Larry Lessig Will Headline Friday's 'Grand Re-opening of the Public Domain' Event (archive.org) 21
An anonymous reader quotes the Internet Archive's blog
Please join us for a Grand Re-opening of the Public Domain, featuring a keynote address by Creative Commons' founder, Lawrence Lessig, on January 25, 2019. Co-hosted by the Internet Archive and Creative Commons, this celebration will feature legal thought leaders, lightning talks, demos, and the chance to play with these new public domain works. The event will take place at the Internet Archive in San Francisco....
Join the creative, legal, library, and advocacy communities plus an amazing lineup of people who will highlight the significance of this new class of public domain works. Presenters include Larry Lessig, political activist and Harvard Law professor; Corynne McSherry, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and co-editor of Boing Boing; Pam Samuelson, copyright scholar; and Jamie Boyle, the man who literally wrote the book on the public domain, and many others.
Attendees will also receive a discount on the world premiere of DJ Spooky's Quantopia: The Evolution of the Internet, a live concert commissioned by the Internet Archive "synthesizing data and art, both original and public domain materials, in tribute to the depth and high stakes of free speech and creative expression involved in our daily use of media."
Join the creative, legal, library, and advocacy communities plus an amazing lineup of people who will highlight the significance of this new class of public domain works. Presenters include Larry Lessig, political activist and Harvard Law professor; Corynne McSherry, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and co-editor of Boing Boing; Pam Samuelson, copyright scholar; and Jamie Boyle, the man who literally wrote the book on the public domain, and many others.
Attendees will also receive a discount on the world premiere of DJ Spooky's Quantopia: The Evolution of the Internet, a live concert commissioned by the Internet Archive "synthesizing data and art, both original and public domain materials, in tribute to the depth and high stakes of free speech and creative expression involved in our daily use of media."
It's the bad economic models, stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, the AC did con me into looking, but...
The real problem is insane economic models overriding the legitimate objectives of copyright (and patent law). What we have now is a kind of lottery mentality, looking for YUGE riches. The ACTUAL (and proper) goals were to encourage creativity and innovation.
Having said that, I think many of the solution approaches are obvious, but we can't get there from here. The winners of the crooked lotteries are bribing the cheapest politicians they can find to make the games more crooked. It's all about massive profits for the biggest corporate cancers. Gawdam anyone who tries to improve on Mickey Mouse if it might take a nickel out of Disney's coffers.
Can you imagine cost-recovery plus incentives? Compensation based on actual value received, including such values as pleasure and support for future creativity and innovation? Me neither, even though I think we have the technologies to implement many of those approaches now.
Will Mickey Mouse be there? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, right. Not until January 1, 2024 -- well, sort of [eff.org] -- 96 years after he was created..
Public domain New Year events at hackserpaces? (Score:4, Informative)
I had an idea that next year, on New Year's Day, we could turn our hackerspace into a public domain printing press for all the new freed works. We might even be able to do it on New Year's Eve, as we're well-situated in a downtown location that might have some slightly tipsy foot traffic after midnight.
of course, we'll need to plan ahead. Will it be important to get them from a clean source, or will pirated works magically become legal? If not, do we just refresh the Gutenberg Project website until it all shows up? Will we be able to print and bind books cheaply enough to give them away? Are our printers fast enough to print on demand, or should we print a few copies of the most important works in advance? And of course we'll have to secure volunteers and fix up donated printers.
Remember, the mouse *is not* gone! (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't imagine that the holders of Mickey et al will not continue to exit into the public domain without some kind of fight. Where the public domain is once again put off and copyrights extended somehow for the sake of some fake moral good.
The only good note, is that Senator Orinn Hatch, the biggest murderer of the public domain, read the tea leaves and was coaxed out of office and into retirement.
Shorter copyright terms are a red herring (Score:3)
The way people celebrated public domain day was quite telling. People were like, "Yay now I can consume this content for free," not "Yay now I can create commercial derivatives."
That implies what we need is not shorter copyright terms, but to legalize noncommercial infringement [freepubliclibrary.org].
People often say "why not both?" I'll tell you: we already have an originality crisis in popular culture. Are you tired of the constant reboot culture in Hollywood? I sure am. It would only get worse if more stuff entered the public domain.
Legalize noncommercial infringement. That's what we should be focused on. Not shorter terms.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if I conceded every point you made about shortening terms, none of those benefits outweigh the benefits of legalizing noncommercial infringement, which is why I find mainstream copyright reformers so insufferable. The Lessigs of the world get really excited about shortening terms and have nothing to say about the far more important issue of legalizing noncommercial infringement.
That's why we should legalize noncommercial infringement first. We can debate terms afterward.