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Meta
Monthly Archives: June 2003
Aimster in detail
This is a nicely detailed review of the Aimster argument by a Chicago attorney. Continue reading
Posted in free culture
2 Comments
spectrum promises?
The White House has announced a new spectrum initiative. Continue reading
Posted in good law
4 Comments
Aimster oral argument
So this is very cool — the 7th Circuit posts mp3s of its argument, so you can hear the argument in Aimster here. (Thanks to Howard Bashman.) Continue reading
Posted in good law
6 Comments
above 7,500 signatures
for the Reclaim the Public Domain petition. Continue reading
Posted in eldred.cc
4 Comments
get it while you can
Jed Horovitz has produced an extraordinary film about the “culture wars” which may well not be around for long. You can get Willful Infringement on DVD. Many people should. When the lawyers find this, we’ll need archives stored in many places. (Note: the web page says I’m in the film, but only for a few seconds. The really great characters are two clowns.) Continue reading
Posted in free culture
10 Comments
Aimster appeal — the judges
Judge Posner is one of the three judges hearing the appeal this morning in the Aimster case. This should be very interesting. Continue reading
Posted in good law
2 Comments
Dastar decided — incorrectly
I know I said Dastar was decided correctly. I believe it was. But there is a line in the opinion that really gets me — for it is the only place in the opinion where the Court cites Eldred, and it cites it for a proposition that must be wrong.
Justice Scalia writes, “To hold otherwise would be akin to finding that �43(a) created a species of perpetual patent and copyright, which Congress may not do. See Eldred v. Ashcroft.” But this line show why it would have paid for the Court to pay more attention to the originalism in Eldred. For this line betrays a confusion about what “copyright law” was — at least — originally. And under an originalist reading of the copyright power, there would be no Copyright Clause problem with Congress requiring attribution for public domain works.
The confusion is the failure to distinguish “copyrights” from “authors rights.” As Ray Patterson argued over 30 years ago in “Copyright in Historical Perspective,” the framers understood “copy-rights” to be distinct from “auhors rights.” Authors rights protect the right to attribution, and to some degree, the right of integrity. These rights are related to the “moral rights” the Europeans speak of. They are fundamentally distinct from the “copy-right” — which was a right to control the publication of a work.
From an originalist perspective, then, it is true that Congress shouldn’t be able to grant a “copyright” — a right to control the publication of a work — for a perpetual time. But the right to attribution is not, from that perspective, a “copy-right.” And thus if there were another power of Congress that could support that right — the Commerce Power, for example — then a requirement of attribution should not run afoul of the copyright power. Continue reading
Posted in free culture
2 Comments
promoting progress
We have gathered over 6,000 signatures on our petition in a single day. That is extraordinary progress.
Yet there are many who are frustrated that this doesn’t go far enough. Many on Slashdot, for example, demand that we “hold out” for something much more radical. That this would be a “compromise” and that we should never “compromise.”
We should never compromise. But we must take first steps. We are where we are because most people don’t believe in the public domain. Most people don’t even understand it. We live in a time when the public domain is more than 75 years old. Yet for most of our history, the public domain was no more than 30 years old. If ordinary people could see the creativity that would be inspired if the 1960s were in the public domain, they would understand again the importance of limiting the regulation that copyright law has become.
They will only understand it if we build it. They will only get it when they see the creativity it would inspire, and the knowledge it will spread. We need to show them why the public domain is important, by building it again.
The Public Domain Enhancement Act would do this. And when not 5,000, but 50,000 people join together to say that it should be our first step, Congress will take it up. Then the burden will be on the otherside to explain why this obvious change should not occur.
But if you think our petition is too tame � if you think it accepts too much of current law, and would be read to endorse the status quo � then sign this alternative. It makes clear that the current system is broken; it demands radical reforms. But as any reform we achieve can apply to future copyrights only, we still have to deal with the current law, and the control it imposes. It therefore also endorses this first step.
Let’s see which view of copyright law better reflects this democracy. Let’s see just how radical the democracy has become. But on either view, we should take first steps now. We should build support around obvious reforms. And we should force them to resist what seems sensible to everyone else.
The only thing that we should not do is sit back and do nothing, “holding out” for “radical reform” that will never come on its own.
If you want “radical reform,” than produce 500,000 signatures on this Reclaim Copyright Law petition. If you want a first step of reform, then help us get 50,000 signatures to Reclaim the Public Domain.
But either way, do something. Now. Continue reading
Posted in eldred.cc
Comments Off on promoting progress
2,000 by the end of lunch!
Our count has doubled in the last hour. We’re now up to over 2,000 signing our petition.
Update: over 3,500. Aaron’s got a great graph of the growth. Continue reading
Posted in eldred.cc
2 Comments