighting chance, it's hard to improve the situation once both parties start down the Dark Path.
Enormous amounts of money are invested in election campaigns. One party cannot significantly cut investments, because that is almost certainly yielding victory to the other party. Campaign money has to come from somewhere.
Both parties receive heavy sponsoring from the corporate world. It is not at all unreasonable to suspect that this might convince some politicians to view their sponsors in a favorable light, and be more inclined to pass legislation that helps these sponsors than legislation that inhibits these sponsors.
In short: what's good for the company is good for the party. There are clear signs of corporate influence on the government.
The principle of freedom of the press exists so that the media has the freedom to inform the public about political wrongs. The idea is that politicians can get away with a lot of crap as long as nobody knows, so some entity has to be responsible for keeping the public informed. This entity is the free (e.g. independent from the government) press.
The problem with the free press is that it is dominated by large corporations. These same corporations also sponsor politicians. So, on the one hand, they can influence politicians in a way that wouldn't be desirable from the small man's point of view. On the other hand, they can cover it up so that noone finds out.
So, it's the corporations pulling the strings in the important parts of society. Pair this with an individualist culture bent on material gain and personal happiness, and I think you can see how big a problem there is and how hard it is to change it.
Oh, and yes, everybody preaches freedom, liberty and democracy...but more and more freedoms are taken away. Citizens of the USA now enjoy noticably less freedom than citizens of the European countries the USA originally loathed for their authoritarianism, so I think the freedom, liberty and democracy message can be safely discarded as a lullaby to keep the uninformed public from waking up.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
More than anywhere there is a generational gap in the copyright universe. There are those, currently at the top, who want to protect the things they grew up with (Mickey Mouse, we love you - I wanted to be member of the Mickey Mouse club - haha, wasn't Mickey so cute.) And there is the current generation who, for better or worse, have no attachment to anything - everything is just play-doh to make something else. At some point there will be a changing of the guard and the public domain will rise like a phoenix.
I also think to some extent the generational gap results in over protection to those with the pocket-books. Copyright didn't play an important part of culture so the leaders aren't comfortable speaking its language. Whenever you have that situation, where a leader is relying entirely on the advice of his "counselors" you have the problem of the leader's view taking on the characteristics of the view of whomever speaks to him the most. And quite frankly those with the most get the ear. As more of us get into congress that are comfortable with the issues and have independently formed opinions, you will see a change to a more reasoned debate.
I hope.
Seriously...
Shit like this happens based on pure greed, and they expect us to sit there and blindly follow the law? Hah.
Even people on slashdot that are always siding with the RIAA on those piracy stories.. how can you justify this?
The law is only good for so much, people. You CAN ignore it without consequence, you know..
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
In about half a second things are going to be almost exactly the same as they are... NOW.
That was easy and it looks like I was right, too.
I agree. It's not in fashion here on Slashdot to actually be optimistic about the mechanisms of change in a representative government. But what people keep forgetting is that the American government was deliberately set up to move slowly on issues of major import. Sometimes that slow pace seems good (when people are trying to overturn something you like), and sometimes it seems bad (when you're trying to turn the tide and it's difficult to do so), but it's that way for good reason.
People are already starting to fight back. Lessig, McLeod, and others are writing about copyright excesses. There are a handfull of Representatives in Congress who really understand what's going on, and they're trying to educate their peers. We lost the Eldred case at the Supreme Court, but that's certainly not the end of the road.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Do you know where Walt got the "inspiration" for a good deal of his work?
You guessed it.
Old, public domain folk stories.
Why do you think he was a fervant defender of copyright extension? He nabbed that shit and wanted to keep it forever.
Lawrence Lessig raises awareness, he is a good communicator. I wonder why he does not actually act.
There is the A2k treaty project, we will get a development agenda for WIPo soon. Is Lessig accredited to WIPO? No, sure he isn't. You can make a dent there. Lawrence Lessig does not expect it to last 35 years...
Public domain -- it might be an US-only problem. Of course the works of Kafka and others are public domain in my legal system.
he is not a lawyer, nor has he spoken to one. public domain is a _class_ of copyright. It is the default class. In short:
If you do not take specific legal action to _protect_ your works it will _by_default_ become public domain...
going away huh?
if that is so it must be replaced by something exactly like PD.. only called something else...
her kid here's $0.25 buy yourself a clue.
I take it we're talking about works copyrighted in America, therefore only American creative works will not enter the public domain.
Arguably you could say the US is a superpower based on it's culture (or lack thereof). They haven't conquered anywhere by force, but have introduced, TV, music, films, the whole American lifestyle. Surely if a smaller and smaller percentage of public domain creative works are American, they will have a lesser cultural influence on the world (especially if sales of DRM'd "culture" slow as consumers realise what they lose).
If something is released to the public domain, then there is NO EULA, and no restrictions placed on use or distrubution whatsoever.
Public domain essentially means that the owner has released all rights in relation to the infomation - be it a book, a piece of software, a film, music, whatever.
In that sense, yes, the public domain is dyng. It's becoming increasingly rare for someone to distribute something without placing a restriction or two on its use - everyone wants their piece of the cake, so to speak.
Public Domain is dead.
Nothing has entered public domain in the latter half of last centure, and even a lot of stuff that did enter the public domain had been "returned" to the original copywrite holders.
Copywrite should be 20 years from first publication. Trademark should last indefinately. Micky Mouse (TM) would remain Da Rat, while Elvis would be PD now. But that won't happen untill 2075 or something.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
enough people will get around and read stuff like this and then... they will not be able to hold us.
