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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'
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?
Copyright applies to a great deal more than speech.
But yes, that ruling stinks. It basically says someone with lobbying dollars can buy exceptions to the first amendment. And at the same time it reinforces the eagerness of the courts (federal in this case) to sell out to big business/groups whom they are trying to fool us into believing are somehow representing "the people". If you want to be making that sort of comparison, "big business" is pretty much the polar opposite of "the people".
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Copyright was in the original constitution, free speech was not:
"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."
However, unlike what this ruling seems to say, the Constitution gives congress no authority to reassign ownership of works and I'm pretty sure "limited time" is now is nowhere near what the founders had in mind.
As far as I'm concerned, what should be focused on here is the ban on passing Ex Post Facto laws in the Constitition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law#United_States
This seems like such a breach.
Wrong because "free" speech has nothing to do with copyright or vice versa.
Free speech means you can say unpopular things, things that disagree with the "establishment", things that are inflammatory, things that are downright disgusting (in some segment of the populations opinion)..
Free speech does not mean you can copy things either privately or for profit.. it never has and it never will. Fair Use/Copyright/Public Domain are all interrelated with only each other.
There are times when Free speech and Copyright may cross paths.. (such as I dunno.. someone putting out a scathing unauthorized biography of a political figure.. and selling that book/movie.. and then suing someone else for trying to copy his or her work and sell it)
I really wish that people who are so into constitutional/bill of rights issues would at least do the rest of the world a favor and get a passing knowledge of the subject first.
This misunderstanding of Free Speech comes up nearly as often as the complete and utter confusion over "the right to keep and bear arms" clause.. not to mention the strict constitutional interpretations that conveniently (much like religious zealots) ignore the parts that they do not like or agree with.
The fugitive slave laws are a system to ensure that those who have spent good money buying and training Africans don't get screwed just cause some abolitionist runs an underground railroad and could, hypothetically, free as many slaves as possible.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The part of Section 514 at issue here applies only to (1) works that were based on public domain works which (2) fell into the the public domain because the US was not complying with its Berne Convention obligations. Section 514 restores copyright to the works /that should have been copyrighted to begin with/. It does this because international obligations require it (not because Congress wanted to). It applies only retrospectively, and CANNOT be used to protect new works in any new way.
This means that (1) the US is only meeting treaty obligations, providing the same level of protection as that afforded in other WTO nations, and (2) the application is limited to a finite number of works and affected authors.
After all, it makes sense to have some ability to control our own work.
One you publish it, it's not "yours"; you don't own it. The phrase "control our own work" loses all meaning when applied to published content. If you don't understand this, you don't understand the Constitution, since it's the fundamental principle behind copyright law.
Congress shall have the power:
"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."
The two most important points here:
1) The purpose of copyright is not to enrich authors and inventors. It exists to provide incentive to authors and inventors to publish their works for the benefit of society.
2) Congress can limit the duration a copyright and can do so without due process. Congress can't expire your rights to things you actually own, like the shirt on your back.
If you have an unpublished manuscript, you own that. Destroy it, toss it in a fire, do whatever you like with it; it's yours. The moment you publish, you give up your ownership. You have no rights to recall, revoke, or destroy the copy of your published manuscript that is in my head. That's mine, not yours.
However, we like manuscripts, and we want you to write them. In exchange, we offer you a time-limited exclusive control over certain rights of ownership. We will never give back ownership (we can't), but we will give you back a taste of what you had before you published. This is your payment for publishing the manuscript and giving up ownership. We wish you the best in exploiting those rights as you see fit.
Just don't make the mistake of thinking you still own your published material or that you even should own it. The rights a person has over their own thoughts in their own head supercede any and all property rights.
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." --Thomas Jefferson