Court Takes Away Some of the Public Domain 431
An anonymous reader writes "In yet another bad ruling concerning copyright, a federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling, and said that it's okay for Congress retroactively to remove works from the public domain, even if publishers are already making use of those public-domain works. The lower court had said this was a First Amendment violation, but the appeals court said that if Congress felt taking away from the public domain was in its best interests, then there was no First Amendment violation at all. The ruling effectively says that Congress can violate the First Amendment, so long as it feels it has heard from enough people (in this case, RIAA and MPAA execs) to convince it that it needs to do what it has done." TechDirt notes that the case will almost certainly be appealed.
The RIAA are not people (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The RIAA are not people (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad. I was hoping to pick up some Soylent Recording Execs at the store later today.
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Ahh.... that soothes the fire.
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You are right, they are first class corporate citizens.
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correct.
They are more closely related to kimono dragons and pit vipers. I hereby move that we strip serpent people of their rights as citizens of the US.
In an aside, if there is a work in the PD and I am using it right now, then congress removes it from the public domain, how does that shake out?
Is it like when a GPL project goes closed source, where I can continue with the fork I've made, or is it as I expect (all fscked up) and I immediately am infringing and can be sued?
-nB
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how does that shake out?
I suspect it will go in whatever manner the RIAA instructs their puppet congresscritters to make it go.
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Which means instant infringing.
Re:The RIAA are not people (Score:5, Insightful)
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.
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Is this Disney's successor trick to the stunt they pulled for the Mouse Act? "Pretty good trick" he says cynically, before they take away the Tom Swift rights.
I want to toss an Unidentified Legal Object to the IAAL crowd. Can full Public Domain be considered a "contract with the people" such that removing something from it then becomes a breach of contract? All the following stuff sounds like it makes sense - "reasonably relied upon", etc.
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Interesting dystopian thought experiment:
If copyright is considered an asset can it be confiscated by the government under any circumstances?
Say you wrote some disruptive application.
You get arrested for something else, not really important what since just about everyone breaks the law in some way most days.
Could the government make part of the penalty for whatever they've arrested you for confiscation/transference of certain assets you control such as IP rights?
Could the new holders of those IP rights then
Re:The RIAA are not people (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RIAAland? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's what ACTA is for.
See, a bunch of multi-nationals have lobbied the US to do something under the guise of helping US interests. Then they lobbied them to force everyone else to get on board with the same laws so their stuff could be protected internationally. After that, they own everything everywhere.
Who needs a new country when you can slowly bring about an oligarchy in all of them and then call the shots?
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Dragons wearing kimonos? [wikipedia.org] Or did you mean Komodo Dragons? [wikipedia.org]
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I don't think that word [google.ca] means what you think [google.ca] it means
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Ya, I'm sure the government can figure *that* out. :-)
The only "fork" you're going to get will be in your ass.
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Komodo. Definitely Komodo. If someone offers to show you their "kimono dragon [wikipedia.org]", they have naughty intentions. ;-)
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And the brand new swimming pools in the judges' backyards have absolutely nothing at all to do with how they ruled... nothing to see here, move along.
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Yes they are, in the way Greenpeace, the American Red Cross, or the FSF are "people". Corporations are simply groups of people acting together. Why should one group of people be allowed to pool their resources and influence, but not others?
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Some are out for an ideal the others for profit. Changing laws to increase someone's profits is nuts.
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Re:The RIAA are not people (Score:5, Interesting)
So, groups dedicated to gaining power to dictate the behavior of others (political power) are more moral than groups dedicated to acquiring greater wealth (economic power)?
There is no such dichotomy.
There are groups dedicated to "gaining political power" (loaded phrasing for "influencing public policy", they aren't political parties and thus never have political power directly) and then there are corporations that already have power (through their wealth) and wish to increase that power, AND IN ADDITION are ALSO dedicated to "gaining political power" (that is, influencing public policy).
It is a very tilted playing field, with corporations already having tremendous advantages over everyone else, and always seeking to increase those advantages.
Pretending that there is any sort of equivalence between public non-profits, and international corporations in influence, or morality, or anything else is as crazy as asserting that negotiations between an individual employee and an international corporation over terms of employment is one between equals.*
*Many right wingers will fail to see the preposterousness of this latter example; for them there is no hope of enlightenment.
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Yes they are, in the way Greenpeace, the American Red Cross, or the FSF are "people". Corporations are simply groups of people acting together. Why should one group of people be allowed to pool their resources and influence, but not others?