Personally, I try to do the "right" thing, but could care less about what "the law" says I should do (largely because I've learned that "law" and "right" only rarely overlap, and then only for purely accidental reasons).
HERE, HERE! Morality != the Law.
This could be the preview or prediction of the result of the small portion of the "Information Wants to Be Free" crowd - you know the portion that follows that line with, "That's why I'm distributing 'The Matrix' on P2P...".
Eventually, things do come back to bite you in the tuckas.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Elvis recordings have been released into the public domain in the UK (and Europe?)
And things are still making it into the public domain every day, e.g. I have an old book that will be public domain soon (it's over 100 years old)
There's one big thing that the artical missed, DRM, DRM is so big because unless someone breaks modern cryptography in the next hundred years (and it's possible that it won't be) everything being released with 'DRM' and 'trusted' hardware will remain DRM'ed and stuck on trusted hardware even after it's passed into the public domain.
So when I live to 150 that EBook I purchased, unlke my 100+ year old book I currently own, won't be reproducable even though it's techinically in the public domain.
Fortunatly we don't have the DMCA in Europe so there's still time to save the public domain for some of us.
Need I remind you of SQLite. Albeit, other than this, you are probably right.
This slashdot-related signature is a stub. You can help kihjin by expanding it.
Apparently I'm just one of those idiots out here ,but you'll really have to explain just how and what we've abused in nature that caused the hurricane in New Orleans and the Tsunami, because I just don't get it.
I refuse to RTFA when the first two paragraphs contain utter nonsense like "This public domain has always lived alongside a private domain".
... is that "always" for US historians?
The "private domain" is in existence for some 200 years or so
If it's that bad, why should I care about 880 free megs of file hosting?
Dark Reflection
Yes, this is a serious problem. To avoid it, all human beings should be forcibly compelled to document every thought they ever have, and to publish them through a centralised public database that is open to all. Concepts like privacy and secrecy should be abolished, because the right of everyone to know everything about everyone and everything is much more important than respecting the right of an individual to think their own thoughts in their own head, and only to share those thoughts they wish to share.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That's strange, I thought that when I didn't pay the maintenance fee on my last patent that it went into the public domain. I'd be glad to hear it's still in force.
Patents may have their problems, but at least the length of time and the requirement of maintenence fees to keep them in force are appropriate.
As an intellectual property owner, I worry when Congress goes overboard in an attempt to "protect intellectual property holders' rights". Yes, I like that what I create can benefit me. However, when other people use IP as a cudgel to abuse people, it makes me worry about the stability of the whole system. If you were an aristocrat in France in 1780, wouldn't you be a little concerned about the other aristocrats who beat and starve the peasants? They might just have a revolution.
Can't possibly be Bradbury - I didn't fall asleep by the middle of his (Lessig's) third sentence.
Now don't get me wrong! I don't say that piracy is communism! This is the furthest from the truth. Northern America is adopting "liberal" form of communism. Restricting people in most areas of their life - isn't it a symptom of communism? As we have seen in Russia and Eastern Europe communism was eventually thrown out the window. The system just does not work. On the other hand Free Enterprise should allow people to grow in a relative freedom (different from the "red freedom" offered in the communism - free to think as government wants you to do). So... as long as we stay away from totalitarian state model, public domain should survive and live long. And even if we get stuck with the big brother overlooking our activities.. things will go underground.
arent you the guy driving his chevy V8 30 miles to just get a coffee from starbucks?
free 880 megs file hosting - www.FTPZ.US - best
Nothing has fallen into the public domain for almost a half century before I was born.
How do you figure that? Something published in 1922 passed into public domain in 1997. You were born in 2047? Nothing has passed into public domain since 1998, but that's 7 years ago not 50.
You're assuming that in 35 years the western countries will still rule the world.
I'm not arguing this. The discussion was the value of Public Domain vs Copyright. Public Domain doesn't intersect trade secrets.
But, in the end, someone does indeed own these documents, the banks, owners, etc. Maybe there's a way to encourage, rather than compell, them to turn over documents that are no longer of use to the company, but which could benefit the public.
I don't know a way to do this, but maybe someone smarter than me can figure it out.
The day that the HSD declares it 'a national security risk' and mandates the use of 'approved software' ( and hardware ).
Sure, you can still run your C64 at home, but dont expect to get online. And if you try, expect to be visited by the bit police.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's being done and it's called bloging.
5/17 5:11pm "My cat rolled over on it's back again today"
5/17 5:15pm "I feed my cat and he liked it"
5/17 5:23pm "That voice in my head telling me to kill my cat and eat it is getting harder to resist"
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
http://www.pdinfo.com/record.htm
I quote:
Records, cassettes, CD's, and other music recordings come under a general category called Sound Recordings or Phonorecords. Before 1972, sound recordings were not protected by copyright law, but by a hodge-podge tangle of state laws. This problem was fixed with the 1972 copyright act and extended by the 1998 twenty year copyright extension. Different copyright experts have offered very different complicated explanations, but all agree that all sound recordings essentially are under copyright protection until the year 2067. So here is the one sentence you need to remember:
Sound Recording Rule of Thumb:
There are NO sound recordings in the Public Domain.
