Glove SLAPP, Baby, Glove SLAPP
I think this article makes the point about absolute copyright being a legal fiction very well.
The politicians love to protect companies from ostensible nuisance lawsuits (coughtort reformcough), but heaven forfend the individual citizen receive the same protection. A few states provide SLAPP-suit protection, but the Feds don't. To my mind, copyright defense often leads to SLAFU: strategic lawsuits against fair use. It will be a sad day for America when we get de facto censorship not because the government cracks down on people, but because it permits corporations and jerks to do so. Companies cry "innovation!" when they want to infringe on others' rights and "infringement!" when they want to stifle competition. The law seems to be moving towards a situation in which derivative innovation becomes the exclusive right of corporations and the wealthy, solely for the practical reason that only they have the resources to fight off SLAFU suits, while the rest of us – the actual, you know, citizens who comprise the body politic – are cowed by the potential consequences of legal defeat, or even of Pyrrhic victory.
It seems to me that copyright theory has to balance two interests: 1) the actual creator of something, and 2) the society that provided the conditions for said creation. I don't deny that creators have a right to benefit from their creations. I do deny that they have the right to benefit exclusively, or to dictate the terms of the extended benefit. Currently the legal pendulum seems to be aggrandizing #1 to the detriment of #2; and not only that, but extending the period for which it obtains (copyright used to be for 28 years max; now it's up to life + 70 years).
A more reasonable solution, to me, would be to scale the degree of creator-control to the extent of permissible fair use: the more control a creator wants over their copyright, the shorter their term of copyright. You could even do it in steps, analogously to way income taxes are levied: absolute copyright for the first 10 years, then with decreasing control over the next, say, 30.
But just you wait. Disney fought tooth & nail to get Congress to extend copyright by 20 years. The first Mickey Mouse drawings are set to become public domain in 2019. I predict that Congress will further extend copyright within the next decade.
The politicians love to protect companies from ostensible nuisance lawsuits (coughtort reformcough), but heaven forfend the individual citizen receive the same protection. A few states provide SLAPP-suit protection, but the Feds don't. To my mind, copyright defense often leads to SLAFU: strategic lawsuits against fair use. It will be a sad day for America when we get de facto censorship not because the government cracks down on people, but because it permits corporations and jerks to do so. Companies cry "innovation!" when they want to infringe on others' rights and "infringement!" when they want to stifle competition. The law seems to be moving towards a situation in which derivative innovation becomes the exclusive right of corporations and the wealthy, solely for the practical reason that only they have the resources to fight off SLAFU suits, while the rest of us – the actual, you know, citizens who comprise the body politic – are cowed by the potential consequences of legal defeat, or even of Pyrrhic victory.
It seems to me that copyright theory has to balance two interests: 1) the actual creator of something, and 2) the society that provided the conditions for said creation. I don't deny that creators have a right to benefit from their creations. I do deny that they have the right to benefit exclusively, or to dictate the terms of the extended benefit. Currently the legal pendulum seems to be aggrandizing #1 to the detriment of #2; and not only that, but extending the period for which it obtains (copyright used to be for 28 years max; now it's up to life + 70 years).
A more reasonable solution, to me, would be to scale the degree of creator-control to the extent of permissible fair use: the more control a creator wants over their copyright, the shorter their term of copyright. You could even do it in steps, analogously to way income taxes are levied: absolute copyright for the first 10 years, then with decreasing control over the next, say, 30.
But just you wait. Disney fought tooth & nail to get Congress to extend copyright by 20 years. The first Mickey Mouse drawings are set to become public domain in 2019. I predict that Congress will further extend copyright within the next decade.
posted by Dr. Bubbles at 11:35
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