Lawrence Lessig is my hero. One of the (few) copyright lawyers out there with a clue.

Copyright limits are stupid.

This is great news. Negativland must be happy.

I downloaded the arguements from gnutella..good stuff.

Do not feed the troll.

I don't understand the cheering for this. I mean, I'd love to get my hands on public domain stuff more quickly, so I can appreciate that, but if I wrote a classic novel, let's say, why should it be someone else's right to make their own print copy and sell it earlier than the law originally allowed?

A big bone of contention with this are the numerous comic books that began to be published in the early and late 30s, many of which, under current laws, will slowly become public domain. Action Comics #1, old Mickey Mouse comics, Batman, and the ilk will soon start becoming reprintable without Disney or DC being able to stop it.

Way to go Eric!

Interviews with Lessig: here and here.

Yes, they're on Slashdot. Just don't read the comments and you'll be safe from most of the stupidity. More of it there than there is here most of the time (amazing, I know).

Rberry: The law originally allowed for copyrights to be a fraction of what they are now (30 years, IIRC). However, because of Disney, the MPAA, et al., Congress has been passing retroactive copyright extensions so things like 'Steamboat Willie' will never be in the public domain.

It's something that should have been stopped YEARS ago, but late's better than never.

This will be a huge victory for people too farking lazy to create their own content.

The copyright extensions have actually been put in place to allow the USA to conform to the rest of the world, specifically some of the requirements of GATT. Life of author plus 70 years is standard for most nations that have copyright protection.

And the last extension is called the Sonny Bonehead law for good reason!

If they were originally 70 years, I wouldn't have such a big problem with it. What I don't like, however, is the fact that corporations are influencing laws like this for their benefit and not the benefit of the citizenship as a whole (they can take something you do and claim it as their own if they want, but are completely immune from the opposite because they have the cash to find some way to weasel out of it).

Coca-Cola did that a few years ago with the new Coke bottle logo (I think that's it, anyhow... can't find the link ATM)... they hired a guy to come up with the logo, said "we don't like it," then used it anyway without paying the guy a dime for it. Ugly, ugly precedent to set.

Here's an arguement for copyrights eventually expiring: Mickey Mouse. Whether you like it or not, Mickey Mouse is an ingrained part of our culture as a planet (but mostly America). We grew up with Mousketeers, watched the Mouse on cartoons, bought lunchboxes, read comics, etc. At some point, humanity owns Mickey, not just a huge megacorp which has already made a pile of cash on Mickey, thenkyewveddymuch. The same goes for Superman. If you read comics today (especially the ones like "Powers" and "Astro City"), you'd see that the Superman Archetype is already pretty much public domain, anyway.

Now, here's another thought: Dave Sim, creator of the comic book character Cerebus, said something to the effect that the best copyright you can have on something is the ability to do it better than anybody else. Dave Sim does Cerebus comics better than anyone. He's even said that anyone else can publish a Cerebus comic (and someone did, just to see if Dave was true to his word), but no one would buy it 'cuz it wasn't by Dave Sim.
If Superman became public domain, would anyone consider the stories to be "official" if they didn't come from DC?
Look at music: Paul Simon could sell all of his music rights, but if you wanted to hear a live rendition of "You Can Call Me Al," guess who you'd pony up the cash for?

Another arguement for eventual copyright expiration is that many works owned by private individuals (movies, out of print books) are decaying and will be lost. There are those willing to restore them without the resources to purchase the rights. It's a lose-lose situation under the current regime.

I'm not against creators reaping the benefits of their work. They often do, as do their immediate descendents, but...

"This will be a huge victory for people too farking lazy to create their own content."

This could also be a big loss for heirs too lazy to come up with their own way of earning a living. :)

I haven't been able to find ANY songs on Napster lately. Does anyone know why?

I'm mostly looking for Metallica.

BTW, the original term for copyrights was 14 years, renewable once. Contrast that to life + 70 years + whatever extensions Disney wants to give you and you'll start to see just how seriously perverted the system's become.

Henchman: Very nicely put. =)

Corvidae: Thanks. This topic is a hobby of mine, in a way. :)

Those books and comics were written under the expectation that they would have reverted to public domain by now. The old copyright limits certainly didn't remove the incentive to create them.

This is not about the ability to put Brittany Spear's CD from last week on Napster or about that movie that opened yesterday being on Morpheus. This is about products that are part of our cultural heritage, and copyrights and patents are TEMPORARY monopolies until they become part of the public domain.

Henchman: I've been reading stuff about it, but I wouldn't call it a "hobby," really. More like "something that really pisses me off." Why I still keep reading about it is a mystery, though... maybe I'm just hopeful that Big Business(tm)(r)(C) will get smacked around. That's not so bad, is it?

