Mexico to Abolish the Public Domain? 387
Anonymous Mexican Coward writes "The mexican congress is considering a revision of the copyright law. Among other changes the law will extend the term of copyright from life-plus-70 to life-plus-100, and at the end of that term, the mexican government has the right to charge royalties for works in the "public domain."
Go Mexico!
Check it out"
Go Mexico? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Go Mexico? (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously, the author wants Mexico to leave North America.
Re:Go Mexico? (Score:2, Funny)
Sarcasm, my furry little friend..
Re:Go Mexico? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes [scene.org] it's [iastate.edu] bad [planettribes.com].
Go Mexico? (Score:4, Interesting)
They're extending copyright and abolishing the copyright domain.
Let's fix that typo: BOO MEXICO!
Situational Irony (Score:3, Interesting)
Just out of curiosity, is Micro$oft required to release the source of MS-DOS 1.0 when/if the copyright expires, or does just the binary form become public domain? The source is copyright too, no?
Re:Situational Irony (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Situational Irony (Score:2)
It's been done - the book Dissecting Dos [barnesandnoble.com] came out in 1994.
Re:Situational Irony (Score:5, Interesting)
Just out of curiosity, is Micro$oft required to release the source of MS-DOS 1.0 when/if the copyright expires, or does just the binary form become public domain? The source is copyright too, no?
Why does copyright law apply at all? It's not as if MS ever published the source for any of its DOS versions.
Re:Situational Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
When copyright expires (70 years after publishing, under curent law), they don't have to do anything. It would however be in the public domain and if someone had a copy they could then publish it freely. But we all know that copyright will be extended indefinitely using the "Mad Hatter's tea Party" method:
Re:Situational Irony (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Go Mexico? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Go Mexico? (Score:2)
Are you kidding me this baby's off the charts mmmhai
--Joey
The privatize/nationalize cycle (Score:5, Insightful)
It's part of the privatize/nationalize cycle that wealthy and powerful people use to steal from not-so-wealthy and not-so-powerful people.
There is NO WAY that this form of dominance benefits those around the world. It's called stealing, and it's as old as the hills.
Re:Go Mexico? (Score:5, Funny)
doesn't get it.
(shamelessly cribbed from the Washington Post's Style Invitational)
Re:Go Mexico? (Score:2)
Why? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Also, it's not like inventions have anything to do with copyright. You're thinking of patents.
Cripes, people, try to get that one through your heads!
Sounds like a hoax to me (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides, maybe there is a misunderstanding here. The Federal Copyright law states that the Government may collect the patrimonial benefits *if and only if* the copyright holder dies and there is no one who can legally inherit the copyright.
Anyway, any email from a alleged company formed by "almost 10 IP experts" (Almost? 9 1/2 m
The company looks legit to me. (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Selma Hayek and Miguel de Icaza... (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Everyone benefits from a broad, unencumbered public domain. PD works can form the basis for new creative works, plus they allow access to knowledge relatively cheaply (with no copyright exclusivity to maintain a price floor, the cost of a PD work falls to that of reproduction)
This really surprises me. I really envisioned a future direction that placed nations like Mexico as our tech leaders in 50 years, because they had n
joke (Score:2)
For every action... (Score:3, Informative)
http://doa2.host.sk/
http://www.gnucleus.com/
http://www.overnet.com/
http://www.gnutellanews.com/
http://www.zeropaid.com/
http://www.peek-a-booty.org/pbhtml/index.php
http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Main/ WebHome
http://www.thehonestthief.com/
A world without public domain... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2)
Well, in many areas you can't start a fire outdoors without the fire department's permission, and wheels? Don't get me started on the DMV. Regulations aren't the same as "royaltis", but they still take your time and sometimes your money. As for the Bible, anybody who really cares about it has to pay twice to educate their children, and translations can be copyrighted. So what's new?
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2)
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2, Interesting)
E-mail me, I'll send you the Laurence Tomson (1576) translation of the New Testament (I patched it into modern spelling).
Steve at Dosius dot Zed Zed En dot Com.
-uso.
Pronounced "Zee Zee En" locally.
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2)
Yep, and both of those are pretty much fair game for patents now-a-days.
-
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2)
So long as it's defined in terms of a "process by which fire is made", it'd likely be patentable by modern laywers.
