Showing posts with label Copyright. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Copyright. Show all posts

Thursday, December 28, 2023

Celebrating Public Domain Day

January 1 is Public Domain Day for works still under copyright that were first released in 2028:

Public Domain Day 2024

The article includes selected lists of books, plays, films, and musical compositions being liberated, so to speak, in 2024. It also explains some of the intricacies of copyright law and explores the question, "Why Celebrate the Public Domain?"

Most famously, of course, the earliest version of Mickey and Minnie Mouse becomes available for public reproduction and reinterpretation in 2024 (with some qualifications and caveats -- trademark, for instance, has a longer and more tenacious life than copyright):

Mickey Mouse Will Soon Belong to You and Me

As an unintended side effect of what this essay labels "overlong" copyright protection under U.S. law, "many properties with less pedigree than Winnie [the Pooh] or Minnie can disappear or be forgotten with their copyrights murky." As Cory Doctorow is quoted as saying, the remarkable 95-year endurance of some classic works "makes you think about the stuff that we must have lost, that would still have currency," or might have, if that material had been freely available for reproduction and distribution.

As the first article cited above puts it, "Most older works are 'orphan works,' where the copyright owner cannot be found at all. Now that these works are in the public domain, anyone can make them available to the public. This enables access to our cultural heritage -- access to materials that might otherwise be forgotten. 1928 was a long time ago and the vast majority of works from 1928 are not commercially available. You couldn’t buy them, or even find them, if you wanted. When they enter the public domain in 2024, anyone can rescue them from obscurity and make them available, where we can all discover, enjoy, and breathe new life into them."

Having had the experience of editing two paperback fiction anthologies in the early 1970s, I've often mentally grumbled about the problems inherent in the "life of author plus seventy years" rule that reigned for several decades. An editor who wanted to "rescue" an undeservedly neglected story from obscurity would have to find out whether copyright was renewed under the older system, when the author died, and who holds reprint rights -- if they're still in force -- in the present. For a very old, little-known work, the latter information might be almost impossible to discover, as the above quote mentions. Nobody benefits from continuation of the copyright, and readers who might enjoy the story and appreciate the long-dead writer's creation are deprived of that opportunity.

As Cory Doctorow, again, says in an essay on the Medium site, "First in 1976, and then again in 1998, Congress retroactively extended copyright’s duration by 20 years, for all works, including works whose authors were unknown and long dead, whose proper successors could not be located. Many of these authors were permanently erased from history as every known copy of their works disappeared before they could be brought back into our culture through reproduction, adaptation and re-use."

Public Domain Is a Banger

His characterization of this process as "slow-motion arson" might be a bit extreme, but he makes a point well worth considering.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Saturday, June 04, 2022

When You Die....

In DUNE, everyone had wealth in the form of bodily fluids, except that their water belonged to the tribe, and the dessicated remains to their family. There's a lot more inspiring (or not) matter about recycling, and also some sub plots that might relate to modern day discoveries about DNA, auras , bioenergy fields, and ghosts, and how the human mind can (perhaps) change or repair its own DNA.

But, most of us have wealth that we may never consider: intellectual property wealth. What might once have been included in ones estate as photograph albums, diaries, scrapbooks, reels of film and carousels of slides may now be stored and locked in a "cloud" or server farm belonging to a big tech entity. Without a password and a plan, ones beneficiaries might not be able to reclaim digitally stored NFTs, bitcoins, domain names, photographs, social media accounts and so forth.

Legal blogger Nicole L. Petrow of the law firm McGrath North Mullin & Kratz discusses the important steps one should take to ensure that ones loved ones are able to inherit ones sentimental and financial digital treasures... not to mention ones Facebook account.

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Lexology Link:  
 
Nicole L. Petrow's article seems comprehensive, thorough, and well worth doing. Also, it is by far the most recent and current article on the subject, so although I have reviewed other articles, I have not included links to articles from the two-thousand-and-teens.
 
Authors who have copyright registration documents for their books and trademarks etc should be sure to include mention of those and an assignment to an executor of ones copyrights in their wills. An article by Fred Rocafort of Harris Bricken about "shenanigans" on Amazon illustrates why one should be sure that ones loved ones have proof of copyright registration, not only for novels and other literary works, but also for ones blurbs and advertising copy!
 
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Original Link: 
 
All the best,
 
Rowena Cherry 
SPACE SNARK™ 

 

Saturday, May 21, 2022

For Art's Sake

For the purposes of today's blog, Art is not an alien god, although, given the evolving meaning of the word "icon", Art could be synonymous.

My title might also allude to Aestheticism..."art for art's sake", also to a line in the romantic song  Art For Art's Sake by 10cc. 

For some weeks, I have been accumulating copyright-related legal blogs to discuss Art Rights (not for the first time), and the Davis vs Pinterest result is a good hook. Pinterest is a great place to display ones cover art; I believe that I have also seen it used by book pirates to advertise their allegedly ill-gotten "collections".

Spoiler: Pinterest won the copyright infringement lawsuit brought against them by a photographer. 

Nevertheless, as with many stories (such as a romance novel), one knows how the story will end almost immediately; the interest lies in how the protagonists get there. 

Likewise, the summary of the court's reasoning in dismissing the photographer's suit, as provided by legal bloggers Frank D. D'Angelo and Marwa Abdulaziz for the multi-service, international law firm Loeb & Loeb LLP, is complex and interesting.

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Possibly, and this is merely an opinion, the plaintiff was a tad too dog-in-the-mangerish.

In Europe, the courts are looking at (but have not resolved) the question of whether cloud services create duplicate copies of copyrighted work, and whether they have any responsibily to copyright owners depending on how cloud storage is used.

It appears that a cloud storage provider is covered by a sort of safe harbor where a lawful owner or licensee stores a copyrighted work for private use. The wrinkle emerges if the cloud product is used for "sharing" copyrighted works. 

Legal bloggers Patricia Ernst and Christiane Stuetzle for the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP summarize the recent ruling of the European Court of Justice, and what it means for private copies stored in a cloud, and whether or not cloud storage providers might have to pay a levy for storing copies of copyrighted works... and who should decide how rights holders might be compensated for the reproductions of their works.

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Lexology Link: 

For a comprehensive, entertaining and thorough explanation of Art rights in the USA, I recommend the Q and A format shared, apparently exclusively, on Lexology by art-dispute expert Gabrielle C, Wilson,  looted-art specialist Yael M. Weitz, international litigator Lawrence M. Kaye, and the probably-storied* Howard N. Spiegler for Park Avenue law firm Kaye Spiegler PLLC

 

The team explains how a copyright owner proves ownership for the purposes of suing for copyright infringement; whether or not a copyrighted work of art can be displayed without the copyright owner's consent; whether or not copyrighted artwork can be copied for publication in catalogues and advertisements without the copyright owner's permisison... and much more.

Some of the Q and As are merely fascinating, others can be extrapolated to be useful advice to authors and bloggers.

*I opine "probably-storied" because the bio reminds me of at least one Daniel Silva novel sub-plot.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™