4 ms·

Sigh ... as much of a supporter I am of the public domain, I'm really thinking we just need to end the charade that a "public domain" even exists anymore. Becau

by byuu 10y ago

Sigh ... as much of a supporter I am of the public domain, I'm really thinking we just need to end the charade that a "public domain" even exists anymore. Because, increasingly, it doesn't. Let's face it ... I'll never see a single work made within my lifetime make it the public domain. And copyrights are just going to keep getting extended and extended. Mickey Mouse is never making it to the public domain. And as if having to go back to pre-World War II to find public domain works wasn't enough, now they're trying to undermine even that! If I thought there were any chance we could change the laws toward our favor, I wouldn't advocate this. But I just don't see any hope at all anymore. So let's just call a spade a spade, and state that the public domain doesn't exist: everyone owns everything, forever. We'll reclassify historians and preservationists as unquestionably being "pirates". Most of us already are. But the few left that are trying to play within the confines of the law, only to continually have the rug pulled out from under them, can get to work with the rest of us on the wrong side of the law. Civil disobedience is the only recourse we have left. It's that, or we give up our very history to corporate interests.

vacri 10y ago
>I'll never see a single work made within my lifetime make it the public domain. Plenty of work makes it to the public domain; it just need to be noted as such by the creator, and creators do do that from time to time. On Mickey Mouse specifically, I don't really have a problem with that one. Mickey Mouse isn't something created by someone who is riding on their past successes and whose descendants are riding on the coattails of. It's an actively developed and organised bit of intellectual property, which is responsible for literally thousands of jobs. They are actively working their IP, rather than merely sitting back and demanding a cut if other people want to work it. As such, I think protection for that is reasonable, as it is a going business concern. I have far more problem with IP not making it to public domain if it's not actively worked. An example from Australia: there was an iconic song "Land Down Under" in the 80s, in which a 12-note melody was in the bridge. That melody was "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree", a very recognisable Australiana kids/folk tune. The original owners didn't pursue damages, but nearly 20 years after the pop song made it, a business group bought the rights to Kookaburra and sued the creators of the pop song. This business group didn't 'value add' to the IP - they didn't actively work it. The case turned out with a relatively sensible ending - the judge gave some minor royalties to the rights holders because while the melody was clearly in use (it was the point of using that melody, after all), it wasn't the main theme of the song. So I think copyright should be a bit more complex - if you're actually actively working the IP to a reasonable (yes, 'define reasonable...') amount, you should be able to extend it. Otherwise, expiry as it used to be. Some protection would need to be figured out to prevent trivial token 'working', of course.
- byuu 10y ago
  > Plenty of work makes it to the public domain; it just need to be noted as such by the creator, and creators do do that from time to time. Every time I try and release my source code to the public domain, I invariably get people telling me it's not possible to do this due to laws in various countries, and that I should use the ISC/MIT license instead. I've taken to releasing a lot of my work as "public domain where applicable; ISC where not." > So I think copyright should be a bit more complex My general idea of copyright would be that it's 14 years from the date of creation, with a one-time possible extension to 28-years that is not automatic (basically, what copyright used to be.) The problem is abandoned works. If you produce a game on some volatile medium like a CD-R, then use DRM to protect it, it's quite possible that in 28 years, not a single working copy will exist. The only way it can enter the public domain is thus through breaking the law initially. And let's not even get into things like online servers required to use software =( Ideally, there'd be a forfeiture of copyright for "abandoned works" (works the author will no longer sell to anyone); but I recognize that a legal framework for such a concept would be damn near impossible to create (you'd get artists saying, "sure I'll sell you a copy still ... for $100,000,000")
- cooper12 10y ago
  Simple, allow new copyrights on derivative works. Except wait, that's how it already is in America. I'm fine with them redesigning Mickey Mouse for new works. However, it's not cool for them to keep the public domain locked up so that their older works don't enter the public domain—heck, a lot of these are direct adaptations of stories in the public domain. They already have a trademark on Mickey Mouse so its not like other people would start stealing Mickey Mouse.

by byuu 10y ago

vacri 10y ago

>I'll never see a single work made within my lifetime make it the public domain. Plenty of work makes it to the public domain; it just need to be noted as such by the creator, and creators do do that from time to time. On Mickey Mouse specifically, I don't really have a problem with that one. Mickey Mouse isn't something created by someone who is riding on their past successes and whose descendants are riding on the coattails of. It's an actively developed and organised bit of intellectual property, which is responsible for literally thousands of jobs. They are actively working their IP, rather than merely sitting back and demanding a cut if other people want to work it. As such, I think protection for that is reasonable, as it is a going business concern. I have far more problem with IP not making it to public domain if it's not actively worked. An example from Australia: there was an iconic song "Land Down Under" in the 80s, in which a 12-note melody was in the bridge. That melody was "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree", a very recognisable Australiana kids/folk tune. The original owners didn't pursue damages, but nearly 20 years after the pop song made it, a business group bought the rights to Kookaburra and sued the creators of the pop song. This business group didn't 'value add' to the IP - they didn't actively work it. The case turned out with a relatively sensible ending - the judge gave some minor royalties to the rights holders because while the melody was clearly in use (it was the point of using that melody, after all), it wasn't the main theme of the song. So I think copyright should be a bit more complex - if you're actually actively working the IP to a reasonable (yes, 'define reasonable...') amount, you should be able to extend it. Otherwise, expiry as it used to be. Some protection would need to be figured out to prevent trivial token 'working', of course.

byuu 10y ago
> Plenty of work makes it to the public domain; it just need to be noted as such by the creator, and creators do do that from time to time. Every time I try and release my source code to the public domain, I invariably get people telling me it's not possible to do this due to laws in various countries, and that I should use the ISC/MIT license instead. I've taken to releasing a lot of my work as "public domain where applicable; ISC where not." > So I think copyright should be a bit more complex My general idea of copyright would be that it's 14 years from the date of creation, with a one-time possible extension to 28-years that is not automatic (basically, what copyright used to be.) The problem is abandoned works. If you produce a game on some volatile medium like a CD-R, then use DRM to protect it, it's quite possible that in 28 years, not a single working copy will exist. The only way it can enter the public domain is thus through breaking the law initially. And let's not even get into things like online servers required to use software =( Ideally, there'd be a forfeiture of copyright for "abandoned works" (works the author will no longer sell to anyone); but I recognize that a legal framework for such a concept would be damn near impossible to create (you'd get artists saying, "sure I'll sell you a copy still ... for $100,000,000")
cooper12 10y ago
Simple, allow new copyrights on derivative works. Except wait, that's how it already is in America. I'm fine with them redesigning Mickey Mouse for new works. However, it's not cool for them to keep the public domain locked up so that their older works don't enter the public domain—heck, a lot of these are direct adaptations of stories in the public domain. They already have a trademark on Mickey Mouse so its not like other people would start stealing Mickey Mouse.