Re: benefits of the public domain and limited copyright terms?

On Fri, 5 May 2000, Jon Noring <noring[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
>
> On another mailing list a very pointed question was asked, the gist of
> the question being "why is the Public Domain necessary -- what's wrong
> with perpetual copyright terms?"

It is very obvious that the person who asked this question does not understand the power and true value of the freedom to copy.

Asking the question is like asking "Why is the freedom for people necessary - what's wrong with the perpetual slavery?", "Why is the freedom of worship necessary - what's wrong with the single state-sanctioned religion?", "Why is the freedom of speech necessary - what's wrong with the state-controlled media?", "Why is the freedom of education necessary - what's wrong with the state-controlled school?", "Why is the freedom of movement necessary - what's wrong with the monitor of your movements by the government?", "Why is the freedom to vote necessary - what's wrong with the totalitarian?", and so on.

Explaining to the person who asked the question why the public domain is important to the society is like explaining to people who live in the countries that have no freedom of speech why freedom of speech is important to their societies. To them, it is nothing wrong to have no freedom of speech. They will not understand the golden treasure of the freedoms until they taste them and the spirit of the freedoms spark within their souls.

Freedom is very powerful and at the same time, scary. It is no wonder that the tyrannical rulers prefer to suppress the freedoms rather than to let them ring among the people.

The person who asked the question should imagine what a society looks like if the copyright is perpetual and there is no public domain knowledge in the society. It is not going to be a pretty picture. Imagine that you need to obtain a permission from one or more Jewish organizations and pay them royalties for using one of their biblical characters or stories. The person who asked the question already forgets that all ideas are always public domain. If he thinks that the public domain is not necessary, all the ideas will be copyrightable and our everyday communication will be greatly restricted.

Like the tyrannical rulers who prefer to suppress the freedoms, the copyright holders prefer to suppress the very powerful freedom to copy. They are like the medieval kings who waged wars against the common people who demanded more freedoms (witness the "war" between MP3 and Napster and the greedy copyright holders). All freedoms have both blessings and evils depending on how they are used. But, just because a freedom can allow an evil to happen does not justify the elimination or suppression of that freedom. We all have free will and just because some people have used free will to kill other people does not mean we must give up our free will. But, that is what the copyright holders think so. They claim that because people have used the freedom to copy to copy their works without paying them a dime, the freedom must be suppressed. When the freedom is suppressed, not only the evils but also the blessings are gone.

Like a wild dog who has difficult time explaining the freedom in the wild to a pet dog, explaining the public domain to the person who asked the question is not going to be helpful until he tries to copy a public domain work and use it and until he looks around and tries to eliminate anything that is touched by the public domain knowledge.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com>

Number of days left until 1-1-2019 when all knowledge of 1923 in the land of the U.S.A. will be freed from their copyright owners' prisons: 6,808 Received on Fri May 12 2000 - 02:18:05 GMT