Sweden fines Movie Socialist $650,000 for sharing a single film

[PaulConventionWV]

Copyright is automatic - regardless of whether an explicit indication of this status is present or not (in the form of the usual "copyright notice"). Under current IP law, the only way for a book NOT to be copyrighted is for the author to explicity renounce the copyright and release the work to the "public domain." Works in the public domain can be altered and changed by someone else, who can then claim copyright over the altered work. In that situation, my understanding is that the original author of the work can, under certain circumstances, actually be sued for copyright violation if he makes revisions to his original and releases those changes publicly.

There are other issues attending the public domain that make it problematic as well. Another important factor is that various "free" distribution licenses (GNU GPL, Creative Commons, etc.) require copyright claims in order to be considered enforceable under currrent law.

The short of it is that the current system pretty much forces people to play the copyright game because there are just too many pitfalls and "gotchas" if they try not to. This is why anti-"intellectual property" folks like Kinsella write books with copyright notices. It's potentially a huge PITA for them if they don't.

Some people seem to imagine that they've discovered some sort of hypocrisy in the fact that many anti-"intellectual property" advocates have copyrights on their books. But there is no more hypocrisy, contradiction or paradox to be found in this than there is in the fact that many people vehemently opposed to the income tax still file tax returns and pay income taxes. In a world with the rules they advocate, they would not need to do so and they would not do so. But they don't (yet) live in a world with the rules they advocate - so they do as they do (copyright their books, pay income taxes, etc.) under the rules of the world they actually do live in ...

I don't understand what's so bad about releasing work into the public domain. There are people who have done professional publications that simply release them free of copyright. If you believe in the issue strongly enough, that is certainly an option. Kent Hovind, the famous creationist and tax protester/prisoner released all of his presentations, DVDs, and other works without copyright, explicitly stating that people were free to copy and distribute because, well, he believes in it that much. If you are really opposed to copyright, then set an example. There are not nearly as many copyright prisoners as there are tax "cheat" prisoners, if indeed, there are any.

As a sort of caveat, however, I would like to mention that I'm sort of on the fence about IP. On the one hand, I'm not sure how laws are going to help maintain people's integrity. However, it really is a matter of integrity and honor that you attribute something that you got from someone to the originator of whatever you borrowed. I think people should do it, but I'm not sure whether they can be forced to do it or whether it warrants legal action not to. It certainly can affect someone negatively if their ideas are stolen, but at the same time it's kind of hard to say whether this can be called true theft when ideas are circulated so widely without attribution that trying to strictly enforce IP, at some point, becomes absurd.

 

[Occam's Banana]

I don't understand what's so bad about releasing work into the public domain.

I didn't say releasing work into the public domain is "bad" per se - I said that it can be problematic, and that under certain circumstances it can even expose the original author to peril of copyright infringement (if he revises his work after someone else revises it and copyrights their revision). It really isn't very difficult to understand why a content-creator would want to avoid being sued for revising his own work. But public domain is fine if all you want to do is "put it out there" and forget about it.

There are people who have done professional publications that simply release them free of copyright. If you believe in the issue strongly enough, that is certainly an option. Kent Hovind, the famous creationist and tax protester/prisoner released all of his presentations, DVDs, and other works without copyright, explicitly stating that people were free to copy and distribute because, well, he believes in it that much.

As I also mentioned, all the "free" copy-and-distribute licenses that I know of (GPL, Creative Commons, etc.) critically depend upon a work being copyrighted in order for the license to be enforceable. The problem with releasing something to the public domain is that someone can make changes to the work and then copyright the changed work. This exposes other people who might want to make & distribute changes to the original material to the possibility of copyright infringement under certain circumstances. As I said before, if all you want to do is get something "out there" where people can freely copy & pass it around - and you don't care what happens with regards to future revisions (because, for example, you don't plan on making any) - then public domain is fine. But if you are concerned about your (or others') ability to make & distribute future changes (especially given all the IP-trolling going on nowadays), then going with public domain is not advisable. If for some reason you would like to allow others to change your work and copyright those changes for themselves - while still allowing yourself & others to change & distribute the work freely - then a much better solution than public domain would be something like the MIT license. But as noted, in order for things like the MIT license to be enforceable under current law, you need to claim copyright ...