Ryan Fenton
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that I could not give the world something, donated to the public domain, without the government claiming ownership just shows you how fucked up socialism is. This is like the current problem in the US where congress acts like they are 'giving' us something when they offer tax cuts, instead of the reality, which is just TAKING less.
This is EXACTLY the dangerous crap I get tired of preaching about. Anytime the government acts in a way that puts it ABOVE the people, you are setting yourself up for tyranny. It shocks me that more people do not see this as a dangerous philosophy.
This is one reason I am so PRO 2nd amendment. A fully armed people has less to worry about when it comes to a dominating government. Unfortunately, Mexico has a history of corruption at the government level. Too bad, since it has more natural resources than the US, and COULD be one of the richest nations on earth. This idea is one example of why they are NOT, and not likely to be in the near future.
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2)
This is the problem. The Public Domain is so valuable (even though it is "free"), that decisions to limit it only stifle economic growth.
Disney, and, now the Mexican government. What a bunch of greedy losers.
Taxing the Bible (Score:2)
There's a group of ex-scientologists who still consider the stuff Hubbard taught to be true, but improperly administered by the church. They practice civil disobedience in distributing their "scriptures," which are under copyright by the Church of Scientology. I believe they are called "freezoners."
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2)
Re:A world without public domain... (Score:2)
http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.htm [snopes.com]
Thanks to the S. Bono Copyright Extension Act, you do have to -- and will, until 2030 (unless they extend copyright again). Why do you think so many (read: just about all) restraunts have their own version?
If Mickey Mouse isn't a convincing argument we have copyright terms that are too long, this ought to be.
cant wait (Score:5, Insightful)
They made the same argument about europe when they put in the latest copyright extention act.
Re:cant wait (Score:2)
NAFTA (Score:2)
In particular, might there be a requirement that the US and Canada follow suit?
That would be interesting - it would give RIAA, software makers and the like a very convenient, relatively inexpensive (I suspect paying off Mexican legislators is less expensive than paying off US legislators) way to impose their notions of Goodness and Niceness on the rest of North America without actually having to bring up the subject in the US or Canada.
RTFA before knee-jerking (Score:4, Interesting)
The amendment has been strongly supported by authors and collecting societies but on the other hand; it has been rejected by the industry.
Really? Authors and their estate managers want longer copyright, but the industry doesn't. Isn't it usually the other way round in the USA? Does anyone who understands the issue in detail wish to comment on why?
Re:RTFA before knee-jerking (Score:2)
Really, the only one who benefits after 10 years is the estate managers, and the lawyers who get paid to defend it.
If an author truely wants to get his work of art out. he/she should try to make money for 10 ye
Re:RTFA before knee-jerking (Score:2)
Really?
"The industry" there refers to the electronics industry, which, under the bill, would have to pay taxes on recorders and recordable media to cover piracy. My guess is that the electronics industry doesn't care either way about extending copyright; they just don't want to pay taxes to cover trumped-up piracy claims.
Future proofing (Score:3, Insightful)
Nailing my great-great-great-great grandkids for more tax is not acceptable just because they are not born yet.
Grrrrr.
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Who set this precident first? (Score:4, Insightful)
So back to my question above, who set the precident first of life-term + some number of years for copyrighting works? Seems to me the US is to blame for this, even though it will really, really, really, hurt our youth and generations to come. It's poison in the resevoir. Beware Mexico.
Write (Score:4, Informative)
Write your Deputies [200.15.46.216] (by party, unfortunately) and your Senators [senado.gob.mx] (by state).
Yes, but... (Score:2)
--
Get used to it. (Score:2)
Soon after... (Score:2)
A disaster (Score:2, Interesting)
I am a writer so obviously I value copyright because without it my work would be worthless. But I also value the fact that I am able to draw on hundreds of years of cultural and literary tradition for my inspiration. This is why the public domain is so important. If I want to use the Cinderella myth I can (Di
Re:A disaster (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just being hopelessly naive, but surely Mexico (or any other country) can't go around assigning royalties to themselves for public domain works that were produced in other countries? Last I heard, Shakespeare was British - it might or might not be fair for the UK to charge royalties on his works,
This is typical of government (Score:3, Insightful)
When have we seen governments decide, "Hey, we don't need [fill in some social program] anymore, the citizenry can take care of [fill in something people want] all by themselves without our help."?
The taste of power only leaves the unquenchable thirst for more. And government power is the ultimate power, for it is the only power which wields the legal right to use deadly force to acheive its goals.
