More stable because not so automated is the Internet Bookmobile. Extend an invitation for a free visit at http://www.archive.org/texts/bookmobile.php
The system is cost-effective for low print runs. There are more than 25,000 public domain or non-commercial licensed Creative Commons books available. We help authors do custom books as well. All free, supported by the Internet Archive and Anywhere Books.
July 8, 2004, we printed "Walden" at Walden Pond, until we were threatened with arrest. See http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/200 4/07/ 19/fighting_to_be_free/
No suit--I don't fit into any of my suits anymore and can't afford a new one.
I'm actually in New Hampshire (near Massachusetts) and my free online book web site at http://www.eldritchpress.org is still up and running on my Linux box at home via a cable modem--unless it has been slashdotted.
The rumors of my turning Freenet infoterrorist are false. My current projects are scanning books for the Distributed Proofing project at http;//www.pgdp.net, promoting legislation at http://www.eldred.cc, and filtering books for the Internet Archive Bookmobile at http://www.archive.org.
Probably all are considered dangerous by the various $$ publisher groups, but I'd welcome co-conspirators!
It would work if machines read the characters from bar codes. But there is no word on one essential element: checksum digits. A good checksum scheme handles most of the human errors such as transposing digits. There is no point in as few characters as possible in the address, if the error rate is high and there is no redundancy to correct errors. Universal numbering schemes should always incorporate check digits.
Much of the inefficiency of current copyright law comes from the lack of registration, deposit, and renewal, all of which strenghtened the public domain in earlier copyright law.
Larry Lessig has proposed a tiny tax 50 years after a work is first copyrighted. If the tax is unpaid, the work goes into the public domain. The tax represents some positive move to show the work has commercial value.
Maybe 50 years is too long. But if we are to lobby for such an act we need to make compromises with the strong copyright interests such as Hollywood.
It might seem immodest to have an act named after me, but I have grown accustomed to the loss of my name after the case Eldred v. Ashcroft. I think it nicely opposes the Sonny Bono Act.
For more on the Eric Eldred Act, see http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/arch ives/ EAFAQ.html
The plaintiffs in the case Eldred v. Ashcroft are very grateful to all who supported us in this long process. Naturally we are disappointed in the decision.
Especially we would like to thank Larry Lessig, the lead attorney, along with Kathleen Sullivan, Jonathan Zittrain, William Fisher, Charles Fried, Charles Nesson, Geoffrey Stewart, Edward Lee, and the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis, Pogue, all of whom worked tirelessly to try this case. We also thank those who contributed to the Eldred Defense Fund to make it possible.
What next? It seems that the decision gives a license to Congress to extend copyright term indefinitely, so there will be an effort within the next 20 years to make another extension. We can oppose that politically. We can also oppose efforts by the media giants to embed DRM in electronic devices, and other such legislation.
Also there will be efforts in other countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Europe, and so on, to extend copyright from the present 50 years after author's death, especially for music and movies. We can support efforts to oppose that.
Our case was built on the notion that copyright, as the Framers of the Constitution envisioned it, was a proper foundation for creativity and innovation in the Internet age. Now copyright will be used to lock up works instead. If the only way to access one of these works is to use illegal means, then some will turn to that. Peer-to-peer networks such as Freenet will be the only alternative for many.
The page turns. But the effort was worthwhile. The level of discussion has advanced considerably and citizens are better informed because of this case. Let's hope the next decisions will be better.
Alderson Reporting Co., Inc., the Washington, D.C.-based company that has an exclusive contract to tape-record Supreme Court oral arguments and sell official transcripts, has recently [1997] decided to restrict buyers of the transcripts from posting them on the Web.
As the lead plaintiff in the case, I want to extend my greatest appreciation to Larry Lessig for taking on this case and arguing it so skillfully before the Supreme Court.
No doubt all of us will agonize over what we could have done better. But in the last four years we have raised the level of debate significantly on the role of copyright in the digital age. Today it would likely be impossible for legislation such as the CTEA to be passed.