Nabb1: When the consultant came up with it, it wasn't a trademark (wasn't applied to anything). Only when it was adopted by Coke did it become a trademark, and was being prosecuted under copyright law (as it was an idea / work of art / whatever at the time the infringement took place).

Nabbl: I'm "in the field" on this, in a way... and this is a HUGE topic of conversation for me and mah homies.

Nabb1: But then the question is, how do you protect the characters when they're intertwined with the stories?

Take Supes, for example. He's a character, DC owns him. No argument there. Are you saying to make the books themselves public-domain, but don't allow anyone else to use the character? If so, what happens when things like the "Death of Superman" series is up for expiration? That's obviously a pivotal point in the character's background, and could be argued that it falls under the 'character' portion of the clause and not the 'stories' portion.

Unless I'm totally misunderstanding you, which is quite likely the case...

"...maybe I'm just hopeful that Big Business(tm)(r)(C) will get smacked around. That's not so bad, is it?"

Trademarks et. al., have their uses as well as abuses. In the cases of Disney and megacorps that eternally renew draconian protections on things they didn't create in the first place yet plaster all over the world... they could use a few smack-downs.

Nabb1: I guess you're right, yeah... that was a bad example. Broke contract law rather egregiously, but it doesn't really apply here. I stand coorected.

Henchman: Not arguing that. I guess I'd just like to see a major corporation get in big trouble over the hubris and bullying tactics they love to use on the "small guy."

This is just a guess, but...

For "Superman," the character would first become public domain, "s" and all. The actual stories would have to fall into the public domain at the same rate they were published, I suppose.

I would wonder if the incarnations of Superman would become PD all at once, though. He looked quite a bit different way back when.

Nabb1: Yeah. There's no real right answer to this, is there? The first step, though, is to stop making the extensions retroactive. That, IMO, is what's really killing all hope of this being a problem we can deal with. What would be even better is if the SC could go back and strick the retroactive parts from the last few copyright extensions (the Bono Act, in particular). Let Disney lose its copyright on the mouse. Make them actually do something NEW to get revenue. That's what copyright (and patents, for that matter) were originally intended to do, after all.

"Strick"? WTF?! I meant "strike."

The 20's Superman vs...



The Superman of today. I guess the boots and the "S" are the main differences...

Well, after 80 years of wearing the same outfit, you'd want to go to a slightly different style too, I'd imagine. =)

Corvidae: Or at least wash the thing! :)

DrBenway: The Bono Act is actually (not-so-)affectionately dubbed the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" by its detractors. =)

Henchman: Yeah, that too. =)

Unless he HAS been washing it, which is why it's so pale and washed-out...

From the first link I pasted waaaaaaaaay up there:

---

10) Will the extension of copyright continue?
by Artifice_Eternity

Do you think that the gradual increases in the length of time that works can remain copyrighted (most recently the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" of the 1990s) will continue every time that the media companies feel that they are about to lose control of some of their "intellectual property"?

Or do you think that the public interest will reassert itself and hold or even turn back some of these copyright extensions?

When a work's copyright is extended, one person (the author or the corporation that owns it) benefits. But when its copyright expires, everyone benefits by being able to copy, modify, expand on and extend it. Can we convince lawmakers with this kind of social and economic argument?

LL:
Exactly right. When Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which we've renamed the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act," we filed a law suit on behalf of Eric Eldred and others. Eldred had threatened civil disobedience. He runs a web based archive of public domain works, and promised to publish works in violation of the CTEA. We convinced him that jail was ugly and that courts may do the work better. We've been litigating the case now since 1998, and have convinced at least two federal judges that the law is unconstitutional. Tight this moment I should be writing a reply to the government's argument against the Supreme Court reviewing the case. That reply is due in a week.

If we get to the Supreme Court, I am certain that we will win. This is not a left/right issue. The conservatives on the Court will look at the framers' constitution - which requires that copyrights be granted for "limited times" - and see that the current practice of Congress, repeatedly extending the term of existing copyrights (11 times in the last 40 years) makes a mockery of the framers' plan. And the liberals will look at the effect of these never ending copyrights on free speech, and conclude that Congress is not justified in this regulation of speech. The Supreme Court doesn't give a hoot about Hollywood; they will follow the law.

It is not enough, however, to win in the Supreme Court. Ordinary people need to rediscover the importance of the public domain to creativity. The Internet could teach this - Brewster's Internet Archive, for example, is a great demonstration of the value of the public domain. But it will take real political action by real people (i.e., not lawyers) to get Congress to recognize what our framers understood.

Nabb1: Nice one. =D

I just started reading "The Future of Ideas" By Lessig last night. Thats damn ironic.