Public Domain Enhancement Act petition 669
EricEldred writes "Please sign the petition and support the proposed Public Domain Enhancement Act. See eldred.cc for details. 'This statute would require
American copyright owners to pay a very low fee (for example, $1) fifty years after a copyrighted work was published. If the owner pays the fee, the
copyright will continue for whatever duration Congress sets. But if the copyright is not worth even $1 to the owner, then we believe the work should pass into the public domain.'" See the brief description of the Act if you aren't familiar with what Eldred and Lessig are proposing.
So we're going to convolute the system more? (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole forever copyright thing is a pain in the ass and quite frankly a load of crap. If you want the legal protection of a copyright then you need to follow the rules, not keep profiting and profiting on it, while society is at your whim. Wuit convoluting an already convoluted system. There are other options, don't bother copyrighting something and then you don't have to worry about it being public domain in 50 years, you can keep it a secret forever.
Online petitions also don't work, they're too easy to fradulate, if you're really concerned call your representative and talk to them about it, don't put your email address on a weblog and think you've done your civic duty.
I'd rather see "use it or lose it" (Score:3, Interesting)
While I'm at it: I think that the creator of a work should get the copyright to their creation back if the folks who bought the copyright are not distributing it.
Re:automate it (Score:2, Interesting)
Will there be a part of this law that states the $1 can't be paid until the 50 years is up or almost up or can it be paid in advance... like $5 now for the next 250 years?
50 years ... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not like I'm renting something for 50 years. It's mine, I should be able to whatever I want with it, for as long as I want with it. And If I so happen to croak, then it should be passed on.
Re:automate it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:With the amount of material they generate? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly the point. If a corporation can't make a single buck over the next five years on a copyrighted work, then they SHOULD let the copyright lapse and let the work pass into public domain. However, if the copyrighted work is still generating revenue, or they have plans to republish it, then they CAN afford the token fee of $1.
Brilliant!
Re:With the amount of material they generate? (Score:4, Interesting)
- A single song
- The original album the song was on
- The compilation album with 20 such songs on it
- The Boxed set containing all of the Artist's work in his/her lifetime
I can see the record industry trying to argue that the $1 for the boxed set should cover everything above. Of course, this could spark a move for print publishers to return to offering compilation sets from authors.Hmmmm.... (Score:3, Interesting)
$1 per recording every 5 years. I think that that would stack up to a large amount of money.
Lets look at some numbers: This page [copyright.gov] has a list of the number of copyright registrations for every year from 1790 to 2002. It lists the total number of copyrights out there as being 30,253,812.
In 2002 there were 521,041 new registered copyrights. That means that in 50 years, $521,041 would have to be paid to the copyright office to maintain those copyrights for another 5 years. Another look at the data shows that right now there are 9,213,707 registered works that are 50 years old or older. That means that $9,213,707 would have to be paid to the copyright office to maintain those works.
Now, realizing that not every work is owned by a BIG CORPORATION(tm) that is still not a small chunk of change and will ultimately result in more and more items entering public domain, or more money going to the government...(or more money being charged for copyrighted works simply to maintain this cost, copyright tax).
I don't know that this solves anything, but I like the attempt.
One Possible Complaint (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no problem with taxpayer money going to support something like this, but the industry lobbyists will mention it to lawmakers as a reason to not pass the bill, and it may be hard to argue why it's so important for works from 50 years ago to pass into the public domain. It can be argued, but I doubt I'll see Lessig on CSPAN any time soon.
While this is a reasonable solution to the problems of creeping copyrights, maybe the fee should be something more substantial ($100? $1000?), so that there is a chance that fees will pay for the service.
Bad for Free Software (Score:2, Interesting)
What if the Software has multiple Authors?
Re:You're missing the point (Score:5, Interesting)
One view is that copyright is a natural property right. Another view is that copyright is a creation of the state for a public purpose.
