Actually, that is not true. When advertisements first started being run on the radio - which had formerly been music and news only, people complained and I believe they even began a court battle that would have protected the public's right to have what they wanted to hear on the radio stations since those stations used public airwaves.
Obviously, you can easily see/hear how successful they were. All that has to happen is to eliminate all reasonable alternatives and the cable companies will have what they want. Sheeplike Americans, most likely, will do little more than complain amongst themselves and finally accept the limits.
You should spend about 4 hours with Title 17 of the U.S. Code (the copyright laws) and then take another 2 hour look at the changes added for the CTEA. There is NO Retroactive portion. If retroactive extension of copyright is deemed unconstitutional, the entire CTEA MUST be struck down. It does not say, if a work is created before 1998 the term is increased to life +70 years, it simply says that copyrights shall last life +70 years, making no allowments for any other term unless it is in the class of work for hire, anonymous works and pseudo-anonymous works where the increase was also for 20 years, from 75 years to 95 years. Again, this is ALL copyrights, not separate for retroactive and proactive. Without that separation, the act cannot be judged partially okay. It's either all okay, or none of it is.
When I RENT something, I'm required to return it after the period of rental is over. This is not the case with software. When I go to CompUSA (or wherever) and PURCHASE software, I do not sign a rental agreement as I would when renting a car or an apartment. The clerk does not say, 'this is due back on Thursday' as they do when I rent a video tape or DVD. They say, 'Thank you for shopping with us.' Says to me - it's a purchase, no matter what MS and all those other software companies want you to believe and that the courts have upheld (for the most part) until now.
ENOUGH is ENOUGH and I bought the software, I didn't rent it. I never have to return it. And I didn't sign any contract that said I was only buying a license. CLICK THRU should NOT be binding - as I said above.
Click wrap licensing has NOT been challenged far enough to say it is even binding. When a 3 year old child can agree to the contract (which isn't legally binding) how can the license truly be a binding license.
I'm one of those people who believe that when I purchase a product at a store, and take it home it is mine. At that point, I can do whatever I want with it, including resell it to someone else. We should all stand up and say "ENOUGH!"
Contracts are something like the purchase of a house where we all sit down at a lawyer's office and go through the contract page by page, deciding whether or not we agree to it. A contract is NOT something that requires only that I click a button saying that I agree in order to use a product I BOUGHT!
If enough people stand up against these restrictive licenses and insist that these products have been purchased, not simply licensed, maybe we can recover some of the FREEDOMS these licenses steal from us. These works are protected by a very producer favorable copyright, they don't need anything more.
And, if Open Source bows to this, I will no longer have respect for Open Source.
Cell phone signals, like broadcast television and radio, travels through a medium owned by the public and that, to me, limits what they can censor (and it is censorship.) Unlike the phone line, it isn't really coming to the requestor over wires, but through a public medium. Yes, the questionable content does come to their equipment before it can be transmitted, but, by the time they know it as questionable it has already touched their equipment. If they choose not to send it back to the requestor, it is like a 'bleeped' television spot only on a private telephone call. I don't believe a telephone company has the right to that kind of control. There is a reason the Bells can't do it and I don't think a cell phone is that much different.
Re:Copyright violation
on
Mashed-Up Music
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Illegal under the current copyright law - yes, it is. However, it was not illegal until 1909 when protection of derivitive works was added to the collection of copyright protections. From 1790 to 1909 - 139 years. The nation has been here only 227 years and for over half that time making derivitive works has been legal.
The 1909 copyright revision was done in response to such technological changes as movie making and early recorded music. It was the same revision that first allowed for corporate owners of copyright. I think maybe the 1909 Congress was being influenced by something other than the public good. Allowing innovative uses of someone else's ideas IS for the public good. It may hurt some individuals, but it gives a wider range of creativity to the public.
In 1790, George Washington set for a new law "For the encouragement of learning" not "for the protection of authors." The public is supposed to be the beneficiary of copyright law - whatever benefits the author might see are coincidental.
