By default, anything we create is protected by copyright. For people who want to voluntarily share their works, there hasn't been any organized way of providing that permission.
Enter the all new Creative Commons project. They've created several licenses to cover various types of permission-granting, and all you have to do now is link to one of their licenses. (Much like GPL/BSD licenses for software, but with more variety.) They have a fun little flash movie to explain why they did this. :)
It's organized by such folks as Lawrence Lessig (the lawyer who recently fought against copyright extensions all the way up to the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft) and MIT Professor Hal Abelson (who's working to license MIT online coursework via Creative Commons).
They've also got a project going called the Founders' Copyright, where you voluntarily sign an agreement to let your work fall into the public domain after 14 years (as opposed to nearly a century). They've got major computer book publisher O'Reilly & Associates on board to release some of their books under this license.
Anyway, I think it's really cool. I think I'm going to release my comics to allow free duplication and creation of derivative works as long as it's non-commerical and I get a credit. (I've already set that up for this blog as you can see to your left. [Update Jan-07-2008: Now I publish photos on my flickr stream with CC "attribution" or "attribution/non-commercial" licenses, and people actually use them sometimes, which is neat. On the flipside, I see no reason why anyone would want to use my blog writings, really, so I've removed the CC license from this blog for now. I may still use it for comics, but I haven't really been drawing any comics anyway. :P]) Of course, it's not like people will be jamming my server to get at my comics anyway. :P In that vein, since it's popular works that will be more useful to the public, I think it's still important to try to change the law rather than just rely on voluntary releases.
Now then. In case you're actually interested in hearing why this is important, read on for my essay on why copyright terms matter.
Why is the public domain important?
In other words, why do I care enough about this issue to write this rant? The works that we produce define a large part of our culture. Our books, our webpages, our films, our music, our television... we use these things to help us understand our world and to help us find the right path for the future. (Clearly, direct interpersonal contact is a huge, perhaps bigger, part of this, too.)
Some issues are timeless, like love and war, and many older works are still relevant. People as well as libraries can cheaply buy these works, so everyone can be exposed to the most important works of the past. Derivative works are just as important. We build on the work of those who came before us, and it's often useful to adapt older works for easier consumption.
Consider for a moment how many old books and movies you've actually read or seen versus how many you know the basic idea from because of references, parodies, and remakes in television, afternoon cartoons, and films. Our very cultural education is largely through derivative works. Ironically, Disney is one of the most obvious examples of the success of derivative works: Cinderella, Snow White, their recent Treasure Planet (based on the Island)... Practically all their films are adapted from previously published material. You may argue about the sanctity of the original, but the truth is, the Disney versions do add value in the form of accessibility, if nothing else.
Culture evolves faster than ever these days, and we struggle to make sense of it all. Works become obsolete more and more quickly. MP3s people download are usually of recent pop music. Movies are always parodying other recent movies. Musicians sample each other's work to produce innovative new pieces. Fans of popular movies and TV shows write their own fan fiction. Recent works are our culture, and we want to experience them and to play with them. Being able to build on the work of others allows us to move forward and sometimes to create even better works.
But we have copyrights to deal with. Sometimes, the original authors are cooperative and freely or cheaply give permission to reuse their work. Even in the music industry, sampling has become so common that studios generally have deals with each other to allow cheap licensing.. but only sometimes. Creative Commons was made precisely to ease the overhead of cooperative authors. But my point is that the public would gain a lot if works fell into the public domain quickly, regardless of whether the author agrees. A work created today will not natually fall into the public domain for at least 75 years. It won't be nearly as relevant then!
Some background
To better understand the issues, let's rewind a little. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says:
Congress shall have the power ... 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
This is the underlying law for patents and copyrights. Note that it says nothing about this being a fundamental right of the authors. Rather, the primary purpose of the law is to promote progress (i.e. serve the public), and the means by which we are to accomplish this is to give authors a temporary right. I prefer to think of it as a temporary privilege to hold a monopoly.
Originally, the length of "limited times" was 14 years. After that, the work would fall into the public domain and be free for any use. Over the years, copyright terms have been getting longer and longer. By 1976, works owned by companies wouldn't fall into the public domain until 75 years after publication, and works owned by an individual wouldn't fall into the public domain until 50 years after the author's death. (It's a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it.)
In the 1990s, the Walt Disney Company thought: uh-oh. Steamboat Willy, Mickey's first cartoon, was made in 1928. That meant that Mickey would become public domain in 2003! They lobbied Congress into passing the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act. This extended individual copyrights to 75 years after the author's death, and company copyrights to 95 years after publication, securing Mickey's fate until 2023.
But here's the worry: What do you think will happen in another decade or so? Disney will certainly try to do this again. They might keep extending it forever! The other issue is: Is it reasonable to retroactively extend a copyright at all? The work has already been produced, so the extension will hardly give the author more incentive to create it! Such extensions only serve the author and do not serve the public. This is the basic idea behind the Eldred v. Ashcroft case, which seeks to overturn this copyright extension. The case was presented to the Supreme Court this Fall, and they will decide on it in early 2003.
Balancing author and public rights
Authorship takes time, effort, and money. There are plenty of "starving artists" who don't expect any compensation and create for the sheer love of it. In the real world, though, there certainly are a lot of people -- and definitely companies -- who create more when given financial incentive.
And what does the public want? The public wants more and better creations. We're willing to grant authors monopolies on distribution (meaning higher costs or often even unavailability) if it means they're going to make more and better stuff. However, we also want cheap access to the products, once they're made. So what we need is to balance the incentive at the point where it increases the quantity and quality of works produced, but where it also gives the people reasonable access. Where does that balance lie?
Disney would argue that once their work falls into the public domain, they lose money! And that's bad! But how much money do they really lose? Let's consider first that works typically sell a lot more in the first few years than later on. On top of that, if you count compound interest, the early sales are worth a lot more than the later sales, too. The drop in profit over time is exponential.
So when you extend copyright terms, the expected additional profit to the authors is relatively miniscule, while the public is deprived of free use of the work for long periods of time. This is not a good tradeoff. Companies want that extra 1% profit, certainly. But if they're deprived of that little portion, does that mean they will produce significantly fewer works? No. If Disney loses their monopoly on Mickey Mouse, will they lose some money? Sure. But does this mean that they will no longer have the incentive to come up with characters like Mickey Mouse? Try to imagine a company saying, "Oh well, if we could make $510 Gazillion dollars on this cartoon, we'd give the project the green light.. but seeing as how our copyright terms are limited, we can only expect to make $500 Gazillion dollars. No point in doing it now!"
And that's for companies. If you think about personal artists, well, most of them don't expect to make much money anyway. So even if you were to halve the amount of money they could make with a hit, I doubt there would be much impact on the quality and quantity of work produced. The money a company or a person makes in the first few years provides for plenty of incentive. There is no reason for us to promise them more.
Sure, if there were no copyrights, we'd probably be worse off, but if copyright terms were, say, 14 years, I don't think we'd lose much. Even companies will probably only lose a small fraction of their profits. In exchange, the public would be able to use and adapt many works for our own use. On top of that, let's not forget that the ability to make derivative works also helps the authors and artists, so we would probably get more variety and higher quality rather than vice versa!
This whole thing is just one of the problems that arise when the "more money = good" nature of corporations is allowed to influence our laws and effectively alter our Constitution.