Something I came across this weekend somewhat intrigued me. My wife asked how something ends up in the public domain and the answer is basically: “Once it’s copyright expires it’s in the public domain.” Which is why, if you notice, you can get most “classic” novels from a variety of publishers and usually pretty cheaply. This is because those publishers are only paying for the materials to print the books and not the rights to print the books and they can all print it because no one has grounds to sue them anymore.
However, I took myself down the rabbit hole even further with the current evolution of copyright law, as in Internet and software copyright. Ultimately all of this stuff falls under copyright laws but I don’t think a lot of people understand what that means for the time period roughly seventy years from now. Unless Disney can effectively buy out another couple dozen congressmen to keep their copyright of Mickey current, then everything written will be public domain roughly 70 years after it is written. That means that sometime in the 2050’s many of Microsoft’s and Apple’s products will become public domain, and as time marches forward only more and more will become public domain. There is a whole bunch we can infer from this, but right now I’m going to leave off and follow an early strain of thought.
This implies that all that “freeware” and “fonts” that have terms of use on them will no longer have terms of use. Terms of use for software in the public domain no longer work because there is no one who has legal recourse to sue someone else for using the software outside the terms of use. Hence, at some point, anything created will be available to anyone for any purpose and their is not a damn thing that the creator can do about it. Now I understand that 70 years is a long time, but think about how much longer people are living now-a-days. Think about actually seeing your work “go public”?
I find this idea entirely liberating, as I am not a fan of constrained artistic expression, I believe the idea that an artist creates something merely to keep their claws attached to it forever repulsive. And I think a growing number of people agree with me in that few people indeed pay any attention to copyright at all anymore, unless they are somehow making money off of the copyrighted material. The reason we agree to pay for copyrighted material has transformed from the simple “Because I want to to use it” to the vastly more specific “Because I want to support this artist.”, because if we just want to use (as in read or look at or listen to) the piece of art we simply will pirate it because it’s cheaper and oftentimes easier than buying it.
Either way I suppose this is a “WAKE UP YOU FOOLS!” to the artistic community. Copyright is not something that I think will hold it’s ground in the next hundred years or so. It’s going to change, because accessibility and risk levels have changed and the more involved you are in the change the more likely you’ll be able to get what you want out of it.
Just my thoughts, please feel free to agree or rebuke me.
I remember listening to a podcast, although I can’t find it now, that said that originally copyright/patent laws weren’t really made to protect the financial institutions of the creators. They were made to spur innovation.
Now I do wish I could find where I heard that because it was from an expert who talked like he knew what he was talking about. But I don’t remember the argument as to why but I think its basic premise was that if you weren’t allowed to immediately copy what someone else made, you were likely going to put more effort into making something a little bit better than it, and selling that. And the guy asserted that it had worked.
But for the most part I agree. I think copyright and patent law need a serious look at. With the amount of services masquerading as goods (see my rant about digital content being a service, not a good), I believe the current patent/copyright laws need to be re-assessed to some degree. In what way I’m not really sure.
That being said, there is a way to make your stuff public domain. That is what the Creative Commons License is. Not only is it public domain but its pick and choose public domain that says you can still reserve some rights while allowing others to play with it. And it has been proven in court. So at least on an individual basis, creators can release their works into the broad out there. For example the Eclipse Phase RPG is under CCL (http://eclipsephase.com/cclicense) basically says you can re-distribute the book as long as you do so for free and give credit. Free is pretty easy with software. I’m actually kind of curious if selling a printed reproduction at cost is considered non-commercial since I’m not making a profit. But you can release something under CCL that allows commercial reproduction, essentially saying “Hey guys, public domain!” and even turning off the required credit attribution.