This is a LAW school. If the students are subject to confusion as to whether or not this is the genuine school site, they should be booted out as unsuitable to become lawyers. Fine print and disclaimers are standard tools used by lawyers to protect them (or the company they are representing) from litigation. If the students aren't reading the disclaimer, that's their problem - they need are obviously in need of a lesson in disclaimers and fine print.
It is NOT his property. The copyright is his property, which, unfortunately, includes the right to derivative works. The actual movies aren't his anymore, not after publication.
Because of the control he is allowed where derivatives are concerned, he can decide not to allow works that fall under the aegis of derivatives. Documentaries and Parodies do not. Therefore, he is allowing NOTHING at all that he could prevent. Probably, he only agreed to be one of the judges so he would have a say about the winners - something that doesn't show his creations in a bad light.
Didn't you read all the way to the end? This person is stating all of the "restrictions" of the new copyright law first, but then he says that he knows it will also protect him and that he'll adapt to the restrictions.
Apparently, that's what the WIPO wants us to do, adapt to the new system, accept the restrictions because they might someday actually benefit us - if we happen to create something it can belong to us forever. This is a mockery of what was intended when Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the others who wrote the Constitution intended for the FREE people of America. Copyright was to be a reward incentive so that learned men would share their knowledge instead of taking it with them when they died - write something and it will be protected for a limited time before it becomes available for everyone to share and learn.
Adapt? I don't think so - and I'm an author and artist and a sometime songwriter. Those restrictions this person mentioned are NOT acceptable. No IP law at all would be better than having every word I write scrutinized just in case someone else said it much the same.
Some of the greatest medical inventors in this world's history purposefully did NOT patent their work. Radium, Penecillin, polio vaccine (not just once, but twice) and many other wonderful discoveries that cost years of research to develop were given to the world free of charge.
How many of you ever donated money to the American Heart Association, Jerry's Kids, or a thousand other medical related charity organizations? I have, more often than I can remember and I've no idea how much I've contributed to the advance of medical science. Why should I be charged these outrageous prices on pharmaceuticals my money helped to create?
Medical patents aren't about recouping costs - it's about putting more money into stockholder's pockets. Take a look at their financial statements before you claim they need those patents (and the right to charge whatever they want for the drugs while locked behind the patent) to pay for their R&D. Many of them also get money from the Government as well as private donations to help pay the costs of creating new pharmaceuticals. So Taxpayers are also helping to offset their R&D costs.
In my opinion, any company who accepts donations (of any kind) should not be granted a patent - any discoveries made with public money (even a single penny of public money) should be granted freely to the public and not locked down behind a patent.
Ex post facto law - the one pertaining to the states (not Federal) was decided to be limited to criminal law. As the author of the article pointed out, mistakes happen. I believe that decision was one.
On the other hand, if ex post facto laws are limited to criminal cases, there is absolutely no reason why copyright term could not be changed proactively AND retroactively to be only 5 years if Congress chose.
My personal opinion in this matter is a proactive change to 20 year terms (the same term a patent enjoys) with either No option to renew or a single renewal for 10 additional years (if the creative individual who orchestrated the work is still alive.) And all previous retroactive terms ended at the point of their original term.
Because I believe that ex post facto laws are wrong (in any context) I would allow the terms - even the ridiculous ones currently in effect - that were active when the work was published. Non-published material, material that has not been registered with the copyright office - those works shouldn't have a copyright at all.
Except in the case of movies and, to some extent, music, creative works are exceedingly inexpensive to make. Mostly, it takes time. There are very, very few expenses associated with the creation of a novel.
You're forgetting one of the primary reasons for invention is not to make money from the patent. The foremost reason for inventing something is to bring about an easier, more efficient way of doing something. The wheel was not invented for the patent, nor was the telescope, windmills or a thousand other early inventions.
