What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2011?

Current US law extends copyright protections for 70 years from the date of the authors death. (Corporate works-for-hire are copyrighted for 95 years.) But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years (an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years). Under those laws, works published in 1954 would be passing into the public domain on January 1, 2011.

What might you be able to read or print online, quote as much as you want, or translate, republish or make a play or a movie from?

And here's a list of the authors whose works did enter public domain this weekend.

Twitter and Copyright — "Twitterlogical: The Misunderstanding of Ownership", by Brock Shinen, Esq.

Twitter and Copyright—“Twitterlogical: The Misunderstanding of Ownership”, by Brock Shinen, Esq.

My amateur curiosity says that someone could/will probably write a book or epic poem using individual Twitter posts for each line, and that overall work would be copywriteable, but it seems that any individual tweet isn’t.

The League of Public Domain Properties

The League of Public Domain Properties

Open Library

Open Library

CNN to Release Presidential Debate Footage without Copyright Restrictions

CNN to release presidential debate footage without copyright restrictions

Great news. Allows the public to use footage of debates without having to get permission from CNN.

Barak Obama Urges DNC to Release Presidential Debates as Public Domain or Creative Commons

Barak Obama urges DNC to release presidential debates as public domain or Creative Commons

Book sales get a lift from Google scan plan

Book sales get a lift from Google scan plan

Making it easier to find relevant text inside books helps sales? Who’d have thunk it?

Who Killed TiVoToGo?

Who Killed TiVoToGo?

EFF piece on why you can’t move shows from your TiVo to your computer on the new HD units.

On Apple's cease-and-desist letters

On Apple’s cease-and-desist letters

Short Daring Fireball post about the real reason for Apple’s “podcast” nastygram. (They don’t want to stop the word “podcast”, just stop people from trying to trademark it.)

Official Google Blog: Our approach to content

Official Google Blog: Our approach to content

CSPAN and YouTube

C-SPAN has nastygrammed YouTube over showing Stephen Colbert’s speech at the White House dinner, which has complied and taken the clip down. Sure, it’s within C-SPAN’s to demand it, but why bother? They’re getting more free press from the internet than they ever would anywhere else.

Here’s a novel idea: how about C-SPAN host a highlight reel on its own website? It’s not like the world needs to see everything on YouTube, Google Video, or nowhere at all, and there’s certainly no chance at all people are going to buy the video from them for $25.

Boing Boing: Why Publishing Should Send Fruit-Baskets to Google

Boing Boing: Why Publishing Should Send Fruit-Baskets to Google

Good piece by Cory Doctorow on Google Book Search.

Boing Boing: Coldplay's new CD has rules: No MP3s, no DVD players, no car stereos

Boing Boing: Coldplay’s new CD has rules: No MP3s, no DVD players, no car stereos

Not that I was going to buy this disc anyway, but damn, that’s ridiculous.

NY Times Op Ed on Author's Guild Suit Against Google

NY Times Op Ed on Author’s Guild Suit Against Google

Good summary of the pro-Google argument here (i. e. the correct side of the issue).

TiVo 7.2 OS Adds Content Protection, Blocks Transfers, and Auto-Deletes Some Show

TiVo 7.2 OS adds content protection, blocks transfers, and auto-deletes some shows | PVRblog

Is calling this “heartbreaking” over the top? It really upsets me that they’re caving like this.

Eiffel Tower: Repossessed

Eiffel Tower: Repossessed

This is outrageous: the company that set up the night-time lights for the Eiffel Tower have a French copyright that prohibits you from publishing photos of it.

File Sharing in Canada

As the RIAA wages war on its own customers in the US, it seems that Canadians have little to worry about. Tech Central Station reports that the Canadian Copyright Act specifically allows “private copying” of music. Their solution to the problem of music theft was to institute a federally mandated tax on blank media. In the five years since the act went into effect, the music industry has collected 70 million Canadian Dollars ($51 million US) through the 77 cent CAD (56 USD) tax on blank CDs and 29 cents CAD (21 USD) per blank tape. According to the article:

While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may make it illegal to share copyright material in America, the Canadian Copyright Act expressly allows exactly the sort of copying which is at the base of the P2P revolution.

In fact, you could not have designed a law which more perfectly captures the peer to peer process. “Private copying” is a term of art in the Act. In Canada, if I own a CD and you borrow it and make a copy of it that is legal private copying; however, if I make you a copy of that same CD and give it to you that would be infringement. Odd, but ideal for protecting file sharers.

Every song on my hard drive comes from a CD in my collection or from a CD in someone else’s collection which I have found on a P2P network. In either case I will have made the copy and will claim safe harbor under the “private copying” provision. If you find that song in my shared folder and make a copy this will also be “private copying.” I have not made you a copy, rather you have downloaded the song yourself.

Update 12/12/03: A decision today underlines that Peer-to-Peer downloading is legal in Canada, but may levy a music player tax. C|Net has the story.