What Is Public Domain? 282
whitefox writes: "The Seattle Times has an interesting article in today's edition on what is public domain. After sharing the experience one software writer had with businesses and people shying away from BitTorrent because they didn't understand the concept of 'public domain,' they take the reader on a tour of how public domain is being defined by groups such as Creative Commons and to the battle of copyright-extensions in Eldred v. Ashcroft."
Part of copyright should be the right to not (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Part of copyright should be the right to not (Score:5, Insightful)
However, public domain is a larger issue than that, and a very important one. Copyright law was originally drafted for the express purpose of enhancing the public domain, not destroying it, as recent laws have done.
Some public domain charts (Score:4, Insightful)
Growth rate of the public domain [harvard.edu]
Not whoring, at 50, yadda yadda, just thought this may be useful
turf wars (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, am I crazy or does BitTorrent sound very promising:
"With BitTorrent, clients automatically mirror files they download, making the publisher's burden almost nothing."
But won't this technology really push cable companies to penalize their customers for downloads?
Public Domain (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You can't abandon cars or real property (Score:2, Insightful)
Neither does sourcecode. Someone needs to execute it. Just as somone needs to execute the action of lighting a match/stove/house on fire. Yes bad things can happen, but don't blame the cookbook/sourcecode if you're not careful. It's about time users take responsibility for some of their actions. e.g. Burn down the house while cooking, it's your fault. Send a million viruses because you didn't install anti-virus/used MS Outlook, it's still your fault.
Re:Not all bad. (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with the current system is that copyright law serves to un-publish works. You can't make copies of a work because it's protected by copyright, but it's out of print because the publisher (and, make no mistake, the publisher has all of the rights in the current system) has decided that the market for that work isn't large enough to be able to keep it in print.
Working against that are examples of very long-lived works such as To Kill A Mockingbird or "Peter Pan". The vast majority of all works don't have nearly the longevity of "Peter Pan". So, extending the copyright for all of those works simply because one of those works might be continuously in print for many decades leads to works that are long forgotten. We are basically destroying our cultural heritage by not allowing works to fall into the public domain.
The suggestion I once made, that copyright holders be required to periodically pay for copyright in order to keep it, was met with cries that I was trying to prevent people from becoming authors and that I was trying to starve current authors' grandchildren. This idea would allow works like "Peter Pan" to stay in copyright basically forever, (meaning "until the fees aren't paid,") and still become public domain as soon as interest flags sufficiently for it to fall out of print.
The only part of my idea that I have trouble defending is the fact that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about making sure that people can still have access to works that they didn't care enough about when they were first published to keep them in print. Why should anyone care about a zillion B-movies that no one is ever going to re-release?
Freedom Means People Can Choose Wrongly (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom means people can choose wrongly. I sympathise with how you feel
So how do we handle this? I think the best approach isn't to control or restrict how people can use our work (what if I wanted to use your work in the anti-IP move adaptation of my novel? Your fear of the KKK has also made you restrict my ability to use your work as well, something you perhaps neither intended nor wanted), but rather to protect our reputations. My first stab at this is a Free Media License [expressivefreedom.org] based loosely on both the GPL and the FDL. It needs some more work and certainly isn't ready for use just yet, but the entire license is designed with four goals in mind:
My license is currently too complex IMHO
In any event, the result I am trying to achieve is that, yes, the KKK could use my material in a propoganda video, but while they would be required to note that they had taken my material (and credit me as the original creator of that material), they would have to make even more clear the fact that their use, while legal, is unauthorized and unendorsed by me (the original artist, and of course any intermediate artist who have contributed/modified the material in the meantime). Furthermore, any changes they may have made they must take responsibility for, by applying their name to the current incarnation.
Its ugly to have people like the KKK and Al Q'aida around, but so long as they are prevented from beshmirching your reputation you should be able to release your content with confidence. It is insuring that protection that is IMHO the most important aspect of any Free Media License.
Re:Part of copyright should be the right to not (Score:2, Insightful)
Should my ability to relinquish my rights to a work be contingent on my keeping the original, or being able to recreate the derivative?
If you bought a copy of my DVD, I have the right to prevent you from making copies of that DVD. CSS assists me in protecting my rights for as long as I choose to enforce them. But CSS does not provide for the possibility that you might be authorized to make a copy. That's not a fault of CSS; CSS is under no obligation to offer that feature. But the law (DMCA) effectively prevents you from using other means (such as DeCSS) to create a derivative you're entitled to create.
If this were the only remaining copy in existance, and you wanted to assist me in publishing additional copies, my right to speak my own words would be infringed.
Re:Public Domain is too free for most creative wor (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright is intended to get creative works out there so that people can do stuff with them. It is not intended to protect artistic integrity, in fact it is intended to prevent it. It is intended to get works into the public domain where people can change them, republish them, base other works off of them, etc. That's the _only_ purpose of copyright, in fact.