What we need to do now is transfer some of the momentum from the Eldred case toward fighting some of the bad legislation beginning with the DMCA and including the Coble bills. After the Eldred decision, we can plan our next moves for new legislation that promotes the public interest.
Please support the public domain now by freely publishing your own ideas from your own website. Make new derivative works by digitizing works that are now in the public domain. Support the EFF, EPIC, Public Knowledge, Creative Commons, and Project Gutenberg and other online libraries.
I view the DMCA as draconian. I'm really quite unhappy about it. But I'm not unhappy with digital rights management, narrowly defined to software that keeps you from making copies; that doesn't extend the length of copyright; and certainly doesn't get rid of fair use.
I wonder whether he understands DRM technology. If a DRM locks up a work, you certainly won't be able to go to a library and copy a page to cite in a paper, so goodbye fair use. (He seems to think the analog hole does away with DRM.) And whenever the copyright term is reached (if it ever is), the work will still be locked up--so the DRM effectively makes the copyright perpetual.
I seem to remember that "Windows" was determined by a court in South Korea to belong to the publisher of a Korean desk diary system and not Microsoft, and thus Microsoft was unable to print on paper its manuals or other material, probably unless it included the full "Microsoft Windows Operating System" moniker.
But this was some time ago and maybe Microsoft has bought out the other small company?
"The military and the government don't really have too much choice at this point except to start to put pressure on Microsoft and others to improve software security," Erbschloe says.
No, the consumer (the government here) can buy software that is certifiably secure and not pay for any that does not meet security requirements.
The Air Force can buy Sun hardware and software, for example, instead of Microsoft. It can set requirements in contracts that are not slanted toward Microsoft but which demand software that the consumer can fix rather than waiting for a new version.
Yes, if the government won't do this then it has to live with the consequences of caving in to the antitrust suit and plead with Microsoft to be nice to them.
Re:The Government and the SSSCA
on
SSSCA Editorials
·
· Score: 2
Once the United States passes the SSSCA it can use its great leverage over global trade agreements to force all other nations to pass similar legislation. Remember the DMCA and the WIPO treaties.
More likely, private industries will agree on "standards" to implement the SSSCA without any legislation, and enforce all suppliers to comply, including those from other nations.
You might be safe moving from Australia to Afghanistan, though.
Are you saying that companies should be forced to patent instead of holding material as trade secrets?
Probably some of the material is patented. In which case they would have entered the public domain 17 or 20 years after the patent was received. The public interest would be served better by patenting the works rather than by trade secrets. If they were not sufficiently original to merit patent then why protect them at all?
But instead what I am talking about is copyright. Clearly the copyright term is much too long on these plans--it has exceeded the life of the companies that produced them. But I doubt that copyright was registered on the plans.
Copyright is something that automatically happens upon creation of a work
No, that is U.S. copyright law since 1978, but we are talking about plans made long before then, when copyright did not exist until the work was registered.
Unpublished works can be covered by copyright if registered as such with the Registrar of Copyrights. If they haven't been published before next year, they go into the public domain.
Federal government documents generally cannot be copyrighted. I suggest these plans be treated as such and that treating them as unpublished copyrighted material is unnecessary.
tramm is right in proposing that this abandonware project is similar to what has been discussed about the Creative Commons. But as one of the directors of the Commons, may I suggest we hold off much public discussion until the Commons is ready--maybe within a few weeks...
This information (the plane plans) is apparently considered under copyright as unpublished material.
But copyright was intended, I assert, to allow limited protection for material to be published and thus accessible to all readers who wish to buy the work.
Since these plans serve as a sort of public law document (they must be recorded with the FAA by the plane manufacturer and need to be accessible to them in order to check plane maintenance) then the question arises: Why copyright the plans in the first place? What public interest is being served by locking them up?