There are, of course, exceptions to everything, and there really are some PD sound recordings. However, the federal and state laws are so tangled and complicated, it is extremely difficult to do confident sound recording PD research. There are several U.S. web sites claiming that sound recordings made in the United States prior to February 15, 1972, are in the public domain, and there are links to U.S. Copyright Office publications stating: "Sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972, are not eligible for Federal copyright protection." We have had this reviewed independently by several attorneys across the U.S. Each has confidently and independently told us that between federal and state copyright protection, virtually all sound recordings are protected until the year 2067.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
I don't think people understand that the imposision of copyrights is quickly becomming impossible. Even if the law required you to shoot anybody on site without trial for the meere thought of copyright infringement. It is still quickly becomming impossible. Even if it shuts down the economic prospects of 100 million people and they suffer a New Orleans fate, it is still becomming impossibe. The bogus morality that tries treat controll over how people copy information as a property right is dead because it simply has no place in the information age any more than the bogus property right of slavery could survive the industrial revolution. Then it was about labor, today it is about information. The Lessig appeasers of the world who want the slave states to just get along with the free states will die in the trash heap of history.
BTW its not 'her kid ...' its 'here kid ...
Think global, act loco
In a world where the where the national weather service can be scrutinized for giving away free weather information because it impinges supposedly on private weather services and where the post office can come under fire for competing with fed ex, why would you be surprised that Hollywood, software companies and other groups would go after those who would entertain, inform or help for free.
Next up, private hospitals going after the red cross for giving away blood.
Public domain happens to all copy righted works. After a period of time that work becomes part of the public domain.
How does that happen given the copyright term extensions of 1976 (effective in 1978), 1998, 2018, 2038... ?
What is needed is an incentive that would make it worthwhile for a author to release their work into the public domain.
So in order to get the government to act against the current wishes of authors their incentive would be... money.
So give every author a time period(say 15-20 years) of free copyright protection. Past that date they author that wishes to keep their works in the PD will pay a yearly fee.
Now to make older works more likely to get put in the PD you increase the fee after a number of years have passed. So that at some point the author will get little benefit from keeping the copyright. Once it becomes unprofitable to maintain the copyright they will release it. The government gets paid and the public gets compensated for the copyrighted work not being available.
The way I see it now they won't release it unless they think there is no money in it... and that won't happen because they will hold on to thought that it must have still have some value.
Lawrence Lessig DOES act.
See for example Eldred v. Ashcroft, Brewster Kahle or his freely-available book, Free Culture.
He's a law professor at Stanford. He's on the board of directors of the Software Freedom Law Center, as well as the FSF, and a board member of the EFF. He is founder and chairman of the Creative Commons.
So what have YOU done to defend our rights?
... flame war was beginning on Slashdot
Geek A: What happen ?
Geek B: Somebody set up us the law !
Geek C: We get message
Geek A: Full screen turn on !
Geek A: It's THEM !
**IA: How are you gentlemen ?
**IA: All your culture are belong to us.
**IA: You are on the way to world copyright domination.
Geek A: What do you say ?
**IA: You have no chance get anything free anymore, make your time.
**IA: Ha Ha Ha Ha
You can't buy Clue for a sticking quater!
http://www.boardgames.com/clue.html
$16.95 plus shipping
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Intellectual property CANNOT BE OWNED. It can be hidden from others and secured but nobody has the right to stop others redevelop or reinvent the same IP.
:-) Who'll dare it? I'm sure that the lawmakers will make it possible soon. :-) :-) Philosophical question. Are you sure that you own at least ONE ORIGINAL THOUGHT that you created? Are you? If you do so, are you sure that this ORIGINAL THOUGHT was not the result of other thoughts given to you by your teachers, mother, father, friends,...? Shouldn't you reconsider to pay some royalty fees for everything you say and think?
:-)
Bible says that there is no new things, everything already existed in some form or another. I'm very surprised that Americans are those propagating IP and turning IP into dollars labeled as "In God We Trust"(tm). I dought that humans can "invent" or "create" something in the real sense. People are rather "finding" and "understanding" the world, universe, themselves.
If you "find" some way to do something you can hide it from others. But if somebody else will succeed in "finding" the same solution by himself/herself then it is NOT right to sue him/her for "stealing" intellectual property. Because the "intellectual property" cannot be reserved/owned because it is an "idea/word". Other people MUST be allowed to do what you had been granted to do. If you were allowed to invent something how you can prevent somebody else from doing the same thing?
Thoughts are Words. Man cannot think without Words. If Thoughts/Words can be owned then I steel from my mother and father, from everybody I meet in my life... And, at the beginning there was the Word, right? Who will be the first to claim ownership over the Word that was at the beginning?
Writing this short imperfect post with my imperfect English cost me $53.5 in royalty fees, because I used partially thoughts of other great people I met in my life (virtualy or personaly) and the rest is just the "derivative work".
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
Your statement is utter b.s. and I'm astounded that your post gets modded +5. Just because you don't see it happen doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. You may live in a 'society' where it is a dangerous thing to acknowledge the process (i.e., in the u.s.) or you may just be stuningly uninformed but it happens all the time.
Yes, Linus and others own the copyright to Linux and hence it's not strictly public domain, but it is obviously more free than something with a traditional copyright that you might have seen 20 years ago (eg Unix).
Yes, music is still heavily copyrighted and clearly not public domain, but being able to go to iTunes or Amazon or HMV and listen to almost any track in the world for free (as in beer) gives me a lot more freedom than the small local music store with a few thousand vinyls did in 1980.
Yes, books are still copyrighted, but when you can go to the O'Reilly website and read many of their books online for free (again, as in beer) I feel much better off than when I was browsing round the local bookstore with the store clerk reminding me that "this is not a lending library".
Wikipedia AFAIK is not in the public domain; does its existence leave me better or worse off?
It really irritates me that even though information is more widely distributed and more accessible than ever before, and even though we're going through the biggest information revolution in history (or at least comparable with the invention of paper and the invention of the printing press), some people still whinge and make apocalyptic prophesies.
To Lessig and /. Editors: Please get a reality check.
