Linux Journal: A Successful Linux/Open-Source Business Model

“Copyright must be sufficiently robust to support a
vibrant, diverse, and innovative sector for the creation and
distribution of original expression. At [the] same time, once
copyright has given sufficient support to creative autonomy,
copyright’s constitutive objectives are better served by placing
works in the public domain than by continuing to transfer consumer
surplus to copyright owners. At that point, so long as public
domain works are adequately available to the public, continued
protection would place an undue burden on authors, all of whom
borrow from existing works in creating new ones, and undue cost on
those who simply wish to read, see, or hear such works. Or, put in
economic terms, once copyright’s democratic goals have been
substantially funded, consumer surplus is better allocated to
subsidizing both transformative and nontransformative uses of
existing works for a broad array of educational and cultural
purposes. — “Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society”, Neil
Weinstock Netanel, 106 Yale Law Journal 283
(1996)

“Unfortunately, these words and their associative meanings will
have to be placed in the drawer for historical artifacts. The
bottom line at this time is that between the Berne Convention and
the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), the US
is ‘locked in’ pretty much on the copyright term issue. Seems that
this global commercialization trend requires that we match the
country that offers the longest and most advantageous copyright
(that includes the patent arena as well) protections. Well, we’ve
done that and more. The US holds a twenty year edge or more in most
categories of copyright and patent protection. Little will be
occurring in the challenge to get us back to the ‘good ‘ol
days’.

“So, what to do? Well, we need to talk about the Public Domain.
It seems to have all but disappeared, along with the original
intent of copyright. The Public Domain will have to be
rediscovered. Incentives for placing works in the Public Domain
will have to be invented. Forget the copyright owners; they can go
stew in their juices. As Don Marti would say, in the spirit of
Linuxmanship, ‘Sell the benefits, not the features…’

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