Yes, recent U.S. law allows airplane plans just as boat hulls to be protected as "intellectual property." But at least they could be published and thus available for a fee, instead of being locked up as trade secrets. Citizens ought to have a right to know (which is why the involvement of the Freedom of Information Office is interesting here).
the infinity minus one day, to my recollection, was a suggestion originally propounded by Mary Bono
She stated at time of CTEA passage that the idea for perpetual copyright came from Jack Valenti, and he later admitted it in a debate with Lessig.
She said that she had been advised that the Constitution (in its "limited times" clause) prohibits an unlimited period, so she said she hoped that when Congress extended copyright next time it would be for "forever minus one day." You mathematicians figure that one out.
I'd love to see the opposing lawyer shoot that argument down by pointing out that with computers and the Internet, anyone can "keep a work in distribution", and that copyrights are typically the main thing keeping works out of distribution -- not the other way around.
corporations and think tanks do need incentive to do research or create intellectual property, however, because only the largest institutions can afford to do reasearch in certain areas, or create certain media (large action films, etc.) and without copyright, there is less incentive to do this.
But innovation and creativity do NOT come from these "largest institutions," rather from small ones. We ought to grant exclusive rights for only a very short period to keep up the innovation instead of allowing firms to sit on their government-guaranteed profit stream.
For example, in Massachusetts small biotech firms are increasingly NOT seeking patents, but rather protecting their discoveries by trade secret law. They can't afford to cross-license patents with the big firms, and can't afford to get into patent battles with them either. One feature of patents is that the term is limited, then the ideas go into the public domain and others can improve on them. But trade secrets might be forever.
Strong "intellectual property" laws protect only one segment of the economy, one made increasingly more obsolete by technology. That's why they foolishly attempt to use laws to control the technology in their interests against ours.
Perhaps if campaign finance reform succeeds in helping good arguments compete against ready cash, copyright will right itself.
Don't hold your breath. The CTEA passed by unanimous voice vote with short speeches by members of both parties. The SSSCA has the support of senators on both sides of the aisle--including those who oppose soft money campaign contributions.
But, copyright law was created before the U.S. reached the Industrial age... The general attitude for copyrights has shifted dramatically during the past 200 years.
It is true that the Framers felt the early American republic needed some protection against the large content producers of their day in London. But if there is to be a shift, it should recognize that today it is the large content owners in Hollywood and New York that seek protection by means of global trade treaties--and they have the least need in the world for protection--they have already achieved dominance. Developing countries have reasons to oppose strong "intellectual property" laws.
Another point is that the U.S. Constitution Article 1 Section 8 is based on the 1710 British Statute of Anne, which also gave exclusive rights to "authors" and not publishers. The publishers have been trying ever since to win back the monopoly they enjoyed before then with the Stationers' Company guild, in return for censorship of material offensive to the crown.
Today it is a few media giants, large global corporations, who claim to produce and therefore own all ideas and expressions. They are quite willing to censor material for the government or other powerful groups.
it _did_ bring the U.S. into line with international copyright practice...
No, the CTEA did not "harmonize" U.S. copyright law with European law, that is a misconception that Jack Valenti keeps lying about. In fact, there is no way that retrospective extension could be harmonious, because before 1978, U.S. copyright dated from date of registration not from date of author's death--that causes many confusing differences between term in England and the U.S.
As the Jungle Books example shows. Since Kipling died in 1936, his works were protected by copyright in England until 50 years after his death, and so still at the time of the film in 1967--until 2007 now that England increased the term to 70 years after author's death. In the U.S., however, the second volume of the book published in 1895 would have been protected 28, 56 (when renewed) and then 75 years after first publication in 1895, and went into the public domain (IN THE U.S.) in 1966, one year before the film, as the column states. If the CTEA term had operated to harmonize, or if it had applied before 1966, then the work would still be under copyright both in the U.S. and England. Disney would have had to pay many bucks for worldwide rights unless it could, as it did, "pirate" the work from the public domain owned by you and me.
