Category Archives: free culture

The Stanford CIS has been working on a case for a long time to establish the public domain status of Peter Pan. (The Internet has apparently already recognized it. Check out the Google search on Peter Pan). We represent a Canadian author, Emily Somma, who has written a sequel to the public domain portions of the Peter Pan story, called “After the Rain.” Somma was threatened by the rights holders of the Peter Pan-related work still under copyright. The essence of their claim is that so long as anything Peter Pan related is under copyright/trademark protection, everything is. (The rights holder is a children’s hospital in England, which has meant (1) that service of our complaint has been severely delayed by the UK government, and (2) that we get lots of nasty letters from people who think a charity should have the right to do whatever it wants so long as it benefits children. I’m all for charities, and especially for charities benefitting children, but threatening an author who is simply building upon the public domain is not the stuff a charity should be doing.)

ANYWAY, while practicing my Danish (not really: I am totally language illiterate) I came across another wonderful example of this increasing practice.

According to this story, there’s a Danish character called “Gummi-Tarzan” (I think this is an image) that has been forced to drop “Tarzan” from its name by the ever-pleasant Disney Corporation. This because Disney believes it owns “Tarzan.” This because Disney has trademark protection in a bunch of Disney work that builds upon Edgar Rice Burrough’s “Tarzan,” even though Burrough’s Tarzan originates from 1914, and is therefore within the public domain. Nonetheless, from now on, Gummi-Tarzan must be referred to as Gummi-T.

The public domain was supposed to be a lawyer-free zone. So much for how things were supposed to be. (Thanks to Joergen Ramskov and Thomas Wesley Hinton for porting the story into a form that the I could understand.) Continue reading →

The recording industry has been strongly opposed to a statutory or compulsory license for digital music (not the Internet radio kind, but a reasonable kind that would enable the spread of digital content). They object that “the market” should set the rate for music, not a federal statute. (Of course, they have no hesitation appealing to the statutory rate for damages, as opposed to the ordinary market measure for damages, when it comes to a breach, but that’s a separate matter).

But the history here is fun. Here’s a quote from a 1967 House Judiciary Report, considering a modification to the law as it existed then:

[T]he record producers argued vigorously that the compulsory license system must be retained. They asserted that the record industry is a half-billion-dollar business of great economic importance in the United States and throughout the world; records today are the principal means of disseminating music, and this creates special problems, since performers need unhampered access to musical material on nondiscriminatory terms. Historically, the record producers pointed out, there were no recording rights before 1909 and the 1909 statute adopted the compulsory license as a deliberate anti-monopoly condition on the grant of these rights. They argue that the result has been an outpouring of recorded music, with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater choice.

Copyright Law Revision, Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong. 1st, Sess., Rep. No. 83 66 (March 8, 1967).

“The result has been an outpouring of recorded music, with the public being given lower prices, improved quality, and a greater choice.”

Nicely put.

(Thanks to Glenn Brown for drawing my attention to this report). Continue reading →

Tony Auth is a favorite cartoonist of mine. In 1981, he drew a cartoon in response to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in the Sony v. Universal case (the Betamax case). In that case, the Court of Appeals had held that the VCR was an infringing technology. Auth’s cartoon captured the silliness of this perfectly: In a single frame, there was a VCR and a handgun, and the caption read (something like) “Which of these is illegal in California?”

I’m trying to clear permissions to use this cartoon. The people who handle Auth’s rights can’t locate the cartoon I’m speaking of. Does anyone have a memory of seeing this somewhere? Continue reading →

Jonathan Percy runs a cool site called Green Plastic, which is a fan site for the band, Radiohead. The site hosts, among other things, lyrics from the band. In June, Warner/Chappell Music contacted Percy to ask him to remove the lyrics.

This is of course increasingly common. Lyrics are copyrighted content. Posting lyrics makes a “copy” of them. Therefore, copyright owners who believe more control is better banish lyric sites to darkness.

But this time, the story was a bit different. Percy complied, and took the lyrics down. Fans were upset, and complained to Warner and to the band. Warner Chappell then contacted Percy again, and gave him a free license to post the lyrics. The lyrics have now returned.

Percy thus has permission to spread culture. Good for Warner Chappell. Continue reading →

There’s an interesting story to be found in the thread here about a recent decision by Grinnell College to shut down a discussion space, Grinnell Plans, which was an important and vibrant community for students, staff, and alumni alike. The site has now moved to a private server, and the conversations continue.

The link above does a nice job in laying out the arguments that led to the removal, and arguments the school made for closing the community. Is Grinnell’s decision common? Continue reading →

Public Knowledge, Creative Commons, and The Center for the Public Domain have launched a call for stories about the public domain. Continue reading →

Jon Gordon has an interesting interview with Senator Coleman about the RIAA lawsuits. The stream is here, but wasn’t working last I checked. Here’s the mp3. Continue reading →

Newsweek’s Brad Stone has a great piece about LXG.

Free culture. Continue reading →

Kim Scarborough sent this (warning: large mp3) wonderful radio show from the Columbia Workshop in 1937 about characters leaving the “copyright lane” for the “public domain.” It is a brilliantly complex and funny tale that reveals an understanding about the value of the public domain that would be hard to recognize today. Continue reading →

Eric Hughes sent me a great piece about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which will be released this Friday. As he points out, every character in the movie (which the ads call “the most innovative film of the summer,” and “when our future is at stake, they will be our last hope”) is a character in the public domain. As WALT Disney before (and as Disney, Inc has apparently forgotten now), the creators of this movie have used the public domain to produce creative new work. For those who defend the idea of (effectively) perpetual copyright: Do you think there would be more of these works if there were a gaggle of rights holders to clear permissions with?

Here is Eric’s list of characters, with the caveat that this is a work in progress. Send corrections to me.

From Eric:

The movie is based on a wonderful comic by Alan Moore, the best comics author alive. I had read the original a few years ago, but now there’s a film out. So I got curious about where Allan Moore got all the extraordinary gentlemen from. Here’s the list.

Allan Quatermain: A character from H. Rider Haggard stories, the most famous of which is King Solomon’s Mines, 1885. There’s an interesting profile at here. King Solomon’s Mines was written on a bet that he could write something better than Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Thomas Sawyer: Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, 1876. Huckleberry Finn came later. Character added for the movie; he’s evidently the only American.

Dr. Henry Jekyll / Mr. Edward Hyde: R. L. Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886.

Captain Nemo: Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, 1870.

Rodney Skinner. H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, 1897. I have been unable to confirm whether this was the character’s name in the novel.

Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890.

Mycroft Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Greek Interpreter, 1892. I’m not sure if this is the first appearance or not.

Mina Murray Harker. Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897. Jonathan Harker’s wife.

UPDATE: Seth helpfully provides the following additional links (and some corrections above)

Comic Book Annotations & Bibliographies

Annotations by Jess Nevins Continue reading →