Professor Wins $240K In Fair Use Dispute 150
Posted
by
kdawson
from the happy-bloomsday dept.
from the happy-bloomsday dept.
pickens writes "In a victory for Fair Use, Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project has announced that the estate of 20th century literary giant James Joyce, author of the landmark novel Ulysses, has agreed to pay $240,000 in attorneys' fees to Stanford University Consulting Professor Carol Shloss and her counsel in connection with Shloss's lawsuit to establish her right to use copyrighted material in her scholarship on the literary work of James Joyce. When Shloss used copyrighted materials in her biography of Joyce's daughter Lucia, titled Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake, she had to excise a substantial amount of source material from the book in response to threats from the Joyce Estate. However following publication of the book, Shloss sued the Estate to establish her right to publish the excised material. The parties reached a settlement regarding the issue in 2007, permitting the publication of the copyrighted material in the US. Following the settlement, Shloss asked the Court to order the Estate to pay attorneys' fees of more than $400,000. She has now agreed to accept an immediate payment of $240,000 in return for the dismissal of the Estate's appeal. 'This case shows there are solutions to the problem Carol Shloss faced other than simple capitulation,' says Fair Use Project Executive Director Anthony Falzone, who led the litigation team."
Strange (Score:2, Insightful)
The Good Fight (Score:5, Insightful)
This case shows there are solutions to the problem Carol Shloss faced other than simple capitulation
Yes - the solution is to be lucky enough to find a lawyer that's willing allow their bill to get up to $400,000 but settle for $240,000 just so they can fight a legal battle that shouldn't be in front of the courts anyways. Almost half a million to fight a battle in which she was obviously right? It's wrong that that fight occurred at all... Thank goodness her lawyer was willing to go the distance.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Some solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there are solutions. If you can afford to put out $400k in lawyers fees upfront, and then only receive $240k of that back for a $160k loss.
Make the Lawyers Rich (Score:5, Insightful)
'This case shows there are solutions to the problem Carol Shloss faced other than simple capitulation,' says Fair Use Project Executive Director Anthony Falzone, who led the litigation team."
Yes, a solution that takes years to go through and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a great solution, if you're a lawyer.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you think less of Joyce if you agreed that he sacrificed the mental stability and well being of his daughter to complete a novel? Would you think less of him if it was confirmed that he had contracted syphilis or that that is what caused him to go blind? Or that he wrote dirty letters to his wife? All these things may or may not be true.
None of them would in anyway cause me to think less of James Joyce, but then there is very little that could. I remember in 7th or 8th grade my English teacher went over the elements that made for a good novel. My English teacher the following year told me what a great writer James Joyce was because he didn't include any of those elements. I've never understood why he is considered a great writer.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
None of them would in anyway cause me to think less of James Joyce, but then there is very little that could. I remember in 7th or 8th grade my English teacher went over the elements that made for a good novel. My English teacher the following year told me what a great writer James Joyce was because he didn't include any of those elements. I've never understood why he is considered a great writer.
Have you tried reading his books?
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you tried reading his books?
Yes, the key word being 'tried.' Had to read Portrait for 12th grade English. It was such a heavy work, full of minutia and details, that it was very hard to pick up.
12th grade English class was fun: Portrait, Heart of Darkness, The Sound and the Fury, Wuthering Heights. I haven't slept that well prior or since.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
Mu - copyright and censorship are the same thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright is the government-backed enforcement of "you're not allowed to say that, because I said it first."
By definition, copyright is the antithesis of free speech. There is no either/or here - copyright *is* censorship.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
How many people who start reading Ulysses actually finish? And of those who finish, how many manage to persevere only because it was a set text for some English course?
Re:Proves my point (Score:2, Insightful)
Why can't authors have savings and/or life insurance like every other working stiff?
Re:Proves my point (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I checked, murder was still illegal and had worse penalties than copyright infringement. Not that it couldn't happen, just that it isn't a justification.