The parent post wasn't complaining about the price - he was complaininng about trying to enforce the division of the markets into regions. If corporations are able to take advantage of globalization to get the best possible price (eg. by outsourcing), why aren't consumers? The end result would be, of course, to level prices worldwide - which might raise the price in some markets while lowering it in others. But, it seems like the only fair way to do things.
I'm not saying that companies shouldn't be allowed to set different prices in different places - but that other people should not be prohibited from buying in the cheaper market, shipping to a more expensive market, and selling the product at an intermediate price. For example, why shouldn't Americans be allowed to buy cheaper drugs in Canada? The drug companies may profit less; they would have to raise Canadian prices and lower American prices. But, why should the law be set up to benefit the pharmaceutical company at the expense of the consumer, any more than it should benefit the consumer at the expense of the company? Efficient markets generally require a level playing field.
A fragment, from Christopher Smart's long and bizarre "Jubilate Agno,"--beat poetry from the 18th century":
Never has a compnay made so much money off of the public domain also been the most ardent opponent against it.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Lawrence Lessig is professor of law at Stanford University.
m ain
http://www.law.stanford.edu/faculty/lessig/
http://www.lessig.org/
If the Public Domain is going to die can't we just water it.
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Apublic+do
Letting people walk on your lawn when all the parks have been bulldozed is not fighting back.
It is a nice thing to do, and we appreciate the thought, but it does not bring back the parts of our public domain which have been stolen from us.
The way the political system is currently run in the US, you don't really have a chance unless you're running on a Repub or Dem ticket.
Is there any reason why a small-l libertarian can't run on the GOP ticket?
People who are stealing televisions and other 'luxury items' aren't thinking of anyone but themselves, like media companies that encourage congresswhores to extend copyright again and again.
They're increasing the damage that is there (hurricane or Sonny Bono Act) for their own selfish wants, while passing the cost on to everyone (insurance costs or the good of public domain.)
It's the same mindset - humanity at its worst. One takes advantage of lax law enforcement, the other takes advantage of public apathy. (Before you post screaming, 'get some priorities' and 'I can't believe you compared the tragedy of 9/11 - Katrina - kids with cancer to copyright', please get a grip. This is /. - Remember *IAAs = New Orleans Looters. In fact, I've changed my sig so you can be more outraged.)
Technology makes it increasingly easy to produce and distribute high-quality content. Just like open source has been threatening and displacing commercial software, open content will be displacing commercial content.
In fact, I very much hope commercial content providers will enforce their copyrights hard and with all technological means available: the harder they make it for people to get the commercial stuff, the more exposure and visibility free content gets.
Now, since the majority of creative works are created by corporations (which are immortal in the current legal scheme)
Nitpick: In the Berne "life plus" scheme in place throughout the WTO, the "life" of a corporate author is fixed at 25 years in the United States and 0 in most other countries. The only "immortality" comes from repeated term extensions.
Mind.Forth artificial intelligence has no intention of croaking within the next 35 years or even the next 35 millennia.
The Rejuvenate Mind-Module keeps Mind.Forth going potentially forever.
The heat death of the universe (Waermetod) or the crash of Microsoft Windows (BSOD) -- whichever comes sooner -- is the only risk of Mind.Forth dying by misadventure.
A Technological Singularity is coming within the next thirty-five years anyway, which Lawrence Lessig does not seem to have factored into his calculations.
When will the Singularity happen? -- you may ask. As Mind.Forth spreads first into classes for gifted students, then into high schools in general and university AI labs in particular -- The Singularity R Us.
Is it possible, just possible, that anti-piracy efforts will fail? At least in one place in the big, bad internet, someone will still have stuff cracked and available. Every new scheme will either be to costly to be worth it, or be cracked within a matter of months.
Not only "land of the free" but "land of the lawyers" who love a good old 1st amendment smackdown. Shihar 153932
In 1998, Congress took 20 years of free access to millions of creative works and took it away from me without giving me anything in return - not a penny. Now, as I recall, the 5th amendment to the constitution requires that private property cannot be taken without "just compensation". Where's my compensation?! Yeah, call me greedy, but I want my public domain back.
Seriously here- 35 years? If they said 5, I'd maybe pay some attention to this article, but 35?
Guess what? 35 years ago it was 1970. Personal computers didn't exist. Your TV became colour in 54, which is only 15 years before. Cars guzzled gas like it was water. It was the 50th aniversary of the latex condom.
A lot will change by 2040. See the article about cars that drive themselves from yesterday. What are the odds we'll sit at a desk tapping away at keys 35 years from now? What are the odds that software won't be bundled with the OS like it is with Linux?
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
We'll have GPL, BSD, and Creative Commons. That's the best we're going to get. And as long as those movements are alive, there will always be something free.
One often overlooked paragraph of the GPL states that the GPL does not apply to separable works. This makes it unnecessary to choose the LGPL over the GPL in many situations.
Of course, we now could have a have discussion what constitutes separability, but lets just say if the work under the GPL is the foundation and walls of the building that is your application, then that house is under the GPL, while it is is not under the GPL if only the windows are under the GPL(as long as you pull the windows out again).
So, to have a closing like, I can be a good thing to remove windows.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
This site is so full of shit. Most of what they say about copyright is a lie designed to sell their product. This link keeps getting posted to slashdot, so quit astroturfing or please read before you post.
Thanks
There are tons of works out there that would be great to reuse, remix, recycle, but the original or current author/owner is hard to find or almost unknowable. This makes it difficult for people to use these thing for fear of getting sued at some later date. Is there a way to make this more balanced?
For publically held companies at least (which I would dare say most information and entertainment publishers are), they aren't just motivated to maximise profits, they are legally FORCED.