Some inventors don't even apply for patents, but let their inventions become a free boon for society (such as the inventor of matches, and numerous creators of pharmaceuticals.) A lot of very innovative inventions were created for private use and only spread when others noticed how much easier it could make life.
Painting a house is the work of the hands, not the mind and is therefore covered as a real-world purchase of service. You have painted a real house with real paint and if you want another house painted, you have to start over at the beginning.
But if you take a photograph of your newly painted house, you have created a piece of endlessly replicable intellectual property. Nobody needs to start at the beginning to make thousands of copies of your photograph. All they need is one copy and, without copyright, your photograph could be used commercially in thousands of places without one penny reaching you for all 'work' you put in when creating the photo. The government, through copyright, is ascertaining that no one can profit from your work without compensating you and giving you recourse to the courts if you find someone who has taken your work and used it without your permission.
By the same token, however, you don't have to go back to the beginning and retake the photo either. You can sell it over and over again on the exact same amount of work. This is where I believe the 'limited times' part of the Constitution is most important. Since you don't have to do any more work to have more copies, there needs to be a limited period during which you can collect on that work. Otherwise, you end up with people (sometimes not even related to the creator) collecting money on work that was done years and years ago. If you can't collect enough during 20 years to make the creation worthwhile, either it wasn't worth creating or you need some lessons in marketing. We don't need life +70 copyrights, and we don't need 'work for hire' copyrights at all.
Elevating - The work was elevated into the Public Domain.
It isn't just the opposite of 'falling.' Elevation gives it a twist that the work has somehow become greater. Which it has.
When works are privately owned, often their popularity is controlled (to some degree) by marketing. When a work becomes public domain and still maintains popularity, there can be no greater honor - to the author (or his/her memory), the heirs, friends and fans. It means the work has been truly elevated - into the hearts and souls of the readers.
You own a house, you have the right to enter it and live it; nobody else does, and you can leave your house to your descendents.
But a copyright isn't a house - it's the mortgage. You sold the house (and no longer have it to pass on to your descendents) all you can pass on to them is the mortgage. When the term of the mortgage is up, the money stops. WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND???
Why are people so insistent upon continuing to own something they sold? Read Judge Birch's opinion on "The Wind Done Gone" case. All the author owns is the copyright (the work itself is not an item of possession) and copyrights are supposed to expire after 'limited times' according to the Constitution. A copyright is not a property right.
Saying that your descendents have a right to your government granted monopoly is, in a very real way, the passing on of titles of nobility. Other creators are the true inheritors of great intellectual works. Those works should not be hoarded by family members who had nothing to do with their creation.
--One of the requirements of obtaining a copyright is that you send a copy to the Library of Congress.--
Not since 1976 - everything that is 'fixed into a tangible medium' is copyrighted. To register a copyright you must send a copy to the Library of Congress, but there is no requirement. The scribbles on my notepad have just as much copyright as a Stephen King novel.
Say you invested 40 million dollars in a housing project, sold all of the houses, and accepted 30 year mortgages from the new owners. After those 30 years, when all the people stop paying you, should you be able to go back to your housing project and reclaim the houses?
When you publish, you are SELLING your work to the public. SELLING!!!!! You accept a copyright in exchange (i.e. a limited monopoly that lasts say, 30 years.) After that period, the note is paid and you have collected your due. The public should not have to pay one penny, one minute more once the period, agreed upon when you published, has expired.
No, copyright for individual authors (and your great grandfather who was the famous author did NOT work for a corporation) is, currently, life +70 years. After that 70 years, published or unpublished, the work becomes public domain. There is NO exclusive right available for something that has an expired copyright.
The only way to determine copyright for individual authors under this rule is to know the year of their death. If that was 70 years prior, the work is public domain and you cannot copyright it. The date of publication is immaterial and has been since 1978 - the clock starts ticking the year the author dies.
Copyright should not depend upon the lifespan of the producer. Life +20, for instance, means the possible equal of a corporate copyright if the author is 50 or younger. What if the author is 90 and on his deathbed upon publication? That means the work only qualifies for a 20 year copyright.