Re:Ulysses is hard work but brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
If you did not know, people read for enjoyment. Having to do research to understand a book does not equal enjoyment for a good majority of people as well and not getting the joke or refference.
Re:Proves my point (Score:3, Insightful)
What was the original system, 20 years? Shounds good to me. No need to worry about situations like the one above and the creater of said work (or their estate) has ample time to profit from their works.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
I made the mistake of taking an entire course which was entirely reading and (endlessly) analyzing Ulysses. To this day, I wonder why I thought that was a good idea.
The professor had, of course, done his PhD dissertation on Ulysses and knew the frigging page numbers of every damned (ir)relevant detail. It was truly scary.
Re:Ulysses is hard work but brilliant (Score:4, Insightful)
19th and early 20th century Ireland is a much more fantastic and mysterious place than anything any fantasy writer made up.
Funny, how in Slashdot anti-intellectualism is OK if it doesn't refer to tech topics, but someone who brags about how they don't like math or physics would get scorned.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never understood why he is considered a great writer.
Have you tried reading his books?
In fact, I have never had the pleasure of reading Ulysses. Let me give it a try from the beginning... [online-literature.com]
[vomits, then blacks out, wakes up half an hour later]
Forget "why he is considered a great writer," how about "I've never understood why he is considered a writer at all."
Gibberish isn't writing in my book. Then again, "my book" isn't taught at universities. Not sure if that counts for or against it.
Re:Mu - copyright and censorship are the same thin (Score:4, Insightful)
She copy/pasted a large portion of the book, and copycatting is very different from "saying it first/second".
No, I think you're just misunderstanding the earlier poster. By 'saying it second' he likely means repeating what someone else has said by copying from them, as opposed to independently saying what coincidentally happens to be the same thing.
Free speech does not give one a blanket right to abuse/use other people's property for personal benefit without permission or payment.
Well, I'd dispute the use of the word 'property' there. Let's stick with 'creative works,' in which case, yes, that's precisely the sort of thing that a right of free speech has to do with. For example, if I have a copy of Shakespeare's plays, and I can abuse them by bowdlerizing them, or I can use them by performing them verbatim, or even just reprinting them and selling copies. My right of free speech permits me to do this, regardless of the fact that I didn't write those plays. I don't need permission, and I don't need to pay.
When we grant copyrights, we are temporarily ceding part of our right of free speech. Given how dreadfully important free speech is, surely we wouldn't make such a grant lightly. Nor would we likely do so unless there were some public purpose which was better served by making the grant than by not, and where the size of the grant served that purpose better than a grant of some greater or lesser size.
What purpose do you think would be so important as to justify this? How might we fine-tune copyright so as to best serve that purpose?
A hint: The public purpose is very direct, very self-serving; the means of promoting it is very indirect, however, and may benefit others in the process.
These authors spend several years of their lives creating these novels and many decades mastering the art and craft of writing.
Well, they're not obligated to. If an author can crank out a brilliant novel in the space of a week, with no practice at all, he is no more and no less deserving of a copyright than any other author. Copyright law doesn't care about how much work an author does. In fact, the Constitution prohibits rewarding an author with a copyright merely for his hard work.
And just like doctors or lawyers, they want a fair return on that investment.
Oh, I'd be perfectly happy getting an unfairly large reward on no investment at all. Don't feel troubled to do otherwise on my account. ;)
Copyright ensures that people who can write good books get paid so they don't have to find a real job working in a supermarket or other manual labor.
Copyright ensures no such thing. It encourages authors to create works of all levels of quality with the hope that, if a particular work is popular, the copyright on that work can be exploited to make money. There's no policy in favor of good works over bad; the government cannot and should not make such decisions. There's no guarantee that an author will make money; a good, but unpopular work can be a flop, and authors can always mismanage their affairs. And certainly no end of authors have had to work at real jobs.
