Talk:Public domain
Rationale for the complete rewrite:
"The copyright or patent on the work has expired." The actual formula is max(1923, year of first publication + 96) in the U.S. and year of death + 71 in the E.U.
- List items
I converted these to paragraphs because added detail made them too long for the purposes that * was designed to handle.
"The author or inventor explicitly disclaims any proprietary interest." Not necessarily. Some law experts believe that it's impossible for an author to put a copyrightable work into PD. (Anyone have a source for this?) Even then, it's still a really Bad Idea for an author to release a work into PD, as it fails to disclaim implied warranty and opens the author up to liability. Better to release it under a simple permissive license similar to the new BSD license.
- I've added a note to the relevant section that modern copyright law generally doesn't provide any way to abandon copyright. I think references to this idea are based on the old US law. As for warranty, I don't see that it would make much difference: you could abandon copyright (if it was possible) and also place a disclaimer, which doesn't seem different to providing a permissive licence and placing a disclaimer. Goatherd 21:27, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
As much as I happen to agree with the "monopoly" chant, repeating it over and over is clearly biased; I'm going to neutralize the wording a bit. --Lee Daniel Crocker
I didn't intend the word "monopoly" to show bias but used it merely to distinguish such artificial rights from birth rights. Calling such rights "intellectual property" sets up a false analogy with physical property that United States law (for example) does not recognize; it's a good thing you didn't bias it up the other way.
And the soft line breaks after sentences serve a purpose: they make the diffs much cleaner. --Damian Yerrick
Can we have an example other than Mark Twain?: one story of his wasn't published in his lifetime, and finally appeared in 2001, so it's still in copyright. --Vicki Rosenzweig
- Let's get Lessig on that one too. ^_^ J.D. Salinger set precedent that even letters are copyrighted, just by virtue of being written; he successfully prevented a biographer's publication of his letters by claiming copyright on them. Therefore it's established that the act of writing establishes copyright, not the act of publishing. the much miffed, Koyaanis Qatsi
What about Translation and Editing of old texts? Translations are obviously under copyright (for whatever time) and edited versions of texts (including Shakespeare, for instance) are copyright. For instance, a nasty old Shakespeare text from 1900 may be public domain, but the Riverside Shakespeare publishes an original editing, so you can't copy that one, presumably. --MichaelTinkler
In the "1.3 Disclaimer of interest" section, I'd like to add something about the impossibility of "recall" after something has entered the p.d., but I'm not completely sure it's true. For example, a single Supreme Court decision in favour of M. Mouse entering the public domain is permanent, meaning that it cannot ever again become anyone's property; decisions going the other way can be regarded as temporary. Perhaps this aspect - if completely true - is important enough to warrant its own section, here, in Eldred v. Ashcroft, GPL, etc. -- Hotlorp
- Impossibility of "recall" isn't true I think. Didn't Eldred v. Ashcroft involve public domain works that had reverted to copyright due to the extention of copyright term? Goatherd 21:29, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I doubt that this concept was introduced by governments. What is the evidence for that claim? Michael Hardy 04:13 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)
- Well, copyright itself was introduced by governments, so they've defined the playing field, so to speak. Pre-copyright, everything was in the public domain. Koyaanis Qatsi
Except when publishing was forbidden without a license for a particular book granted by the king. Michael Hardy 04:17 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)
Really, the claim is about history, and not only should historical evidence should not only be adduced, but the story should be told here, if (as I doubt) there is such a story. Legislatures introduced copyrights and limited their duration. Lawyers then invented language in which to talk about related matters, including the phrase "public domain". The claim here is that governments had in mind such things as common public land when they decided to limit the duration of copyrights. I don't believe it. Michael Hardy 04:21 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)
So, one thing I don't see on this page is mention of The Public Domain Enhancement Act, AKA "The Eric Eldred Act", introduced by Zoe Lofgren in late June 2003. Is this valuable? -- ESP 14:52 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- Yes. Add it if you want to, but please make sure it's clear it affects only the U.S. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi
There may be benefit in adding what can and can't be done with public domain works - as it stands there is a lot on how a work can become public domain, but not much on what this means to the end-user of a pd work.
- You can do anything you want with a public domain work, provided it doesn't violate any other rights (e.g. privacy rights of individuals in public domain photos). Koyaanis Qatsi