The Woman Who Established Fair Use 226
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.'"
Reguarding (Score:5, Informative)
the date of publication and unless the copyright was renewed,
the work entered the public domain, and the author lost any right to royalties.
That seems a hell of a lot more fair than the in perpetuity that we have now.
We really should go back to that or life of the author or 20 years which ever comes later.
Re:No, a torrent is not "fair use". (Score:5, Informative)
"No, strangling a composer with a piano roll is not fair use"
wow this is fun!
Re:Ya kiding right? (Score:4, Informative)
But hey, Hilter made the trains run on time too.
That was Mussolini. Hitler was the vegetarian painter.
Re:Ya kiding right? (Score:4, Informative)
Welcome to Slashdot, where the libertarians want everything for free.
I wouldn't go that far, but I would say that both sides ignore the need for a good balance between the two extremes. On one side there is a group which want to charge for ever for something, even when they aren't maintaining the work and there is another group who wants everything for free. While there may some libertarians that a anti-property, there are certainly those that a pro-property.
The introductory text at wikipedia states: "Libertarianism is a term used by a broad spectrum[1] of political philosophies which seek to maximize individual liberty[2] and minimize or abolish the state.[3] There are a number of libertarian view points, ranging from anarchist to small government, and from anti-property to pro-property.".
Re:Now I know who to blame (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Now I know who to blame (Score:5, Informative)
Cornell University Law School is your friend when you want to find out about things like this--they have the U.S. Code available online.
In particular, 17 USC 302 [cornell.edu] is edifying. Copyright in works for hire persists for 95 years from first publication, or 120 years from creation, whichever comes first. If it's not a work for hire, then it's life of the author + 70 years. Older works (first published prior to 1978) are covered under different provisions.
Re:Now I know who to blame (Score:3, Informative)
>A lifetime is generally unfair to a lot of authors^Wother people in society
There, fixed that for you. Seriously, why should you be able (or want to) rest
on your laurels your whole life for the production of one item? If you make
enough money in publication date+X years and decide to be a lazy sod or
philanthropist, then so be it. But you, and the Nth-generation descendants
ought not continue to collect royalties and stymie the creativity of others
for what is effectively perpetuity i.e; the entire/majority lifespan of others.
Re:Now I know who to blame (Score:5, Informative)
You do know that life + 70 (the current term in the US, as of the 1998 Sonny Bono Act) only applies to the life of the original creator, right? It has no relevance to the lifetime of a corporation; even if the rights are transferred to a corporation, copyright still expires 70 years after the death of the original author.
For works that are created by corporations (i.e. works-for-hire), copyright lasts for 95 years after publication.
Not that I don't agree with you; copyright extension is awful, and I personally wish it were possible to revert copyright to 28+28 or even the original (1790 Copyright Act) term of 14 years + a 14 year renewal. But you should check your facts.
Re:Now I know who to blame (Score:3, Informative)
When a copyright is retroactively extended every 20 years for an additional 20 years, they really do become "non-expiring."
Re:Now I know who to blame (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. Most writers certainly DO own the copyright to their work. Even journalists. The publisher has the right to publish it, and keeps most of the profit, but usually even those rights expire after the book goes out of print, or for journalists, a short time after the original publication (which is why columnists can publish books collecting or based on their columns).
Just look at the copyright notices on a book: almost always it lists the author's name.
Re:Now I know who to blame (Score:3, Informative)
No.
The US was created for many reasons, one big one being because Britain didn't want us anymore(at least not enough to take us). Copyright law was not on the lips of the founding fathers. Tax law, and Torture, and lack of Due Process, where on their lips.
This isn't quite true either. Admittedly copyright was not the leading issue of the day, but abuses of crown copyright (including "eternal copyright" and having the legal code copyright protected and exclusively printed by a single "licensed" printing house) were among the various "abuses" that did trigger the revolution against England.
The stamp act in particular was one that incensed the publishers... where a stamp had to be paid for (and affixed to) anything created in a printing house. This also included schedules for certain items including the Bible that were simply prohibited from being published in America.
The first Bible printed in America was a translation of the King James Version of the Bible in one of the Algonquian languages. An English-language edition of the Bible didn't even get published in America until after the Declaration of Independence, and even then it was considered an act of rebellion. The British printers wanted the revenue from bible production, which is one of the reasons for this law. The reason I'm mentioning the Bible in particular is due to what should be obvious religious influences in the USA and how much publication of the scriptures is linked to political freedoms in general, and how absurd it sounds to be arrested for simply the act of copying the contents of the Bible... even a simple excerpt that today would be considered fair-use.
I should also note that copyright issues were important enough to the founders of the American Republic that the copyright clause was put into the very first article of the Constitution and put very strong limitations on its implementation that were designed to explicitly prohibit abuses as seen by English copyright law. In addition, one of the very first acts of the first Congress of the USA under the current constitution was the U.S. Copyright Act of 1790. This law was written by many of the original framers of the constitution and also set the model of what they desired in terms of copyright law. IMHO, this federal employee that is being honored by the original post is an example of somebody who clearly did not study, or really understand the abuses that lead to the copyright clause or why the original copyright act was written.