Re:This is typical of government (Score:2)
No money for schools, but obviously more than enough to fight wars and criminalize copyright violations and create giant new security agencies with unaccountable funding. How much did the DEA spend o
Oh really? (Score:3, Funny)
It demands saying: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It demands saying: (Score:2)
Open source projects ... (Score:4, Interesting)
If an open source project has not have contributions for 100+ years, then i don't really care if the Government of Mexico can charge royalties on it.
------------------
On a side note, i suspect that the works of Aristotelis, Plato and Omero will become more expensive to buy in Mexico. Same thing for traditional Mexican music.
Re:Open source projects ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Open source projects ... (Score:2)
Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
This will never become law. The prior "administration", whose party (the PRI) ruled the country for 80+ years is simply doing what they do best - make empty populist gestures and try to push crap through congress to see what happens.
And the current administration is unabashedly pro-business (and unfortunately pro-church as well) and since the system is similar to the US, I doubt the prez will sign it. He'll just veto it because along with his party (the PAN) he's in bed with everyone from EMI to Coca-Cola.
And the company doing this? I know them - my brother used to work here [reforma.com]. They're used by the various families who own newspapers in Mexico to hassle each other with stupid copyright claims all the time. Of course "OLIVARES & CIA." obliges gleefully since they take a cut. Ambulance chasers of the 21st century.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
This is most definitely true.
As is this, too.
Pay artists for private copying (Score:2)
If I read this right the law will be changed to allow someone to collect money from industry to pay to artists in respect of private copying. This would explain why manufa
Economic Impact (Score:2, Interesting)
Mexico says: (Score:2)
-B
Project Gutenberg (Score:4, Interesting)
Shifting into Mexican overdrive (Score:2)
Experimental field (Score:2)
So yeah, wait a while and see your own modification to DMCA.
We have bigger problems than copyright. (Score:2)
Sometimes, this is advantageous because you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you don't break any really important laws. But on the other hand, don't expect to get all kinds of services from the government here because you won't get jack. I knew people who moved here some years ago because they thought t
Note to Mexican people (Score:2)
Let me try this another way:
Your government gone bad.
Burn it.
Make good one.
Re:Note to Mexican people (Score:2)
Umm, in any given country, less than 5% of the population is of college age, anyway. Wow, Mexico must have an astounding educational system.
Copyright, they will get theirs (Score:2)
In Other News (Score:3, Funny)
bogus (Score:5, Insightful)
The hits disappear as soon as one adds amendment, proposed, proposal to the search terms.
Those should have turned up hits even in Spanish, I think. While my Spanish sucks rocks, that's one of the languages for which machine translation sort of works.
As far as I'm concerned, given that someone else checked Mexican government sites and didn't find it [slashdot.org], the burden of proof that this isn't a troll is on the original author.
It would be a suicidally stupid thing for a national government to do. Imagine a 6 year old having to do an intellectual property search on the Net every time she was assigned to write a story for school and then try to find the intellectual property owners... if they can be found after 100 years.
While it's hard to quantify or model the economic loss due to the inability to use public domain work as a basis for further creativity, if I wrote fiction for a living, I'd be packing if this passed where I lived. Or if I were a parent.
However, we have no credible evidence of such. What we have is a blog posting that doesn't cite a verifiable URL from a government source. This is a credibility killer given that the subject is a proposed act of public law.
The article shouldn't have been accepted without one from either the author of the original article or the poster.
Re:bogus (Score:2)
RTFA people. Even if its a fake at least criticize it for what it says.
It says that hardware manufacturers are upset because they have to pay the fee to a system administered by the government. No consumer action required.
In fact the idea that the royalty keeps getting paid after the copyright runs out avoids having to kee
Re:bogus (Score:2)
Our system here in the US is no better. Every creative work is implicitly copyrighted, even without a copyright notice. Copyright lasts for 70 years after the author dies. So said hypothetical 6-year-old would have to track down an unknown author up to 70 years after his death, p
Oblig. Sierra Madre quote (Score:2)
HAs anyone contacted the address posted? (Score:2)
I'm not geting any of this through any other source yet. Nothing. nothing in the business rags, nothing in the copyright activist wings, i haven't seen this ANYWHERE. I haven't seen it in the proposed legislation papers and frankly, if somebody's got a bead on this, bring it up and let's get a look, because this sounds crazy to me. Are they looking for someone to retain them to protect their feared-for copyrights? Is this an ad?
