DRAWBACKS OF COPYRIGHT
AND THE EMERGENCE OF
COPYLEFT
OVERVIEW
COPYRIGHT
ORIGIN & OBJECTIVES
COPYRIGHT TODAY
PROBLEMS
CULTURAL
SOFTWARE
ALTERNATIVES
 CREATIVE COMMONS
− Lawrence Lessig
FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT
− Richard Stallman (GNU-GPL)
ORIGIN OF COPYRIGHT
 Property and Law – Jeremy Bentham.
 Intellectual Property.
 The Patronage system - Artist lived on the largesse of his/her
Patron.
 Market economy in the 18th C meant a creation of a market space
for Art.
Rise of Copyright for Artist.
DANGER OF COPYRIGHT
 In 1557, “Stationers Company” (Publisher) was awarded
monopoly rights to print certain texts.
 Herein lies the DANGER of Copyright. The danger of
Monopolization.
STATUTE OF ANNE (1710)
 Origin of Copyright law.
 Highlights:
1) Provided Copyright to AUTHOR not
Publisher
2) Perpetual rights dropped.
COPYRIGHT TERM introduced. [14
years + 14 years if the author was still
alive]
 Therefore, provided incentive for creation of art WITHOUT creating
restrictive monopolies
 Donaldson v. Beckett (1774) (98 Eng. Rep. 257) – Lord Camden:
“Knowledge has no value or use for the solitary owner; to be enjoyed it must be
communicated”
OBJECTIVE OF COPYRIGHTS
 Public Interest – Free Access to ideas.
 Lack of Incentivisation - engendering of ideas itself may be
endangered.
 Danger – Monopolization.
 Compromise - limited period Copyright.
 Balancing Incentivisation with public good
COPYRIGHT TODAY
PROBLEMS
CULTURAL
SOFTWARE
EXTENSIONS IN INDIA
Year
Total (Years)
Pre-1992
The Copyright Act, 1957
Life + 50
Post- 1992
Amendment of 1992
Life + 60
Post- 2012
Copyright Amendment Act, 2012
Even photographs
to get (life + 60)
years.
PROGRESSIVE EXTENSION OF
COPYRIGHT TERMS (US)
Year
Copyright
(Years)
1790
1831
1909
1962-1976
(11 Extensions)
14
28
28
1998
(Sonny Bono Copyright
Term Extension Act)
Extension
Possibility
(Years)
14
14
28
Total (Years)
28
42
56
Author’s life+50
For Companies: 75
Life+70 years or 95
years for Corporate
works
COPYRIGHT EXTENSION – PROS?
Copyright Extension
FOR PROSPECTIVE WORKS
Incentive ??
Justice Breyer: incentive worth 7
cents in the present day
FOR EXISTING WORKS
Incentive Irrelevant!!
COPYRIGHT EXTENSION – CONS?
Problems are two-fold:
Ethical Problem
Practical Problem
All works of art are a part of our Orphaned Works.
common culture.
Actual tangible loss.
Copyrighted works - ‘built on the Lost
past’.
50% of Pre-1950 works
80% of Pre-1929 works
SOFTWARE RELATED PROBLEMS
Apple Computer Inc., v. Frankline Computer Corporation, (714
F.2d 1240)
 Held: the definition of “literary” includes computer
programmes as "works of authorship".
 “Section 2(o) in The Copyright Act, 1957
“‘literary work’ includes tables compilations and computer
programmes…”
WHY IS THIS PROBLEMATIC?
 Copyrighted software code ensconces
ideas and blocks access to matter which
does not belong to the software coder.

All information digitized – key in the
hands of a few.
ALTERNATIVES
Creative Commons
 Founded by Lawrence Lessig.
 While situated within Copyleft, it occupies more of a
middle ground.
 Offers different types of licenses, allowing creators to
choose how they wish to share their works.
CREATIVE COMMON LICENSES

Creative Common Licenses:







Attribution (CC-BY)
Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA)
Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND)
Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC)
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA)
Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)
E.g. Wikipedia – (CC-BY-SA)
ALTERNATIVES
 Richard M. Stallman - Free Software Movement
Basic Tenets:
0.
freedom to use the work,
1.
freedom to study the work,
2.
freedom to copy and share the work with others,
3.
freedom to modify the work, and the freedom to
distribute modified and therefore derivative
works.

“ ‘Free’ as in ‘free speech’, not as in ‘free beer.’ ”
2012 AMENDMENT ACT

Section 21 – Relinquishment of Rights
•
Earlier: Form to the Registrar of Copyrights.
•
Now:
Public notice.
 Section 30
•
•
Earlier:
Now:
Licenses were to be written and signed.
Licenses need only to be written.
 This puts Creative Commons, the GNU Public Licence, and
other open licensing models, on a surer footing in India.
CONCLUSION
 The basic aim of the Copyleft movement is to develop a more
permissive regime that allows for the creation of a shared space
of ‘commons’ from which everyone can derive benefit.
 The fact that most of the current generation is guilty of
copyright violations in some form or the other is indicative of
an untenable legal position. The voices of the Copyleft must,
therefore, be considered.
SOURCES

A lecture on “Free Culture, Copyright and the Creative
Commons” by Lawrence Lessig at Stanford Law School.

“Copyright, Copyleft & the Creative Anti-Commons” Text
developed out of a series of conversations and
correspondences between Joanne Richardson and Dmytri
Kleiner.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

‘Copyleft Society’ by Nagarjuna G.