Copyright and Public Domain

[Klaus Graf <graf _at__ uni-koblenz.de>]

Die Diskussion um die Urheberrechte und den im angloamerikanischen
Rechtsbereich "Public Domain" genannten Sektor betrifft die Kernaufgabe
der Bibliotheken, weshalb ein kleines Florilegium von Zitaten und Links
aus den USA vielleicht willkommen sein mag.

Klaus Graf

***

http://eserver.org/bs/52/prelinger.html

Beyond Copyright Consciousness 
Rick Prelinger 
Bad Subjects, Issue # 52 , November 2000 

Zitat:
"The access problem exists for both copyrighted and non-copyrighted
works. Many public  domain works exist only in libraries, archives, or
private collections, and their custodians
charge for access. Though fees may pay for storage, preservation,
cataloging, and the  production of viewing copies, it ultimately defies
common sense for public domain works  not to be freely available to the
public. "

Dazu noch ein Hinweis ueber frei zugaengliche Filme aus den USA:

"The Internet Moving Images Archive is now online and available for your
use.

This noncommercial resource contains high-quality digitized versions of
archival films available for free downloading and reuse.  Never before
available online, these "ephemeral" films document many aspects and
events
of 20th-century American culture and society, including media and media
production, communication, technology, landscape, urban history,
economics,
political science, warfare, the New Deal, and many other areas.  Most
were
originally released as advertising, educational, industrial,
documentary,
amateur or government films.

At present, over 800 out of a planned total of 1001 titles are
available,
all from Prelinger Archives.  All may be downloaded and reused for free,
with no restrictions other than that the films cannot be resold or
licensed
by anyone in their entirety or as stock footage.  Our intention is that
these titles should circulate freely as "open-source" content.

We encourage you to download this material for your own use and for the
use
of others.  You may also wish to make videotape copies of these films
for
exhibition or reuse.  We hope that easy access to these films will
assist
mediamakers, scholars, teachers, students, exhibitors and members of the
general public in coming to terms with the complex and diverse
audiovisual
history of the 20th century.  Further, we hope that easy access to a
diverse collection of copyright- and restriction-free content will
encourage more people to be moving image authors in their own right.

The digitized video files are in MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats.  Information
on
downloading and players is available on the site.

Please visit the Archive at http://www.moviearchive.org.

An article on the background and rationale for this project may be found
at
http://eserver.org/bs/52/prelinger.html.

The Internet Moving Images Archive is a project of the Internet Archive
(http://www.archive.org) in collaboration with Prelinger Archives
(http://www.prelinger.com).

Rick Prelinger
Prelinger Archives   http://www.prelinger.com
P.O. Box 590622, San Francisco, Calif. 94159-0622
+1 415 750-0445      Fax: +1 415 750-0607
footage _at__ panix.com"

***

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/index.html

"Copyright's Commons is a coalition devoted to promoting a vibrant
public domain. It is a group of students, teachers, authors, filmmakers,
archivists, publishers, and other members of the public who believe in
widespread access to creative works. We
maintain this website as a forum for discussion of the public domain.

[...]

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 

Public access to literature, art, music, and film is esssential to
preserving and building on our cultural heritage. Many of the most
important works of American culture have drawn upon the creative
potential of the public domain."

***

The Purpose of Copyright by Lydia Pallas Loren
http://www.open-spaces.com/article-v2n1-loren.php

"Modern-day copyright harbors a dark side" - sehr richtig! Ein
ueberzeugender Artikel!

"This power of censorship at the hands of copyright owners has recently
entered the realm of
                  digital technology, and again the copyright owners
have been given a very large stick with
                  which to convince others to assist them in censoring
potentially critical works. Under the
                  recent Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyright
owners are given a very effective tool for
                  censoring speech in cyberspace. Copyright owners can,
in effect, force internet service
                  providers to remove material from the internet and the
world wide web posted by anyone
                  simply by sending the internet service provider that
is storing the material a written notice
                  asserting a good faith belief that the material is
infringing. If the internet service provider fails
                  to expeditiously remove or disable access to the
claimed infringing material, the internet
                  service provider itself can become liable for any
infringement that might be found."

***

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/Kamp_Article.html

American Inventors, Authors & Artists: Communicating with our Past,
Progressing in the Present

Ed Kamp

"Copyright Law in it's present actuality formally contradicts the
Constitution. It expressly prevents the dissemination and
                   the building upon works from our shared past. When
Words, Inventions and Historic events are in fact prevented from
                   naturally moving into The Public's psyche and
intellectual life we are all the poorer in so many ways."

***

http://www.opencontent.org/

"OpenContent's only excuse for existing is to "facilitate the prolific
creation of
freely available, high-quality, well-maintained Content." This Content
can then be used in an infinity of ways, restricted only by the
imagination of the user."


***

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/ocw-facts.html

"The idea behind MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is to make MIT course
materials that are used in the teaching of almost all undergraduate and
     graduate subjects available on the web, free of charge, to any user
anywhere in the world."