Perhaps because the intended purpose of all the groups you've cited is to improve society while the official purpose of the typical corporation is to shield the individuals running it from the repercussions of being purely amoral profit generators?
Re:The RIAA are not people (Score:5, Insightful)
really? would you?
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are people. And, since this ruling was from a Federal appeals court, the next appeal would be to the Supreme Court. Anyone want to place a bet on which side of this argument Roberts, Scalia, and Alito will take?
ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright is, at it's core, the government-enforced ability for a private entity to say "you're not allowed to say that, because I said it first". This is by definition an impingement on free speech.
Free speech != original speech.
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Re:ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fugitive slave laws are a system to ensure that those who have spent good money buying and training Africans don't get screwed just cause some abolitionist runs an underground railroad and could, hypothetically, free as many slaves as possible.
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Did you just honestly compare the ownership of a person to the ownership of a work that conceivably took weeks, months or years to complete that resulted from the work of an individual, or a group of individuals? That is such a ridiculous, absurd comparison that I don't even know where to begin.
When people compare things like this to slavery and Nazism, they either look like idiots, or if taken seriously degrade what happened during those events.
I am unaware of any books that were offered up by their fello
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He's just obeying the Goodwin's law [wikipedia.org]
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The phonebook example could have been used. Phoneb
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Absurd. At no point did his comparison imply that problems with copyright are as significant as the problem of slavery.
What is the problem with comparing things with other things of a much greater magnitude? When people compare electrons to planets, do you object because planets are obviously much, much larger and clearly must have nothing at all in common with something with such a far removed size?
His sentence was clearly saying that not screwing specific people over is not always the most important thing
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The fugitive slave laws are a system to ensure that those who have spent good money buying and training Africans don't get screwed just cause some abolitionist runs an underground railroad and could, hypothetically, free as many slaves as possible
Wow, that was fairly obnoxious. You may have missed the part where slaves were people, and content isn't.
Re:ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess he means "not allowing people to read/share/copy a book is like keeping people as slaves".
This sounds like "the content wants to be free".
After all, it makes sense to have some ability to control our own work. The problem is that instead of just assuring people don't get robbed, the congress usually gives *AA sort of a license to kill.
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> I guess he means "not allowing people to read/share/copy a book is like keeping people as slaves".
> This sounds like "the content wants to be free".
Or simply people want to be free. Not in a physical sense as the classical concept of slavery implies, but a mental one. Exposure to new ideas expands one's ability to think and understand - to draw meaning from events. A public deprived of these expanded abilities is easier to control and oppress. This is why maximizing the number of works freely availa
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After all, it makes sense to have some ability to control our own work.
But that's not what the constitutionsl basis of copyright in the US is. Constitutionally you're supposed to have a limited time monopoly on publication, nothing more, and when the time is up anybody can do anything with it they damned well please, and you have no control whatever.
The intellectual property belongs to we, the people, not we, the creators. I no more own the works I create than I own the house I rent; in both cases I have a
Re:ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, it makes sense to have some ability to control our own work.
One you publish it, it's not "yours"; you don't own it. The phrase "control our own work" loses all meaning when applied to published content. If you don't understand this, you don't understand the Constitution, since it's the fundamental principle behind copyright law.
Congress shall have the power:
"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."
The two most important points here:
1) The purpose of copyright is not to enrich authors and inventors. It exists to provide incentive to authors and inventors to publish their works for the benefit of society.
2) Congress can limit the duration a copyright and can do so without due process. Congress can't expire your rights to things you actually own, like the shirt on your back.
If you have an unpublished manuscript, you own that. Destroy it, toss it in a fire, do whatever you like with it; it's yours. The moment you publish, you give up your ownership. You have no rights to recall, revoke, or destroy the copy of your published manuscript that is in my head. That's mine, not yours.
However, we like manuscripts, and we want you to write them. In exchange, we offer you a time-limited exclusive control over certain rights of ownership. We will never give back ownership (we can't), but we will give you back a taste of what you had before you published. This is your payment for publishing the manuscript and giving up ownership. We wish you the best in exploiting those rights as you see fit.
Just don't make the mistake of thinking you still own your published material or that you even should own it. The rights a person has over their own thoughts in their own head supercede any and all property rights.
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." --Thomas Jefferson
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Are you saying that writing a book is like keeping people as slaves?
