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Greg Bear, Others Cry Foul on Project Gutenberg Copyright Call
Nova Express writes "Recently a lot of science fiction stories from the 1950s and 60s (including work from still-living authors like Frederik Pohl and Jack Vance) have been showing up on Project Gutenberg as being in the public domain. However, according to science fiction writer Greg Bear and his wife Astrid Anderson Bear (daughter of Poul Anderson, some of whose works were among those put up), Project Gutenberg has made a mistake: 'After conducting legal research on the LEXIS database of legal cases, decisions, and precedents, we have demonstrated conclusively that PG was making incorrect determinations regarding public domain status in many, many works that originally appeared in magazine form ... In general, Project Gutenberg is doing a tremendous service by making available texts that have truly long since fallen out of copyright, but they are clearly overstepping their original mandate. They are not merely exploiting orphan works, but practicing a wholesale kidnapping of works that are under copyright protection.'"
These works have been forgotten about a long time ago. They should have been in public domain since nobody is profiting from them anymore.
Nitpicking that magazines don't fall under the charter of the organization isn't valuable, ALL this information should be free if not only for archiving purposes. Those books are literally falling apart unless they were expensive hardcovers.
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This is an extremely unwise move for Project Gutenberg. While I am certainly opposed to the overly-long copyright terms we have today, and somewhat sympathetic to testing the boundaries of the often unclear copyright status of some works, PG is not the group to do it. They are nowhere near funded well enough to risk a legal confrontation with the major publishing houses or their star authors, and by taking that risk, they are endangering the good and unambiguously legal work they have been doing for so many years.
I don't know Greg Bear personally, but I am familiar with his position on copyrights generally, and he has always seemed to me to be one of the more reasonable authors in this area. Even if he's wrong on this point, Project Gutenberg should leave the grey areas for better-suited groups to explore. While it is deplorable that it is often prohibitively expensive to secure justice in the courts even when one is entirely in the right, that's the reality PG has to deal with if it wants to venture into this area, and it should not be done carelessly.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Since the works in question were first published in the US, by American citizens, the US terms would still apply
The Berne Convention would seem to only require 50 years protection or the length in the country of origin, whichever is the lowest.
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
The best thing for the US would be to announce that all works from before 1940 should automatically return to public domain one year from now, unless rights holders come forward to claim copyright. If there's nobody living to make the claim, then let it into the public domain.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
Folks at Project Gutenberg are obviously aware of the potential for a lawsuit. They would like to have one, so that the decision on the copyright status of these works is made concrete.
Bruce Perens.
It might be a tempest in a teacup from a legal sense, but the entitlement is nauseating. What did Mr Greg Bear contribute to the literary world that he may reap these royalty fees? He married the daughter of the author. And apparently, that means he feels that he can opine the following line: "They are not merely exploiting orphan works, but practicing a wholesale kidnapping of works that are under copyright protection." Exploiting orphan works? Excuse me? They are preserving works that have been returned to the public domain, from where they came in the first place.
It's attitudes like these that make me feel completely non-plussed to read a dead author's works without paying anybody.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Then they should pay property taxes on it until the end of time, just like the real estate taxes they pay on their land.
Assigning an appraisal value is more problematic than for real estate, but cheating to reduce taxes could be prevented by making the owner's declaration of value an automatic offer to sell at that price. If the owner wishes to avoid the taxes, he or she could assign a value of zero, in which case the "property" would revert to public domain.
Government lawmakers: take note of this fantastic opportunity to raise new tax revenue to reduce budget deficits!
I just noticed US copyright is only applicable to authors and inventors -- not their children, heirs, estates, etc. It is blatantly unconstitutional for someone other than the author or inventor to control the rights to their work. Remember, the Constitution says what the government can do, not what it can't. Anything not expressly stipulated is forbidden. Thus, allotting copyright to anyone other than the author or inventor is not permitted under the US Constitution.
"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 Economist said it recently and they were correct:
Copyright was never intended to be a property right. If you read the Founders (and not the MPAA/RIAA) you will come to the same conclusion. Control, not revenue. You can give it away and still hold the copyright.... Copyright is not about revenue. It's all about CONTROL. Nothing more.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
n the contrary. Google's settlement only applies to Google and no-one else. They didn't trailblaze so much as monopolize.