Or, here is another case. Your great grandfather was a famous writer. Your parents never did anything with the property where his house was, but when you inherited it, you went up there and found a first draft, never been published, masterpiece. But it has been far more than 20 years since he died and publishers refuse to publish it because it is already public domain. Which gives you NO financial incentive to see the work published.
All works should have the same set copyright period. I'd pick 20 years (the same period patents enjoy.)
Whether Lessig is in denial or not, I have trouble viewing this 'Commons' as a good thing. Like Tasini's victory over the New York Times, I think this attempt to circumvent copyright restrictions is hollow. Probably, it will see some use, but not on the level you would find with reasonable copyright laws. For one thing, even with his 'commons' he's allowing the creator to make decisions for how their work is used. If they maintain their copyrights, they can already do that. All this does is eliminate the requirement of contact for someone who wishes to use the work. The permissions, those not needing payment, are registered.
I disagree with the use of something along this line for another reason. It gives the illusion of a freedom. We don't need illusions. We need true access to intellectual works within the 'limited times' of the Constitution. Which life +70 or 95 years is not.
The tighter the lines are drawn, the more likely the public will be to wake up and take notice. This licensing will create a blur on those lines and hinder those who seek a change to a Constitutional Copyright Law, because it will be more difficult for the public to see the damage.
And if we want to ever see again a copyright law that adheres to the Constitution, the public will have to take notice. It can't be done without them.
Check Title 17 of the U.S. Code - copyright is inferred into anything fixed in a tangible medium (like paper or bits on a harddrive) and expires, if published, 95 years after publication, or life of the author + 70 years whether published or not, or 120 years after creation. That means that a corporate document created today becomes public property no later than the year 2123 even if it was never published in any manner.
I believe this is an incredibly stupid way to do copyright. Copyright protection should require registration and the placement of 'best' copies with the Library of Congress - as the law read prior to the 1976 revision. Office memoes, in that case, would not have copyright protection and would, therefore, not become public property after the expiration of that date.
It's kind of like trade secret vs. patents. The patent, while it protects more fully, has an expiration date. A trade secret can, maybe, be kept forever, but when it becomes known is public domain. The patent becomes public domain at the end of its term.
Because everything fixed in a tangible medium is protected by copyright law (and the only way to escape this protection is to clearly state the work is freely given to the public domain) all of these works, including office memoes will eventually belong to the public domain. Destruction of these creations, something protected in Europe through an author's moral rights, hasn't any such protection in the United States. A painter who walked into a gallery in the U.S. and destroyed his own painting could be held accountable for the destruction (especially if he'd already sold the painting). Therefore, a company who destroys works also destined for the public domain should also be held accountable so long as copyright law applies.
This merely shows the sad state of affairs our corporations have made for themselves. If a company operatates completely within the law there is no reason to worry about old documents coming back to haunt the business.
Looking at it from another point of view, all of those documents are automatically protected under copyright. Copyright is an agreement between creators and the public - the creator gets an exclusive right to use the work for a time but then it belongs to the public domain. All of those destroyed documents are a form of theft from the public!
Wrong - before the CTEA coyrights were extended 10 times, 9 during the sixties and early seventies, the 10th being the revision of 1976. Works due to enter the Public Domain in 1979 were given a 19 year extension, reaching to (surprise, surprise) 1998 and the 1976 revision eliminated the requirement of renewal so that ALL copyrights ran for the entire term. I don't think anything has entered the Public Domain since 1978.
And do you really think (if the CTEA is declared within the powers of Congress) that Disney will let up? I expect the Entertainment Industry to be back before 2018 for another extension. It is entirely possible that nothing more will EVER become a part of the Public Domain.
I've never seen it put in quite that way - I really appreciate your views on this subject. On the LimitingCopyright.com website, there are numerous articles talking about how to compare IP to real property. IP isn't property, though, and doesn't really compare. If only Congress could see it this way!
