Talk:Public domain

Question in re "aspirin"

In one section of the current version, it says that Germany gave up the trademark for such as "heroin" and "aspirin" at the end of World War I. Another section says that "aspirin" lost its trademark because it became a generic term. So, they cannot both be true. Which one is it? RayKiddy 01:35, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite rationale

Rationale for the complete rewrite:

"The copyright or patent on the work has expired." The actual formula is max(1923, year of first publication + 96) in the U.S. and year of death + 71 in the E.U.

List items

I converted these to paragraphs because added detail made them too long for the purposes that * was designed to handle.

"The author or inventor explicitly disclaims any proprietary interest." Not necessarily. Some law experts believe that it's impossible for an author to put a copyrightable work into PD. (Anyone have a source for this?) Even then, it's still a really Bad Idea for an author to release a work into PD, as it fails to disclaim implied warranty and opens the author up to liability. Better to release it under a simple permissive license similar to the new BSD license.

--Damian Yerrick

I've added a note to the relevant section that modern copyright law generally doesn't provide any way to abandon copyright. I think references to this idea are based on the old US law. As for warranty, I don't see that it would make much difference: you could abandon copyright (if it was possible) and also place a disclaimer, which doesn't seem different to providing a permissive licence and placing a disclaimer. Goatherd 21:27, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Monopoly chant

As much as I happen to agree with the "monopoly" chant, repeating it over and over is clearly biased; I'm going to neutralize the wording a bit. --Lee Daniel Crocker

I didn't intend the word "monopoly" to show bias but used it merely to distinguish such artificial rights from birth rights. Calling such rights "intellectual property" sets up a false analogy with physical property that United States law (for example) does not recognize; it's a good thing you didn't bias it up the other way.

And the soft line breaks after sentences serve a purpose: they make the diffs much cleaner. --Damian Yerrick

Example other than Mark Twain

Can we have an example other than Mark Twain?: one story of his wasn't published in his lifetime, and finally appeared in 2001, so it's still in copyright. --Vicki Rosenzweig

Let's get Lessig on that one too. ^_^ J.D. Salinger set precedent that even letters are copyrighted, just by virtue of being written; he successfully prevented a biographer's publication of his letters by claiming copyright on them. Therefore it's established that the act of writing establishes copyright, not the act of publishing. the much miffed, Koyaanis Qatsi

Translation and editing of old texts

What about Translation and Editing of old texts? Translations are obviously under copyright (for whatever time) and edited versions of texts (including Shakespeare, for instance) are copyright. For instance, a nasty old Shakespeare text from 1900 may be public domain, but the Riverside Shakespeare publishes an original editing, so you can't copy that one, presumably. --MichaelTinkler

Impossibility of recall

In the "1.3 Disclaimer of interest" section, I'd like to add something about the impossibility of "recall" after something has entered the p.d., but I'm not completely sure it's true. For example, a single Supreme Court decision in favour of M. Mouse entering the public domain is permanent, meaning that it cannot ever again become anyone's property; decisions going the other way can be regarded as temporary. Perhaps this aspect - if completely true - is important enough to warrant its own section, here, in Eldred v. Ashcroft, GPL, etc. -- Hotlorp

Impossibility of "recall" isn't true I think. Didn't Eldred v. Ashcroft involve public domain works that had reverted to copyright due to the extention of copyright term? Goatherd 21:29, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

PD a government creation?

I doubt that this concept was introduced by governments. What is the evidence for that claim? Michael Hardy 04:13 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

Well, copyright itself was introduced by governments, so they've defined the playing field, so to speak. Pre-copyright, everything was in the public domain. Koyaanis Qatsi

This is not true, nor is this quote from the article:

Without some kind of grant of monopoly rights—so-called "intellectual property rights"—all works belong to the public domain. Thus a balance between individual incentive to create and free access for the public has to be struck.

