Copyfraud - public domain's fate?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I believe that these life+70 rules only apply to books published after 1978, at least in the US.

That's ONLY in the US. Everywhere else with a "life+70" rule, it's a simple "life+70". As I say, that means that in most countries, in a few weeks we'll get all the books whose authors died during 1940 entering the public domain.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Okay, I think I'm starting to understand the rules. Prior to 1978, a book was initially copyrighted for 28 years, and it could have an extension of another 28 years if the copyright was re-registered. The rules were changed with the 1978 agreement. Any book that was in the public domain stayed in the public domain (i.e. if it published before 1979-2*28=1923). Any book that was still under copyright in 1978 automatically had copyright extended to 95 years since the date of publication. Any new publications after 1978 automatically got the life+50 year copyright duration (later increased to life+70). So, since 1923, the only books that entered public domain were those published before 1951 that were not re-registered for the second 28 year extension.

So, assuming the rules don't change again beforehand, books published in 1923 that were still under copyright in 1978 will enter public domain in 2018, and books published in 1979 will enter public domain in 2049.

You're talking about the uniquely complicated US rules. You live in Canada, which has a simple "life+50" rule. Currently in Canada, any book whose author died before the end of 1959 is in the public domain. On 1st Jan 2011 those books whose authors died during 1960 will be added to that.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You're talking about the uniquely complicated US rules. You live in Canada, which has a simple "life+50" rule. Currently in Canada, any book whose author died before the end of 1959 is in the public domain. On 1st Jan 2011 those books whose authors died during 1960 will be added to that.

Thanks. I was under the impression that the rules were different depending on the country of origin of the book, but looking at gutenberg.ca, I do see books available there that are still under copyright in the US. Okay, things are currently not as bad here as south of the border. But Canada is subject to intense trade pressure from our neighbours to the South, and I wouldn't be surprised if we "harmonize" our copyright laws with the those of the Americans at some point.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Thanks. I was under the impression that the rules were different depending on the country of origin of the book, but looking at gutenberg.ca, I do see books available there that are still under copyright in the US. Okay, things are currently not as bad here as south of the border.

No, it depends solely upon YOUR location, not where the book was published. You can legally download any book whose author died on or before 31st December 1959.

[Krystian Galaj]

I think I need to briefly summarize my position, and to put together a series of links to the bases of my viewpoint. Those are all interesting to read (at least they were for me), though they're usually much less radical than what I presently think

I certainly don't have all the answers, and I don't have the imagination to believably put together a world where people wouldn't consider ideas their property, though I have a glimpse of such a world when looking at open source society, in which people write useful source code and then publish it, free to use for everyone, provided their name is remembered as the creators. I'm a programmer, not a writer. But just because I can't well defend my point in words, it doesn't mean it's invalid.

I see two fundamentally different classes of things though:
1. Those made of physical atoms, which are always a finite resource, which can be stolen, and when they are, the original owner doesn't have them anymore - those we all consider sensinble to be property, with all property and market laws applicable.
2. Those which are ideas, and a person's sharing the idea with another person doesn't deprive the first one of anything. For those, I don't believe the property analogy makes sense, and using it tends to make the infinite resource of knowledge artificially scarce, and thus has a negative effect on economy, and on welfare of society as a whole.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote:

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. 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. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, Monticello, August 13, 1813

That tells me he didn't have today's viewpoint on an idea as someone's property, and I'm happy to know that.

There's also a series of articles Eric Flint put together some 4 years ago, while working for Baen:
http://www.ericflint.net/index.php/2...and-copyright/
He doesn't argue for abandoning copyright, but he summarizes real benefits and problems with copyright for authors, and he points to various things that work differently than one would suppose.
His series of articles is based on two beautifully worded speeches Thomas Macaulay made before the British Parliament in 1841, when he argued against extending copyright term length. One excerpt from those speeches seems to me prophetic today:

I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot . . .

Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.

You might think he thinks of an idea as a property, by the way, but since I know in which circumstances and to whom he spoke, it looks to me like he keeps an open mind. He never says what is good or bad, only how people look at things.
Here's the link to speeches in their entirety: http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

From economical side of things, here's two short series of articles by an economist, Mike Masnick:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/200...20252302.shtml ( "On The Constitutional Reasons Behind Copyright And Patents" )
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070503/012939.shtml ( "The Grand Unified Theory On The Economics Of Free" )
He's arguing that the patents seem to bring loss, not gain to society, and that treating infinitely copyable resource like ebooks as scarce good doesn't work, and points to the ways in which money can nevertheless be made on ebooks.

