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James Boyle's <em>The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind</em>

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 16 2014, @11:33AM   
from the preparing-for-talk-like-a-pirate-day? dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

In The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind Professor of Law James Boyle writes about the history of copyright, patent and trademark laws, and their application. What is the public domain? What are orphan works? Why should somebody own an idea? Boyle makes the case for result-based evaluation of how well the current laws serve us and (re)introduces his idea of information environmentalism.

I think the book makes fascinating reading and since all our contemporary culture and technology is governed by these rules, we should know them and understand how they came to be.

The book is available for download under the CC BY-NC-SA license.

“In this beautifully written and subtly argued book, Boyle has succeeded in resetting that framework, and beginning the work in the next stage of this field. The Public Domain is absolutely crucial to understanding where the debate has been, and where it will go. And Boyle’s work continues to be at the center of that debate.” — Lawrence Lessig.

What say you Soylents? Do you think copyright protection lasts too long? Do you have a problem with patents? Download this book and weigh in for an informed discussion.

• Re:IP law/reg's need redone ASAP... (Score: 1) by jbWolf on Wednesday September 17 2014, @04:42AM

  by jbWolf (2774) <reversethis-{moc.flow-bj} {ta} {bj}> on Wednesday September 17 2014, @04:42AM (#94393) Homepage

  There is almost nothing else under copyright that is like Disney, Starwars, Startrek. Not music, not literature, not paintings or sculptures. Most creative works are produced, marketed, then DONE. Usually never revisited, except for the occasional sequel.

  There probably should be a special class of protection for those things where complete companies have formed around preserving and ACTIVELY marketing a creation, and let the rest terminate after some short number of years, 10, 17, what ever.

  But trying to fight Disney is not going to be productive. Better to give them their own little island, at great annual expense (tax it), and stiff entrance criteria. Create new category of property just for them, make it expensive enough to encourage them to give it up when they aren't using it any more.

  I almost agree with you. You certainly have a very strong argument when you say that fighting Disney is not going to be productive. The problem is that all the big companies are doing it (like Marvel, DC, and even the BBC). The little guys then all point to them and say "But they're doing it!" It keeps it ugly at all levels.

  I want to define an end game that people -- including the big boys -- can rally around. I mean, let's face it, you're right on some level. It won't magically change overnight and in the beginning, we'll have to chip away at it slowly. An intermediate point may look a lot like your idea. As we chip, though, bigger chunks will begin to come off and then (probably unexpectedly), a huge ice berg breaks. We will need to be ready with a real plan that is fair to all parties -- both big and small when that happens. Being fair to the big boys is why I want to tackle trademarks at the same time as copyrights and patents. With my idea, the big boys can still out market anyone else and they can still produce "the official" Star Wars, Star Trek, Iron Man, Superman, Doctor Who, etc. through their trademarks. They just wouldn't be able to prevent anyone else from making their own version of it.

  --
  www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]

  Parent