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January 1st is Public Domain Day. Throughout the year, works for which copyright has expired enter the public domain and become available for anyone to use in any way. In the US, copyright was originally only for 14 years with an option to renew for an additional 14. Now it is the life of the author plus 70 years. It is described in the US constitution under Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 as having the purpose of promoting science and useful arts. However, with "life+70" that promotion is not able to happen, the stream of freely available ideas and resources has been forcibly dried up. So every New Year's Day, Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain publishes a list on what we would have had with sane copyright under the old rules:
Public Domain Day is January 1st of every year. If you live in Canada or New Zealand, January 1st 2018 would be the day when the works of René Magritte, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Jean Toomer, Edward Hopper, and Alice B. Toklas enter the public domain. So would the musical compositions of John Coltrane, Billy Strayhorn, Paul Whiteman, Otis Redding, and Woody Guthrie. Canadians can now add a wealth of books, poems, paintings, and musical works by these authors to online archives, without asking permission or violating the law. And in Europe, the works of Hugh Lofting (the Doctor DoLittle books), William Moulton Marston (creator of Wonder Woman!), and Emma Orczy (the Scarlet Pimpernel series) will emerge into the public domain, where anyone can use them in their own books or movies. (You can find a great celebration of some of these authors here.)
What is entering the public domain in the United States? Not a single published work. Once again, no published works are entering our public domain this year.
Source : Public Domain Day: January 1, 2018
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:42PM (1 child)
I still can't get people excited about privacy.....
....too busy with blah of the day and "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about!", which is what the Jews of Nazi Germany, what...1938ish were saying when asked to register at the local police station.
Sheeple.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:57PM
How did other bad laws get repealed? It took a lot of public scoffing and years of pressure to overcome the entrenched interests that had positioned themselves to benefit from the status quo. When fines from enforcement seem to benefit a municipality (or at least key officials and their cronies) more than the bad reputation hurts, they don't want to give that up, regardless of the merits. That was the case with the national 55mph speed limit, and alcohol prohibition and now marijuana prohibition. The way Jim Crow voting laws were repealed was a little different, involving a great deal of external pressure. The moment that pressure was blocked, Jim Crow was reincarnated, and in response the external pressure ratcheted up. Now they're removing not just those unfair voting rules, they're also removing Confederate monuments.
The pressure to drastically reform copyright is low but steady. Keep scoffing at those law, that's perhaps the best way to keep up the pressure. And privacy? Need more outrage over 14 year old girls busted for sexting and forced onto the sex offender registry, and such, to get further with that.