The latter is the one written into the US Constitution. If you think the former is a better basis for American law, fine; get cracking on obtaining the agreement of 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 of the states.
Re:automate it (Score:5, Interesting)
If it starts at $100 for year 15, and doubles for every 5th every year after... the fee would be over $800 000 after 80 years.
Automatic renew process for *all* published works should run any company out of bussiness whit that system.
- Ost
My idea for copyright reform (Score:3, Interesting)
My solution: a progressive tax on copyrighted works. Give the content producers a year grace period to recoup their investment. In the second year after a work is released, the government would impose a 1% tax on the gross revenues generated by the work. Each year thereafter, the tax would increase by an additional 1%. Items in the public domain would be exempt from this tax.
Copyright holders would still be able to maintain exclusive control of their work, but would have an incentive to release it to the public domain. (Or bury it forever, but that's not different from what happens now.)
Also, if a work remains under copyright for over 100 years (due to author's longevity or further copyright extension), companies would have to pay the government more money than they receive from sales and licensing.
The downsides? This requires a lot more bookkeeping and enforcement. Some companies (coughDisneycough) would rather bury their IP than release it to the public domain. And companies may make minor revisions and declare the "new edition" to have a new copyright.
Problems with current copyright laws (Score:4, Interesting)
o Lack of having to register the work in the first place
o Lack of hard limits on the final length of time it's valid
o Removal of having to declare that a work is copyrighted (like in the front of a book or movie)
o Extremely long duration, preventing the Public Domain from having access to the work in a timely manner
These are just a few.
I propose that we repeal all copyright changes since the first 1790 act that provided 14 years, renewable once for a total of 28 years. I think that it is a fair duration for the author to profit from the work.
I also propose that any electronic work (either program code, etext of a book, etc) needs to be archived with the copyright office so that when the copyright expires, a copy of the source/text can be acquired for the duplication/shipping fee.
Ryan
$1 is far too low. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Steamboat Willie" is a valuable copyright. Disney gets free enforcement of copyright laws on this valuable piece of copyright property. "Steamboat Willie" is more valuable and needs a lot more copyright enforcement than most titles. Disney should pay more for that protection.
The purpose of property taxes are to offset the costs of providing services, like law enforcement, for the property. If Copyrights are to be considered Intellectual "Property", they must pay property taxes at their appraised value or forfeit that property.
For a copyright that could be sold on the market for $500, a fair value for copyright should be about $13/year, after the initial grace period of 14 years (perhaps with optional free renewal for another 14).
Stupid idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
There's no way you can keep people from paying in advance, if not directly then though some representative such as a third party who will take the fees in advance and pay them when they come due. All this will do is raise the initial fees a few dollars as it will become standard practice to simply pay for huge amounts of time in advance. Consequently this will not address the problem trying to be solved at all, and in fact will exacerbate it.
If you want to solve the public domain problem, solve the public domain problem (by setting the appropriate ceiling on copyright duration, for example). This is a band-aid that will fall off before the cut heals.
So disney has won... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll be dead in 50 years (I think) (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's my beef: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why should I, as an owner of a copyrighted work, have to pay the government anything for the ownership of my property? This is an intellectual property tax--which sounds nice when the fee is only $1 every 50 years. But what happens when it becomes $2, then $10, etc.? And why does the government need this money?
Sorry, but I prefer chopping copyright length back down to a reasonable 20- or 30-year period. There's no good reason to give the government yet another means to wrest money out of my wallet.
Why Pay At All? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You've missed the point (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not just sign a form/application? If all it means is an acknowledgement that the author still wants the protection, why get into the fee stuff?
The government getting into the business of charging for copyrights is a bad idea. Once the precedent is set, the "limited" fee will climb just like the "limited" copyright terms did.
Then we'll have a copyright sytem that only protects monied interests, be they corporations or whoever.
