I recently completed my Master of Nonprofit Management
degree from Hamline University. It was a
great experience, certainly worthy of well-written wrangle. Another time, perhaps. I’ve been thinking more about the work I did
in the final phases of that degree; a capstone project on how nonprofits talk about value
of intellectual property (copyright, patents and the like).
I was privileged to present some of these thoughts at
TEDx1000Lakes, an event sponsored by the Blandin Foundation in Grand
Rapids. My talk was entitled Freeing the Value of Ideas, and focused on how we might create a new means for valuing
open-source decisions. I think the idea
is worth spreading and hope you do, too. A key concept in my talk is the length of copyright protection. The definition of "limited" in this context deserves a little more thought.
The Congress is empowered to create laws around intellectual
property protection by Article 1, Section 8 of the constitution. The specific language reads:
To
promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times
to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and
discoveries.
The idea here is creators (artists, authors, inventors and
other muse-inspired people) are only going to make things of value if they have
the ability to get people to pay for them, and people are only going to pay for
them if they can’t just get it for free. I think Kickstarter may have some things to say about that, but let's take that for rote right now. The flip side
of this pretty, pretty coin is the public domain. The Congress has been empowered to makes laws
which protect exclusive rights for “limited” times. The definition of limited
in the copyright realm has changed quite a bit.
- 1790 – 14 years plus a possible 14 year extension
- 1909 – 28 years plus a possible 28 year extension
- 1976 – Life of the author plus 50 years
- 1998 – Life of the author plus 75 years, or 120 years for works for hire
So just what is a “limited” time? When do we in the public domain get our crack
at your great idea? We are killing the
ability to riff – to build on another idea and make a new one. We are suffocating our collective story in
favor of silos of individual stories with no connection. In short, we’re asking the golden-egg goose
to get in the gallows. It is
short-sighted and petty, and we need to knock it off.
We can fight for a fair definition of exclusive use and a
fair balance of public domain. We can do
it by going back to the constitution. No
reasonable person is going to say that 120 years is a “limited time” to secure
a work. Technically, yes, that is a
limit. So is one billion. It is very clearly not the intention to use
such a high limit –and an ever expanding limit – to keep works out of the
public realm indefinitely. Intellectual
property protection is broken in many ways, but redefining limited is a place to begin. I'll suggest 28 years is plenty, roughly seven times longer than the average length of employment at any one job in the 21st century. I'm willing to negotiate the time, but let's make it something that includes the public. A practical definition of limited - as in limited to the foreseeable future - is a great start.
