The Copyright Fuss Revisited 235
mpawlo writes "I was going to clean up my apartement, but instead I wrote a piece for Greplaw introducing a framework for the debate on how we should obtain a balance between users and authors where the author has good incentives to innovate, but where society at large is not too restricted due to the author's previous
innovations. I am afraid that I personally have few practical solutions to introduce, but you might find my text useful as a quick introduction to what the copyright fuss is all about and why you should care."
Correct page width link (Score:5, Informative)
Some troll, apparently looking for something to do after calling people to check if their refrigerator is running, threw a page widening post onto the greplaw article. Thanks for the maturity. I'm sure your family is so proud ("John is lawyer, Chris is a doctor, and Billy Bob wastes the time of hundreds of people a day.")
To read the article without the comments (thus avoiding the troll and allowing you to see the article correctly formatted), try this link [harvard.edu].
Page Widening Troll (Score:2, Informative)
Add one more a little closer to home... (Score:5, Informative)
"Starting this summer, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers has informed camps nationwide that they must pay license fees to use any of the four million copyrighted songs written or published by Ascap's 68,000 members. Those who sing or play but don't pay, Ascap warns, may be violating the law."
the story [s-t.com]
Re:Art, not innovation. (Score:5, Informative)
No, but copyrights do protect the creators. If not for copyright, who's to say that Tolkein's books would ever have been written?
For what it's worth, in the 60's, Ace Books used loopholes in the US copyright law to legally publish the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, without concent of JRR Tolkien (or Allen & Unwin) and with no intent to pay royalties.
Tolkien had no legal stand to fight the publishing, but spread the word that the Ace edition was unauthorized, and that he was receiving no royalties. Ace was eventually pressured by the publicity backlash to pay him royalties and to cease publishing.
Ironically, a good deal of his popularity in the United States could be argued to be due to the swarms of college students buying the cheap (75 cent) unauthorized Ace Books versions.
As for whether or not the books would be written, the Hobbit was written for Tolkien's children, the decision to publish it came later. the Silmarillion seems to be written for himself, without regard to publication (he occasionally attempted to get it published, but nobody was interested until his death). The Lord of the Rings trilogy, however, was written at least partially due to the encouragement of Allen & Unwin (the publishers of the Hobbit in England), and thus copyright could easily be considered one of the motives. Likewise with his short stories.
Re:He missed one part (Score:3, Informative)
"Intellectual property" is misleading (Score:2, Informative)
Copyright, patent, and trademark are all just forms of IP law.
The use of the term "intellectual property" as a blanket term for copyrights, patents, and trademarks is misleading because copyrights, patents, and trademarks are more different than similar. They are covered in separate Titles of the United States Code. They have nothing to do with one another other than that they grant monopolies to a person or corporation to produce a specific sort of good or service and can be sold or licensed to other parties.
Richard M. Stallman, founder of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation, has something to say about this phrase [gnu.org].
Perhaps Tolkien did not discover "trade dress" and the C&D letter in time.
Or perhaps, " In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work" (17 USC 102 [cornell.edu]). This doesn't apply to trademark law (the foundation for trade dress), but trademark law kicks in only when there's a likelihood of confusion as to the origin of a good or service.
microsoft stole from apple stole from xerox.
Apple licensed from Xerox. Microsoft initially licensed from Apple, but then after Lotus v. Borland weakened look-and-feel copyright, Microsoft borrowed "ideas" (17 USC 102) from Apple.
Re:Copyright vs. Drug Companies patents (Score:3, Informative)
As Paxil starts to expire, we see Paxil CR which lowers the dosage frequency which is a very useful advancement in cases where the patient is responsible for remembering to take it, but useless when there is somebody else there to see that it is taken on time.
Allowing these new modifications to enjoy patent protection for their 17-20 year lifespan is a good thing, it rewards the work needed to create them. However, since these modifications have to compete against the classic version, their value is little compared to the value of a medcine that cures a previously uncurable disease. Still, at least the value is greater than zero.
Re:"Intellectual property" is misleading (Score:2, Informative)
Intellectual property simply is an umbrella term.
I didn't claim very strongly that an umbrella term was not convenient but just confusing at times. I gave the two qualifications for that term. However:
I (possibly mistakenly) took this to mean "Copyright, patent, and trademark are similar in nature." Assuming that the subject matter of copyrights is in any way like the subject matter of trademarks solely because they share the "intellectual property" (a monopoly on an idea or expression that can be sold) is a fallacy.
OK, now that that's out of the way:
Trademark would "kick in" for his original signature creations
It may not be possible to obtain perpetual copyright-like restrictions through trademark law. See my other comment [slashdot.org].
didn't he come up with orcs?
Such goblins have been around for a long time. Tolkien may have been the first to call them "orcs" but that's about it.
Earlier you wrote:
the law is not self-executing. Private parties have to litigate it.
Actually, copyright law is more "self-executing" than trademark law or patent law because in the United States, copyright infringement is not only a civil offense but also a crime. The FBI can come after you even if the copyright owner takes no action, heck even if the copyright owner doesn't know that he owns the copyright.