In other words, a company (and in some cases, the board of directors, etc) can be held legally liable (I am not sure if it is federal, state, civil or criminal liability - or all of them!) if the company does not make sure to pay due dilligence to "increase shareholder value".
In other words, a company year after year, must do everything legally possible (at least, that is the lip service - some fall into the trap of illegal doings as well - some succeed none-the-wiser - others fail, like Enron) to increase shareholder value. If they fail to do so (they have to be trying - a publically held company can't legally just stop and say "ok, that's enough - from here on out we aren't going to try to profit more than last year, and instead spend what would have been profit on, I dunno, innovation, perhaps..."), they can be held legally liable for not doing so...
It does come down to greed, though, as you and others have noticed. Part of it is greed on the companies part (but this is legally forced) - but part of it is greed on the shareholder's part (which by and large consists of ordinary people - whether as investment groups or individuals) demanding that profits keep rising year after year, and thus these laws to keep companies turning profits are of our own making.
So now, we are simply beginning to reap what we have sown, so to speak...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This has been going on for the past half-century. It's not just the anti-piracy software copyright zealots who've accelerated the problem, though they're some of the worst in a long time.
Well before computer piracy was a problem, Di$ney spearheaded the anti-public domain/copyright-extension lobby in order to maintain its copyright on Mickey Mou$e. Each time the Hydrocephalic Mouse God is threatened with falling into the unwashed mitts of public domain, Di$ney tosses some cash around, pulls its Congressional strings and gets the copyright public domain clause extended for another 25 years. Now copyrights last for over a century and Di$ney maintains its comfortable deathgrip on all that's spherical and mousy.
in the grand scheme of humanity. If America handcuffs itself to the point that innovation is practically impossible, then a culture which embraces freer movement of information will take its place as dominant hegemon.
I happen to believe it won't come to that, but the idea that it could happen doesn't keep me up at night.
crucial phrase: in a "free society" the real killer point here is the FUTURE CONNECTION between "our culture" and a "free society" what do you think the self-righteous extremists will do when people Just Stop Caring? keep in mind, they're the ones with money, power, and political influence right now. (did you ever see that unpromoted commercial with the RIAA freakforce busting into peoples homes and gunning them down, slitting their throats? that comes to mind.) by your argument, all bureacratic convolution, kafkaesque absurdity, and orwellian aspects of reality wouldn't exist-- because people would discount them for their absurdity. we've already instituted so-called "free speech zones", implying that the constitution does not apply to public space, except when the man says so. we have countless people imprisoned, with no charges, no trial, no legal counsel-- presumably because the nation state has no case against them. some bigwig justice official just the other day said that the primary concern for law enforcement and the justice deptarment is pornography. file-sharing and "downloading" is constantly demonized in a sensational way as illegal/infringement, totally disregarding the facts about what cds/tapes/whatever people already own when they download some songs, which files are freeware i'm not really arguing with you. i'm probably more pessimistic. in other words i usually think things will get worse before they get a lot worse.
Public Domain? There's no such thing.
Look around you, everything is "property" that is owned by someone.
You can argue that ideas are still free but in order to be of any practical use, that idea has to be manifest into some kind of physical representation. That object is guarded, protected, and the owner will assert their "rights" to control their property as they see fit.
I may produce a painting, song, book, whatever and decide to share my artistic creation with the world either by selling copies of it or offering it for free download on the net. But, I fully expect that it is still "my" song or story or painting or whatever; and I expect that others recognize and respect this fact.
Just because you have purchased a copy of it doesn't mean you can take it and redistribute without my permission. Hence the term "copyright".
And to those who say "I share my stuff freely to everyone" - I say you're a hypocrit. Your house has a fence around it, you lock your car doors, and you'll defend your "property" with force if you have to.
Would you allow your house to fall into the public domain after you pay off the mortgage? Ironically, the goverment does have the power to take your house via eminent domain if they need it to build a new stadium, but, they still have to pay you fair market value for it.
We're closer to the Matrix than we realize.
Seriously, since no one is discussing/considering retroactive cancellations of copyright, the only difference we may possibly make is having or not having some works from 1930s in PD soon. Even if we succeed in that, it won't help us much.
The piracy fight is much more important than the fight for public domain. Considering the current situation, the ability to copy works freely is much more important than the right to do it. It is important that we support the pirates (including commercial pirates who profit from distribution of copyrighted works) and ensure that we have the Right to Read intact, if only de facto.
In 35 years capitalism will be dead and intellectual property will be dead. It's lunacy to seriously consider the death of public domain (but it can still be a valuable attention-grabbing device). I can't see how proprietary software will withstand the assault of FLOSS or how publishers and studios will ignore the reality of instant anonymous piracy.
Just think! It's 35 years! 35 years ago first BBSs were starting, we used floppies to carry 120 kilobytes (if that) of data around, Internet was something no one heard of...
Do you think it's possible that we won't have dramatic changes in our digital communications systems? Do you think it's possible that we won't have ways to safely, anonymously and instantly access all human knowledge (liberated by pirates if necessary)? If yes, then you must be living in some other world than I do...
P.S. I enjoy learning immensely. Thanks to the Internet and the piracy I can watch any film I want, watch most good educational programs I want, listen to audio lectures on many topics, read any classic books, read many recent books, read encyclopedias and articles from most major publications. All for free. I still pay for some media - it's easier to get pirated games on DVD and there are still many books that aren't available online, but that's insignificant and its importance will only diminish over time.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
OK here goes,
:)
Public Domain:War on Piracy::Democracy:War on Terror
Democracy, too, is dying a slow painful death. Agreed?