Fifty years (Score:4, Interesting)
Moreover, commercial entities in other countries (where saner - or even insanely limited - copyright laws exist) could then take those documents and make them available 24/7 in a convenient, indexed format that others could then use for research, teaching, or even pleasure. Anyone would be free to open up their own librarius to the world via p2p communities, usenet groups, and even low cost webhosting services in countries like Russia, Taiwan and Poland. This would force other nations (like ours) to compete by either changing their stupid laws (and thereby allowing US based businesses to compete with these foreign entities) or by shifting the mindshare away from intellectually oppressive regimes and toward nations that better support a creative and free exchange of information.
Re:automate it (Score:3, Interesting)
The point isn't to trick people into losing their copyright, but instead to see if there's any interest at all in maintaining a particular copyright. The dolar is symbolic. The real issue is whether the copyright owner is interested in maintaining the copyright enough to fill out the paperwork.
Re:With the amount of material they generate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps make it $1 for invidivuals and $1000 for corporations. I suppose a company could use the loophole of assigning all their copyrights to one person, but boy, they had better trust that individual!
Write your representatives. URLs here. (Score:4, Interesting)
It just struck me... (Score:4, Interesting)
A drunk driver killed a girl. In addition to all his other punishments, he was to hand write and mail/deliver check for $1 each week to the parents of the girl he killed.
This was to continue for a set amount of years.
The amount of money was inconsiquential, but it did force the drunk driver to think each week about the life he had taken and the consequences of his actions. Even for just the time that it took to write and mail a check.
Self-Assessed fee (Score:5, Interesting)
fee to keep the work in copyright, but
make the work 'public-domainable' at the
self-assessed value.
For example, after an initial copyright
period, say the 50 years required by the
Berne convention, the copyright holder
has to pay a fee of 1% of the value of the
work for each 10 year extension. The
copyright holder gets to determine the
value of the work themselves. But anyone
can come along and pay the determined
value to make the work public domain.
In the case of works with no residual
value to the holder, or the holder is
dead & lost, etc. the copyright will
expire in 50 years, since no one will
do the paperwork for the assessment.
In the case of low to moderate value
works, a copyright holder can keep
it in force for a nominal fee, or get
bought out at full value which he
himself determined.
In the case of high value works, like
major motion pictures, the holders will
get to pay a significant fee to keep it
in force - i.e. $500k per renewal for
a $50M movie.
Daniel
GPL is based on copyright. (Score:4, Interesting)
(You'll recall that the reason GPL code is not just PD is to keep people from locking up the fixes and improvements.)
Now it could be argued that in something as fast moving as software, something 50 years old is dead. But how old is Unix already, eh? (Not to mention "Hello, world!".) This industry is maturing. Like classical music, things written already, or being written now, are likely to have lasting value and be around a long time.
Back to basics on copyright laws! (Score:4, Interesting)
From the editorial:
How about extending this a bit.. (Score:4, Interesting)
How about a law that says, in order to have trademark, patent, or copyright, the item [or a derivitive of that item] in question must be offered for sale, or in the case of trademark, used as a mark of trade. [obvious exceptions for non-profit orgs]
The law says that you have copyright on your history paper, but if you're not going to gain money from it, why should you? Certainly you would have written it anyway in that case.
Discuss below, I'll admit my ignorance if you'll admit that you're a queer.
Re:Tacit approval (Score:1, Interesting)
Copyright expires after a certain time (depending on your country). Does this mean that fifty years (or whatever) after the death of Linus, the GPL on the kernel will be violatable? I'll be able to take kernel code, put it in my app, and release it without releasing the source, because it's no longer copyrighted?
Also, if my country only upholds copyright for ten years (full stop), would I be able to violate the GPL in my own country?
Re:probably not effective (Score:2, Interesting)
Spoken like a typical slashdolt whose greatest intellectual contribution is posting anonymous trolls on /. (and ruining what used to be a pretty cool site).
Shut up and go back to stealing music, pirating 'doze software and hacking blogs.