The Public Domain is a Crime


In case you weren't aware piracy is a crime. In 2004 a number of major DVD retailers formed a £2m coalition to fight DVD piracy, the Industry Trust for IP Awareness. I e-mailed the trust and to find out their thoughts on films in the public domain.

Throughout the e-mails I use George A. Romero's classic and still popular "Night of the Living Dead" (available to download freely at the Internet Archive) as an example of a film believed to have fallen into the public domain. It's clear that the Industry Trust (or their representatives Blueprint PR) present to the public little understanding of copyright law. They desire awareness of their rights at the expense of public awareness of your rights. (I'll admit I don't actually know the full status of the Night of the Living Dead in the UK but in the end it turned out to have no real relevance)

I want to make clear that in principle I support rights owners in fighting piracy within the current legal framework. To think otherwise would contradict my support of fair and free licensing schemes such as the GNU General Public License or the Creative Commons which can only exist within  the current system. If you are a forward thinking artist of any kind I recommend you treat your customers and fans with respect and use one of these licenses, instead of taking Sony's lead and using potentially illegal (and inevitably futile) methods to 'protect' your work.

The public domain comprises the body of knowledge, innovation and creative works over which no person or entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests. A film falls into the public domain when no one holds any copyright over it. Once this happens anyone can freely share the material, something we are quite used to with older books, paintings and photographs but less so with the younger mediums of film and sound recording. Here works are only just starting to leave copyright terms. To make this point clear, a public domain film is not covered by any copyright by definition.

Why is protecting the public domain important? If every single artistic work ever created was still under copyright and held under the strict licensing terms you would need permission to paint your own Mona Lisa. You would need permission to perform a Mozart work. You would need permission to reprint the 15,000 year old cave paintings at Lascaux in your book on archeology. In many cases finding the correct person to ask would be impossible, with the result that only commercially viable works would be easily available with the the majority of culturally important works lost.

Blueprint PR speak on the behalf of the Trust. The Trust consists of 2Entertain, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Limited, Abbey Home Media Group plc, Blockbuster Entertainment Limited, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, British Video Association, Choices Video , Dreamworks Home Entertainment, Granada Ventures HiT Entertainment , HMV, Home Entertainment Corporation plc, Macrovision MGM Entertainment Limited, Paramount Home Entertainment UK, Pathé, Play.com, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Sainsbury's, Silverscreen, TESCO, Total Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Virgin Retail Limited, Warner Home Video UK, and Warner Vision UK.  They are also endorsed by Jonathon Ross. I personally would like to see the Trust, all or some of the members issuing statements on the importance of the public domain and that the e-mails were just a mistake but I'm not going to be holding out for it.

If you are interested in these issues please take the time to visit the following sites:
James Davis, December 2005
(shameless plug: I'm using resources from FreeCharity.org.uk to host this simple page. We offer free FOSS based Internet services to charities and non-profit organisations).

The following e-mails have been edited only for clarity for the reader and not in content.

Subject: question
From: James Davis
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 09:15:59 +0000
To: info@blueprintpr.com

How can I tell the difference between a pirated DVD and one that is in the public domain?
Subject: RE: question
From: "Stefanie Riese-McCartney"
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:45:20 -0000
To: "James Davis"

Hi
you can find out how to identify pirated goods here:

http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/general%20pdfs/identifying%20dvd%20piracy.PDF
Subject: Re: question
From: James Davis
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:57:57 +0000
To: Stefanie Riese-McCartney

Stefanie Riese-McCartney wrote:
Hi
you can find out how to identify pirated goods here:

http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/general%20pdfs/identifying%20dvd%20piracy.PDF
That doesn't help much. What mean is how can I tell the difference between say a a copy of Casablanca which might match all the signs in
your fact sheet and be pirated and say Night of the Living Dead which can be legitimately sold on a DVD-R?

James
Subject: RE: question
From: "Stefanie Riese-McCartney"
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:51:06 -0000
To: "James Davis"

All genuine DVDs appear on pressed discs and as DVDRs are blank DVDs you can assume that a film has been copied onto them and is therefore counterfeit.

Kind regards
Stefanie
Subject: Re: question
From: James Davis
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:32:40 +0000
To: Stefanie Riese-McCartney

Stefanie Riese-McCartney wrote:
All genuine DVDs appear on pressed discs and as DVDRs are blank DVDs you can assume that a film has been copied onto them and is therefore counterfeit.
But what if the film is in the public domain?

James

Subject: RE: question
From: "Stefanie Riese-McCartney"
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 08:44:52 -0000
To: "James Davis"

a film will still be copyrighted even if it is in the public domain.