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from the preparing-for-talk-like-a-pirate-day? dept.
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.
(Score: 1) by Pino P on Tuesday September 16 2014, @09:56PM
Perhaps what is needed is not an expansion of the public domain but instead an expansion of the eminent domain. If a published copyrighted work has gone out of print in the United States, the government ought to let anyone buy a non-exclusive license pursuant to the takings clause of the Constitution, with some means of determining "just compensation". The opinion of the Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London [wikipedia.org], 545 U.S. 469 (2005), would appear to support this.