The Jungle Books example shows also that copyright is also used to suppress the creation of derivative works as much as it is to give incentives to produce new works. How can Kipling be given an incentive to produce any new books--he died in 1936! Why should not every schoolchild be allowed the right to draw her own figures from The Jungle Books without having to pay Disney a royalty or even get permission? But Disney and other large corporations claim to produce and own all our culture and ideas--even our genetic information--and the right to rent it back to us as pay-per-view forever.
You forget that when Grant wrote those memoirs the copyright term was 28 years after first publication. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act makes the term 70 years after the author's death. Clearly the 28-year term offered enough incentive for Grant to produce his work, and the additional term is obviously unnecessary for that purpose--as well as not giving him any incentive to write another work between the 28th year and the 70th after he was dead!
One point to remember is that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, unlike earlier term extension acts, did not provide for reinstatement of rights of heirs--instead, publishers and corporations who held works could retain them against heirs' claims, for instance on the off chance somebody might want to make a movie from an out-of-print book.
So the argument that the act protects heirs is simply wrong. Anyway, copyright ought to offer an incentive for the heirs to produce something of their own, instead of allowing them the right to suppress the works of others, as in the "Wind Done Gone" case.
The government's case in Eldred v. Ashcroft depends on at least three lies. We need to expose them and debate the real issues in order to have an informed public decide on proper copyright law.
1. CTEA "harmonizes" U.S. law with the E.U. No--it is not possible to have the same copyright term as the E.U.'s, because until 1976 term was measured from first publication, not from author's death, in the U.S. but not the E.U. The 1998 retroactive extension was not harmonization. In any event, E.U. term still differs substantially in works for hire, film productions, and anonymous works. As an example, a work first published in 1923 might be in the public domain in the U.S. if not renewed, but protected until 70 years after death if author was European. No way to harmonize this--it is just protectionism for U.S. works in Europe, for which the U.S. public pays.
2. Perpetual or lengthy terms are needed in order to preserve old films and other material. Not so--currently, film studios don't preserve even all the films they own copyright on--you see ads on TV where they try to collect money from the public for preservation. In fact, two plaintiffs in Eldred v. Ashcroft are film preservation groups who argue that the term extension makes it impossble from them to find copyright owners in order to preserve old films.
3. Authors benefit from longer terms. No--the difference between 50 years after death and 70 years is not enough incentive to cause anyone to write a book now. See the brief by Berkeley economist Hal Varian at http://openlaw.org/eldredvreno.
We assert that the ones who benefit from the CTEA are large corporations not authors--they are the ones who lobbied for the bill and paid large sums to campaigns of legislators to buy the bill.
The ones who will be hurt if we fail are authors who wish to prepare works that are derivative or try to enjoy fair use of existing works. And the public will not enjoy the fruits of their publication--innovation will be stifled if the public domain is privatized. The Internet now and the next Internet, whatever it will be, will be threatened--instead, big corporations will own all content and license our popular culture to us as pay-per-view.
By no means does Creative Commons wish to give up the fight to extend the public domain by limiting copyright term.
The supporters of infinite copyright term argue that works have some value forever and thus should be protected. We don't actually believe this argument--but if the works have value then there is some merit in granting tax deductions for donating them to the public. That may be another campaign by Creative Commons--stay tuned.
Lessig's and my case against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is on appeal to the Supreme Court--see http://openlaw.org/eldredvreno
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html
is an alternative to copyright. The sign [cc] indicates not copyright, but shows support for the public domain and stands for a willingness to share information the way traditional science has always operated. New Scientist ought to consider it instead of their license.
Please consider [cc] along with licenses for open or free works, which depend on copyright. As you know, all works are now copyrighted when first created and will not enter the public domain until the copyright term expires (if it ever does), some 70 or 50 years after your death. We need the public domain in order freely to recycle old works into new, now.
The OpenLaw site (http://openlaw.org) shows how Open Source or Free Software principles can be applied to legal projects, traditionally the domain of well-paid individual attorneys.
