On 2 February 2010 18:58, Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net> wrote:
The
contractual limitations are of course unacceptable under the
principles of a common law system. More importantly the anti DRM
languages places limits on what you can do with a PD work.
Huh? I don't understand this - please could you explain?
It creates two problems. First it limits my freedoms. It prevents me
from forming a contract where I lend you a PD work in return for your
agreement not to say scan it.
Secondly it means that if I wanted to release say a slideshow of PD
paintings on blu-ray I can't do it. Even more fun if I include a PD
work as part of a film (say a portrait of Shakespeare in passing) I
can't then release it through any format that uses DRM broken or
otherwise.
Even more fun it would technically make the United States dollar
illegal (PD work that contains technical protection methods in the
form of the EURion constellation).
Better to base it on commercial rather than public
interest?
Better neither. Some of the caselaw on the subject of "public
interest" isn't too good.
"The
excessive length of copyright protection combined with an absence
of formalities is highly detrimental to the accessibility of our
shared knowledge and culture."
Implementing formalities such as registration is a great way to reduce
the effectiveness of CC licenses and the GPL.
I'm not sure that I see the connection here?
Formalities means registration. Since almost no one is going to
register open source and CC works without automatic copyright the
relevant licenses become unenforceable.
As I understand it, if the 1978 US copyright law
hadn't have been
retroactive then a lot more content would now be in the public domain
though.
Depends how you define retroactive.
"When
material is deemed to fall in the structural Public Domain in
its country of origin, the material should be recognized as part of
the structural Public Domain in all other countries of the world."
Oh Zeus no. I mean yes I can understand that mexico could probably do
with the boost to it's film industry but creating a situation where
countries have an incentive to create the harshest possible copyright
terms is not advisable.
It would, however, solve a lot of problems with understanding
international copyright law when things go out of copyright. As it
stands, we're left with e.g. the crazy situation that some of Yeats
works are out of copyright in the UK but still in copyright in the US
(and until recently, the reverse applied).
That one is going to solve itself over the next 50 years or so (well
other than in Mexico). "Country of origin" ceased to be a reliable
concept some time before WW2. Again for some fairly minor gains (Most
of the world is already heading towards life+70) you make the system a
lot more complicated.
So it's better to have out-of-print works locked
away and unusable
than risk having a system where "big guys" can take advantage of it?
Orphan works proposals are unlikely to have much of an impact on
out-of-print works. Even in the case where you somehow allow the
little guy to access them without destroying the ability of the little
guy to copyright anything of their own (and yes this is a complete
fantasy) it is unlikely to impact books since they tend to take a
significant amount of time whilst having fairly straightforward
copyright ownership setups.
--
geni