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Actually, that is not true. When advertisements first started being run on the radio - which had formerly been music and news only, people complained and I believe they even began a court battle that would have protected the public's right to have what they wanted to hear on the radio stations since those stations used public airwaves.
Obviously, you can easily see/hear how successful they were. All that has to happen is to eliminate all reasonable alternatives and the cable companies will have what they want. Sheeplike Americans, most likely, will do little more than complain amongst themselves and finally accept the limits.
You should spend about 4 hours with Title 17 of the U.S. Code (the copyright laws) and then take another 2 hour look at the changes added for the CTEA. There is NO Retroactive portion. If retroactive extension of copyright is deemed unconstitutional, the entire CTEA MUST be struck down. It does not say, if a work is created before 1998 the term is increased to life +70 years, it simply says that copyrights shall last life +70 years, making no allowments for any other term unless it is in the class of work for hire, anonymous works and pseudo-anonymous works where the increase was also for 20 years, from 75 years to 95 years. Again, this is ALL copyrights, not separate for retroactive and proactive. Without that separation, the act cannot be judged partially okay. It's either all okay, or none of it is.
When I RENT something, I'm required to return it after the period of rental is over. This is not the case with software. When I go to CompUSA (or wherever) and PURCHASE software, I do not sign a rental agreement as I would when renting a car or an apartment. The clerk does not say, 'this is due back on Thursday' as they do when I rent a video tape or DVD. They say, 'Thank you for shopping with us.' Says to me - it's a purchase, no matter what MS and all those other software companies want you to believe and that the courts have upheld (for the most part) until now.
ENOUGH is ENOUGH and I bought the software, I didn't rent it. I never have to return it. And I didn't sign any contract that said I was only buying a license. CLICK THRU should NOT be binding - as I said above.
Click wrap licensing has NOT been challenged far enough to say it is even binding. When a 3 year old child can agree to the contract (which isn't legally binding) how can the license truly be a binding license.
I'm one of those people who believe that when I purchase a product at a store, and take it home it is mine. At that point, I can do whatever I want with it, including resell it to someone else. We should all stand up and say "ENOUGH!"
Contracts are something like the purchase of a house where we all sit down at a lawyer's office and go through the contract page by page, deciding whether or not we agree to it. A contract is NOT something that requires only that I click a button saying that I agree in order to use a product I BOUGHT!
If enough people stand up against these restrictive licenses and insist that these products have been purchased, not simply licensed, maybe we can recover some of the FREEDOMS these licenses steal from us. These works are protected by a very producer favorable copyright, they don't need anything more.
And, if Open Source bows to this, I will no longer have respect for Open Source.
Cell phone signals, like broadcast television and radio, travels through a medium owned by the public and that, to me, limits what they can censor (and it is censorship.) Unlike the phone line, it isn't really coming to the requestor over wires, but through a public medium. Yes, the questionable content does come to their equipment before it can be transmitted, but, by the time they know it as questionable it has already touched their equipment. If they choose not to send it back to the requestor, it is like a 'bleeped' television spot only on a private telephone call. I don't believe a telephone company has the right to that kind of control. There is a reason the Bells can't do it and I don't think a cell phone is that much different.
Illegal under the current copyright law - yes, it is. However, it was not illegal until 1909 when protection of derivitive works was added to the collection of copyright protections. From 1790 to 1909 - 139 years. The nation has been here only 227 years and for over half that time making derivitive works has been legal.
The 1909 copyright revision was done in response to such technological changes as movie making and early recorded music. It was the same revision that first allowed for corporate owners of copyright. I think maybe the 1909 Congress was being influenced by something other than the public good. Allowing innovative uses of someone else's ideas IS for the public good. It may hurt some individuals, but it gives a wider range of creativity to the public.
In 1790, George Washington set for a new law "For the encouragement of learning" not "for the protection of authors." The public is supposed to be the beneficiary of copyright law - whatever benefits the author might see are coincidental.
