Techdirt: You may recall the years we've spent over the ridiculous monkey selfie story, concerning whether or not there was a copyright in a selfie taken by a monkey (there is not) and if there is (again, there is not) whether it's owned by the monkey (absolutely not) or the camera owner (still no). But one of the points that we raised was to remind people that not every bit of culture needs to be locked up under copyright.
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So a computer is not a person and therefore not permitted to own copyright. Someone tell Disney. Okay that may be far fetched, but it brings up another interesting point that the article didn’t touch on which is why so little work has entered the public domain over the last few decades. It’s because Companies like Disney fought (and won) to have their works protected in such a way that the original works can’t even be a part of the public domain and Disney likes it that way. It means less competition for them. But it also means that getting access to some of the best known works and creating new methods and ideas for them won’t be happening anytime soon either. Because of our societal ideas that everything must be protected, we lose out on so much creative potential. Our society has become over protective and litigious when it comes to creativity. People are so quick to sue for damages that they fail to see the benefit of having their creations enter the public domain. It would also drive down costs on many items. By fiercely protecting copyright, you drive up the cost because the work is limited. By removing that barrier, the work can be explored, challenged, and modified to fit a growing change in the way society views things. Sure we can still give you creation for the original, but sometimes the original is not always the best.
Ah, the selfie monkey makes a comeback. But this article doesn't just revisit the story at nauseam, but makes a good point that not everything has to be owned by someone. We have a very large public domain already and believe it or not we can add more things to the public domain. As simply a pondering exercise, it is interesting to think about if there should be copyright attached to animals and Ai taking pictures, but at the end of the day, only people can hold copyright, because, let’s face it, we are the only life form that cares. The animal holding copyright is right out, but the AI becomes interesting because either someone made the AI so maybe they should get the copyright, or if the AI becomes sentient theoretically then they care. But you go right into the sci-fi realm real quick and we are no where near that yet with AI. But really all these court cases are tiring because it’s just people arguing over pointless things for things.
This is a difficult question, because in some ways the public domain should not be limited through excessive copyright infringement. This taken to the extreme could be used to put a stranglehold on something as ubiquitous and innoquous as a meme. However, people’s image should not be used for profit without their consent, and it should also not be used for political or marketing purposes without their consent. A tricky balance must be struck where the rights of the individual in the photo or who took the photo are protected, while at the same time the public is not restricted from using these same photos for public consumption. Perhaps our copyright laws should be updated for the 21st century with the advent of the internet and social media. I recently read an article that talked about how this is also an issue in the area of sexually explicit content where ex-boyfriends/girlfriends share compromising photos and videos of their ex-girlfriends/boyfriends and the only legal mechanism in place is for them to get this content removed is to send the compromising photo to the U.S. copyright office for it to be copy-written. However, no person would ever want to do that, because they’re embarrassed by these photos in the first place. A balance must be struck now and quickly.
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