Happy Public Domain Day!
Michael sez, "It's January 1st! Do you know what works are passing into the public domain in the life+50, and life+70 countries? Lots!
Here in the USA (where basically nothing published in 1923 or later will ever enter the public domain, to protect Disney's 'Steamboat Willie'), only unpublished works of the life+70 class of authors enter the public domain.
Whew. Thank goodness for small favors, right?. We can now expect the unpublished works of George Gershwin, H.P. Lovecraft, Amelia Earhart, J.M. Barrie, and John Davison Rockefeller (yeah right), among many others, to be free and clear of copyright encumbrances for those who wish to publish them.
Boy, unpublished works! Wow! After 70 years since they died, there must be lots of those hanging around, right? Right?"
John Mark Ockerbloom, online librarian, sez, "For this year's Public Domain Day, I'm blogging about both what the public domain can do for us, and what we can do for the public domain. In particular, this is the first New Year's Day that's more than 14 years after the 1993 introduction of NCSA Mosaic, the browser that started the explosive growth of the World Wide Web. 14 years is also the initial term of copyright specified in the Statute of Anne and the US's first copyright law. So in honor of that, I'm dedicating the copyrights of the 1993 versions of my web sites, which include the still-going-strong Online Books Page, to the public domain. And I invite other Net old-timers to make similar dedications of their old online content."
The life+50 class of the newly-Public Domain includes works by American novelist Anne Parrish; British novelist Dorothy Richardson; Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias; Romanian poet George Bacovia; Canadian-American geologist Reginald Aldworth Daly; American journalist, novelist, dramatist and poet Kenneth Lewis Roberts; Australian children’s author Gladys Lister; American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.; Irish-British mystery author Freeman Wills Crofts; American architect Julia Morgan; Swiss-Canadian geologist Carl Faessler; Canadian historian John Bartlet Brebner; Swiss artist Adolf Dietrich; American Prohibition agent Eliot Ness; Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi; American novelist and poet Christopher Morley; Italian author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa; English theologian, priest, and crime writer Msgr Ronald Arbuthnott Knox; American geologist William H. Twenhofel; British lawyer and self-styled explorer Sir Randle F.W. Holme; Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral; British physician and medical historian John Joyce Keevil; American ethnomusicologist Frances Densmore; author and Esperantist James Denson Sayers; British biophysicist Rosalind Franklin; American artist Adaline Kent; British detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers (aka “Mrs Fleming”); American author Peter B. Kyne; American Western novelist Eugene Cunningham; Ukrainian-born writer Mark Aleksandrovich Aldanov; Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany; Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis (“Zorba the Greek”, “Last Temptation of Christ”); Irish artist Jack Butler Yeats; American explorer and aviator Richard Evelyn Byrd; American collector of Native American antiquities George Gustav Heye; British-born philatelist Bertram William Henry Poole; British architect and urban planner Sir (Leslie) Patrick Abercrombie; British journalist and author Helen Pearl Adam; Irish physician and poet Oliver St John Gogarty; Canadian geologist Joseph Burr Tyrrell; Danish artist Kay Nielsen; American journalist Burton Rascoe; Italian poet and novelist Umberto Poli (“Umberto Saba”); German film director Max Ophüls; Canadian Parliamentarian Martha Louise Black; American astronomer Mary Proctor; Finnish composer Jean Sibelius; Hungarian-American mathematician John Von Neumann; Austrian-born anthropologist Felix Bryk; English writer and poet Rose Fyleman; Austrian-American composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold; Austrian-American psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich; British “boys stories” novelist Frederick Sadleir Brereton; American political scientist and philosopher Arthur F Bentley; Australian archaeologist and historian Gordon Childe; Canadian political scientist and historian William Bennett Munro; German physicist Johannes Stark; American pulp sci-fi author Ray Cummings...Link (Thanks, Michael and John!)
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Because I'm so fed up with the useless and destructive copyright laws in the US and most other Western countries, I've decided to completely disregard copyright.
As someone who makes my living with the product of my imagination, this will be my third year using Creative Commons licenses instead of Copyright. I'd prefer making all my work public domain, but it limits my options (other production companies often won't use PD works). For now, CC is a great option though, and it's worked well for me.
The surprise is that my income hasn't been hurt one bit by giving up Copyright. I've discovered other ways to turn my work into a living besides the limited options previously available to musicians and composers.
I'm not sure if this is allowed, but you're welcome to help yourself to any of my non-film music, at thewaxwingslain dot com. I add more weekly, so look in if/when you have time.
Happy New Year.
I consider the Copyright Term Extension act the most vile piece of copyright legislation to date, moreso than the horrible DMCA. I continue to have this fantasy about the next generation of elected officials doing something about it. But then I remember that everyone in DC has been and will be a career politician for the next 30 years. And, unfortunately, most probably true for Mr. Copyright himself Orrin G. Hatch (R). He could even break Stromb Thurmonds record.