The common law position is that all creative works are granted unlimited protection from copying. Copyright legislation was introduced to limit this protection rather than expand it. This common law position applies to the UK and many Commonwealth countries. I am not sure if US courts accept ancient UK decisions as precedent, but the two legal systems are closely related. The fact that for many years the US moved from this default position to one where no protection was afforded does not change the historical fact that the common law position is one of indefinite protection. For a more informed position on this, see Lessig's Free Culture (http://www.freeculture.org/). --GoldenRing 03:37, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Except when publishing was forbidden without a license for a particular book granted by the king. Michael Hardy 04:17 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

Really, the claim is about history, and not only should historical evidence should not only be adduced, but the story should be told here, if (as I doubt) there is such a story. Legislatures introduced copyrights and limited their duration. Lawyers then invented language in which to talk about related matters, including the phrase "public domain". The claim here is that governments had in mind such things as common public land when they decided to limit the duration of copyrights. I don't believe it. Michael Hardy 04:21 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

The Public Domain Enhancement Act

So, one thing I don't see on this page is mention of The Public Domain Enhancement Act (http://eldred.cc), AKA "The Eric Eldred Act", introduced by Zoe Lofgren in late June 2003. Is this valuable? -- ESP 14:52 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yes. Add it if you want to, but please make sure it's clear it affects only the U.S. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi

What can and can't be done with PD

There may be benefit in adding what can and can't be done with public domain works - as it stands there is a lot on how a work can become public domain, but not much on what this means to the end-user of a pd work.

You can do anything you want with a public domain work, provided it doesn't violate any other rights (e.g. privacy rights of individuals in public domain photos). Koyaanis Qatsi

Incentive for copyright

I object to the second paragraph - that "copyright was created to protect the financial incentive of those doing creative work as a means to encourage more creative work". The 'right to make copies' was originally granted to printers, hence publishers. The idea of incentive is highly contestable. - poil 14:16 May 21, 2004 (UTC)

Public domain and the Internet

I came to this page hoping to find an explicit statement correcting a common misconception that public domain means anything that's freely available in the public — i.e., posted on the Internet. While the existing text is useful and necessary as an encyclopedia entry, I would like to see a concise statement in this article that makes it clear that this is not true, in order to educate ordinary people with Internet-time attention spans. Any suggestions on how to do this within the existing text? -- Jeff Q 04:30, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

That's a common misconception?? The internet was not widely known to the lay public until the early '90s! Obviously people talked about the public domain, by that name, before that time. What did people laboring under that misconception think it meant then? Michael Hardy 23:28, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

While it may not have been a common misconception in the early 90s, it certainly is a common misconception, at least among internet users, today. To Jeff, I'd suggest that if you can come up with a concise statement you be bold and add it. anthony (see warning) 01:45, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

How do you know it's a common misconception? Is it found other than among the very young; i.e., are there people who never heard of the phrase public domain until they heard it used in connection with this novelty, the internet? Or have they been lulled into forgetting how they used the term before that? Michael Hardy 20:50, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Indeed, the current common misconception that "Internet-posted" means "public domain" is obviously relatively new. I'm sure there are many other misconceptions that are much older and continue to this day. However, the ability for anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer to confuse this issue is, in my opinion, a much greater threat that older ones that involved hardcopy publishing and analog media copying.

Usually I am bold about adding text that I request, but I paused on this one because this article clearly discusses the overall legal issues of public domain and copyrights. Michael Hardy has a valid concern about the larger view, and it wasn't immediately clear to me how and where to add such a concise statement without interrupting the flow. I'll ponder some more and give it a try shortly. -- Jeff Q 11:37, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I've added a rather lengthy section on Public domain and the Internet. It says all I wanted to say, but not very concisely. Everyone, feel free to tweak, adjust, or downright edit the heck out of it. ☺ I also added a footnote for a rather pithy quote from Nicholas Petreley that has some relevance, but I haven't figured out how to create a Wiki-proper internal footnote link. (My attempt to use the HTML method didn't work.) -- Jeff Q 19:18, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I think the common misconception of public domain has been fed by the media - they have started to talk about facts/stories coming into the public domain when they are leaked by governments etc. To take an example Shadow Defense Secretary quoted on the BBC, I am sure you would see many more even with a brief search:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1931103.stm

Contributions into the public domain

How can I best release all my contributions to Wikipedia from any kind of copyright control or licensing restrictions? As I understand it, articles that I've started can be released into the public domain, even though subsequent versions after editing on Wikipedia will be (presumably) licensed under the GFDL. What about individual edits to GFDL articles — can the edit itself be released into the public domain, even though the resultant article is GFDL? Also, I've heard rumours that the idea of the public domain doesn't exist in Japan — is this true? (Public domain doesn't mention it). If this is the case, what can I do to make sure that my contributions are available for use with as few a restrictions as possible in Japan? — Matt 10:17, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You definitely can commit your individual edits to the public domain, and other Wikipedians have done this (see User:Eloquence for example). To commit to the public domain, I believe all you have to do is make an "overt act of relinquishment". Putting a notice on your user page would most likely qualify, at least for works which were already created in the past. http://creativecommons.org/license/publicdomain-2 provides a somewhat more formal way to do this. I've never used it so I can't really tell you what to expect. You may also want to look at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guide_to_the_CC_dual-license and/or talk to some of the users in that last category (public domain). anthony (see warning) 12:10, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the links! — Matt 18:29, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