Actually, I'd say the monopoly on the words is very much analogous to keeping people as slaves.
Our goals as a society for the two couldn't be any more different, and that's kind of the point. Our goal with copyright is to promote the expansion of culture for our society as a whole to benefit from. To accomplish this we allow the authors to take captive their words, and be assured that they, and they alone have the right to sell them for a limited time.
Conversely, as a society we have deemed slavery an unn
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> No, copyright at its core is a system to ensure those who spent months writing books didnt get fucked ...because the first genuine literary expert to examine the work declares it rediculously derivative.
Copyright doesn't exist to "protect authors". It never did. This is just the "Big Lie" perpetrated by corporate sock puppets.
Oddly enough, this ruling will just make it easier for the estates of long dead authors to shake down newer writers that "spend months writing a book".
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No, copyright at its core is a system to ensure those who spent months writing books didnt get fucked just cause the guy next door has a printing press and could, hypothetically make and sell as many copies as possible.
No, copyright at its core is a system to increase the public benefit: The public benefits when works are created and published that otherwise would not have been, and the public benefits when works are unprotected, so that they can be used most productively (e.g. enjoyed, copied and distribu
Re:ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright applies to a great deal more than speech.
But yes, that ruling stinks. It basically says someone with lobbying dollars can buy exceptions to the first amendment. And at the same time it reinforces the eagerness of the courts (federal in this case) to sell out to big business/groups whom they are trying to fool us into believing are somehow representing "the people". If you want to be making that sort of comparison, "big business" is pretty much the polar opposite of "the people".
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(Cough)Disney(Cough)
Re:ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright was in the original constitution, free speech was not:
"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."
However, unlike what this ruling seems to say, the Constitution gives congress no authority to reassign ownership of works and I'm pretty sure "limited time" is now is nowhere near what the founders had in mind.
As far as I'm concerned, what should be focused on here is the ban on passing Ex Post Facto laws in the Constitition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law#United_States [wikipedia.org]
This seems like such a breach.
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Re:ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong because "free" speech has nothing to do with copyright or vice versa.
Free speech means you can say unpopular things, things that disagree with the "establishment", things that are inflammatory, things that are downright disgusting (in some segment of the populations opinion)..
Free speech does not mean you can copy things either privately or for profit.. it never has and it never will. Fair Use/Copyright/Public Domain are all interrelated with only each other.
There are times when Free speech and Copyright may cross paths.. (such as I dunno.. someone putting out a scathing unauthorized biography of a political figure.. and selling that book/movie.. and then suing someone else for trying to copy his or her work and sell it)
I really wish that people who are so into constitutional/bill of rights issues would at least do the rest of the world a favor and get a passing knowledge of the subject first.
This misunderstanding of Free Speech comes up nearly as often as the complete and utter confusion over "the right to keep and bear arms" clause.. not to mention the strict constitutional interpretations that conveniently (much like religious zealots) ignore the parts that they do not like or agree with.
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>>>I really wish that people who are so into constitutional/bill of rights issues would at least do the rest of the world a favor and get a passing knowledge of the subject first.
Says the person who doesn't understand this is really a TENTH amendment issue from the Bill of Rights. Does Congress have the power to take public domain works like Tom Sawyer and move it back into copyright?
No.
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What about the 4th?
A ruling like this is basically taking the work of some author "that spend months of labor" writing something and gives it to someone else.
All of the shills shedding crocodile tears really should be harping on this point more.
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There are times when Free speech and Copyright may cross paths.. (such as I dunno.. someone putting out a scathing unauthorized biography of a political figure.. and selling that book/movie.. and then suing someone else for trying to copy his or her work and sell it)
Uh, like for example most of fair use?
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. 106 and 17 U.S.C. 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.
This section largely exists because of the first amendment, without it you'd be almost unable to talk about a work because you'd be infringing copyright. It's funny how you talk about others getting passing knowledge but yourself seem clueless.
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>>>Copyright... "you're not allowed to say that, because I said it first"
True. However per usual the Courts are blind and do not see the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Congress was never granted the power to take public domain art or writings and convert them into copyrighted art/writing. They may not take the Venus de Milo and copyright it to MGM. Congress may not use power it was never given.
Such powers are reserved to the Member State governments, or the People.
Re:ALL copyright is a restriction on free speech. (Score:4, Informative)
There are two legal issues here:
1) This is a straightforward application of the Supreme Court precedent in Eldred v Ashcroft. Lower courts are bound by SCOTUS precedent and so this is an easy call in terms of case law even if you think (as I do) that it's bad policy and Eldred was wrongly decided.
