Slashdot Mirror
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Hugh Pickens writes "Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge, presented a six-step program for reforming outdated US copyright laws in a speech at the New Media conference at Boston University.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."
and how much did Public Knowledge give in campaign contributions this year? How much do they plan on 'donating' in 2008?
'Cause I'm thinking the industries that give millions might not be in favor of any legislation that would do any of this stuff.
And I'm thinking that the millions of dollars are gonna talk louder.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You have to think the various treaties we entered into that apply to copyright law. Some nations have different legal philosophies about the property rights that exist in intellectual property. Our own nation has changed its standard on property rights (making them economic rights). The result is longer copyrights that cover more things than before. (I'm commenting on some things he said in his speech).
/. article where a fellow showed that economically the nation is better served by shorter copyrights. The fact that Yoko Ono can be a near-billionaire for John's shaking his head and playing music should reveal how far gone copyright has become. Under the old-old standard (14 years plus 14 years), the Beatles' music would have all been public domain already.
There was an earlier
Or, perhaps we should limit corporate ownership of copyright? For example, limit a corporation to only being able to license an author's work (rather than receive a transfer of ownership). This is excepted where the owner is an employee or work-for-hire. Limit the license to a one-time 10 year license. Works-for-hire are good for only 20 years.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
...with the vast amount of bandwidth, private networks, and users who are happy to share anything they spend time ripping and encoding.
The Internet has been very exciting for me -- I've never put a copyright on my works, and always openly let people copy and distribute what I've created. I'm even OK with no attribution, and letting others put their name on my productions. In the long run, it increases the interest in the markets I'm in.
The little guy has rarely been helped by copyright. There are a few examples, but in general, copyright has been about protecting distribution monopolies and NOT protecting the artists or content creators. It changed when copyright lost its 7+7 year cap.
Since then, distributors have had a de facto strangehold on most markets. That's fine -- the more people have access to the web, the faster the amateur, pro-am, and casual artists will be able to distribute without the old media monopolists.
You can try to "fix" copyright, but why beat a dead horse? I get more excited from seeing the massive influx of new artists in ALL markets (music, video, cartoons, comics, blogs, etc) where the artists openly place their content for the world to use. I can't recall the guy's name (mphillips, maybe?), but there's an artist who produced pencil art of Serenity/Firefly characters (yes, they're protected for some strange reason), and he distributes the high res images freely only. He makes his money by selling his own prints -- but anyone is free to print their own. Why let the artist print? Because some people feel a MORAL obligation to compensating the artist (I do), so they "donate" to keep him going. That's how most art was commissioned until the copyright monster reared its ugly head.
The future is bright for those who don't resist the open atmosphere of the new public domain, which is what I would consider MOST of the Internet. Yes, most blogs have a copyright statement at the bottom, but the long term solution to battling people who "steal" your "work" is to just notify your fans about them, and let simple reputation take care of the rest. What happens if a big company takes your work? Good luck fighting them in court. A single artist with a Cease and Desist has almost NO chance of even going to court -- the laws are written against artists.
10 years from now, I bet we'll see even MORE people sharing the photos freely on flickr, writing freely on blogs, producing videos and music freely. Sure, all those sites have some creative commons license, but again -- who will have the money to fight infringement?
Embrace the new market -- supply is near infinite, demand is finite, so price drops to zero. But the reputation you can build from producing years of quality new content is more than enough to compensate you in the long run; financially and otherwise.