Finally, there's a whole book summarizing the losses patent and copyright law brought to society, and trying to find the evidence of gains:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/genera...ainstfinal.htm ( "Against Intellectual Monopoly" )

I tried to find resources that would convince me society does gain from copyright, but I could find none - many articles seem to say "yes, the society as a whole loses, but the authors gain, so let's support the authors and it doesn't matter if the society loses even more". If you know of any resource that would show that the society (and not just some individuals) does gain from copyright law, I'd be happy if you pointed me to it. I'm not comfortable with a thought that currently the world works based on civil disobedience to the copyright law, and only thanks to fair use that makes it possible to make copyight law ineffective where it matters, so I'd prefer to believe that copyright law is good, or to see it abandoned. Otherwise it's living a lie...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

I tried to find resources that would convince me society does gain from copyright, but I could find none - many articles seem to say "yes, the society as a whole loses, but the authors gain, so let's support the authors and it doesn't matter if the society loses even more". If you know of any resource that would show that the society (and not just some individuals) does gain from copyright law, I'd be happy if you pointed me to it. I'm not comfortable with a thought that currently the world works based on civil disobedience to the copyright law, and only thanks to fair use that makes it possible to make copyight law ineffective where it matters, so I'd prefer to believe that copyright law is good, or to see it abandoned. Otherwise it's living a lie...

Copyright law needs to be simplified. If you create something, it's yours forever and you have full legal rights to do whatever you want with it. You also have the right to pass it on to someone else, who in turn, has the same rights forever; and on and on and on into infinity.

Whether society gains or loses from it is totally irrelevant. Society didn't create it and has no right to any part of it.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Copyright law needs to be simplified. If you create something, it's yours forever and you have full legal rights to do whatever you want with it. You also have the right to pass it on to someone else, who in turn, has the same rights forever; and on and on and on into infinity.

Whether society gains or loses from it is totally irrelevant. Society didn't create it and has no right to any part of it.

Society created words the author used, in most cases all the ideas author used, all the building blocks of a story. It's crazy to me to pick all those building blocks, use them, and then say "yes, I took the culture from society, I learned it, and I made such and such combination of ideas, and all this belongs to me now, you can't use it back".

There was a story Philip K Dick wrote (I just looked through his collection of stories but can't find it now) about a society where you could copyright words. Every time you used the word in your speech or thought, you would be fined specific amount of money. I don't believe anyone would want to live in a world like this. If stories could be patented like you want them to be, soon it would be impossible to write a new story without being sued by a hundred idea squatters.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ankh

I do not think that Mobile Read has the same agenda as Project Gutenberg (and why it should?). Specifically, "Gone With The Wind" is in public domain in Canada, but when the estate threatened a legal action (which will inevitably fail if someone had a money and time to defend in the Canadian court of law), the book was removed from the e-book collection. Australian Project Gutenberg, however, still has the book in their collection, despite receiving similarly worded "greeting".

Do not get me wrong, I do not blame Mobile Read for avoiding that nightmare. I am just pointing out how costly and lengthy the defence of public domain can turn out. Which is, precisely, the reason why lawyer bullying works.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Not quite.

The problem is that a Gutenberg website in Australia is almost certainly not restricting its downloads to Australian citizens. As such, if a US citizen accesses Gone With the Wind from the Aussie site, that could present a legitimate issue.

Ebook retailers don't really have this problem, since in theory they have a verifiable method to determine the country where the buyer resides -- and an open website does not. Thus if a book is PD in England and copyrighted in the US, they can accommodate those different copyright term lengths.

It's also my understanding that if you were printing a paper copy and selling it in Australia, the Mitchell estate can't stop you unless you tried to export those books to the US for sale.

This is exactly the issue I brought up in another thread with regard to MR and its library....

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

A tax for what?

It's an asset, right? Assets are one of the things people tend to pay tax on. If you feel it's worth holding on to it, there's not problem in paying to that privilege, I'd say.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Copyright law needs to be simplified. If you create something, it's yours forever and you have full legal rights to do whatever you want with it.

I agree with this. But once you're dead, all bets are off. You could make it a bit more difficult by saying "by death or the author, or until the author reaches the age of 65, whichever comes last". That way, if an author dies young, her (or his) children/partner won't be left in the cold for some time.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

If stories could be patented like you want them to be, soon it would be impossible to write a new story without being sued by a hundred idea squatters.

They already are copyrighted.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But once you're dead, all bets are off. You could make it a bit more difficult by saying "by death or the author, or until the author reaches the age of 65, whichever comes last". That way, if an author dies young, her (or his) children/partner won't be left in the cold for some time.

I disagree. I see no difference in owning the copyright to a book than owning a piece of land. If death can deliver your book into the public domain, then death should also deliver your land into the hands of the state.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Soldim

It's an asset, right? Assets are one of the things people tend to pay tax on. If you feel it's worth holding on to it, there's not problem in paying to that privilege, I'd say.

As income tax, no problem.

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

As income tax, no problem.

As property tax, the same as with land you own -- to which you compare the copyright on a book, two or three posts up.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Soldim

As property tax, the same as with land you own -- to which you compare the copyright on a book, two or three posts up.

It was just an example. I could just as easily have picked some other form of property.

As to property tax; no. It should be treated as income.