-Zeffe
Agreed. As I said in another post, copyleft is akin to letting people walk on your lawn when they bulldoze the public parks. It's nice, but it doesn't make everything all better. Copyleft does not bring back those parts of the public domain which Congress gave away.
Some nother examples with patents which is the same model for invention as for IP as in copyright was Sears and Snapon tools. They lied to the inventor and cut a cheap deal then reaped enormous profits. Sure sure you can argue but they conciously bilked the guy of his invention and it was proven in court. True it is not a patent violation but my point is the disenssentive of having your creative work stolen.
;-)
Hmm... is a nuclear reactor a "theft" of Einstein's work? Or is it a series of creative little refinements and innovative applications of various complicated implementation details, admittedly based upon to a very smart man's theories and ideas?
We like to see people with who work hard and create valuable things be rewarded for their efforts. Few people will argue with that.
However, the first person to think about a subject isn't always the only person with good ideas about it. Often, there's a lot of room for creative improvement. Copyrights and patents make that kind of creativity illegal, and that's a problem.
Edison didn't invent the very first lightbulb. Instead, he put a heck of a lot of creative effort into refining someone else's ideas about how to make a light bulb, and into making it profitable. As it happens, Edison held the patent rights, so he was legally allowed to work on the light bulb. What if he wasn't? He wouldn't have invented the modern light bulb, that's what!
It's just one extra hurdle for the already difficult process of creative discovery when the person with the rights for an idea isn't the guy with all the new ideas about how to make that idea work better.
Suppose you make a beautiful glass mobile. It's nice, it's beautiful, it's just very fragile, and it has a nasty side effect of breaking unexpectedly, and killing whoever it lands on.
Suppose I want the same glass mobile, but made out of shatterproof glass. You don't sell one, so I can't buy it from you. So, fine, I decide to make my own. That's illegal, because of copyright. I can't make anything that looks remotely like your creation. So, fine, I'll hire someone else to make one for me. That's also illegal. Under copyright law, the only person I can hire is you: and you might not want to do the job.
Without your consent, I can't get what I want, no matter how much I pay, or how easy it would be to do the work myself. I can't get the same mobile, but in a different colour, or 2/3 size, or made out of shatterproof glass, or out of an aerogel, or with a nice angel mounted on top, or anything else that you don't let me have. In this regard, the free market has failed me: I can't get what I want, for any price. You alone control my ability to own something; which doesn't sound all that fair or nice to me.
It's okay, though. Copyrights don't last forever. Two generations after I'm dead (three in the USA), my descendants will get the right to create whatever kind of glass mobile they want. Of course, by then, all the mobiles will be broken.
And my descendants will look at each other, and say: "Why didn't anyone think to build those things out of shatterproof glass? It would have been a lot safer!"
In short, yeah, sure, it's great to reward innovation: but don't stiffle incremental creativity along the way. Otherwise, society loses out on the very thing it's trying to promote: and that's a shame, too.
--
AC
Seriously, most of the worthwhile things in the world have been the result of "freedom." If you read a great work of literature, it's because someone had the freedom to sit down and write it. The freedom Lessig seems to be talking about, on the other hand, is the freedom to pick up that novel, copy huge passages of it into your own work, and call yourself an artist. If that's not a "culture of greed," the what is?
I agree with a lot of what Lessig has to say, but when he starts equating a creator's right to control the fruit of his own labor with some kind of anti-freedom movement, I call foul. It makes me wonder what Lessig's agenda really is, in ten words or less.
Breakfast served all day!
As it goes for "communist", I think it good to reference an etymological dictionary, but I can't find one at the moment so I'll pick the primitive definitions used at Dictionary.com to isolate the definate syn;
Note from NRAdude: I want it to be known that the Scots perhaps have the most original english dialect because unlike England, the Scots prevented the invasion of Roman occupation armies and posts thus preventing Latin inflection on the Scots dialect. See history on Hadrian's wall. :Note from NRAdude
I think it good everyone open their bibles to see that man is somewhat self-existing "in the image of God." Then there is the orderly conduct into brotherhood, an immediate family that appears as a chosen commune that has attached to a societal compact (contrat) with a "family name" (mine is singular Mundt whereby could also be refined plural as the Mundts), and then reading further I think it notable that people are bonded to their societal (social) compact from whence they then can assemble a vessel (that I enjoy calling a Citizenship). "congregate" is prefatory to the actual assembly; not yet assembled or counted but nearing that action (congregation), as it would seem the Lord counts His people (those social compacts).
Now what was I going to say? I'm speaking of the etymology "communist" is a good word that advocates "common", while everyone around me always think of a biased "Communism" brought by Marx and his Order conspired from his societal compact (an "Order" within a society, chicken-egg hatched from a chicken-egg) that delegates invasion of privacy and property and voiding the relation and similar thoughts (brotherhood) in change for a share in property that will never be fee simple. I distinctly remember that such thoughts on "Communism" originated from corporate Banks and the role of the non-communist Communists that sabotaged and exited America durring the War of 1871, causing a shrink for the United States back into George Washington's District of Columbia. In the verry essence of etymology, communism is as though an honest rescind from a society. Thence, even the etymology in "capit
without prejudice
That's what I first thought, but then I read some more. Guess what. It's basically correct.
h tm0 7.html
a mmer/?p=83398276
See also:
http://www22.brinkster.com/paradio/pages/pre1972.
http://www.legallanguage.com/lawarticles/Clarida0
It seems there are three points here:
1)before 1972, copyright laws were governed by state regulations, not
national regulations.
2)Merely because they are not covered by federal copyright laws
doesn't imply that they are still owned by someone. The owners may be
dead, or the original master unavailable. I don't understand the
implications here.