This is a LAW school. If the students are subject to confusion as to whether or not this is the genuine school site, they should be booted out as unsuitable to become lawyers. Fine print and disclaimers are standard tools used by lawyers to protect them (or the company they are representing) from litigation. If the students aren't reading the disclaimer, that's their problem - they need are obviously in need of a lesson in disclaimers and fine print.
Here we go again...
It is NOT his property. The copyright is his property, which, unfortunately, includes the right to derivative works. The actual movies aren't his anymore, not after publication.
Because of the control he is allowed where derivatives are concerned, he can decide not to allow works that fall under the aegis of derivatives. Documentaries and Parodies do not. Therefore, he is allowing NOTHING at all that he could prevent. Probably, he only agreed to be one of the judges so he would have a say about the winners - something that doesn't show his creations in a bad light.
Didn't you read all the way to the end? This person is stating all of the "restrictions" of the new copyright law first, but then he says that he knows it will also protect him and that he'll adapt to the restrictions.
Apparently, that's what the WIPO wants us to do, adapt to the new system, accept the restrictions because they might someday actually benefit us - if we happen to create something it can belong to us forever. This is a mockery of what was intended when Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the others who wrote the Constitution intended for the FREE people of America. Copyright was to be a reward incentive so that learned men would share their knowledge instead of taking it with them when they died - write something and it will be protected for a limited time before it becomes available for everyone to share and learn.
Adapt? I don't think so - and I'm an author and artist and a sometime songwriter. Those restrictions this person mentioned are NOT acceptable. No IP law at all would be better than having every word I write scrutinized just in case someone else said it much the same.
Some of the greatest medical inventors in this world's history purposefully did NOT patent their work. Radium, Penecillin, polio vaccine (not just once, but twice) and many other wonderful discoveries that cost years of research to develop were given to the world free of charge.
How many of you ever donated money to the American Heart Association, Jerry's Kids, or a thousand other medical related charity organizations? I have, more often than I can remember and I've no idea how much I've contributed to the advance of medical science. Why should I be charged these outrageous prices on pharmaceuticals my money helped to create?
Medical patents aren't about recouping costs - it's about putting more money into stockholder's pockets. Take a look at their financial statements before you claim they need those patents (and the right to charge whatever they want for the drugs while locked behind the patent) to pay for their R&D. Many of them also get money from the Government as well as private donations to help pay the costs of creating new pharmaceuticals. So Taxpayers are also helping to offset their R&D costs.
In my opinion, any company who accepts donations (of any kind) should not be granted a patent - any discoveries made with public money (even a single penny of public money) should be granted freely to the public and not locked down behind a patent.
Ex post facto law - the one pertaining to the states (not Federal) was decided to be limited to criminal law. As the author of the article pointed out, mistakes happen. I believe that decision was one.
On the other hand, if ex post facto laws are limited to criminal cases, there is absolutely no reason why copyright term could not be changed proactively AND retroactively to be only 5 years if Congress chose.
My personal opinion in this matter is a proactive change to 20 year terms (the same term a patent enjoys) with either No option to renew or a single renewal for 10 additional years (if the creative individual who orchestrated the work is still alive.) And all previous retroactive terms ended at the point of their original term.
Because I believe that ex post facto laws are wrong (in any context) I would allow the terms - even the ridiculous ones currently in effect - that were active when the work was published. Non-published material, material that has not been registered with the copyright office - those works shouldn't have a copyright at all.
Except in the case of movies and, to some extent, music, creative works are exceedingly inexpensive to make. Mostly, it takes time. There are very, very few expenses associated with the creation of a novel.
You're forgetting one of the primary reasons for invention is not to make money from the patent. The foremost reason for inventing something is to bring about an easier, more efficient way of doing something. The wheel was not invented for the patent, nor was the telescope, windmills or a thousand other early inventions.
Some inventors don't even apply for patents, but let their inventions become a free boon for society (such as the inventor of matches, and numerous creators of pharmaceuticals.) A lot of very innovative inventions were created for private use and only spread when others noticed how much easier it could make life.
