The Woman Who Established Fair Use

The Narrative Fallacy writes "The Washington Post has an interesting profile on Barbara A. Ringer, who joined the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress in 1949 and spent 21 years drafting the legislation and lobbying Congress before the Copyright Act of 1976 was finally passed. Ringer wrote most of the bill herself. 'Barbara had personal and political skills that could meld together the contentious factions that threatened to tear apart every compromise in the 20 year road to passage of the 1976 Act,' wrote copyright lawyer William Patry. The act codified the fair use defense to copyright infringement. For the first time, scholars and reviewers could quote briefly from copyrighted works without having to pay fees. With the 1976 act that Ringer conceived, an author owned the copyright for his or her lifetime plus 50 years. Previously under the old 1909 law, an author owned the copyright for 28 years from the date of publication and unless the copyright was renewed, the work entered the public domain, and the author lost any right to royalties. Ringer received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, the highest honor for a federal worker. Ringer remained active in copyright law for years, attending international conferences and filing briefs with the Supreme Court before her death earlier this year at age 83. 'Her contributions were monumental,' said Marybeth Peters, the Library of Congress's current register of copyrights. 'She blazed trails. She was a heroine.'"

Now I know who to blame

[Daengbo]

Now I know who to blame for the demise of the public domain. It's all her fault! Get her! I've got my pitchfork. j/k

Re:Reguarding

[PPH]

But you do understand that the copyright law's intent is to encourage the creation of new works. With life plus 50 years, there are untold numbers of authors dead only 10 or 20 years who might be willing to rise and take a crack at just one more novel.

Re:Ya kiding right?

[OrangeTide]

First one to mention Godwin's law loses the debate.

Re:Ya kiding right?

[russotto]

With regard to trains running on time, are you sure that you aren't referring to Mussolini? I'm not saying that he had any more success in that area than Hitler, but it is he with whom the phrase "made the trains run on time" is most closely associated.

Forget it, he's on a roll.

Re:Ya kiding right?

[Selanit]

I stand corrected! In future I shall be sure to write my grocery lists like cheap thrillers.

"This is a dark city. (Item: lightbulbs, 3, flourescent.) I was cleaning up from my last job (Item: Clorox; item: new scrubbie sponges; item: nitric acid) and contemplating what I'd have for dinner (Items: 5 steaks, 1 bottle steak sauce, a nice Cabernet Rosso, 1 bag potatoes, garlic, broccoli, rice) when I looked up and there she was: redheaded, green-eyed, a short compact frame and legs that went all the way down. (Item: Trojans, more Cabernet Rosso, maybe some flowers.) "Hi, gorgeous," I said. "You need anything at the grocery store?" She cocked her head prettily, and said "We're out of hand soap in the upstairs bathroom, there are only two cans of cat food left, and the kids need more pencils for school -- someone discovered our stash and reduced them all to stubs in the electric sharpener." Rinsing my hands, I asked "Are there any suspects in the case?" She glanced over her shoulder and said "The culprit, I believe, goes by the code name 'Junior.'" I nodded, checked my wallet, jotted a few notes, and headed for the door. "Well, I'll investigate, and if guilty this fiend shall be punished."

"Oh, you dashing fellow," she replied. "Don't forget the milk."

Re:Established in USC, not the law

[Rakarra]

hey it's ok, only in the EU are we retarded enough to re-copyright stuff that had already fallen into public domain

Oh please. Here in the US we've been out-retarding you for years.

Re:Reguarding

[Ed Avis]

Yes, but if it's just life, then there is the very real incentive to simply kill the author.

Somebody suggested that in the future, Disney, movie studios and other big copyright holders will put authors into spacecraft that fly close to the speed of light, thus allowing hundreds of years on earth to pass while the author ages only a few minutes. Copyrights would then never expire. (I can't find the original website set up to draw attention to this looming problem.)