Lawrence Lessig: Protecting Mickey Mouse at Art's Expense

Although I'm sure there are great articles produced and written by the other prominent theorists and authors that our groups were assigned to, I quite enjoy the articles written by Lessig.

This article is about how the Supreme Court decided that the Constitution grants congress to have full discretion over how long copyright protections can last, as well as if they even want to extend the protection.

Lawrence states that congress is wrong in extending certain copyright protection for a period of over 20 years. "The extension unnecessarily stifles freedom of expression by preventing the artistic and educational use even of content that no longer has any commercial value." Lessig is referencing the early Mickey Mouse movies that imminently made it into the public domain and has no commercial value, but which triggered congress to act in the first place. Even though that small portion of material/art has no commercial value, it will remain locked up with the rest of the material/art that is under the same protection, but does have commercial value.

A problem arises when people want to use the material/art with no commercial value, is that they have to try and figure out who the copyright holders are. You can see hos this can be tedious when some of these works are almost a century old.

Lessig believes that congress can eliminate the hassle without compromising the protection of copyright by doing something along the same lines as law governing patents. Patent holders pay a fee every few years to maintain their patents and Lessig feels that by requiring copyright holders to do the same, but extend it to a more profound amount of years. When the fee or tax is paid, then payment would be logged, as well as the copyright holders name. This would make it easier for people to access the material/art with an easier way to contact and get permission by the legal owner/s. If the tax wasn't paid for three consecutive years then the material could go into public domain for any and all to use and benefit from.

Lessig states and believes that no one should oppose to this because the copyright protection is there so that no one else can capitalize on the work, but if there is already no commercial value, then wouldn't that leave the protection to be pretty much pointless. Lessig acknowledges that there are people out there who would like their work protected and kept out of public domain regardless of commercial exploitation, or lack there of, and that's why the tax/fee would be low and only applied to publish work.

I believe Lessig has an excellent point and comes up with great ideas about how we can all benefit from the rules and regulations of copyright laws, as well as be able to edit the boundaries that are set, so that more of us can have access and benefit from the laws that are in place.

It is extremely hard and confusing for students to determine what material/art is okay for us to use and how we can use it. How long we can have this copyright material on our websites that we used on a school project for educational purposes. What are the actual backlashes, ,how do we go about determining what is public domain, and if protected, at what length.

It would be nice to have more access to works that do not have commercial value, and that can be used and viewed as learning tools.

This Lessig article makes me think about his basis for his "free software" movement, his "net neutrality" article I previously blogged about, and his ideas about remixing and so on. I highly urge any and all to take a closer look at Lessig and his endeavors because we as DTC students could all benefit greatly.