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Expanding Fair Use To Reform Copyright Law
Hugh Pickens writes "Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge, presented a six-step program for reforming outdated US copyright laws in a speech at the New Media conference at Boston University. Sohn expressed no patience with the 'disconnect between the law and the technology' of media production and distribution. He puts Fair Use at the top of the list for changes that will help return balance to copyright laws that have limited innovation, scholarship, creativity, and free speech. In addition to the four-part legal test for fair use currently on the books, Sohn recommends that Congress add incidental, transformative, and non-commercial personal uses to the list of fair uses enumerated in copyright law, and in addition expressly provide that making a digital copy for the purpose of indexing searches is not an infringement. Beyond Fair Use reform, Sohn advocates punishing copyright holders who 'knowingly or recklessly' send out false takedown notices, protecting the manufacturer of a technology from liability for the infringing activity of others if the technology has substantial non-infringing uses, promoting fair and accessible licensing of copyrighted works, limiting damages for the use of orphan works, and requiring copyright holders to provide notice of any limitations on users' ability to make fair or lawful uses of their products."
The last one was in 1998, so the next one will be in 2018, then 2038, then 2058...
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
I've never put a copyright on my works
Just to be clear, according to the Berne convention, the minute you create a work, it's copyrighted. Period. End of story. Registering that copyright simply makes it easier to enforce, if it ever came to that.
What you *should* be doing is placing your works under the Artistic License or something similar. That will ensure that those who might wish to use your works will be able to do so without fear that you'll come along later and hand them a cease and desist ('course, if you made public statements that you won't do such a thing, that changes things, but it's still advisable to just use an open license and be done with it).
This is what most people don't understand, the price will drop, but it will never reach zero cost for new goods due to the fact that there IS a cost associated with production that must be recouped.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
How about you actually read and understand what I wrote... You are replying to something you imagined.
Actually, at least according to Wikipedia, that bastion of truth and knowledge, there doesn't actually exist a legal mechanism in the United States for relinquishing to the public domain one's copyright on a work. That's not to say it can't be done, only that there is nothing codified in law regarding the topic, and as such, it should be seen as a bit of a legal gray area.
Consequently, I stand by my original statement. It's simply far clearer to just attach an extremely liberal license to one's works, and takes very little time or effort.
Lots of commercial content is produced by reusing content that came before it. Copyright stops that.
There's a period within which copyright works in favor of commerce, but gradually the balance inhibits commerce.
The negative effects of relying on copyright rather than creation can also be easily seen in the music industry, as well as other entertainment media. Especially when the copyright prevents the distribution of content whose free distribution is still monetized, like advertising, branding and promotion.
There are other ways, but those are enough to make the difference.
--
make install -not war