Re:Proves my point (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, in Grant's day -- and even up until the late 1970's -- copyrights simply lasted for a term of years, with an optional renewal. Whether the author died during the term or not was entirely irrelevant. So yes, while it is a good idea for a copyright to be able to survive the author, it is a bad idea for a copyright's term length to have anything at all to do with the life of the author.
Better for copyrights to be predictable: they last for so many years from some initial date, such as the first publication of the work. Any unpredictable elements should a) be in the hands of the author, b) reduce the length of the copyright from the predictable maximum, rather than enlarge it. For example, we might grant a copyright for 2 years, where the copyright holder can opt renew it for another two years in the last six months, if he fills out a form and pays a token fee to indicate his interest. This could be done repeatedly up until the predictable maximum term length, at which point the copyright would expire. If the author failed to renew -- or failed to register in the first place -- the work would simply enter the public domain sooner than later.
I think it is very wrong to think of copyrights as a means for helping widows and orphans. The stark reality is that most creative works have no copyright-related economic value whatsoever. The few that have such value usually have very little, and that is mostly had straight away, with little left to be wrung out after a span of hours to weeks to months to years. The odds of writing a book that is a long-lasting and substantial financial success are roughly on par with winning the lottery. We would be appalled, and rightly so, at anyone who suggested that a person who wanted to support his wife and children after he died should buy lottery tickets. Well, in the vast majority of cases, an author who tried to write a book to accomplish the same purpose would be just as big a fool.
General problems -- like how to help provide for your surviving family after you have died -- demand general solutions. After all, we all face these problems, and anyway, most authors will not be able to help on the strength of their writing. A better solution than copyright to provide for widows and orphans would be saving and investing wisely, taking out life insurance policies, and promoting a social welfare system as a safety net. This way, everyone's widows and orphans can be helped out, rather than only those of successful authors.
And as for Grant himself, let's remember, he lost his money by putting it in a Ponzi scheme. If he'd been more responsible, he would not have needed to gamble on writing a book. A book that was largely successful because he had been a prominent general and president. But we can't all be war-winning generals and presidents, so let's not pretend that widows and orphans are sound reasons for copyrights. It's just a pathetic appeal to our emotions. Copyright needs to be rational.
Re:Proves my point (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd agree except for the guy who dies and leaves a window with children.
Fuck that. Artists are due no more protection from shit like that then the rest of us. If his shit is worth it, and if he's not getting ripped off by the middlemen (Which is not our fault, not our problem, not something that deserves special protection.) then he should be making sure he's living within his means and put some fucking money away the same way the rest of us have to.
That's my opinion regarding the whole poor widow and children sob story. (Which is what got us the whole 50+ years after death bullshit)
However I'd much rather lean towards a straight up 14 year term. No extensions WHATSOEVER.
Especially in this day and age when the vast majority of your profits are likely made on the initial release day, there is no nead for anything more than that. It's possible to get your shit out to the entire fucking world within a year. That's your compensation, now get back to "work", or get a job.
I apologize if I sound overly pissy, but one of the reasons the insane copyright durations and penalties keep managing to get expanded more AND MORE AND MORE is because people stop thinking for just a second and say "Well you know, that does sound kind of nice." without thinking of the greater damage that is caused by all this.
Re:More An Issue of Censorship Than Copyright (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not think censorship is copyright's intended use and that may very well be why this case failed.
I don't know what copyright's intended use is in other countries, but the US Constitution spells it out. Article 1, section 8 [cornell.edu] says "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
Too bad our legislators (and the Supreme Court, considering the Eldred decision) [wikipedia.org] hold the Constitution in such disdain.
James Joyce died in 1941 [wikipedia.org]. Finnegans Wake was published in 1923. There is no reason why Joyce's works should not be in the public domain; he's certainly not going to write any more books.
It is despicable to use copyright for anything but its intended purpose, and worse to pass unconstitutional laws, and worse than tha for SCOTUS to ignore it.