2) It's not a First Amendment issue but an Article I, Section 8 issue and in particular if you read the clause "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" as meaning that Congress can only grant IP rights when such rights are likely to incentivize creativity (which would exclude retroactive grants).
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Copyright is, at it's core, the government-enforced ability for a private entity to say "you're not allowed to say that, because I said it first". This is by definition an impingement on free speech.
Which is why unfortunately I don't think this is any more or less of a violation of the first amendment than copyright itself is. If you say copyright for 50 years is constitutional and 70 years is constitutional, then I don't see how copyright for years 1-50 and 60-70 can be unconstitutional. Some people would say the deal is whatever copyright was when the work was made, but if you look at other laws Congress might very well decide to allow something for ten years then forbid it again. When it comes to pr
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As much as we may dislike the ruling, there is no inherent conflict between copyright and free speech. Both are clearly represented in the Constitution:
Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power...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;
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging th
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Good thing the Founders wrote Copyright into the Constitution, so it is on an equal footing with Free Speech, then. This is not an accident. Copyright is an intentional restriction of the public's rights to communicate and express themselves.
Public Domain erosion (Score:5, Insightful)
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If the Public Domain erodes, so too does our cultural identity. Sounds hyperbolic, but it is true. How far back do you want to go? Shall we just end the PD as a possibility, and all things are owned for all time? Who does that benefit, outside those whose items would be escheated to?
Lawyers.
Who does that benefit? (Score:2)
It benefits the people that you pay off to change the rules. ( ie,congress/judges/attorneys )
does this mean.... (Score:2)
Disney just lost the rights to winnie the pooh?
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Finally the right call (Score:4, Interesting)
This is absolutely the correct conclusion to the Golan case. As someone who wrote a 20 page term paper on this case for an International Intellectual Property class in law school, I understand the OP's concern, but this decision will have far narrower application than imagined. It is absolutely ESSENTIAL if we are going to meet our obligations under TRIPs in order to avoid WTO sanctions, and it will apply only to a small subset of authors who utilized a small subset of works that fell into the public domain because the US /wasn't/ following its treaty obligations for a number of years.
Important decision this is, but the sky ain't falling yet.
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I can imagine you getting a papercut and going to the emergency room, screaming "it's the beginning of the end!"
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Then maybe we should not be entering into such treaties?
Why in the world did the copyright on M go back into place? Oh yeah a treaty that decided a 1931 work somehow still needs protection. Everyone involved in the film is dead, no amount of money will incentivize zombie Fritz Lang to make further works.
Re:Finally the right call (Score:5, Insightful)
First, our treaty obligations do not override the limits on the federal government imposed by the Constitution, either as a matter of law, or, frankly, proper policy. If the political branches enter into a treaty that requires the US to act unconstitutionally, then we will unavoidably have to violate the treaty until we can fix it, or get out of it. If TRIPS requires this, then we cannot comply with TRIPS.
Second, you're assuming that we need to even participate in TRIPS; we don't. The US has a strong enough position that we don't need to enter into any copyright treaties, quite frankly. Our relevant industries are quite capable of dealing with that, just as they dealt with the US not being in Berne until 1989. Our copyright law has become bad enough due to domestic actors, but the 'back door' created by treaty obligations is completely abysmal. It helps to get laws pushed through Congress without debate or the opportunity to amend them, lest we be in violation of yet another foolish treaty.
The US should immediately withdraw from all copyright treaties, amend its copyright law to best serve the domestic interests of all Americans (not merely creators and publishers), should unilaterally offer national treatment to foreign authors, provided their works are published in the US and otherwise comply with the formalities we need to re-establish and strengthen, and should limit its international involvement in copyright matters to informal cooperation with other states to ensure that their copyright laws do not in some way become mutually incompatible with ours (typically due to formalities). In this way, we would not only improve things for ourselves, while not materially harming our own copyright-related industries, but we would be reigning things in, and once again provide guidance to the rest of the world as to how copyright laws can work sensibly. That's something we haven't done a good job of in the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly since we enacted the disasterous 1976 Act.
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Except, you forget that it's US politicians cramming these copyright laws down the rest of the world's collective throat, under the guise of protecting US interests. Heck, the *AA's help their equivalent group in various countries lobby the government to get your DMCA passed. So much so, that, they'll just re-use the document [michaelgeist.ca] in another country.