US will not follw suit. (Score:2, Interesting)
This proposed law grants the government the ability to charge for public domain works. This would not be in the best interest of the **AA which routinely uses PD works as they like.
The government would also have an interest in letting copyrighted works expire into the public domain so they could make their money, hence no more copyright extensions. The **AA certai
Any verification? (Score:2, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
Round up. (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, this is not a hoax.
You can find the text of the proposed ammendment here [diputados.gob.mx] (paragraph regarding "derecho de autor").
I will not invoke the Fish, you can do that yourselves if you are so inclined, there are several interesting points:
Article 29: Yeah, 100 years. I will begin to pester the right people, not that they will care (or maybe they do, this may pass under their noses and then the leaders of the parties tell them how to vote).
Then later on, the most interesting bits, in synthesis:
Article 40. Copyright holders have the right to be compensated for any copies that are made without their permission for private use and with no intention of profiting from them.
I. Compensation will be paid by manufacturers or importers of any machines that can store, compress, duplicate or reproduce (as in play I guess) the copyrighted works. Same thing for blank media manufacturers and importers.
The big surprise here is that this seems to legitimize your MP3 collection on stacks or burned CDs as long as you made it from sutff you legitimely own. I believe this may be a first worldwide.
Nowhere says how the compensation will be calculated.
II. Any sellers (retailers, wholesale buyers, etc) have to make sure that compensation was paid, otherwise they are obliged to pay the compensation in solidarity with people in point I (second translation: we can't police all of them, so we force retailers to police manufacturers and importers. Maquiavelian).
IV. Money goes to, surprise, the associations representing the copyright holders. 20% should be used for a nebulous item called "cultural activities"...
V. Stuff with copy protection mechanisms does not pay this tax (i.e. DVDs ant their ilk).
To check the public domain situation you have to go to the ammendment to article 152, first of all anybody can use public domain as long as there is no intention to profit from the work, otherwise who is intending to profit form a public domain work should pay a tax that will be divided 50% for the respective association of copyright holders (writers, composers, etc.) and should be devoted to social spending (whatever that is) and to promote the reperotire of their association members (uhm). The other 50% goes to, yes, you guessed it, the goverment.
Nowhere I found that public domain is abolished, it is being restricted if you want to profit from it.
Finally this is going to the Culture comission in the Congress. It may die there, get uglier or get better.
Finally, even if you are not Mexican you can put pressure: just imagine my poor congress critters receiving loads of emails from North Rio Bravo (Grande) and beyond threateaning to boycott any Mexican copyrightable material if the terms that are clearly abusive (like the 100 year term) are not repelled.
Re:Experiment to test public opinion? (Score:2)
Sonny Bono never toured Canada (Score:2)
other NAFTA countries.
Canada is a NAFTA country.
Canadian copyright as of March 2003 lasts for life plus 50 years.
Re:Sonny Bono never toured Canada (Score:2)
Re:Sonny Bono never toured Canada (Score:2)
Not only that ..... (Score:2)
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Re:Breaking news! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Breaking news! (Score:2, Insightful)
Im from México, and guess what, I laugh everytime I see that "Welcome to the land of freedom" bullshit that welcomes you to the USA.
Say whatever you want, I can reverse engine al the crap I want and dont need to worry about the DMCA, Patriotic Acts or any other thing like that, USA is proud of the liberty slogan, but as we say here "el gobierno los tiene de los huevos".
Re:Breaking news! (Score:2)
Re:Breaking news! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Breaking news! (Score:3, Insightful)
All in all, it's a bad thing but in practice in Mexico it makes no difference at all.
-- American living in Mexico for last 7 years.
In a Related Story, (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Here they go again (Score:2)
Re:Here they go again (Score:2)
All the letter says is that, "The bill [is] motivated by the request of the former party in power," and doesn't detail any possible (maybe that should be probable) shennanigans going on behind closed doors.
Re:schools switching to Linux? (Score:2)
Re:capitalism (Score:2)
The only people in favor of it are content holders.
--Joey
Re:Oh WONDERFUL! (Score:2)
But if the law will impact negatively that outsourced business of US, then US troops will come to make sure that the law is "correct".
--
There is no democracy in this world anymore. There is the power piramid to protect the top business, which motivation is to keep money to flow. And if you are not insider you are outsider.