Comments on: Steamboat Willie opens a gap in the New York Times http://blog.longnow.org/2007/09/17/steamboat-willie-opens-a-gap-in-the-new-york-times/ The Official Weblog of The Long Now Foundation and Friends Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:21:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.3 By: The Orphaned Works Bill « Saucers of Mud http://blog.longnow.org/2007/09/17/steamboat-willie-opens-a-gap-in-the-new-york-times/#comment-4467 The Orphaned Works Bill « Saucers of Mud Tue, 20 May 2008 19:45:54 +0000 http://blog.longnow.org/2007/09/17/steamboat-willie-opens-a-gap-in-the-new-york-times/#comment-4467 [...] as has been observed the de facto copyright period is however long it’s been since Steamboat Willie, plus enough lead time to allow another extension. (Another trite observation: It’s ironic [...] […] as has been observed the de facto copyright period is however long it’s been since Steamboat Willie, plus enough lead time to allow another extension. (Another trite observation: It’s ironic […]

]]> By: Jeff Good http://blog.longnow.org/2007/09/17/steamboat-willie-opens-a-gap-in-the-new-york-times/#comment-2632 Jeff Good Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:40:44 +0000 http://blog.longnow.org/2007/09/17/steamboat-willie-opens-a-gap-in-the-new-york-times/#comment-2632 In my own line of work (as a linguist), an even more worrying instance of issues arising out of ambiguous copyright has to do with research materials collected in the period of time you mention (and a little after). In 1922 (and well beyond) linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers, etc., weren't generally thinking about the intellectual property issues of the materials they collected, and these days no one knows who has the rights to them in many cases. What's striking to me is that, under the watchful eye Mickey, the emerging default attitude towards such materials is that "we shouldn't let anyone look at them" rather than "let everyone look at them" so as not to harm relations with the communities from which they were collected. But, no one has really done a general or specific survey of communities to assess their attitudes. So, it's not clear if this is necessary or not. Why hasn't such a survey been done? Aside from the obvious reasons (e.g., lack of money), we can add fear. Some people have materials they are using privately and are afraid if they try to find out who has the rights to them, the outcome will go against their interests. The research world runs on open access to information, which makes the spectre of such copyright problems very frightening. And to add to the complications, even if the law deemed that these researchers did "own" their materials, they are bound by additional sets of ethical obligations to the communities they work, which means even a legal resolution in their favor might not "fix" the problem. When you add these things together, it's not surprising many people would rather simply stay quiet and put off having these questions asked until after they're dead. I won't be surprised if, in a thousand years, our documentary record of indigenous languages of countries with strong copyright regimes (like the US) is significantly worse than languages of the third world where researchers are not embedded in societies where the intellectual property culture is dictated by the needs of a cartoon mouse. In my own line of work (as a linguist), an even more worrying instance of issues arising out of ambiguous copyright has to do with research materials collected in the period of time you mention (and a little after). In 1922 (and well beyond) linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers, etc., weren’t generally thinking about the intellectual property issues of the materials they collected, and these days no one knows who has the rights to them in many cases.

What’s striking to me is that, under the watchful eye Mickey, the emerging default attitude towards such materials is that “we shouldn’t let anyone look at them” rather than “let everyone look at them” so as not to harm relations with the communities from which they were collected. But, no one has really done a general or specific survey of communities to assess their attitudes. So, it’s not clear if this is necessary or not.

Why hasn’t such a survey been done? Aside from the obvious reasons (e.g., lack of money), we can add fear. Some people have materials they are using privately and are afraid if they try to find out who has the rights to them, the outcome will go against their interests. The research world runs on open access to information, which makes the spectre of such copyright problems very frightening.

And to add to the complications, even if the law deemed that these researchers did “own” their materials, they are bound by additional sets of ethical obligations to the communities they work, which means even a legal resolution in their favor might not “fix” the problem. When you add these things together, it’s not surprising many people would rather simply stay quiet and put off having these questions asked until after they’re dead.

I won’t be surprised if, in a thousand years, our documentary record of indigenous languages of countries with strong copyright regimes (like the US) is significantly worse than languages of the third world where researchers are not embedded in societies where the intellectual property culture is dictated by the needs of a cartoon mouse.

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