Regardless of the fact that the terms of the settlement only apply to Google, it establishes a precedent. Not a precedent in the normal sense of a legally binding rule which judges must follow, but a precedent in the sense of "this sort of agreement was found to be reasonable by these parties, it makes sense that it should be done here, too." That precedent won't avoid or even limit a lawsuit, but it will pave the way to another settlement or, if PG can garner enough support, to legislative changes.
That said, I think PG's best bet is to follow the DMCA to the letter, and hopefully the onus of copyright policing their works can be left squarely with the authors and their deadbeat descendants.
Does the DMCA Safe Harbor provision actually help PG here? I guess that depends on who is putting the works up. If PG can say they're just providing a hosting service for user-contributed materials, then the DMCA will help them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Tell that to FOX "news" and the Tea Party folks. I wish more people shared our way of thinking - ignore the hype and judge based on logic and reason. But sadly, the Jerry Springer culture we have fostered and the flames fanned by the Koch brothers war, lets the masses be easily swayed by emotion and fear, rather than logic. But this is nothing new, either. The term FUD, probably coined in these very forums, only puts a label on the ancient tradition.
I wonder if we can promote some type of system, through legal pressure, legislative edict, or otherwise, to rate or judge the truthfulness and helpfulness of what our politicians are blathering on about. The closest I have seen is politifact and wikileaks to some extent is trying to get the truth out there and let people judge for themselves. I think that side needs more publicity somehow - to help balance out the hype and bring a calming, logical atmosphere into play.
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Yeah, a couple decades later it gets better.
For example, the 1929 original "When The Levee Breaks" (see http://www.archive.org/details/Kansas_Joe_Memphis_Minnie-When_Levee_Breaks) has some '78rpm hiss', but is still quite relatively listenable IMHO. Same goes for Robert Johnson's 1937/1938 recordings. That's all the sample data I have - not a big fan of early-20th-century music, just a Led Zeppelin fan checking out some of the influences.
Your logic that copyright should last long enough to inherit is ridiculous to me, 'cause Mister Anderson is not likely to rise from the grave an write more, so the value of his copyright "to encourage" him is somewhat limited.
Why should any single act of creativity or performance be rewarded with more than a reasonable wage for the effort exerted.
The fact is that normal people can leave behind what they have saved or produced, provided they _save_ some of it. But that's just for us proles apparently. Somehow we have decided that you do a month or even a year's worth of studio time to make a song, or spend a month to write a short story, or a couple of years to write a novel, and you deserve that time's effort to pay your children and grandchildren 50 years after your death?
Why then aren't the heirs of the stone masons who built the Empire State Building entitled to a share of each months rent for three generations? Their work is just as valid and lasting. Perhaps more-so since people are paying more and more each year to use it.
Now, as an author, I understand two things: (1) I want to be able to control how my words are used commercially and socially because nobody wants to see their "children" exploited or raped; and (2) if anybody is going to be making a profit off of my words I want that someone to be me.
In previous ages that meant cost to copy and copyright because copying was costly. Now I think there should be a deal where some short time after release (e.g. even 20 years, as it can take a long time to make that two years salary for that two years writing) literal and exact copies distributed for ZERO cost on a non-profit basis should be legal. All the transformative rights, such as the right to anthology, the right to rewrite, the right to "make a movie of it", the right to "remake" it, etc should be preserved.
As a caveat of course, DRM is impermissible (because DRM is impossible anyway and) because that would obstruct the legal exact copying mandated.
The goal here is two-fold. (1) REASONABLY reward creators for the value of their creative EFFORT and (2) PRESERVE the creative control, and so the creator's "good name" to allow for a creator to deny the "N.A.M.B.L.A. Theater's All-Furry production of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Bone".
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
No, he's right: 1928 (publication date) + 28 + 67 = 2023 (when Steamboat Willie will eventually be free, in theory).
The 67 years extension was allowed because Disney renewed that copyright when the law was changed, in 1976. You can bet they were first in line: they almost certainly paid for the law themselves.
(Besides, some people think SW is, in fact, already in PD for different reasons.)
-- Let's go Viridian.