Slashdot Mirror
More stable because not so automated is the Internet Bookmobile. Extend an invitation for a free visit at http://www.archive.org/texts/bookmobile.php
0 4/07/ 19/fighting_to_be_free/
The system is cost-effective for low print runs. There are more than 25,000 public domain or non-commercial licensed Creative Commons books available. We help authors do custom books as well. All free, supported by the Internet Archive and Anywhere Books.
July 8, 2004, we printed "Walden" at Walden Pond, until we were threatened with arrest. See
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/20
No suit--I don't fit into any of my suits anymore and can't afford a new one.
I'm actually in New Hampshire (near Massachusetts) and my free online book web site at http://www.eldritchpress.org is still up and running on my Linux box at home via a cable modem--unless it has been slashdotted.
The rumors of my turning Freenet infoterrorist are false. My current projects are scanning books for the Distributed Proofing project at http;//www.pgdp.net, promoting legislation at http://www.eldred.cc, and filtering books for the Internet Archive Bookmobile at http://www.archive.org.
Probably all are considered dangerous by the various $$ publisher groups, but I'd welcome co-conspirators!
It would work if machines read the characters from bar codes. But there is no word on one essential element: checksum digits. A good checksum scheme handles most of the human errors such as transposing digits. There is no point in as few characters as possible in the address, if the error rate is high and there is no redundancy to correct errors. Universal numbering schemes should always incorporate check digits.
Much of the inefficiency of current copyright law comes from the lack of registration, deposit, and renewal, all of which strenghtened the public domain in earlier copyright law.
h ives/ EAFAQ.html
Larry Lessig has proposed a tiny tax 50 years after a work is first copyrighted. If the tax is unpaid, the work goes into the public domain. The tax represents some positive move to show the work has commercial value.
Maybe 50 years is too long. But if we are to lobby for such an act we need to make compromises with the strong copyright interests such as Hollywood.
It might seem immodest to have an act named after me, but I have grown accustomed to the loss of my name after the case Eldred v. Ashcroft. I think it nicely opposes the Sonny Bono Act.
For more on the Eric Eldred Act, see
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/arc
What do you think?
The plaintiffs in the case Eldred v. Ashcroft are very grateful to all who supported us in this long process. Naturally we are disappointed in the decision.
Especially we would like to thank Larry Lessig, the lead attorney, along with Kathleen Sullivan, Jonathan Zittrain, William Fisher, Charles Fried, Charles Nesson, Geoffrey Stewart, Edward Lee, and the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis, Pogue, all of whom worked tirelessly to try this case. We also thank those who contributed to the Eldred Defense Fund to make it possible.
What next? It seems that the decision gives a license to Congress to extend copyright term indefinitely, so there will be an effort within the next 20 years to make another extension. We can oppose that politically. We can also oppose efforts by the media giants to embed DRM in electronic devices, and other such legislation.
Also there will be efforts in other countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Europe, and so on, to extend copyright from the present 50 years after author's death, especially for music and movies. We can support efforts to oppose that.
Our case was built on the notion that copyright, as the Framers of the Constitution envisioned it, was a proper foundation for creativity and innovation in the Internet age. Now copyright will be used to lock up works instead. If the only way to access one of these works is to use illegal means, then some will turn to that. Peer-to-peer networks such as Freenet will be the only alternative for many.
The page turns. But the effort was worthwhile. The level of discussion has advanced considerably and citizens are better informed because of this case. Let's hope the next decisions will be better.
As the lead plaintiff in the case, I want to extend my greatest appreciation to Larry Lessig for taking on this case and arguing it so skillfully before the Supreme Court.
No doubt all of us will agonize over what we could have done better. But in the last four years we have raised the level of debate significantly on the role of copyright in the digital age. Today it would likely be impossible for legislation such as the CTEA to be passed.
What we need to do now is transfer some of the momentum from the Eldred case toward fighting some of the bad legislation beginning with the DMCA and including the Coble bills. After the Eldred decision, we can plan our next moves for new legislation that promotes the public interest.
Please support the public domain now by freely publishing your own ideas from your own website. Make new derivative works by digitizing works that are now in the public domain. Support the EFF, EPIC, Public Knowledge, Creative Commons, and Project Gutenberg and other online libraries.