3)It's unclear to me whether you can use a later phonograph/CD of an
earlier recording to digitalize. For example, if I had a 1976
phonograph of a 1933 work, and then I decide to make an mp3 of it,
it's unclear to me when it will go into the public domain.
Interestingly, they have already resolved the reproduction issue in
the area of paintings and public domain in USA.
After doing web research, I wrote here
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogr
Accurate photographs of visual artworks lack expressive content and
are automatically in the public domain once the painting's
copyright
has expired (which it has in the US if it was published before 1923).
All other copyright notices can safely be ignored.
I can't comment on precedent or how to implement this fairly, but it
seems to me that we need some sort of public domain reform that
removes protection of later digitally remastered copies when the term
on an earlier recording expires. As long as the later digitally
remastered copy is simply a faithful reproduction of the earlier work,
the later digitally remastered work does not imply some new copyright
protections.
As I said, this idea is currently unworkable and would be unfair to
companies which in the 1970s and 1980s produced and sold remastered
editions. However, at some point we need to ask ourselves why
Columbia Records deserves this windfall for simply reproducing an
artistic work. If Columbia Records, for example, owns the only
pristine copy of Jelly Roll Morton's 1926 jazz songs and releases a
remastered edition in 1985, it would be sad to think it won't go into
the public domain until 2080 (150 years after the song was first
recorded).
Please, somebody, point out some gap in my understanding or a
loophole. But otherwise it looks as if it's going to be really hard
for sound recordings to go into the public domain.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
I should add:
merely because they are governed by state laws doesn't imply they are forbidden for public use. It just means that you have to verify copyright protection differently.
I hope that the Copyright Office's current investigation on orphaned works will set forth some procedure by which these works can be considered orphans if the copyright owners fail to renew them. Otherwise, we can be in a situation where pre-1972 will require an onerous amount of research to prove it's out of copyright.
Truthfully, I don't know if the federal court even has jurisdiction to do this. IANAL, btw.
Robert Nagle
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Somebody should tell Mr. Lessing that copyright is a pretty recent cultural development. Before printing and relatively widespread literacy, there was no money to be made writing, so there was no need for copyright.
The private domain he speaks of did not exist, because copyright didn't exist. Capitalism is a relatively new thing too.
The private domain isn't what creates market incentives. That I like a certain story or bit of music is not related to whether it's copyrighted.
It seems most cultures have developed without market forces, copyright, etc. And some of the finest creations of humanity were idependent of copyright or market forces.
Lessing must think the world was created by lawyers 300 years ago.
This was the purpose of patents, to encourage inventors to publicize their inventions without fear of them being stolen. In theory patents apply to things the author could still profit from by keeping it secret. Copyrights supposedly apply to things that you can only make money from by making it known.
Your post would have been more productive had you avoided calling the GNU General Public License "viral". What you think of the GPL is not on topic here, as this discussion primarily concerns how the public domain works, not your views on how distributed GPL derivatives are licensed. Similarly, a previous poster used the word "fell" to describe entry into the public domain. I'd argue that the popularity of the term in this context is irrelevant and that we are better served by examining the connotation that being in the public domain is somehow lower or lesser than being in copyright.
Getting back to your point raised by calling the GPL "viral", there is a bit of this for the public domain as well. Works in the public domain remain in the public domain even if fragments of them are built upon in other copyrighted works. There are parts of the movie Amelie which come from the Prelinger archives. These fragments are in the public domain and one can extract them from Amelie and end up with a series of public domain fragments. So, the public domain is self-preserving but this effect doesn't extend as far as the power copyright holders have in licensing derivative works. Of course, it's possible to transform the work so completely that such extraction is impossible.
Digital Citizen
Within every DRM system there will always be a way for the author to set the copy rights to allow freely made copies.
Don't count on it. Any such system means that somebody can "pirate" a copyrighted work by breaking the copy protection and recording the result, or filming off the display screen, or recording their own neurons, or whatever is needed to get around the DRM. Thus as long as somebody can make "non DRM" copies piracy is possible.
The biggest worry is that there will be no recording devices that can record without DRM, because such devices can be used for piracy. Yes, "old" devices will work, but this may be useless if the average person only owns a "new" playback machine because that is the only thing they can play popular movies on. The average person will be able to make their home movies but nobody can view them unless the original camera is attached to the Internet to authorize it, and the average person will accept this as normal and be perfectly satisfied.
The fact that unrestricted recording devices may very well be used for piracy 99% of the time will make it easy for them to convince everybody it is a good idea to get rid of them. The fact that the other 1% is *EVERY SINGLE BIT OF FREE SPEECH IN THE WORLD* will be ignored.
This is a good introduction to a powerful, well thought-out article. Now, where is the rest of it?
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I for one, welcome our new _____ overlords <-- Don't tell me this phrase is _NOT_ in the public domain!
In my lay opinion, the law has already concocted a lethal mixture of copyright and contract law which will only allow a small subset of the works created in the future to lapse into the public domain.
I forget the case name, (I think it was something like Westlaw v. Lexis-Nexis or something) upheld the right of mere aggregators to obtain non-redistribution agreements with those who they distributed public domain works to. In this case, the plaintiff lost the contract-law countersuit and was forbidden to redistribute the public domain court opinions provided to them by LexisNexis.
The second component here is the DMCA. Prior to the DMCA, copyrights included basically a few exclusive rights: the right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, or publically exhibit/perform works. The DMCA adds the right to *access* work to be one which must be granted by the copyright holder. Now, there is nothing to indicate that such rights could not be extended contractually-- i.e. that the copyright holder could say "You can only redistribute this work or continue to access it through this contract with us, and this contract has a perpetual term." Therefore contracts and the access control provision allow for effectively unlimited enforcement of copyrights in apparent contradiction to the US Constitution.
