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How the Obama Copyright Policies Might Unfold
An anonymous reader points out a column by James Boyle, who knows a thing or two about copyright, analyzing the Obama Administration's policy choices about intellectual property and high tech. "Traditionally, Democratic administrations take their copyright policy direct from Hollywood and the recording industry. Unfortunately, so do Republican administrations. The capture of regulators by the industry they regulate is nothing new, of course, but in intellectual property there is the added benefit that incumbents can frequently squelch competing technologies and business methods before they ever come into existence. ... The Obama administration's warm embrace of Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley's checkbook, had given some hope that this pattern would change — and I think it will. Now, instead of taking copyright policy direct from the media conglomerates (who, after all, have a very legitimate point of view — even if not the only point of view) it is quite likely that the administration will construct it as a contract between content companies and high-technology companies such as Google. In some places, citizens and consumers will probably benefit, simply because optimizing for the interests of two economic blocs rather than one is likely to give us a slightly more balanced, and less technology-phobic, set of rules. And perhaps the administration will go further. But recent actions make me doubt that this is the case."
I would go even further. Even as a CS undergrad at one of the top CS universities in the US, I still know very few people who even know what copyright is. Sure, they are vaguely aware that laws exist saying you shouldn't copy music/movies and they have seen the FBI warnings on movies, but they have no idea what is legal or not. That is why there are tons of videos on YouTube with unlicensed music in the background or unlicensed photos: the vast majority of those people would probably be very surprised to learn they broke a law by using that music or those photos.
It comes down to how you define legitimate. If laws are for sale, shouldn't the people buying them expect that they will be enforced?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Seriously though, what exactly entitles Ron Paul to coverage.
Well, clearly not getting second place in a state's presidential primary, as when that happened (Nevada) all of the news reports read "Romney first, McCain third", not mentioning the "Paul second" part anywhere. I agree Ron Paul had no chance of winning, but he got even less coverage than the others who had even less chance of winning.
And games, and things with regional lockout. Today, there is no reason with the rise of digital distribution that there shouldn't be 20 year copyright along with a clause that states that if the item is no longer available new, in your region for 3 years you have a right to download it for non-profit, non-commercial use. You only need to look at all the old video games that have passed into obscurity to notice the need for such laws, without the illegal dumping of ROMs a vast majority of early gaming would be completely lost forever.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
they're the ones who completely ignored Ron Paul's existence
Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, too.
True, but it was particularly obvious in Ron Paul's case, when he was getting vote tallies on par with Giulliani's in the early primaries and they refused to label Paul's wedge in their pie charts.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
As one of my graduate school professors was quite fond of saying... "If you are in the IP business, you are in the litigation business!"
What this means is that any Intellectual Property has no protected value until it has been tried in court. Yes, the RIAA/MPAA can claim any value they want ($15 for a music CD, $25 for a BlueRay disk) and people will pay for it. However, until they take someone to court or someone takes them to court the IP has NO value.
Any one remember a few years back when just about ever album was comming out with some form of DRM on it.... Anyone also remember that Phillips, the holder of the IP on Compact Disks.. took the record companies to court to force them to remove the compact disk label off all the albums that had DRM as DRM made the disks unplayable on large numbers of certified compatible compact disk players?
That's a case where Phillips the IP holder took the record companies to court because the record companies were infringing on Phillips IP.
I would say the system is definitely broken, when copyright for a work belonging to an individual is 75 years after death and belonging to a corporation is 100 years.
Next time you are in Europe look at how many Disney characters are used all over the place.. Disney messed up and didn't get copyright extended in Europe before Mickey and Minnie hit 50 years and if I recall correctly, a few other characters escaped into the public domain before the EU changed the copyright to match the US limits.
Personal opinion, NO copyright should extend past the death of the artist.
You bring up an interesting point, but laws are the way of codifying the will of the people, not always in a fair way. Sometimes one portion of the people enforces its will on another part. It's unfortunately not fair.
Who is to say what is right and what is not right? God? Preachers? You? The presidents? Society? What happens if 95% of the people in a society decide that it's alright to abuse children? It's not nice to the children, but it would be accepted, regardless of the parents' association. In our case, in America, most of us agree it is not right to abuse children, and we have set up laws and institutions to protect them. This is not necessarily the case. What is common sense then, if not views that are held in common among most people?
Politics is all about what different people want, and balancing different powers, groups, and desires.
Qxe4
Uh huh. Because Hillary would SO have won. Except for that whole giving up thing.
And pissing off most of the Democrats by being a sore loser.
Palin was a fucking moron, and it was her own fault.
Not going to pass judgement on McCain, but I always heard very little from him (talking about words directly from his mouth) except what he thought was wrong about Obama's ideas. Very little on his own ideas.
That was before the Southern Strategy.
The flipside of that, of course, is that, if, Abraham Lincoln was essentially a Democrat, then Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Republican. The south was Roosevelt's power base. Ever wonder who the heck Carl Vinson was to get a carrier named after him? Why, he was Roosevelt's man in the Congress that rammed through a huge naval construction program just in time for World War II. Pretty much saved the USA from getting torched by Japan, but, he was pretty much a racist redneck.
This is my sig.
I agree. I wouldn't mind something like a flat twenty years. Artist dies, it goes to their heirs, for the duration. I also wouldn't mind something like 10 years + an optional renewal, but the less complicated the better.
I want to keep copyright, and I wouldn't want it to be extremely shortened... there really are some creative works that languish for several years before becoming hits. But if the duration was twenty years... hell, Pac-Man would be public domain now. Lord of the Rings. Indiana Jones. And that's ok... the creators of all those have certainly benefited. At some point they need to simply be recognized as part of our culture.
I desperately have a project that I want to do based on Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars series. Unfortunately, the series falls on the cusp of copyright extension; the first five books are out of copyright, the remaining six... who knows? Maybe they never will be. Also the names of the three major characters are trademarked by Burrough's heirs... which, as far as I can tell, can potentially exclude any use of them in derivative works FOREVER.
Well, clearly not getting second place in a state's presidential primary, as when that happened (Nevada) all of the news reports read "Romney first, McCain third", not mentioning the "Paul second" part anywhere. I agree Ron Paul had no chance of winning, but he got even less coverage than the others who had even less chance of winning.
Maybe because your story isn't true?
I just Googled Nevada GOP Primary. Clicked the first news story http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22739349/
Headline is:
Clinton, Romney win in Nevada
Texas' Paul to finish second in state's GOP caucuses
They don't talk much about Ron Paul in the story. Probably because he got the same number of caucus seats as McCain. So although McCain got third he actually in effect tied for second. And since Ron Paul was currently polling in the low single digits there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a fluke in an unimportant caucus won by the guy who came in third place in the end anyway. And take one look at Rudy Giuliani. If the media was to be believed then he was a shoe in. So if Huckabee could go from obscure to competitive second then there is no reason Ron Paul couldn't have as well despite minimal media coverage. The simple fact of the matter is most people think Ron Paul is a nut job because he advocates things they don't believe in nor want to vote for.
I thought under Bush dissent was the highest form of terrorism? You know, "with us or against us" and all that?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
When was the last time anything fell into the public domain?
Yesterday -- all the works of anyone who died on June 21, 1939 became public domain then.
Marion Gropen
consultant to small book publishers