We have been through this several times over the last 3000 Years. In the long run trying to control access to the free sharing of our Hearts simply does not work. The retro-brains that are terrified of people that can think for themselves inevitably kill each other off. I feel that Authors are bigger than their books and burning them, banning them, controlling access to them, making need to know filters, putting unreasonable economic restraints on sharing, pre-filtering content, or any other filtering brain that tries to control free access to each other's offerings misses the notion of Temporal Time. The output of our Brains are are available as raw feed. We don't need access to the Library. The controlling Brains have already lost this one. Be patient.
Hey, cool, another submission of mine made it!
I'm lucky enough to live in a life+50 country (and, also fun; a plain ol' 50 for film and photography).
Is there anywhere that gives a neat countdown to which works are becoming available in the public domain in the life+50 and life+70 countries? Is there someone putting together a database or wiki?
I know, in a lot of jurisdictions, the works don't become public domain until the end of the year in which the copyright expires. But I think such a database would really help to raise awareness of which works are passing into the public domain, and from that how valuable the public domain really is.
Not to pick nits or be contrary, but licensing your work with Creative Commons licenses doesn't mean you're "disregarding copyright". You're just granting the public a less restrictive license to works over which you hold copyright. Have a look at the Creative Commons FAQ, and the specific question "How does a Creative Commons license operate?" for more.
If you really are going to "disregard copyright", put your works into the public domain. If you're not doing that, you're still "using copyright".
To me, worrying about production companies not publishing public domain works is pandering to the system as it exists now instead of trying to change it. Then again, I don't "make a living" from "products of my imagination".
I'm a bit opinionated (and a bit vitriolic) about "intellectual property" issues. I profit from the work that I do each day with my eyes, hands, and brain, rather than a residual income stream based on work that I've already done. For me, no work on a given day means no income for that day. That, I think, is the root of my opinion. I'm perfectly alright with the system of legislated entitlement for "content creators" to be wiped away. Exciting new ways for "content creators" to make money are out there, but the future of "pay for play", royalties and residuals, and the draconian rent-seeking schemes of "publishers" seems dim.
(C)? What about the even viler (TM)? Try making a play named "In search of Tarzen" (Tarzan is a TM of Disney)
This article gives inaccurate information on the duration of copyright in the United States. Most works not made for hire do expire in the US 70 years after the death of the author whether they were published or not. Sound Recordings and Works for Hire have longer terms. This makes it hard to know when a work has passed into the public domain. Someone aught to me making a list of authors who died 70 years ago and made works not for hire.
This article gives inaccurate information on the duration of copyright in the United States. Most works not made for hire do expire in the US 70 years after the death of the author whether they were published or not. Sound Recordings and Works for Hire have longer terms. This makes it hard to know when a work has passed into the public domain. Someone aught to me making a list of authors who died 70 years ago and made works not for hire.
TA Adjuster: A novelist works for a year on his book and then it is done. Because he does not have an industrial printing press in his basement, a publisher prints and sells copies of it on his behalf for many years, giving him a share of the revenue. That is royalty, which is how he makes his income and is compensated for the work. If he cannot make an income from selling copies of the book (because any publisher in the world may print them without paying the author), how is he to make an income? Working every day with his hands to sign paper copies and sell them by mail? Or should he accept that in the legal system of the future he cannot make money off his writing, that writing novels is no longer a way to earn a living, and do something else entirely with his time?
Life+50, Life+70 copyrights endanger "dangerous" non-mainstream works more as they're less likely to be re-published. No doubt a happy "side-effect" to some.
Since it's possible to "opt-out" of copyright protection, it'd be great to see a website that promotes and certifies lit that's been released to PD, so that we can all benefit. Once it's established, those who retain "control" they wish to relinquish won't have to wonder what to do.
It is funny how there are all these discussions about "what the founders of our country wanted" except when it comes to things that big businesses want changed like copyright...
The founders of our country wrote patents and copyrights into Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
@Crash: Technology is trashing the business model you described in your message for novelists, musicians, filmmakers, and anyone else who relies on information distribution being tied to scarcity. (Actually, I'd argue that it's _really_ trashing the business model of publishers and distributors-- the middlemen who've always been a necessary-but-evil "tax" on the "content creators"...)
I'm comfortable with a future where technology causes some business models to disappear. It's too bad for the scribes and the elevator operators who couldn't find other work, but it's the way things work. Anybody staunchly holding on to their business model after it's become unprofitable is just refusing to accept reality.
I _am_ being needlessly extremist in my postings here (sort of a "slash and burn" position) for effect. Realistically, though, I don't see any need for the copyright regime that exists in most of the world now. Copyright beyond the useful marketable life of a work is needless and robs from the public good. The copyright social contract is hopelessly in need of renegotiation.
