The 8,000 Year Copyright?
from the forever-minus-a-day dept
There's a popular saying among copyright maximalists, that if copyright must be "for limited times," it should be "forever minus a day." And, in fact, part of the problem with the so-called "education" campaign that copyright supporters have been pushing over the past decade or so is that they never bother to spend much time on consumer rights, fair use or the importance of the public domain. So, it should come as little surprise that the default thinking among many is that copyright does, in fact, last forever. Witness this story that plenty of folks have been sending in, about the United Nations new World Digital Library that has posted ancient texts from around the world. Just one problem... the site is claiming that the texts may be covered by copyright, even though many of the texts are older than 8,000 years. Obviously, the copyright claim is wrong, but it seems to be the default position taken by lawyers these days, and many people who have falsely been told that "sharing" equals "theft" will believe that copyright lasts forever. For anyone who actually recognizes the importance and value of the public domain, and how it's helped expand our creative culture over the years, this should be quite depressing.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: copyright, united nations, world digital library
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Well ...
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Copyrighted by Whom?
If the copyright remains with the descendants, by this time virtually everyone in the world would be a partial owner and entitled to use the content.
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Who's law?
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Re: Who's law?
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The owner is Humanity. Each and every single one of us, owns it.
So, if you are a alien, trying to download our culture, we have legitimate reason to blast you.
Oh! And the cave paintings, they are owned too. So, if you plan to use anything even remotely inspired in that work, technique or method, you will have to pay all of us rights.
We humans, own in perpetuity ALL the human culture.
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Re:
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It's still stupid, though.
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The mighty wheel.
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Re: The mighty wheel.
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Where?
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Re: Where?
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Re: Re: Where?
The WDL site is not claiming copyright in the underlying documents submitted by their partners. Further, the legal page does not say that the documents are covered by copyright, but that they may be and it is up to someone who wants to use them to contact the partner who submitted the item to determine whether there is a copyright concern.
Here's the language:
Even a cursory visit to the site shows a "timeline" slider going from 8000 BC to 2009 AD. Using this slider, one can within seconds determine that there are 201 items dated 1921-2009, some of which might presumably be covered by copyright.
Mike says: Obviously, the copyright claim is wrong, but it seems to be the default position taken by lawyers these days, and many people who have falsely been told that "sharing" equals "theft" will believe that copyright lasts forever.
Since he apparently didn't bother to actually do any actual research he didn't see that this statement is obviously wrong.
Then there's this: There's a popular saying among copyright maximalists, that if copyright must be "for limited times," it should be "forever minus a day."
Source please? I've never heard anyone ever use this "popular" saying.
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Re: Re: Re: Where?
However:
Source please? I've never heard anyone ever use this "popular" saying.
A simple google search would lend you the answer. I picked the wikipedia page because everything else seemed to be pdfs.
I hope that clears things up. These extreme pro-IP people are completely insane.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Where?
Looking at your google search, all the reference I find are by copyright opponents to the same thing: Jack Valenti apparently said this, and Mary Bono repeated it in a House speech. That's it. I'd like to know how many "copyright maximalists" there are and how many of them use this "popular" saying. I suspect it might be "popular" only to Mike and copyright opponents.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Where?
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Re: Re: Re: Where?
You have to remember the context of the usage of "popular." Mike was saying "popular" as used by copyright maximalists. There may be no such people in your entire state - there are very few, if any, in my state - so you may never have heard the saying.
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Ignorance, selfishness, stupidity
Copying VHS and casette's wasn't an issue in the 80's
but OMG when people share mp3's and digital copies of text they will pay!!!!
Innovation! Get on the bandwagon or get left in the technological dust! You can still profit from this you whiny little kids, but you have to STOP WHINING!!! Step up and take that which has offended you and turn it around into the next big thing. You can sell a hardback and a softback book... why not start selling e-books! WOW WHAT A HARD CONCEPT!!!
Can't control something? Sell it cheaper and faster; then you can control it! How do you think Wal-Mart has gotten this far?
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Re: Ignorance, selfishness, stupidity
And they will continue failing with controlling the internet. So, not much loss for most people.
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Re: Ignorance, selfishness, stupidity
Erm... actually yes, they were. Google "Universal vs Sony" for the Betamax action (applicable to VHS as well) and "home taping is killing music" for the panic that the RIAA tried to start surrounding audio cassettes.
The solution for them in both cases was simple - listen to customer demand and give them something they want. They're just panicking because a simple format shift isn't going to cut it this time.
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Pooper...
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Translation
You may also want to consider the issue of language. It hasn't been the same for 8,000 years. It is true that any intellectual property claim to the original content is ridiculous, 99.9% of readers will only deal with it in translation and that translation is the much more recent work -- which might be due some IP consideration. Finally, if a recently discovered ancient text or the translation of it are subsequently proved to be misdated, misattributed, or outright fraudulent, that could also have an impact on the associated rights. There are reasons the WDL needs a legal disclaimer page that have nothing to do with the issues you mention.
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Re: Translation
Professoriate wrote:
Why? It’s not usual for distributors to claim copyright in the goods being distributed, just because they’re distributing them.
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Re: Re: Translation
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Re: Translation
I would have been nice for someone to have taken the same photos and publish them under a Creative Commons licence. Then this library could be more interesting.
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Re: Translation
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Lawers
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Lawers
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I said, they are thousands of years old, how can there be a copyright. He said if you take pictures of those fragments, you are stealing. I laughed, and said, surely you can see the difference:
I infringed on the copyright of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
or
I stole the Dead Sea Scrolls.
He didn't think it was funny as I did, so I shut up at that point so I could actually see them.
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Re:
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Re:
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Re: Re:
Tommy sees the red firetruck and plays with it.
Tommy is now a Pirate.
The daycare will be prosecuted for allowing piracy.
In the end of the day, Billy still takes the yellow racing car, and, the red firetruck home with him.
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Re: Re: Re:
At the end of the day Billy takes the yellow racing car with him, and Tommy takes his salvaged red firetruck with him.
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"Education"
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080813/0402251963.shtml
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"forever minus a day" is still "forever"
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Re: "forever minus a day" is still "forever"
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is forever long enough?
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is forever long enough?
The copyright lobby maybe the most powerful group in the world, they control TV, newpapers, movies, music, radio, books, most news outlets and to lesser degree cable and software.
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thank you!
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