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Copyright nuttiness.

An implicit commentary on the current state of international copyright. The link contains links to online texts which have ceded to the public domain in Australia, where copyright expires 50 years after the author’s death. In the US, copyright extends 95 years after publication. Therefore, if you are subject to US law, don’t click on those links, or you’ll be in direct violation of Federal copyright law and subject to fines and/or imprisonment!

This is a good example of how copyright and intellectual property laws as they stand start to seem a little ridiculous in the age of the Internet. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t advocate getting rid of copyright entirely. However, I think that the Constitutional wording that Congress may establish copyright for a “limited” period of time does not mean that Congress may give corporations “unlimited copyright on the installment plan”, as Lawrence Lessig puts it.

Remember, in 1790, copyright was for 14 years. The Founding Fathers were skeptical of any law that smacked of monopoly, and relented on the copyright issue because they decided that authors and “content producers” needed to be assured compensation for their work. But, for a limited time only, after which the work became public domain—literally, a cultural resource belonging to everybody. Since then, however, Congress has extended the term close to 20 times, more than 10 of those within the last century. The trend shows no sign of stopping.

So that’s the state of copyright today, and that’s why this blog is licensed by a Creative Commons license—”some rights reserved” as an alternative to “All Rights Reserved”. It’s a shame that yesterday’s cultural treasures are locked up in the coffers of large media conglomerates, especially works that have been long out of print and are of no economic value to their owners. Let’s not let that become this generation’s legacy as well.

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