This is a real danger. And Lessig is exactly right. Except that I don't think it will take 35 years. I give it 15 before works are nearly exclusively released in formats which allow for perpetual copyright restrictions.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Public domain is a "copy" "right". As creator of a work, you have the right to say others may copy it freely and that you are transfering ownership over to them as a whole without restriction. Copyright law allows the owner of a right to dictate how it may be used.
No amount of "anti-piracy" crap can change that basic fact without copyright law violating copyright law, by restricting the rights of the owners as to what they are allowed to do with their own property. Figure the odds on the RIAA/MPAA/etc. crowds to allow changes to the law the restrict their rights of ownership.
Mr. Lessig has managed to set fire to a straw man.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
what the fuck does that mean? this strange and new concept of "someone smarter than me" must be one of those undocumented ideas that hasn't reached the public domain (of at least slashdot).
It's deja vu all over again. You are the same person who keeps posting this nonsense. Your links are two copies of the same "posting." Can you point me to anything not written by Robert Clarida? Are you associated with Robert Clarida or PDinfo?
Can you substantiate either one of these claims?
1)before 1972, copyright laws were governed by state regulations, not national regulations.
2)Merely because they are not covered by federal copyright laws
doesn't imply that they are still owned by someone.
The constitution gives the congress the right to control copyright, not the states.
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;
Can you show me a case/constitutional amendment where this power was given to the states?
This whole thing reeks of a scam.
The fact that none of those works were your private property (your words) should clue you as to the length of the wait.
No IP!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
LOAD "SIG",8,1
The works were not my property, but the rights to use them were.
If a copyright was set to expire in 2012, and Congress retroactively changed the already existing copyright to expire in 2032, did they not take the right to use that work for 20 years away from me? If I were to try to buy those rights back, would they not cost me money? Even if I chose not to exercise those rights, buying them back would still cost me money. So, if they have taken something away from me which would cost me money to get back, how is that not taking my property away?
An here's the opposite extreme absurdity: because people can think copyrighted ideas -and even patented ones- should they not all be lobotomized to protect all that sacred IP? Why not set a shining example by being lobotomized first, Mr. IP-Is-Sacred?
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Then how do you rationalize the success of businesses? They are far from your libertarian ideal in the most important respect: workers (employees, 'staff', and the ubiquitous 'associates') lack any ability to control their own lives. There is little difference in organizational principles between business and the communist states of the 20th Century except in the expected outcome of the use of resources. A small clique of people controlled the resources and means of production (board of directors, politburo) and the workers supplied the labor with little expectation of meaningful return. A few in the middle were given the impression that they were going to be elevated - some day - to a position of power. They toiled on in a middle management role controlling the lowest ranking labor so that the ruling bodies could perpetuate their hold on power.
Capitalism has been so successful essentially because one of the first things it did was to corrupt democratic politics with money. Once that was achieved, the wealthy (business owners) had far more control over the making of new laws than the masses of the poor (the workers). So laws became a tool for the rich to perpetuate the system, instead of a way for the majority to realize their will. It took a combination of mass public outcry and courageous leaders to implement things like the Pure Food and Drug Act, and labor laws (both of which have subsequently been attacked by less-courageous leaders).
Essentially, Capitalism succeeded by becoming Fascism, in the sense of "the merger of state and corporate power". Or if one is more radical, a "kleptocracy", where the rich rig the system to steal from the poor.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Imagine a world with out "Friends"?
I am, and the feeling is so warm... and fuzzy...
Freedom: "I won't!"
The general public believes that "Public Domain" means "anything that I can copy" .. so, therefore, what does it really matter?
It seems like programmers are the only people who care one bit.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People - at least, the majority of them - do avoid things they deeply view as "wrong".
I wouldn't grab from p2p a book by a young struggling author. I certainly wouldn't read it, enjoy it, appreciate it - and then fail to compensate the author. Not just because we have great interest in encouraging literary works of high quality.
But I would grab a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's work, although with recent extensions the various **AA managed to keep it copyrighted in America still.
I and others cannot yet enjoy the works of an author 70 years deceased. Fitzgerald is a relatively benign example; there are thousands of long deceased authors that have long gone out of print, whose works you just cannot access in any way thanks to the corps indifferently protecting their "copyrights". These authors are in effect going extinct; instead of being duplicated and archived in thousands of hard-drives and other permanent media all over the world, their works are rapidly becoming lost to the world.
Hey, some viruses are good ones, like the Love Virus, Luck Virus, or the GPL. :)
*Dreams of being a professional "bum" in a certain six mile long, three mile wide interplanetary mining ship...*
His name is Robert Paulsen...
The difference between you and me is that I understand the word "sarcasm".
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
After re-reading your post and my own, I am quite embarassed. Either I responded to the wrong parent or am simply brain-dead. I tend to suspect the latter. You have my apologies.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
What weapons? What the hell is he talking about? He hasn't given a single example. This article has no content. It's just a scaremongering introduction to ..er.. then it ends.
I ve been a long time reader of Lessigs blog and beleive there is much truth in public domain being non exsistant in the near future. A great post by Larry. We need more public lawyers maybe even start a public defense fund that protects the American public. But like every fortune teller it is all in the eyes of the beholder for instance we could not make it any 30 years!!
Everything I see on tv or here on clear channel radio is recycled crap. Often times the next big thing comes out of that 99% crap pile (like garage bands, underground artists etc).