digital texts

It would be nice if this article could explicitly address the issue of digital texts. A great deal of money may be invested by a company to create a digital edition (mostly digital texts, but also digital images) of old public domain manuscripts and books. Can such an investor then go ahead and prevent his electronic digital edition from being copied by means of a copyright? If he can, then where is his creative addition to the text itself? But if he cannot, then where is his financial incentive to further develope his digital library (especially if we are speaking of a non-profit organization that sells its product for a fee only to cover the costs of developing it)? If anyone could expand on this issue I would be grateful. 80.178.202.154 13:44, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Footnote

In response to the frequently-championed concept that "information is free", technology columnist Nicholas Petreley once wrote, "Those who want information to be free as a matter of principle should create some information and make it free." This statement concisely illustrates the conflict between the cultural desire to make original material readily and cheaply (or freely) available and the right of original-work creators to receive compensation for their work.

Sorry, but I don't see the concise illustration. Is Petreley implying that its hard, silly or illogical to make information free? Explain less concisely why the explanation is concise for the benefit of stupid readers like me, please.

I also contest the last sentence on grounds of POV and imprecise assertions that original-work creators have "a right to receive compensation" (morally? legally? ethically?), and that the desire is "cultural" (what culture?) Suggest as a basis (concise illustration still not fixed):

This statement concisely illustrates the conflict between the desire to have original material readily and cheaply (or freely) available and the desire to have authors receive compensation for original work.

This leaves unmentioned who desires what on what grounds and merely acknowledges the existence of these desires, which (IMO) is the only concise way to go here. It also removes the clumsy double "work" in "compensating original-work creators for work". JRM 11:50, 2004 Dec 9 (UTC)

Lovecraft

'The copyright status of Lovecraft's work is debatable, as no copyright renewals, which were necessary under the laws of that time, have been found. Also, two competing parties have independently claimed copyright ownership on his work

I'd be interested to know more about the above statement. Are some of Lovecraft's works PD? I notice Wikisource contains, for example, the texts of The Call of Cthulhu. Which competing parties claim copyright? --Axon 14:53, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PD versus "free to use for any purpose"?

There's a difference between releasing your work into the public domain, and releasing it with the {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} tag. I came here trying to learn what that difference is, but the article doesn't address it. Perhaps someone who knows could add that info to the article? dbenbenn | talk 21:11, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The difference is one of ownership. A work in the public domain has no legal owner, just an author, while one free for any use has an owner who retains no rights. I could see adding something like this, but I'm not sure where. Deco 01:45, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is there any practical result of this difference? It sounds like a purely philosophical distinction. dbenbenn | talk 14:04, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've since discovered, as this article notes, that a work cannot be legally released into the public domain by its author. This means that really Template:Tl is your only choice to achieve what you want. Deco 03:19, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Public Domain and Software

Software is a slightly special case because of the distinction between its exectuable files and the source code that describe how it was written. The executable files of a piece of software might be public domain, but this does not mean that the source code of the software is available or is available in the public domain. I'm not sure if this comment belongs in the article but I thought I'd log it here in case anyone else wants to add it.--Malcohol 13:11, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

PD question

About the public domain, I have an old hitchcock film (original The Man Who Knew Too Much from 1930's) which is in the public domain. If I were to rip this film from the DVD I purchased to share online, would that be OK in the eyes of the law? --Mrmiscellanious 19:54, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a lawyer; don't ask here for legal advice. Having said that-- You first need to verify that it actually is public domain. There is almost no possibility that it is in the U.S. It isn't old enough to be completely free of expiration questions (before 1923). The major movie companies by and large made sure they did their renewals on time. Even if the original were public domain, you don't have a 1930s copy. Any minimally-creative addition on the DVD (things like commentaries, menus, etc.) would be copyrighted recently. There is no short simple answer to your question other than "no". For a longer answer, read Stephen Fishman's "Public Domain" book ISBN 0873374339. --Amillar 20:14, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How to tell if it's in the public domain

If you want to know what's in the pbublic domain and what isn't, check out User:Quadell/copyright. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 21:10, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

court files

Is it true that court files in the United States are in the public domain ? --84.139.36.162 01:55, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

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