[DMCA-Activists] The Public Domain is a Crime

[Seth Johnson]

> http://www.freecharity.org.uk/Public-Domain.html


The Public Domain is a Crime

In case you weren't aware piracy is a crime
(http://www.piracyisacrime.com/). In 2004 a number of major DVD
retailers formed a £2m coalition to fight DVD piracy. That
coalition is the Industry Trust for IP Awareness
(http://www.piracyisacrime.com/). I e-mailed the trust and to
find out what they thought of purchasing DVDs of films in the
public domain
(http://www.freecharity.org.uk/Public-Domain.html#The_following_e-mails_have_been_edited).
Before we get to the e-mails, a short introduction.

Throughout the e-mails I use George A. Romero's classic and still
popular "Night of the Living Dead"
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/) (available to download
freely at the Internet Archive
[http://www.archive.org/details/night_of_the_living_dead]) as an
example of a film that's believed to have fallen into the public
domain. It becomes clear that the Industry Trust (or their
representatives Blueprint PR [http://www.blueprintpr.com/])
present little to no understanding of copyright law and that they
desire awareness of their rights at the expense of public
awareness of your rights. (Okay I'll admit I don't actually know
the full status of the Night of the Living Dead in the UK but in
the end it turned out to have no real relevance)

At this point I want to make clear that, in principle, I support
rights owners in fighting piracy within the current legal
framework. To think otherwise would contradict my belieft in fair
and free licensing schemes such as the GNU General Public License
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) or the Creative Commons
(http://creativecommons.org/) which can only exist within  the
current system. If you are a forward thinking artist of any kind
I recommend you treat your customers and fans with respect and
use one of these licenses instead of taking Sony's lead and using
potentially illegal (and inevitably futile) methods to 'protect'
your work
(http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html).

What is the public domain? The public domain comprises the body
of knowledge, innovation and creative works over which no person
or entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests. A film
falls into the public domain when no one holds any copyright over
it. Lets just make that clear, a public domain film is not
covered by any copyright. Once this happens anyone can freely
share the material, something we are quite used to with older
books, paintings and photographs, but less so with the younger
mediums of film and sound recording. Here works are only just
starting to leave copyright terms.

Why is protecting the public domain important? If every single
artistic work ever created was still under copyright and held
under the strict licensing terms you would need permission to
paint your own Mona Lisa. You would need permission to perform a
Mozart work. You would need permission to reprint the 15,000 year
old cave paintings at Lascaux in your book on archeology. In many
cases finding the correct person to ask would be impossible with
the result that only commercially viable works would be easily
available with the the majority of culturally important works
lost.

Blueprint PR speak on the behalf of the Trust. The Trust consists
of 2Entertain, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Limited, Abbey
Home Media Group plc, Blockbuster Entertainment Limited, Buena
Vista Home Entertainment, British Video Association, Choices
Video , Dreamworks Home Entertainment, Granada Ventures HiT
Entertainment , HMV, Home Entertainment Corporation plc,
Macrovision MGM Entertainment Limited, Paramount Home
Entertainment UK, Pathé, Play.com, Sony Pictures Home
Entertainment, Sainsbury's, Silverscreen, TESCO, Total Home
Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Virgin Retail Limited, Warner
Home Video UK, and Warner Vision UK.  They are also endorsed by
Jonathon Ross. I personally would like to see the Trust, all or
some of the members issuing statements on the importance of the
public domain and that the e-mails were just a mistake but I'm
not going to be holding out for it.

If you are interested in these issues please take the time to
visit the following sites:

    * BBC Creative Archive (http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/)
    * Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/)
    * Free Culture UK (http://freeculture.org.uk/)
    * Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/)
    * Union for the Public Domain (http://www.public-domain.org/)
    * World of Stuart - Industry Trust For IP Awareness
(http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/ip1.htm)

James Davis, December 2005

The following e-mails have been edited only for clarity for the
reader and not in content.

Subject: question
From: James Davis
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 09:15:59 +0000
To: address@hidden

How can I tell the difference between a pirated DVD and one that
is in the public domain?
Subject: RE: question
From: "Stefanie Riese-McCartney"
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:45:20 -0000
To: "James Davis"

Hi
you can find out how to identify pirated goods here:

http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/general%20pdfs/identifying%20dvd%20piracy.PDF
Subject: Re: question
From: James Davis
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:57:57 +0000
To: Stefanie Riese-McCartney

Stefanie Riese-McCartney wrote:
> Hi
> you can find out how to identify pirated goods here:
>
> http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/general%20pdfs/identifying%20dvd%20piracy.PDF 
That doesn't help much. What mean is how can I tell the
difference between say a a copy of Casablanca which might match
all the signs in
your fact sheet and be pirated and say Night of the Living Dead
which can be legitimately sold on a DVD-R?

James
Subject: RE: question
From: "Stefanie Riese-McCartney"
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:51:06 -0000
To: "James Davis"

All genuine DVDs appear on pressed discs and as DVDRs are blank
DVDs you can assume that a film has been copied onto them and is
therefore counterfeit.

Kind regards
Stefanie
Subject: Re: question
From: James Davis
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:32:40 +0000
To: Stefanie Riese-McCartney

Stefanie Riese-McCartney wrote:
> All genuine DVDs appear on pressed discs and as DVDRs are blank DVDs you can 
> assume that a film has been copied onto them and is therefore counterfeit.
But what if the film is in the public domain?

James

Subject: RE: question
From: "Stefanie Riese-McCartney"
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 08:44:52 -0000
To: "James Davis"

a film will still be copyrighted even if it is in the public
domain.