And thanks for your support in all this!
I view the DMCA as draconian. I'm really quite unhappy about it. But I'm not unhappy with digital rights management, narrowly defined to software that keeps you from making copies; that doesn't extend the length of copyright; and certainly doesn't get rid of fair use.
I wonder whether he understands DRM technology. If a DRM locks up a work, you certainly won't be able to go to a library and copy a page to cite in a paper, so goodbye fair use. (He seems to think the analog hole does away with DRM.) And whenever the copyright term is reached (if it ever is), the work will still be locked up--so the DRM effectively makes the copyright perpetual.
I seem to remember that "Windows" was determined by a court in South Korea to belong to the publisher of a Korean desk diary system and not Microsoft, and thus Microsoft was unable to print on paper its manuals or other material, probably unless it included the full "Microsoft Windows Operating System" moniker.
But this was some time ago and maybe Microsoft has bought out the other small company?
"The military and the government don't really have too much choice at this point except to start to put pressure on Microsoft and others to improve software security," Erbschloe says.
No, the consumer (the government here) can buy software that is certifiably secure and not pay for any that does not meet security requirements.
The Air Force can buy Sun hardware and software, for example, instead of Microsoft. It can set requirements in contracts that are not slanted toward Microsoft but which demand software that the consumer can fix rather than waiting for a new version.
Yes, if the government won't do this then it has to live with the consequences of caving in to the antitrust suit and plead with Microsoft to be nice to them.
Once the United States passes the SSSCA it can use its great leverage over global trade agreements to force all other nations to pass similar legislation.
Remember the DMCA and the WIPO treaties.
More likely, private industries will agree on "standards" to implement the SSSCA without any legislation, and enforce all suppliers to comply, including those from other nations.
You might be safe moving from Australia to Afghanistan, though.
Are you saying that companies should be forced to patent instead of holding material as trade secrets?
Probably some of the material is patented. In which case they would have entered the public domain 17 or 20 years after the patent was received. The public interest would be served better by patenting the works rather than by trade secrets. If they were not sufficiently original to merit patent then why protect them at all?
But instead what I am talking about is copyright. Clearly the copyright term is much too long on these plans--it has exceeded the life of the companies that produced them. But I doubt that copyright was registered on the plans.
Copyright is something that automatically happens upon creation of a work
No, that is U.S. copyright law since 1978, but we are talking about plans made long before then, when copyright did not exist until the work was registered.
Unpublished works can be covered by copyright if registered as such with the Registrar of Copyrights. If they haven't been published before next year, they go into the public domain.
Federal government documents generally cannot be copyrighted. I suggest these plans be treated as such and that treating them as unpublished copyrighted material is unnecessary.
tramm is right in proposing that this abandonware project is similar to what has been discussed about the Creative Commons. But as one of the directors of the Commons, may I suggest we hold off much public discussion until the Commons is ready--maybe within a few weeks...
This information (the plane plans) is apparently considered under copyright as unpublished material.
But copyright was intended, I assert, to allow limited protection for material to be published and thus accessible to all readers who wish to buy the work.
Since these plans serve as a sort of public law document (they must be recorded with the FAA by the plane manufacturer and need to be accessible to them in order to check plane maintenance) then the question arises: Why copyright the plans in the first place? What public interest is being served by locking them up?
Yes, recent U.S. law allows airplane plans just as boat hulls to be protected as "intellectual property." But at least they could be published and thus available for a fee, instead of being locked up as trade secrets. Citizens ought to have a right to know (which is why the involvement of the Freedom of Information Office is interesting here).
the infinity minus one day, to my recollection, was a suggestion originally propounded by Mary Bono
She stated at time of CTEA passage that the idea for perpetual copyright came from Jack Valenti, and he later admitted it in a debate with Lessig.
She said that she had been advised that the Constitution (in its "limited times" clause) prohibits an unlimited period, so she said she hoped that when Congress extended copyright next time it would be for "forever minus one day." You mathematicians figure that one out.