Painting a house is the work of the hands, not the mind and is therefore covered as a real-world purchase of service. You have painted a real house with real paint and if you want another house painted, you have to start over at the beginning.
But if you take a photograph of your newly painted house, you have created a piece of endlessly replicable intellectual property. Nobody needs to start at the beginning to make thousands of copies of your photograph. All they need is one copy and, without copyright, your photograph could be used commercially in thousands of places without one penny reaching you for all 'work' you put in when creating the photo. The government, through copyright, is ascertaining that no one can profit from your work without compensating you and giving you recourse to the courts if you find someone who has taken your work and used it without your permission.
By the same token, however, you don't have to go back to the beginning and retake the photo either. You can sell it over and over again on the exact same amount of work. This is where I believe the 'limited times' part of the Constitution is most important. Since you don't have to do any more work to have more copies, there needs to be a limited period during which you can collect on that work. Otherwise, you end up with people (sometimes not even related to the creator) collecting money on work that was done years and years ago. If you can't collect enough during 20 years to make the creation worthwhile, either it wasn't worth creating or you need some lessons in marketing. We don't need life +70 copyrights, and we don't need 'work for hire' copyrights at all.
Elevating - The work was elevated into the Public Domain.
It isn't just the opposite of 'falling.' Elevation gives it a twist that the work has somehow become greater. Which it has.
When works are privately owned, often their popularity is controlled (to some degree) by marketing. When a work becomes public domain and still maintains popularity, there can be no greater honor - to the author (or his/her memory), the heirs, friends and fans. It means the work has been truly elevated - into the hearts and souls of the readers.
You own a house, you have the right to enter it and live it; nobody else does, and you can leave your house to your descendents.
But a copyright isn't a house - it's the mortgage. You sold the house (and no longer have it to pass on to your descendents) all you can pass on to them is the mortgage. When the term of the mortgage is up, the money stops. WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND???
Why are people so insistent upon continuing to own something they sold? Read Judge Birch's opinion on "The Wind Done Gone" case. All the author owns is the copyright (the work itself is not an item of possession) and copyrights are supposed to expire after 'limited times' according to the Constitution. A copyright is not a property right.
Saying that your descendents have a right to your government granted monopoly is, in a very real way, the passing on of titles of nobility. Other creators are the true inheritors of great intellectual works. Those works should not be hoarded by family members who had nothing to do with their creation.
--One of the requirements of obtaining a copyright is that you send a copy to the Library of Congress.--
Not since 1976 - everything that is 'fixed into a tangible medium' is copyrighted. To register a copyright you must send a copy to the Library of Congress, but there is no requirement. The scribbles on my notepad have just as much copyright as a Stephen King novel.
Stupid, isn't it?
Say you invested 40 million dollars in a housing project, sold all of the houses, and accepted 30 year mortgages from the new owners. After those 30 years, when all the people stop paying you, should you be able to go back to your housing project and reclaim the houses?
When you publish, you are SELLING your work to the public. SELLING!!!!! You accept a copyright in exchange (i.e. a limited monopoly that lasts say, 30 years.) After that period, the note is paid and you have collected your due. The public should not have to pay one penny, one minute more once the period, agreed upon when you published, has expired.
No, copyright for individual authors (and your great grandfather who was the famous author did NOT work for a corporation) is, currently, life +70 years. After that 70 years, published or unpublished, the work becomes public domain. There is NO exclusive right available for something that has an expired copyright.
The only way to determine copyright for individual authors under this rule is to know the year of their death. If that was 70 years prior, the work is public domain and you cannot copyright it. The date of publication is immaterial and has been since 1978 - the clock starts ticking the year the author dies.
Copyright should not depend upon the lifespan of the producer. Life +20, for instance, means the possible equal of a corporate copyright if the author is 50 or younger. What if the author is 90 and on his deathbed upon publication? That means the work only qualifies for a 20 year copyright.