TFA points out that Co
Re:Finally the right call (Score:5, Informative)
The part of Section 514 at issue here applies only to (1) works that were based on public domain works which (2) fell into the the public domain because the US was not complying with its Berne Convention obligations. Section 514 restores copyright to the works /that should have been copyrighted to begin with/. It does this because international obligations require it (not because Congress wanted to). It applies only retrospectively, and CANNOT be used to protect new works in any new way.
This means that (1) the US is only meeting treaty obligations, providing the same level of protection as that afforded in other WTO nations, and (2) the application is limited to a finite number of works and affected authors.
Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
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Apply this to Government, Church, and Universities. There's a Darwinian evolution going on here, organizations that adapt and grow survive and out compete the ones that don't.
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I was under the impression that it was the government's job to protect our rights.
If that were the case, no one would have ever thought we needed a Constitution. Or a Bill or Rights.
Government provides services: defense, build roads, educate, explore space, etc.
We in this case means Americans, i.e. U.S. Citizens.
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What does the 1st have to do with it? (Score:2)
While I think removing works from the Public Domain was a bad idea, I'm a little fuzzy as to what on earth that has to do with the 1st amendment. I can understand why removing say, the law or official publications from the public domain would be bad and stifle free speech, but I'm not sure how removing private works from public domain would rise to the level of a constitutional violation.
I'm not trying to be combative here... I genuinely want to know!
There's a reason to have an ever expanding public (Score:4, Insightful)
For anyone here who promotes the expansion of copyright law I ask a question:
What if Shakespeare was still in copyright? Or Beethoven, or Bach or Chaucer or Gilbert and Sullivan.
Would society be better if such intellectual legacies were allowed? Without a constant updated public domain isn't society suffering?
Why not? (Score:2)
While I think we are on the same side of the copyright issue, I think your argument isn't really a strong one. I mean, what would happen if Shakespeare's work was still under copyright? Books of his collected works would cost about the same (supply/demand would be about the same). I don't see a lot of obviously derivative work that isn't parody, which is allowed under copyright law. Academic analysis is a
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Having a monopoly on publications of Shakespeare's works would probably affect the supply.
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If Shakespeare was still under copyright then every little pissant group that wanted to put on a play would have to pay a heft license to some organization like ASCAP.
HELL, ASCAP is already doing all it can to destroy small local venues. If you allowed the same with the theatre, you would end up with similar results.
What little high culture exists in America would be quickly priced out of existence.
I don't like it, but it's probably correct (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like the ruling, but it's probably correct. Congress has the Constitutional authority to institute copyright laws and there is no particular legal reason to presume that once something is in the public domain, it can never be returned to being copyrighted. Not liking it is not a legal reason.
However, after skimming over the decision I see no mention of the issue of this being an ex post facto law w.r.t. using things that were in the public domain, but suddenly weren't. I believe that under a reasonable interpretation of that clause you can not touch those people, and it is not Constitutional to ask them to pony up any money, "reasonable" amounts or otherwise. Liabilities should only be incurred based on the copyrighted status of the used works at the time of use, not at the whim of any future Congressional acts. Unlike "not liking retroactive extension", this point is actually a Constitution-based argument.
Re:I don't like it, but it's probably correct (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you nailed it.
People claim this is a First Amendment issue, but I can't see how. Free Speech isn't about publishing other people's works; it's about protecting people's right to disagree with the government.
More to the point, though: Copyright law is not part of the Constitution, so Congress has every right to change it as they see fit.
I don't like it. I don't like how Copyright has become a way to protect big companies at the expense of the little guy. But I can't see any way to interpret the First Amendment so that it conflicts with Copyright and Congress's right to extend it.
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Bullshit. Free speech is about protecting people's rights to speak, period. This "disagree with the government" qualification is your own invention and has no basis in law.
Wrong again [wikipedia.org].
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>People claim this is a First Amendment issue, but I can't see how. Free Speech isn't about publishing other people's works; it's about protecting people's right to disagree with the government.
1. "publishing other people's works" - nope - if it's in the public domain it belongs to no one and everyone.
2. "protecting people's right to disagree with the government." - if the public domain work is a screed of political speech and people are using that to criticise the government, then taking ownership and p
Re:I don't like it, but it's probably correct (Score:5, Insightful)
People claim this is a First Amendment issue, but I can't see how. Free Speech isn't about publishing other people's works; it's about protecting people's right to disagree with the government.
