The quote is “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” It is attributed to American poet and philosopher George Santayana (1863 – 1952.) It is inscribed over the doorway to the concentration camp museum in Dachau.

Actually it seems that the issue is not distribution but public performance. Selling movies via DVD is distribution. Showing the movie on television is performance.

Admittedly, to show a non public domain movie or song on television requires a license from the copyright claimant (owner) or claimants if the copyright is owned by more than one claimant.

But here lies the problem.

Whereas for songs and movies there are simple traditional mechanisms for determining who is the claimant and where you can get a license for the performance, for news videos, speches, such a mechanism does not exists. Also for news videos, news reports, speeches, etc. it is not clear who a copyright owner may be as it is not possible to do a search at the Copyright Office. To begin with these have no names or author names like a song or a movie to do the search.

Then there is the problem as to who owns a video or recording. The person holding the camera or a microphome, or the actors who are seen or heard or the owners of the venue where the actors were?

For exampe, if the President gives a speech at a convention and it is videotaped simultaneously by three television stations. Who owns the copyrights to the three casically identical video fotage? The Presdent? The convention organizers? The television companies? Or is it public domain because the actor (the President) is considered to be working for the federal government, which by laws cannot claim copyrights?

I find it highy questionable that a video of policemen doing their job of beating up a citizen in a public place can belong to an accidental passerby who just happened to have a camera handy and who did not organize and paid for making the scene, and who did not ask the actors for permissionto videotape their perfomances nor is sharing the profits with the actors. The root question is who is the creator, the actors or the button pusher (camera owner)?

In movies, actors sign a work for hire agreement, meaning that they will not claim that their work’s results as belonging to them. Did the actors in the cops-beats-citizen scene sign a work for hire agreement with the button pusher (camera owner)?

Pretty confusing, right?

Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

It’s not about greed, it’s about control over his work. He has the right to control the distribution of his work. You’re not entitled to a free copy just because it’s easy to duplicate a bunch of 0s and 1s. Youtube isn’t entitled to continue to distribute a person’s copyrighted work against their will once they’re made aware of it.

But I will keep dreaming, and hoping.
And I will NEVER stop trying.

You think the public is going to realize this (”One of the true reasons for copyright clampdowns”) in any numbers and THEN a reasonable percentage of those who do actually vote, speak out, or do ANYTHING to affect a change? I hate to say it, but I think you are dreaming.

“History? Bah, booooring. Who’s on ‘Idol’ tonight?”

Doomed to repeat it?
Yup.

What do I mean by that ??

One of the true reasons for copyright clampdowns ( one that some claim only paranoiacs believe, btw ) is rearing it’s ugly head.

History.
Some positive, some negative, on video, audio, written pages.
History nearly always offends, or threatens someone, because
history contains winners, losers, heroes crooks and thieves.
Some very wealthy and powerful people would very much like
some aspects of history forgotten, at very least , hidden.
Strong copyright laws can make that happen .. just like this.

Got incrminating or sensitive video ?
Copyright it, and wait for someone to pay you to keep history hidden, until it is ultimately forgotten.

There was a quote about what happens when the past is forgotten … can’t seem to remember it ..