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O.D.
Lawrence Lessig Sees Public Domain Sinking in a Sea of Overregulation
Stanford law professor says digital age should usher in creative use of digital materials, not prosecution of 12 year olds for downloading music.
The core of Lessig's argument can be summarized in a few points:
* The copyright clause of the U.S. Constitution treated intellectual property differently from other property. Fearing a monopoly by publishers and placing a high value on general education, it granted only a short period of protection after which books passed into the public domain.
* The revision of the copyright law in 1976 by removing the requirement that content creators file register their work or need to actively renew the copyright to get the full period of protection radically increased both the length of copyright and the number of works that fall under this law.
* Some 98% of all published works or films go out of commercial production after the first year, but are kept out of the public domain for many decades because they are not distinguished from the small number of works that have ongoing commercial value.
* Because every act on the Internet involves making a copy, acts that were legal under previous technologies become crimes on a computer as everything digital requires permission to use.
* The film and music industries have been so fearful of new digital technologies that they have been unwilling to explore new business models but have instead successfully persuaded Congress to adopt draconian penalties for even completely noncommercial copying.
* The enormous extension of the duration and applicability of the copyright laws threaten to to cripple the emergent digital technologies, to criminalize the next generation, and to thwart the potential of the digital age to promote a far more creative culture than the consumer couch potato culture of the last generation.

posted by Jerry permanent link