Two lawyers are still fighting to keep Buck Rogers from entering the public domain, something which should have begun 70 years after the author's death. Philip Nowlan, the stories' author, died in 1940 and so his works should have joined the public domain starting 2010. Part of the strategy from the copyright trolls has been to drag out the process with multiple lawsuits.
Back in October 2015 we brought you the story of the Buck Rogers Copyright Trolls, two lawyers who were fighting to keep Buck Rogers from entering the public domain using the discredited Sherlock Holmes system of licensing. Two and a half years later, Louise Geer and Dan Herman are still at it, using every trick in the book to keep a beloved tale out of the public domain, where it firmly belongs. Along the way the pair have stiffed multiple law firms, and currently are abusing a Bankruptcy Court in Pennsylvania in a Hail Mary effort to...well, it's not exactly clear what they're trying to do.
From Boing Boing : The continuing saga of Buck Rogers and the Copyright Trolls
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:01PM (9 children)
Copyright can suck my dick. Amirite??
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:49PM (7 children)
Be careful, copyrights can bite
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:25PM (6 children)
Not GNU! GNU copyrights are perfectly crafted legalese to ensure every free software programmer is entitled to compensation every time a tech billionaire uses free software to gain another billion in unearned profit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @03:20PM
There are no GNU copyrights. There are just copyrights. GNU has licenses. Those licenses are designed as a hack using copyright licenses as a mechanism to ensure the freedom of the software with the force of law.
As was discussed back in the Groklaw daze, there was a case where a judge did view the license as an agreement or contract, and the consideration exchanged for the rights in the license was that you kept the software free. And the copyright owners could expect to receive this compensation, and that compensation was just as valuable as a monetary compensation if that is what the copyright owners wanted instead of money.
Tech billionaires and poor people alike use open source software every day. The authors and copyright owners of the open source or free software seem perfectly happy with this arrangement -- or they would have choosened a different license.
Thank goodness the 1st amendment forces people to listen to you and agree with you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @03:25PM (4 children)
wat
Is this really the best you've got? What you're describing is a feature of BSD and MIT licenses.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @04:01PM (3 children)
I must be using them wrong, helpful advice appreciated.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 02 2018, @05:32PM
Realbotix, they're doing a head for RealDolls. Which, by the way, it's the same company. And it's going to be like Siri. Like Cortana. Like Alexa. Or the Google one. But with blowjobs.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 02 2018, @06:36PM (1 child)
Error 517 : Dick stuck in fan blade - did not generate proper callback and did not get logged.
Zero stars. Would not buy again.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:58AM
> Error 517 : Dick stuck in fan blade - did not generate proper callback and did not get logged.
I guess your dick has systemd in PEED 1.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:24PM
Gutenberg has 2 of the works in public domain: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/31334 [gutenberg.org]
Other works are might be pirate-able but no one really cares enough to bother uploading them by the looks of it.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing is the result of the author's memorial fund's board of trustees going through the motions of hiring lawyers to protect the IP through the spending of the fund's coffers. I know there are a lot of museums for painters, authors and "philanthropists" operating under such arrangements all over the world.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday July 02 2018, @01:09PM (9 children)
That should read "... 28 years after original publication (on assumption the IP owners cared to renew the copyright after the first 14 years)".
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jdavidb on Monday July 02 2018, @02:22PM (8 children)
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Informative) by schad on Monday July 02 2018, @03:04PM (7 children)
Ex post facto laws means criminalizing behavior that wasn't illegal at the time it was done. It doesn't mean that laws can't be made retroactive.
If Congress let copyright for Buck Rogers lapse, then a few days later extended copyright retroactive to when it lapsed, you couldn't be punished for writing Buck Rogers fanfic on the days that it was out of copyright.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday July 02 2018, @03:16PM (6 children)
At a glance it might also violate the takings clause. Once a work has entered the public domain, however briefly, returning it to copyright amounts to taking the right to use it away from each and every citizen, without compensation.
Unfortunately it's not possible to get a fair hearing on such issues when the copyright mafia are so deeply tied to government at all levels.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday July 02 2018, @03:31PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday July 02 2018, @03:37PM (4 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday July 02 2018, @07:46PM (3 children)
I bash on Hollywood a lot but I don't have a geographic anchor to bash on the music industry. Sure there is Nashville but most of the time I want to bash on more than just country music.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @08:00PM
Music is everywhere Alfred, it's like the cosmic vibration of the universe. A better question is where music is not and the answer is the VMA's.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:45AM
The RIAA is headquartered in DC, although there isn't any music there, I think that might be what you meant to ask.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:29AM
Nashville, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta are also significant, but combined are less than either of the big 2.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:14PM (1 child)
It's book Rogers [gutenberg.org] and not Buck Rogers which was the name of the comic strip?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @10:50PM
Well, actually in the books, IIRC, his name was Anthony Rodgers.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @03:23PM (10 children)
If a copyrighted work enters the public domain and there is nobody around to hear the copyright fall, does it make a sound?
By the time this happens, will anyone even care about this particular fictional work?
Thank goodness the 1st amendment forces people to listen to you and agree with you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @03:58PM (9 children)
It's of historical and cultural significance as is the British version [wordpress.com] The aspirations of a society we inherited from the atomic age is interesting enough and watching SJW's freak out is just the icing on the cake...
(Score: 4, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 02 2018, @06:11PM
It wasn't that long ago. They had the Buck Rogers comic strip in so many papers when I was a boy. And they did a television series in the 80s. In the early early 80s. Let me tell you, we're not in the 25th Century. Only the 21st. But so much of it is coming true already. In the 25th Century, they had ray guns. We have LASER. They had the Space Core and the Rocket Police. Very soon we'll have the Space Force. Because of me!!!