Here's the thing, Crash, for a while now capitalism and art have enjoyed a happy little dance together, making art and making money. In the age of analogue big business still enjoyed control of the means of production and so were able to make money from reproducing works of art and then paying the artists for those works in proportion to their popularity (one would reasonably hope). However, this system has proven incompatible with the digital age.
In this age any individual can reproduce a work of art endlessly and distribute it globally at virtually no cost. Since the monetary value of anything is inversely proportion to its availability, this means that the asking price for these digitally reproduced works is as close to zero as makes no odds. The only logical conclusion then is that this is no longer a valid method of doing business.
Big business does not see it that way. For years now they have been trying to recreate the limitations of the analogue age in this digital world, producing entirely artificial barriers to independent digital reproduction and distribution. They started with technological means, and have now moved on to legal means. Ten years ago it was laughably inept, today the fallout of these ham-fisted efforts are simply horrifying. To enjoy music and movies we are forced to buy deliberately faulty machines. We are told that these machines and the media they play don't really belong to us and that it is illegal for us to tamper with them. We live with the threat of ubiquitous surveillance, not from totalitarian governments who fear their own citizens but from commercial corporations who fear they own customers. We live in a world now in which matters between private individuals involving nothing more than the exchange of numbers are considered criminal offences.
So here are the choices: hundreds of thousands of artists losing their traditional mode of making money and forced find alternate means, or billions enslaved by corporations, their own culture stripped from them, carved up, digested, filtered, and fed back to them in measured doses, if they can afford it.
Take your pick.
Yes, there remain questions about how exactly artists can be reimbursed for their work. But you will note that it is not the businesses trapped in the existing model who are trying to answer these questions. Why? Because they know as surely as we do that any answer will exclude them from the equation (remember you and I now control the primary means of reproduction, you're sitting in front of the equipment right now, so we can do their job for them).
My personal favourite alternative is the Independent Democratic Blanket License, a model in which broadband users pay a flat license fee for the right to reproduce and redistribute works at will, and can reward particular artists through voluntary voting to shift the balance in the distribution of the resultant funds.
There are ways forward, and all of them are scary for artists. All there is to be observed is that some of these ways involve freedom, while others involve slavery. The choice is being made for us right now, and it's not freedom.
"How can artists make money?" Unless we stop asking this same question again and again, unless we start answering it, we are going to find ourselves trapped in a system that makes criminals of us all.
If escaping this future means the weakening or even destruction of copyright, then so be it.
Here is my video comment to Public Domain Day:
http://sarahmeyers.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/happy-public-domain-day/
There are a few Public Domain projects around listing what is available and becoming available. A good place to start would be here: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Though other projects do exist, just have to take the time to seek them out.
"So here are the choices: hundreds of thousands of artists losing their traditional mode of making money and forced find alternate means..."
Like what? I have now idea when I'm going to die, but if I make it into the distant future, I think it's fair that I have control over my work. If I die my foundation should have control over my work in pertetuity. So I see both sides of the issue. What if we all end up like Doctorow's immortals? We can't give up our copyrighs just because we're 300 years old. Unless we say so.
Why?
There's a good life+70 list here:
http://www.copyrightwatch.ca/?p=49
But it has the similar problem of not saying that MOST published works in US are life+70 with the exceptions being works for hire and sound recordings. There seems to be a meme going around that most published works are not life+70 in the US, possibly because it is hard to be sure what was for hire. However it is hard to give up your copyright to a hiring entity. So it is generally only employee's who are "for hire". This makes film and advertising areas with a lot of for hire work, but novels and fine art are generally life+70 in the US. [I am not a lawyer].
Hmmmm... I think it's fair that the public gets "ownership" of your "work" after it's no longer marketable and / or you're dead. So there.
Why should my estate/foundation have control of my work? Because if they can make money from my old work they should, and that money can go to fund young artists and writers. That's why. If I build a house and leave that house to my children, then they control that property. Just as they should control my intellectual property. It's only fair.
Jeff,
A counter-argument to your proposition here:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/958
Creators certainly do contribute and deserve compensation for their contributions. But they don't operate in a vacuum: they use a common language which they did not invent, they rely on public-domain processes and inventions (printing, paper, internet), transportation, distribution, advertising, media ... all of which are a part of society at large ... sometimes called "the commons." It is reasoned that their compensation should end at some point and their creative work goes into the public domain as a payback for social services rendered.
How many benefit from the performances of ballets that are in the public domain (most of them)? Too, if a ballet cost $50,000 per performance, ballet would be dead. Older works have cultural value that is greater than their commercial value ... and which keeps them alive... as well as their authors' memories.
I realise this seems like a simple analogy but all it does is conflate communicated concepts with physical property. Is this house infinitely reproducible? Can it be transmitted around the world in a matter of seconds? Is it fair that your kids can prevent people from living in a copy of your infinitely reproducible house because they can't pay, despite the fact that it costs nothing to make a copy?
Personally, I don't think that's fair at all.