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Court Takes Away Some of the Public Domain
An anonymous reader writes "In yet another bad ruling concerning copyright, a federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling, and said that it's okay for Congress retroactively to remove works from the public domain, even if publishers are already making use of those public-domain works. The lower court had said this was a First Amendment violation, but the appeals court said that if Congress felt taking away from the public domain was in its best interests, then there was no First Amendment violation at all. The ruling effectively says that Congress can violate the First Amendment, so long as it feels it has heard from enough people (in this case, RIAA and MPAA execs) to convince it that it needs to do what it has done." TechDirt notes that the case will almost certainly be appealed.
The RIAA are not 'people'
Copyright is, at it's core, the government-enforced ability for a private entity to say "you're not allowed to say that, because I said it first". This is by definition an impingement on free speech.
Free speech != original speech.
When government "reserves the right" to oppress your rights, then by common sense, your rights never existed in the first place.
If the Public Domain erodes, so too does our cultural identity. Sounds hyperbolic, but it is true. How far back do you want to go? Shall we just end the PD as a possibility, and all things are owned for all time? Who does that benefit, outside those whose items would be escheated to?
I was under the impression that it was the government's job to protect our rights. I guess the joke is on me.
For anyone here who promotes the expansion of copyright law I ask a question:
What if Shakespeare was still in copyright? Or Beethoven, or Bach or Chaucer or Gilbert and Sullivan.
Would society be better if such intellectual legacies were allowed? Without a constant updated public domain isn't society suffering?
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I don't like the ruling, but it's probably correct. Congress has the Constitutional authority to institute copyright laws and there is no particular legal reason to presume that once something is in the public domain, it can never be returned to being copyrighted. Not liking it is not a legal reason.
However, after skimming over the decision I see no mention of the issue of this being an ex post facto law w.r.t. using things that were in the public domain, but suddenly weren't. I believe that under a reasonable interpretation of that clause you can not touch those people, and it is not Constitutional to ask them to pony up any money, "reasonable" amounts or otherwise. Liabilities should only be incurred based on the copyrighted status of the used works at the time of use, not at the whim of any future Congressional acts. Unlike "not liking retroactive extension", this point is actually a Constitution-based argument.
There's no rule of law any more. Look at the issue in the Gulf: Congress limited liability in 1990, but now the Federal government sees a political opportunity and so puts pressure on BP to pay up above the legal limit. It's rule by force today, with the rules on sale to the high bidder at the moment (given that political capital is worth more to Congress than money at the moment).
They all want to argue the First Amendment, like it's some Holy Scripture and they get bonus karma for it in a future life.
Taking things out of the public domain that were already there is the opposite of progressing Science and (the) useful Arts. That's the pertinent Constitutional issue, not some bullshit Amendment-of-last-resort argument.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Why bother following any laws anymore? So many unjust laws on the books it almost undermines the validity of any sane laws that are left.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Having a monopoly on publications of Shakespeare's works would probably affect the supply.
(IANAL)
First, our treaty obligations do not override the limits on the federal government imposed by the Constitution, either as a matter of law, or, frankly, proper policy. If the political branches enter into a treaty that requires the US to act unconstitutionally, then we will unavoidably have to violate the treaty until we can fix it, or get out of it. If TRIPS requires this, then we cannot comply with TRIPS.
Second, you're assuming that we need to even participate in TRIPS; we don't. The US has a strong enough position that we don't need to enter into any copyright treaties, quite frankly. Our relevant industries are quite capable of dealing with that, just as they dealt with the US not being in Berne until 1989. Our copyright law has become bad enough due to domestic actors, but the 'back door' created by treaty obligations is completely abysmal. It helps to get laws pushed through Congress without debate or the opportunity to amend them, lest we be in violation of yet another foolish treaty.
The US should immediately withdraw from all copyright treaties, amend its copyright law to best serve the domestic interests of all Americans (not merely creators and publishers), should unilaterally offer national treatment to foreign authors, provided their works are published in the US and otherwise comply with the formalities we need to re-establish and strengthen, and should limit its international involvement in copyright matters to informal cooperation with other states to ensure that their copyright laws do not in some way become mutually incompatible with ours (typically due to formalities). In this way, we would not only improve things for ourselves, while not materially harming our own copyright-related industries, but we would be reigning things in, and once again provide guidance to the rest of the world as to how copyright laws can work sensibly. That's something we haven't done a good job of in the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly since we enacted the disasterous 1976 Act.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That's what ACTA is for.
See, a bunch of multi-nationals have lobbied the US to do something under the guise of helping US interests. Then they lobbied them to force everyone else to get on board with the same laws so their stuff could be protected internationally. After that, they own everything everywhere.
Who needs a new country when you can slowly bring about an oligarchy in all of them and then call the shots?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The act of taking something out of the public domain is an expropriation of public property with the intent to give it to one person. This is different from granting property rights to authors of new works.
This is nothing less than theft. Once in the public domain, I own it. You own it, we all own it. It's literally stealing from everyone and giving to few.
*DrugCheese rants*
Except, you forget that it's US politicians cramming these copyright laws down the rest of the world's collective throat, under the guise of protecting US interests. Heck, the *AA's help their equivalent group in various countries lobby the government to get your DMCA passed. So much so, that, they'll just re-use the document in another country.
TFA points out that Congress is acting under the belief that they are protecting US interests since more US property was being copied in foreign countries than the reverse. At least, according to data provided to them by the people who wanted the law.
Trust me, other countries aren't saying "oooh, we need a law like that". The US is saying in lightly veiled threats that if the other countries don't adopt the law, there might be some consequences. Sadly, the lobbying groups in the US are pushing very hard to use faulty 'reports' to get certain things deemed 'true' in the US, and then pushing the same crappy data abroad. Data they made up via arms length think-tanks which are basically paid shills to write position papers they need.
As long as your politicians give such weight to the testimony of the RIAA/MPAA, we're all getting shafted. But don't think for a minute that it's the rest of the world imposing these treaties and laws on the US. That's why the appeal court basically said that Congress could do this ... because they claim to be protecting US interests.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.