Court upholds copyright law on 'orphan works'

Rejects bid by Internet activists to roll back federal laws that extend copyright protection for books no longer in print.
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[ddesy]

More of the same

This is just more of the US court system supporting corporate greed. If copyrights are allowed to continue almost endlessly without publication of the copyrighted works, the end result is that those works are no longer available to anyone.

People who like to ban books must love this! Release a small printing and never release it again! Sounds like an easy way to keep works away from the public.

[lingsun]

A copyright should be forever.

Back when copyright laws were enacted, there was little income to be made from a book published 50 years earlier. That's not the same anymore. In time, copyrights over valuable properties like Superman, Spiderman, the X-Men, and others will expire unless extended indefinitely.

[markdoiron]

Your Comment Shows Lack of Understanding

Your implied comment (that a copyright should be forever because they remain valuable) shows a distinct lack of understanding of copyright and why it was included in the constitution by our forefathers. The purpose of copyright is to allow the producer of the copyrighted work to profit for a limited period of time. Limited period of time is very important: It wasn't a "forever" arrangement by design.

This is because just as important a purpose was to encourage the producer of copyrighted works to continue to produce more works in order to have a continuing revenue stream. To provide them a continuing stream without developing new works was considered contrary to the purpose of copyright law (to encourage yet more works). Current copyright law goes way beyond what our forefathers ever envisioned to protect the developers (or more often the "buyers") of copyrighted works.

A quote:

"Federal copyright can be viewed as a bargain between the creator of the writing or invention and the people, as represented by the federal government. In trade for protection for a limited term (and the ability to commercially exploit the writing or invention during that time because of that protection), the creator lets the public have all rights to the writing or invention after the term of protection ends. The writing or invention enters the ?public domain,? where anybody can do whatever he or she wishes with it. (Since Congress continues to extend the term of copyright protection, there are some that question whether this original bargain theory holds today.)"

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise4.html" target="_newWindow">http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise4.html</a>

--mark d.

[Yet Another Mark Johnson]

What a nightmare!

That's conceptually like saying any drug Pfizer makes should NEVER go off-patent, that there should NEVER be any generic version of their drugs.

The entire concept of both patent and copyright law is to provide a LIMITED and REASONABLE exclusive period for one person or company to profit from their idea.

If your idea of "perpetual protection" were generally applied, we'd all still be paying the Edison Company a licensing fee for every lightbulb and the family estate of Plato would get a copyright payment for each copy of The Republic printed today!

There's a BALANCE here that has to be applied, and the responsibility of the gonvernment has always been to determine that balance. If there were no protections, creativity would suffer. If the protections are too broad, society in general suffers. The idea is that the government tells you: "write a book and no one can copy it for at least long enough for you to be able to make a reasonable living from writing it" not "write a book and we'll make sure your great-great-great-grandchildren are still collecting royalties."

Remember that patents and copyrights have ALWAYS been doing what's best for SOCIETY even more than what's best than for the inventor or author. We acknowledge the exclusive right of the creator has to be protected, but we do that for the benefit of SOCIETY, not really his. We protect his right so that he will produce the work for society. Society certainly doesn't intend to create a situation where his children's children's children can "ride on the back" of the fact that "great-granddaddy invented the buggy-whip a few hundred years ago."

[R. U. Sirius]

Another Deep Thought from Lingsun

&lt;saracasm&gt;That's truly groundbreaking thinking Lingsun. Say, while were at it, maybe we should reinstate slavery too. After all, there's more income to be made be re-establishing indentured servitude.

Oh, and along the lines of your truly brilliant thinking, maybe we should ensure that only property owners have rights. After all, it's all about income, and renters are scum. Wow Lingsun, you have shined a light for us all. Thank you for helping to free us from the clutches of democracy and community and sharing.&lt;/saracasm&gt;

[willdryden]

Please read the article

They are talking about books that are 1) out of print, 2) not expected to be reprinted, and 3) not available to many people. If they want to reprint, extend the copyright. If they do not intend to reprint, extending the copyright serves no purpose except to remove the book from circulation.

[Heebee Jeebies]

Your statement shows you as...

Some that doesn't understand a thing. Copyright's should be granted to all works even those that are not officially registered and then 50 years after their creation. No extensions, no exceptions. Plain and simple. If the author or publisher can't milk whatever it is for all its worth in 50 years then that is their problem.

Robert

[hadaso]

Another law that's needed

There seems to be a need for a law in the USA that requires the federal government to make out of print works that are out of print but still under copyright reasonably available to the public, and also would require the federal government to preserve out of print works as long as they are under copyright (after the term is over private enterprise can preserve them). And of course this kind of law should require that appropriate funding.
That would make them more careful about extending copyright terms.
Even without such a law there should be government money put into projects that preserve works that are unpreservable without such funding because they are copyrighted but are neglected by the copyright holder.
Another idea: a law that requires a copyright holder to preserve the copyrighted work (the berne convention treaty probably doesn't allow such a law because it does not allow to require anything from a copyright holder, but perhaps a criminal law that punishes a copyright holder in case the copyrighted work ceases to exist is allowed, because if the work ceased to exist there is no copyright and the former copyright holder is not a copyright holder that is required anything for preserving the copyright. But it would still create an incentive for copyright holders to put their old works in the public domain.