Mere Formalities?
The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School has hosted some very interesting lunchtime symposia about copyright this term, and I managed to get to the last one. The CIS Residential Fellow (and one of the attorneys litigating Kahle v. Ashcroft) , Chris Sprigman, gave a presentation on his work-in-progress, "Reform(aliz)ing Copyright" [PDF].
Sprigman pretty much agrees with Lessig, EFF and others on the deleterious effects the current copyright regime is having on access to and use/preservation of cultural material of various kinds. But rather than focusing on copyright terms or enforcement mechanisms that endanger fair use, Sprigman has turned his attention to the lost formalities of copyright. He argues that returning to some state of conditional copyright (where creators had to take action to register their claim of copyright, and file renewals), i.e. returning the formalities of copyright, would considerably ameliorate the harm we're experiencing today in regards to clearing rights/permissions to "orphan works" -- material that's definitely under copyright, but there is little to no paper trail indicating the rights owner(s).
It was a very interesting talk, and I learned quite a bit of new-to-me material ... such as how the Berne Convention affects what the U.S. can and cannot do in regards to copyright -- for instance, the minimum term for copyright protection in Berne is life + 50 years for personal creators. The Berne Convention also specifies that foreign rights holders cannot be held to copyright formalities. Sprigman advocates a) revising the Berne Convention to allow for the reinstatement of copyright fomalities for domestic and foreign creators or b) workarounds that will subject domestic creators to such formalities without requiring the same of foreign ones.
There's a lot more covered in his paper, so to get the real flavour of what he's proposing, you should go to the source. I think there's significant political obstacles (in five words: Disney will scream bloody murder) to his proposal, but that doesn't mean it's unworkable or unworthy of further discussion.
On a personal note: Mary Minow was there and she graciously allowed me to shanghai her into a brief talk about law, librarianship and copyright over tea. How many lawyers will make time to talk to library students who buttonhole them in the middle of their day?
Comments
"How many lawyers will make time to talk to library students who buttonhole them in the middle of their day?"
Lawyers who are also librarians (you know, MLS and all) are far more likely to do this. Really nice/gracious/interesting lawyers who are also librarians, such as Mary, are particularly likely to do this.
I may be describing a universe of one, of course.
Posted by: walt crawford | April 23, 2004 10:20 AM