Public Domain FAIL

What is entering the public domain in the United States? Nothing. Once again, we will have nothing to celebrate this January 1st. Not a single published work is entering the public domain this year. Or next year, or the year after that. In fact, in the United States, no publication will enter the public domain until 2019.

- The (Life Plus) Seventy Year Itch . . .

Sad but true. The standard copyright term - how long someone owns the rights to their creative work - was extended in the 1990s to 70 years after the death of the author (the "life plus seventy" rule) or 95 years after first publication (if the work is owned by a corporation). As the Center for the Study of the Public Domain (at Duke University) notes, if you live in Europe, you'd now be free to remix and reuse (without permission) works by James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

Which would be pretty cool. But wouldn't it be amazing if we could freely re-mix and re-use footage from Rebel Without a Cause, Ansel Adams' Half Dome Blowing Snow (below), and Nabokov's Lolita? If those copyright laws in 1990s hadn't been passed, those and many other works from 1955 would have entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2012.

Check out the links below for more information.

More:

Public Domain Day

Why the Public Domain Matters

Public Domain - Frequently Asked Questions

Creative Commons

Fake news shows exemplars of "fair use"

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” has won nine straight Emmys as TV’s best talk show. But it has another legacy you probably don’t know about.

Watch any “Daily Show” and count the number of TV, movie and music clips you see or hear during the episode. Ten? Twenty?

While you’re doing that, note how often Stewart makes fun of the subject of the clip. (If he’s talking about CNN or Fox News Channel, this part will be easy.) Do the same for companion show “The Colbert Report.”

Now, guess how often Stewart and Colbert ask their attorneys to clear the rights to all those copyrighted clips.

America’s most acclaimed satirists turn out to also be our most powerful exploiters of “fair use,” the legal loophole that permits use of copyrighted works without the onerous and often expensive process of rights clearance.

Read the full article: Sample this show! Use of ‘fair use’ is growing: PopMatters:

Copyright and Tattoos? (continued)

Tyson's moko draws fire from Maori - National - NZ Herald News:

The artist has struck a raw nerve in New Zealand, where people are asking what right he has to lay claim to a Maori design in the first place.

Copyright & Tattoos?

New questions about copyright have arisen in relation to the new movie, The Hangover Part II.  Tattoo artist, S. Victor Whitmill, claims that Warner Brothers has infringed upon his rights by featuring the tattoo he designed for Mike Tyson on a character in the movie.  Here's a clip from the New York Times article about the case:

“Mr. Whitmill has never been asked for permission for, and has never consented to, the use, reproduction or creation of a derivative work based on his original tattoo,” argues the lawsuit, which was filed April 28, and will be taken up next week. 

The suit isn’t frivolous, however, legal experts say. They contend the case could offer the first rulings on tricky questions about how far the rights of the copyright holder extend in creations that are, after all, on someone else’s body. They are questions likely to crop up more often as it becomes more common for actors or athletes to have tattoos and as tattoo designs become more sophisticated.

Read the full article, "On Tyson’s Face, It’s Art. On Film, a Legal Issue."

Government Backs 'Jailbreaking' Of iPhones

From the article at NPR, news for us:

In addition to jailbreaking, other exemptions announced Monday would:

— Allow college professors, film students and documentary filmmakers to break copy-protection measures on DVDs so they can embed clips for educational purposes, criticism, commentary and noncommercial videos.

"Gov't Unlocks Apple's iPhone But Is The Jailbreak Era Over?"

From an editorial at NPR:

The iPhone ecosystem, which Apple protects with the ferocity of a Smoke Monster, is about to get wilder.

And we have the Library of Congress to thank for it....

What other entrenched, unimpeachable American institution will be the next to take Apple down a notch? Betty White?