I can't wait until 2019.
I'd love to see the opposing lawyer shoot that argument down by pointing out that with computers and the Internet, anyone can "keep a work in distribution", and that copyrights are typically the main thing keeping works out of distribution -- not the other way around.
Indeed, you are right. Read the briefs online at http://eldred.openlaw.org
corporations and think tanks do need incentive to do research or create intellectual property, however, because only the largest institutions can afford to do reasearch in certain areas, or create certain media (large action films, etc.) and without copyright, there is less incentive to do this.
But innovation and creativity do NOT come from these "largest institutions," rather from small ones. We ought to grant exclusive rights for only a very short period to keep up the innovation instead of allowing firms to sit on their government-guaranteed profit stream.
For example, in Massachusetts small biotech firms are increasingly NOT seeking patents, but rather protecting their discoveries by trade secret law. They can't afford to cross-license patents with the big firms, and can't afford to get into patent battles with them either. One feature of patents is that the term is limited, then the ideas go into the public domain and others can improve on them. But trade secrets might be forever.
Strong "intellectual property" laws protect only one segment of the economy, one made increasingly more obsolete by technology. That's why they foolishly attempt to use laws to control the technology in their interests against ours.
Perhaps if campaign finance reform succeeds in helping good arguments compete against ready cash, copyright will right itself.
Don't hold your breath. The CTEA passed by unanimous voice vote with short speeches by members of both parties. The SSSCA has the support of senators on both sides of the aisle--including those who oppose soft money campaign contributions.
Who will speak for the public domain? Will you?
But, copyright law was created before the U.S. reached the Industrial age ... The general attitude for copyrights has shifted dramatically during the past 200 years.
It is true that the Framers felt the early American republic needed some protection against the large content producers of their day in London. But if there is to be a shift, it should recognize that today it is the large content owners in Hollywood and New York that seek protection by means of global trade treaties--and they have the least need in the world for protection--they have already achieved dominance. Developing countries have reasons to oppose strong "intellectual property" laws.
Another point is that the U.S. Constitution Article 1 Section 8 is based on the 1710 British Statute of Anne, which also gave exclusive rights to "authors" and not publishers. The publishers have been trying ever since to win back the monopoly they enjoyed before then with the Stationers' Company guild, in return for censorship of material offensive to the crown.
Today it is a few media giants, large global corporations, who claim to produce and therefore own all ideas and expressions. They are quite willing to censor material for the government or other powerful groups.
it _did_ bring the U.S. into line with international copyright practice...
No, the CTEA did not "harmonize" U.S. copyright law with European law, that is a misconception that Jack Valenti keeps lying about. In fact, there is no way that retrospective extension could be harmonious, because before 1978, U.S. copyright dated from date of registration not from date of author's death--that causes many confusing differences between term in England and the U.S.
As the Jungle Books example shows. Since Kipling died in 1936, his works were protected by copyright in England until 50 years after his death, and so still at the time of the film in 1967--until 2007 now that England increased the term to 70 years after author's death. In the U.S., however, the second volume of the book published in 1895 would have been protected 28, 56 (when renewed) and then 75 years after first publication in 1895, and went into the public domain (IN THE U.S.) in 1966, one year before the film, as the column states. If the CTEA term had operated to harmonize, or if it had applied before 1966, then the work would still be under copyright both in the U.S. and England. Disney would have had to pay many bucks for worldwide rights unless it could, as it did, "pirate" the work from the public domain owned by you and me.
The Jungle Books example shows also that copyright is also used to suppress the creation of derivative works as much as it is to give incentives to produce new works. How can Kipling be given an incentive to produce any new books--he died in 1936! Why should not every schoolchild be allowed the right to draw her own figures from The Jungle Books without having to pay Disney a royalty or even get permission? But Disney and other large corporations claim to produce and own all our culture and ideas--even our genetic information--and the right to rent it back to us as pay-per-view forever.