Or, here is another case. Your great grandfather was a famous writer. Your parents never did anything with the property where his house was, but when you inherited it, you went up there and found a first draft, never been published, masterpiece. But it has been far more than 20 years since he died and publishers refuse to publish it because it is already public domain. Which gives you NO financial incentive to see the work published.
All works should have the same set copyright period. I'd pick 20 years (the same period patents enjoy.)
Whether Lessig is in denial or not, I have trouble viewing this 'Commons' as a good thing. Like Tasini's victory over the New York Times, I think this attempt to circumvent copyright restrictions is hollow. Probably, it will see some use, but not on the level you would find with reasonable copyright laws. For one thing, even with his 'commons' he's allowing the creator to make decisions for how their work is used. If they maintain their copyrights, they can already do that. All this does is eliminate the requirement of contact for someone who wishes to use the work. The permissions, those not needing payment, are registered.
I disagree with the use of something along this line for another reason. It gives the illusion of a freedom. We don't need illusions. We need true access to intellectual works within the 'limited times' of the Constitution. Which life +70 or 95 years is not.
The tighter the lines are drawn, the more likely the public will be to wake up and take notice. This licensing will create a blur on those lines and hinder those who seek a change to a Constitutional Copyright Law, because it will be more difficult for the public to see the damage.
And if we want to ever see again a copyright law that adheres to the Constitution, the public will have to take notice. It can't be done without them.
Are you referring to the copyright comment?
Check Title 17 of the U.S. Code - copyright is inferred into anything fixed in a tangible medium (like paper or bits on a harddrive) and expires, if published, 95 years after publication, or life of the author + 70 years whether published or not, or 120 years after creation. That means that a corporate document created today becomes public property no later than the year 2123 even if it was never published in any manner.
I believe this is an incredibly stupid way to do copyright. Copyright protection should require registration and the placement of 'best' copies with the Library of Congress - as the law read prior to the 1976 revision. Office memoes, in that case, would not have copyright protection and would, therefore, not become public property after the expiration of that date.
It's kind of like trade secret vs. patents. The patent, while it protects more fully, has an expiration date. A trade secret can, maybe, be kept forever, but when it becomes known is public domain. The patent becomes public domain at the end of its term.
Because everything fixed in a tangible medium is protected by copyright law (and the only way to escape this protection is to clearly state the work is freely given to the public domain) all of these works, including office memoes will eventually belong to the public domain. Destruction of these creations, something protected in Europe through an author's moral rights, hasn't any such protection in the United States. A painter who walked into a gallery in the U.S. and destroyed his own painting could be held accountable for the destruction (especially if he'd already sold the painting). Therefore, a company who destroys works also destined for the public domain should also be held accountable so long as copyright law applies.
This merely shows the sad state of affairs our corporations have made for themselves. If a company operatates completely within the law there is no reason to worry about old documents coming back to haunt the business.
Looking at it from another point of view, all of those documents are automatically protected under copyright. Copyright is an agreement between creators and the public - the creator gets an exclusive right to use the work for a time but then it belongs to the public domain. All of those destroyed documents are a form of theft from the public!
Wrong - before the CTEA coyrights were extended 10 times, 9 during the sixties and early seventies, the 10th being the revision of 1976. Works due to enter the Public Domain in 1979 were given a 19 year extension, reaching to (surprise, surprise) 1998 and the 1976 revision eliminated the requirement of renewal so that ALL copyrights ran for the entire term. I don't think anything has entered the Public Domain since 1978.
And do you really think (if the CTEA is declared within the powers of Congress) that Disney will let up? I expect the Entertainment Industry to be back before 2018 for another extension. It is entirely possible that nothing more will EVER become a part of the Public Domain.
I've never seen it put in quite that way - I really appreciate your views on this subject. On the LimitingCopyright.com website, there are numerous articles talking about how to compare IP to real property. IP isn't property, though, and doesn't really compare. If only Congress could see it this way!
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