Importance

June 23, 2004

Selling the Public Domain Short

Joe Gratz has an interesting post that notes some of the ads showing up in his Gmail account (Gmail Ads). The ads are for two sites that purport to provide information about profiting from the public domain: How To Find, Re-Package And Sell Public Domain Content As Your Own Moneymaking Information Product and How to Profit From Public Domain Information. Discuss copyright and the public domain in your emails much, Joe?

But that's not the point. As Gratz says,

This is not what we’re fighting for.

Indeed, though I certainly don't begrudge people making money for republishing and reinvigorating materials in the public domain. However, how copyright policy affects the public domain is an important issue. It isn't something we should ignore, even if we are trying to reduce some of the tyrannies of current copyright law. Some of the copyright reform proposals out there might have unanticipated consequences with regard to profiting from the public domain. For example, see my LawMeme posting, Compulsory Licensing - The Public Domain Lottery?.

Posted by Ernest at 5:31 PM
  Comments and Trackbacks (http://www.corante.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/3232)

For some reason I always expected this. I know the sites in question are slightly creepy get-rich-quick spammer/ebook looking things, but as Lessig has fought for the same rights Walt Disney had when he plundered and remade public domain stories, I assumed the same thing would happen today if we had similar laws. The truly creative ones like Walt would reinvent old stories into great new works and for every Walt you'd have 9,999 hucksters slapping new book jackets on 200 year old novels.

You gotta take the good with the bad.

Posted by Matt on June 23, 2004 06:36 PM | Permalink to Comment

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