Public Domain Day 2014 225
An anonymous reader writes "What could have been entering the public domain in the US on January 1, 2014? Under the law that existed until 1978.... Works from 1957. The books On The Road, Atlas Shrugged, Empire of the Atom, and The Cat in the Hat, the films The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and 12 Angry Men, the article "Theory of Superconductivity," the songs "All Shook Up" and "Great Balls of Fire," and more.... What is entering the public domain this January 1? Not a single published work."
And none ever will again (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks to Disney and others, the very idea of works EVER entering the public domain will eventually become a relic.
YOu are so right! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I weren't sooo lazy, I'd work a bit harder and BOOM! I'd be RICH! Why, if I weren't so lazy, I could get another job on top of my other two, and work some more! After all, I'm only working 80 hours a week and who needs sleep and recreation!
And we all know that the billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Buffet and all them got where they are by working hard and being honest and forthright people! Anyone can do it!
We all know that all it takes here in the states is to work hard and wealth is guaranteed! Well, if it weren't for the government regulations.
I had a chemical disposal business and the fucking EEE, PEEE, AYE stopped me from disposing in the local trout stream! How the hell is one going to make a living with these communist basterds?! And this bullshit nonsense about children getting cancer and whatnot - why there's St. Judes to help them! Business and profits first and health and well being is just a socialist value! Anyway, cancer was created by socialists to punish the hard working creators and rewards the takers!
And this bullshit of "you didn't build that!" why, the private sector could do just fine building roads and highways and edukating us!
If you're poor, it's all because of your character! Yes sir! If you worked hard have decent values, you wouldn't be poor!
Poor people have poor character and they are stupid! It's all their fault! If they would just pull themselves up by their bootstraps like I did, all would be well!
I tell you, the values in this society have deteriorated. Way back when, those people would be left to starve - as they should - and it allowed for us makers to achieve and better society.
Re:They Should Lose Public Protection (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you "deprived" of food, because you have to pay for it?
If I take some food to eat, and the government takes the food back from me because I haven't paid for it, they are by definition depriving me of food. Of course, if the food was previously owned, I'll have deprived the previous owner in taking it.
Property ownership comes down to the threat of depriving people if they try to enjoy something which doesn't belong to them.
The question is the extent to which deprivation is moral.
None of this has anything to do with copyright: the great thing about copying is that you don't deprive the initial owner.
Re:They Should Lose Public Protection (Score:3, Insightful)
> And this still works perfectly well today, thank you very much.
Not really. Look at Disney's portfolio again. None of their early work would have been legal had they not had public domain stuff to copy. So they would have made NO new art. That is where many people are today. Unable to use parts of out very culture because someone owns it. Copyright is harming the vast majority of people's ability to create art in order to enrich a few, entrenched entities'.
> Defending property rights of the citizenry is among the top tasks of any government. Moreover, the "ownership" (perpetual or not) is only meaningful, if there are legal protections for it.
It's not property. There is no movie I can make that can take Disney's movies away from them. But I can't do things like make a new animation called "Snow White" and not get sued out of existence.
> Are you "deprived" of food, because you have to pay for it?
False equivalence.
A better one is, are you deprived of food if, in order to eat something, you may not use a single recipe anyone else has published anywhere, ever. Nor can you eat if yours is too similar to another. And only after a few years and several million dollars is spent in court determining that you spinach, green bean, feta, and kidney bean bread was sufficiently non-infringing.
In short: shill elsewhere you fucking dumbass
Re:So who's got a torrent? (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody gives a damn what god has to say on the topic of copyright.
The creation myths in the bible were cribbed from the Babylonians, and the rest is just the collected works of a bunch of old men who wanted to control the masses.
You're essentially citing fairy tales as a basis for modern law.
Get over it.
Re:It's for the best (Score:4, Insightful)
I will bite. A fixed term for copyright is best.
Copyright gives value to a work, value dictates price, and price allocates scarce resources. If copyright expired with the death of the author, works made by people who die tragically young are worth less than those who just keep on going. Works written by older people – who have less life – are worth less than younger people.
There are older folks that I want to hear more of. There are older folks living off a one hit wonder from 50 years ago. This seems to me arbitrary and capricious. The value of a work should not be swayed by how much life is left in the author.