Posted on 09/06/2003 10:45:31 AM PDT by HAL9000
That's not copyright.
Ah, but if I have the only public-domain copies of a work, and the only copies I release contain my own additions, then as a practical matter it is very difficult for anyone else to safely regard any of the work as being in the public domain. For example, it may turn out that the 9,431st frame of my source copy of the film had a very bad burn mark so I had to digitally reconstruct it; if I did a good job with the reconstruction it should be nearly indistinguishable from the original source material, and yet depending upon what was going on in frame there may be parts of the reconstruction that are in fact my own original copyrighted creation (e.g. a person appears at an angle which is unique to that particular frame). Unless I go out of my way to make it easy, it will be difficult or impossible for anyone to extract the public domain parts of the work from my combined product,
Indeed, this is an issue that should cause many to reevaluate their affiliation with the Republcians. The republicans were the ones who established the "No Electronic Theft Act" which makes a small number of infringements a criminal activity even if no money was involved. Theoretically under the NETA if you post a lot of stories without permission, the FBI could arrest you and put you in prison on a felony charge. The Democrats, sadly enough, only got the balls to propose such draconian legislation once the Republicans proved that congress could get away with it.
That would be rare. The Library of congress may be able to provide a copy of a work. Many universities and some recording studios host collections... not to mention auctions.
True, but those sources are hardly a complete archive of all the public-domain material out there. There's a lot of material which is known to have existed but of which no copies are known to exist today; there is even more material which nobody knows ever existed.
I release contain my own additions, then as a practical matter it is very difficult for anyone else to safely regard any of the work as being in the public domain.
Some original but unsubstantial alterations like spell-correcting or in the case of a song, cocktail variations obvious to any musician would not be upheld. It would be for a court to decide should you register the material and sue.
Ah, but if I pocket the original and nobody else can find a copy, how can anyone know which material is mine and which isn't.
Why do you believe you should benefit using someone else's work? Yes effort is required to distribute PD works, but effort is not equal to originality or creativity. Donate your book or film to the library and create something of your own :-)
The effort required to restore a public-domain work which is in poor condition may be substantial. If it is not possible for someone performing such a restoration to make money from doing so, there will be little incentive for people to do so. And while I agree that the merely distribution of readily-available public-domain works is not as laudable an activity as the creation of new works, I would posit that in many cases the societal value of restoring a work long thought lost may be much greater than the value of producing an unexceptional original work.
To my mind, society should place a significant value on the preservation of the past, and one essential aspect of that involves rewarding people who help to do so. To my mind, allowing a short-term "restoration copyright" would help ensure that the best existing copy of material which enters the public domain does in fact become widely available in a public-domain form.
As a simple example, suppose someone discovers a piano roll in their attic performed by a great pianist in 1916. Would it be better for that person to publish an exact MIDI transcription of the piano roll as the markings exist on paper, or would it be better for them to only publish their own embellished version and copyright it themselves? Under today's legal climate, the latter is a far more likely course of action; it's further complicated by the Berne Convention's ridiculous total abolishment of the 'notice' requirement for copyrights.
I would posit that allowing for a short-term "restoration copyright" but requiring that people who produce enhanced restorations of works make the original public domain sources available under a restoration copyright as a pre-condition to getting a full copyright for themselves, would have a very useful effect at increasing the amount of material which usefully enters the public domain in best-available copies and formats..
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.