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday July 02 2018, @10:53PM (7 children)
Try "Fifth Column" by Heinlein. Or "The Mightiest Machine" by John W. Campbell. (There are others, but those two are my favorites. I find the racism annoying, but can ignore it for the sake of the story.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:49AM (6 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:32PM (5 children)
Perhaps ignore is the wrong word, but I can't think of a better one. And to what extent it's "an integral part of the story" is debatable. In Heinlein's "Fifth Column" is *was* an integral part of the story. In the Nolan books it's a shorthand way of talking about "nationalism", and you can easily ignore the racism. But even in "Fifth Column" it was easy to just say "OK, but things aren't that way really" and go on. Have you ever read any good translations from a foreign language? There are always cultural things involved that are either distasteful or unpleasant. You think about them a little, and then ignore them. You don't need to accept them to enjoy the story. (Others, of course, can cause you to question your own prejudices.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday July 03 2018, @09:20PM (4 children)
"But things aren't that way really" - well things are very much like that actually, at least I thought it portrayed racial prejudice quite realistically, but maybe that's not what you meant.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:17PM (3 children)
You're right, it was "Sixth Column".
OK, if you read it as a portrayal of racial prejudice, then I can accept it as accurate. If you portrayal of the actual difference between groups of people, it's false, but acceptable for the sake of the story. I can also accept various FTL devices, including that of "The Skylark of Space", even though "things aren't that way". Did you ever read "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad? An excellent story with totally implausible portrayal. (I'm basically ignoring here the frame within which this is a fictional portrayal of a fiction.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:15AM (2 children)
Never read the Iron Dream sorry. A glance at the wikipedia article and it sounds like it might be interesting - or just horrible, depending on how it's written.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 04 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)
In "Sixth Column" the expressions were racial, but the actual conflict was nationalist based. This was made clear by having one of the secondary heroic roles played by a native-born oriental.
There are many times cultural differences that don't lead to prejudice. There seems to be a sort of threshold effect for most people, were exotic foreign ideas or people are accepted as "exotic" without instigating prejudice. The prejudice only arises when a degree of economic conflict appears. Others, of course, have a threshold so low it's hard to measure.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Wednesday July 04 2018, @06:40PM
And they fit well together, in the real world if not necessarily always in theory, for the simple reason that nationalism historically is a deeply racist ideology, in origin and usually in practice.
"There are many times cultural differences that don't lead to prejudice. There seems to be a sort of threshold effect for most people, were exotic foreign ideas or people are accepted as "exotic" without instigating prejudice. The prejudice only arises when a degree of economic conflict appears. Others, of course, have a threshold so low it's hard to measure."
I think there are a couple of different things going on.
First there is a natural continuum from neophile to neophobe, from xenophile to xenophobe. And where a population sits on that scale is very important, in an evolutionary sense. Moving to the phobic side reduces the risk of certain catastrophic events, such as spread of diseases for example. But moving to the other side gives great benefits, allowing expanded cooperation and mutually beneficial trade activities. From an evolutionary point of view, it's not a matter of picking one, but of finding an ideal balance (and tuning it in response to events as well - if you know there's a plague spreading you naturally become more phobic in response.)
Also, regardless of psychological orientation, if something seems to interfere with your ability to make a living, pay the bills, feed the kids etc. then it will start to bother you as well. So that's your 'economic conflict' affect - they're related but I do see that as separate. Even a xenophile can develop resentments over such things.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Alfred on Monday July 02 2018, @03:25PM (7 children)
The compromise is to have first copyright be free and every following renewal to cost increasingly more. That way Disney can continue to copyright mickey mouse crap and all of us can copyright our podcasts or whatever that we won't care about in 10-20 years.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Monday July 02 2018, @04:48PM
Agreed.
It seems to me that the copyright situation is, in general, an excellent indicator of the balance of power between corporations and individual citizens. Who benefits from the newest laws? Who has their interests served by the courts? By Congress? By law enforcement? Who can personally and effectively defend their rights by both financial and physical force?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @05:21PM (3 children)
Yup, my proposal was that you get 20 years free.
After that, you need to register the work with the PTO (which could then be the PTCO?), with an estimated worth of the work.
Then, each year you must pay a tax on the worth of the work, where T = W x (Y - 20)/100, (T=tax, W=stated worth, Y=year after publishing) so the 21st year you pay 1%, 22nd, 2% etc. Each year you are allowed to change the estimated worth. The catch is that you are legally bound to accept any offer to buy the rights for anything exceeding that estimate, the new owners can re-estimate the worth upon purchase. Failure to pay for a full year lapses the work into the public domain. The list will be publicly available through the PT(C)O, and any work over 20 years old not in that list will be assumed to be PD (defensible in court).
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday July 02 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday July 02 2018, @11:46PM
Perhaps this should be that you have to EITHER:
At some point, it needs to become economically unviable to continue to pay for extended copyright.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:10AM
Someone on the Green Site once proposed this:
Initial copyright registration, say for 14 years from first publication date: free
Renewal, say for 7 years: fee, inexpensive enough for entry-level users
Every 7 years thereafter: renewal fee doubles
So how much you pay is directly proportional to how long you hang onto it. And after a certain point, even Mickey Mouse isn't worth the cost.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Kawumpa on Tuesday July 03 2018, @06:42AM (1 child)
It's not hampering creativity at all, in fact it's fostering creativity, though not necessarily in a way you and I might prefer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:37PM
I want to mod the parent up, but it doesn't really fit into any of the categories. Underrated would work, but I can't use that because nobody else has moded it. So I'm posting a reply so that more people will notice the parent.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.