We the plaintiffs of Eldred v. Ashcroft don't need money now, but you can support in other ways.
Add your informed discussion to OpenLaw at http://openlaw.org/eldredvreno and help us prepare legal briefs.
Read up on copyright law and the case there so you are better informed, then communicate with your friends. Write your local newspaper editor.
Support online books! See http://www.eldritchpress.org/support.html
Join and send money to the Electronic Freedom Foundation: http://www.eff.org
You forget that when Grant wrote those memoirs the copyright term was 28 years after first publication. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act makes the term 70 years after the author's death. Clearly the 28-year term offered enough incentive for Grant to produce his work, and the additional term is obviously unnecessary for that purpose--as well as not giving him any incentive to write another work between the 28th year and the 70th after he was dead!
One point to remember is that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, unlike earlier term extension acts, did not provide for reinstatement of rights of heirs--instead, publishers and corporations who held works could retain them against heirs' claims, for instance on the off chance somebody might want to make a movie from an out-of-print book.
So the argument that the act protects heirs is simply wrong. Anyway, copyright ought to offer an incentive for the heirs to produce something of their own, instead of allowing them the right to suppress the works of others, as in the "Wind Done Gone" case.
The government's case in Eldred v. Ashcroft depends on at least three lies. We need to expose them and debate the real issues in order to have an informed public decide on proper copyright law.
1. CTEA "harmonizes" U.S. law with the E.U. No--it is not possible to have the same copyright term as the E.U.'s, because until 1976 term was measured from first publication, not from author's death, in the U.S. but not the E.U. The 1998 retroactive extension was not harmonization. In any event, E.U. term still differs substantially in works for hire, film productions, and anonymous works. As an example, a work first published in 1923 might be in the public domain in the U.S. if not renewed, but protected until 70 years after death if author was European. No way to harmonize this--it is just protectionism for U.S. works in Europe, for which the U.S. public pays.
2. Perpetual or lengthy terms are needed in order to preserve old films and other material. Not so--currently, film studios don't preserve even all the films they own copyright on--you see ads on TV where they try to collect money from the public for preservation. In fact, two plaintiffs in Eldred v. Ashcroft are film preservation groups who argue that the term extension makes it impossble from them to find copyright owners in order to preserve old films.
3. Authors benefit from longer terms. No--the difference between 50 years after death and 70 years is not enough incentive to cause anyone to write a book now. See the brief by Berkeley economist Hal Varian at http://openlaw.org/eldredvreno.
We assert that the ones who benefit from the CTEA are large corporations not authors--they are the ones who lobbied for the bill and paid large sums to campaigns of legislators to buy the bill.
The ones who will be hurt if we fail are authors who wish to prepare works that are derivative or try to enjoy fair use of existing works. And the public will not enjoy the fruits of their publication--innovation will be stifled if the public domain is privatized. The Internet now and the next Internet, whatever it will be, will be threatened--instead, big corporations will own all content and license our popular culture to us as pay-per-view.
By no means does Creative Commons wish to give up the fight to extend the public domain by limiting copyright term.
The supporters of infinite copyright term argue that works have some value forever and thus should be protected. We don't actually believe this argument--but if the works have value then there is some merit in granting tax deductions for donating them to the public. That may be another campaign by Creative Commons--stay tuned.
Lessig's and my case against the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is on appeal to the Supreme Court--see http://openlaw.org/eldredvreno
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html
is an alternative to copyright. The sign [cc] indicates not copyright, but shows support for the public domain and stands for a willingness to share information the way traditional science has always operated. New Scientist ought to consider it instead of their license.
Please consider [cc] along with licenses for open or free works, which depend on copyright. As you know, all works are now copyrighted when first created and will not enter the public domain until the copyright term expires (if it ever does), some 70 or 50 years after your death. We need the public domain in order freely to recycle old works into new, now.
The OpenLaw site (http://openlaw.org) shows how Open Source or Free Software principles can be applied to legal projects, traditionally the domain of well-paid individual attorneys.