Well that's just completely wrong. You are saying, for example, that if I wanted to stage a performance of Romeo and Juliet, which was wholly apolitical, the government could arbitrarily choose to shut me down, because I am not Shakespeare, and I am not criticizing them? That's absurd.
The First Amendment protects speech, period. Political speech is of particular concern, but it protects artistic speech, commercial speech, etc. just as well. It also protects people when they repeat the speech of someone else, rather than create their own. We temporarily limit that last part with copyright, but the underlying right doesn't discriminate. That's why when copyright expires on a work, there is no affirmative grant to the public to use that work; instead the restriction is lifted, and the previously-dormant free speech right can finally be exercised.
Copyright law is not part of the Constitution, so Congress has every right to change it as they see fit.
Only within Constitutional bounds. And the Constitution does set some limits and requirements on what Congress may do.
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"no particular legal reason to presume that once something is in the public domain, it can never be returned to being copyrighted."
When some publisher type with enough money to grease the palms of the "Copyright Committee" in Congress for the rights to, say, Plato's Republic (although why some one would want the rights to that is beyond me, but just sayin') and then you come up with a really insanely great ((c) Apple Computer, Inc.) advertising campaign that uses passages from said work, well, you're screwed.
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Sure there is. It says so right in the US Constitution: "... by securing, for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
Idiot bloody lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
They all want to argue the First Amendment, like it's some Holy Scripture and they get bonus karma for it in a future life.
Taking things out of the public domain that were already there is the opposite of progressing Science and (the) useful Arts. That's the pertinent Constitutional issue, not some bullshit Amendment-of-last-resort argument.
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The problem of free speech is WHY that part of the Constitution is worded the way it is to begin with.
One problem is that the SCOTUS has already rejected the idea that repeated retroactive term increases don't contradict the notion of "limited".
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Dibs on the "Invisible man" (Score:2)
I like that story. I think I'll own it.
Seriously - this is about as far as you can get from "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" as you can get, taking from the public domain and making a private monopoly.
Perhaps the argument would be that classically nobles and aristocrats funded science, so by funneling more monopolies and money engines to the super-elite, you might get more 'trickle down' arts and sciences. However, looking to corporations, the trend is for less actual science to get do
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Why bother following any laws anymore? So many unjust laws on the books it almost undermines the validity of any sane laws that are left.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you worried about RIAA when... (Score:4, Interesting)
What worries me the most is that, if Mickey can get his rat ass protected, what will Congress see fit to remove from the Public Domain, and just how much of a campaign donation does it take to do it?
Oook, still not convinced ? (Score:4, Interesting)
SC will have final "word" on free speech (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
I don't see a first amendment issue here. I find the notion of removing works from the public domain (for any reason) to be abhorrent, but the court is correct when it says there are no first amendment issues.
Hmm - a taking (Score:2)
So, if the public domain is taken away from people who are using it in their business, isn't that a taking ? Since my company uses public domain videos, who do I apply to for money to compensate me ? (This would fit right in with recent Supreme Court rulings concerning takings.)
US Constitution, Article 1, Section 9 (Score:4, Interesting)
I know the whole "for limited times" provision was held by the Supreme Court to mean "for unlimited time", but c'mon? What part of "No" don't they understand? For that matter, where is the "just compensation" without which "nor shall private property be taken for public use" according to the Fifth Amendment?
Theft (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nothing less than theft. Once in the public domain, I own it. You own it, we all own it. It's literally stealing from everyone and giving to few.
Re:This is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Those liability limits only apply if negligence was not found to be a factor. BP is paying to avoid anything criminal from happening. If they had not been caught with their hands in the cookie jar they would be trying to make use of those legal limits.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's because oil interests lobbied Congress to basically take away any penalties so they could be free to pursue profit without any responsibility.
Now, people are realizing that if you let industry write the rules of how it has to conduct business, they will do stupid and greedy things without consequences.
The proble
Re: (Score:2)
No. The ruling said that it was a violation of the First Amendment but that was OK.
That's why it's so dangerous.
Fighting to preserve the Union or against history's greatest evil are pretty decent reasons for ignoring our founding ideals. The ability of someone to profit off of a 100 year old book, not so much. Treaties that don't pass constitutional muster should be thrown out regardless of the consequences.
The supremes aren't there to just rubber stamp what the president or congress does. They are equal pa