Comments on: Ashcroft: "I don't think we have a public domain attitude."

By: Joseph Pietro Riolo

Joseph Pietro Riolo — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 06:59:16 +0000

To Timothy Phillips,

You can’t simply extrapolate Ashcroft’s statement to
the hatred for the public domain. Take, as an example,
you as an individual author that does not have a public
domain attitude in deed (you still claim copyright in
your song that will last for at least 70 years),
does that mean that you hate the public domain? Not
necessarily so. No feeling or love for the public domain
is not equivalent to the hatred for the public domain.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.

By: Justin Levine

Justin Levine — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 20:38:09 +0000

I never have been an Ashcroft basher...until now.

By: Timothy Phillips

Timothy Phillips — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:49:34 +0000

Life imitates art.

"We hate the public domain" was what I had the "movie barons and the proud high lords of song" saying in "The Ballad of Dennis Karjala".

Except that here, the robber barons have the honorable, the Attorney General of the United States saying if for them.

By: Joseph Pietro Riolo

Joseph Pietro Riolo — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 07:16:16 +0000

Well, Attorney General Ashcroft seems to describe the
reality. How many authors and artists, that are still
alive, can we find that have a real, true public domain
attitude in deed? Perhaps only one hundred authors
and artists. Assuming that there are 294,512,337 people
in the U.S. population (see http://www.census.gov), that
amounts to less than 0.000034% of the U.S. population.
Or, assuming that there are 43,740 authors and 9,690 artists
(see http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm),
the percentage is less than 0.19% of authors and artists.
In any way, it is still too small that won’t make a dent
in the “we” in Ashcroft’s statement.

Nevertheless, a lot of good luck with your oral argument
in Kahle v. Ashcroft (that name is still fine, no need
to think of a better name) and hope you will succeed.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<[email protected]>

Public domain notice: I put all of my expressions
in this comment in the public domain.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 18:17:56 +0000

Pithy. I love it.

By: Max Lybbert

Max Lybbert — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 17:26:13 +0000

While I can't deny Ashcroft has been trying to grab more power (just as every modern President and Congress have), I do wonder about the "Free Speech" link.

The Greenpeace article that link points to makes me wonder what Lessig views as free speech. The Greenpeace activists are entitled to express their opinions, but that doesn't give them a blank check to board vessels belonging to somebody else. The activists acknowledged this by peading guilty to the first set of (misdemeanor) charges.

Now that new charges carry a stiffer penalty, Greenpeace has decided it's First Amendment rights trump all sorts of laws.

Clearly the First Amendment trumps several laws -- look at the way churches are able to ignore most zoning requirements -- but there is a well-defined limit. The First Amendment allows peaceful assembly, but not trespassing (even peaceful trespassing). The activists haven't been accused of having views not sanctioned by the government (that would be a free speech problem), but of illegally boarding a private ship.

Greenpeace had several other options to respond to what it believed was illegal logging. Greenpeace has a large number of lawyers willing to do pro bono work, and they could likely have figured out a way to file a lawsuit. Greenpeace could have held a protest rally while the ship was unloading, or called for a boycott of the company involved. Greenpeace could have tried to get public service announcements and press releases out to educate the public about the problem.

But, instead, Greenpeace claims its First Amendment rights are bigger than my First Amendment rights.

By: Jasmine Pues

Jasmine Pues — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 17:06:49 +0000

If I'm not mistaken, Attorney Generals are appointed to their positions; so then, what does that say about the administration that chose someone like Ashcroft for that position?