In 1976, the "Copyright Act of 1976" was passed which gave us the modern concept of copyright. “Secure for a limited time,” was reinterpreted to mean the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years in the case of a work made for hire. In 1992, Congress again restructured copyright to make the renewal of a copyright term automatic. Works that were about to expire, suddenly received a 67-year bump (in the case of corporate owned copyrights) that automatically triggered if the work was in its first term in 1978. This means that affected works will not become part of our cultural canon until Sunday, January 1, 2045. That’s a long time to go before we have a public domain again, eh?
So, what exactly are the rights contained in Copyright? Section 106 of the Copyright Act has the answer. An author has the exclusive right to:
Reproduce the work, prepare derivative works, distribute copies of the work, to publicly perform the work (where applicable), or to perform the work publicly by “means of a digital audio transmission” [obviously what the constitutional framers were thinking of when they wrote this clause].
These are not property rights. They have a property connotation inasmuch as the author can divide, sell, or give them away; but property denotes ownership, and the very concept of “for a limited time” frustrates this concept. The right to information, the property right of culture, rests with the public. Congress has the power to lease that right to the original authors of these works, for a limited time, and only to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. The author never has a property right in his or her work, but instead has the exclusive right to use that property for a limited time. This makes the right more properly a contract right. The author contracts with society, agreeing to create original works, in consideration for the right to profit from them exclusively for a limited time.
This concept has been changed over the years as powerful interests have reformed the concept of copyright to something that may be indistinguishable from a property right, and Congress may yet make these rights perpetual. Nonetheless, copyright is still not a property right.
What’s the big deal?
The big deal is that even with this rapid expansion of exclusive rights to the detriment of the public domain, there have been safeguards carved out by the law. Fair use and time shifting are two such safeguards. Now, even these are under attack. The Internet has had a huge impact on the reassertion of the public desire to have an open culture.
Article comments
1 - Deano
I highly recommend checking out Creative Commons for an interesting new take on copyrights that permits license holders to allow some "degrees of usage" of their intellectual property.
I also heartily recommend Lawrence Lessig's excellent book "Free Culture".
2 - Rich Frankel
Deano, I totally agree on both counts (note the amazon book at the top!)Lessig is all but a holy man in this field, and much of my music goes out under a CC license. I'm actually glad you brought this up, because I think the nuts and bolts of what Creative Commons is doing, is very on target, but unfortunately would've resulted in an epic uber essay. I might make it the subject of my next article, since this one gives author's the why, but very little of the how.
Cheers.
3 - Bliffle
I agree. Flagrant abuse of copyright and patent by monopolistic renegade corporations works to the detriment of orginal authors and the general public alike.
4 - Snarkattack
I have a good friend who is passionate about this issue - I'll be forwarding the link to this article his way.
Note to self: must learn more about Creative Commons. Great article.