1/24 Quote on value of Public Domain

Subject: 1/24 Quote on value of Public Domain
From: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 01:20 PM

"The position that information released into the body of human knowledge is 'free as the air to common use' is not an empty aphorism or a transient policy preference. It is a commitment expressed in the First Amendment speech and press clauses. Its institutional implementation is the public domain. Judges and legislators faced with decisions that will lead to further enclosure of the public domain must recognize the constitutional dimensions of their decisions. They must proceed with the caution warranted whenever a government official is asked to restrict the freedom of many people to use information and to communicate it to each other."

--Yochai Benkler, "'Free as the Air to Common Use:' First Amendment Constraints on Enclosure of the Public Domain", New York University Law Review, Volume 74 (May, 1999), pages 354-445, at 445.

Subject: RE: 1/24 Quote on value of Public Domain
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 06:37 PM

T. Keep up the fight. You are well armed.

Subject: RE: 1/24 Quote on value of Public Domain
From: GUEST,Okiemockbird
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 07:07 PM

Arkie, thanks for the encouragement.

Did you hear the NPR piece this evening about the music industry suing MP3.com for (c)-infringement ? Yochai Benkler (author of above quote) was one of the interviewees.

T.

Subject: RE: 1/24 Quote on value of Public Domain
From: GUEST,stupidbodhranplayer
Date: 25 Jan 00 - 06:31 PM

Utah Phillips incorporates the idea of public domain into the definition of a folk song; "a folk song is not owned...by anyone. They belong to us all, like the National Forests, and the airwaves, and the Postal Service, we own them together. Songwriters make grape juice. Grape juice can become wine or it can become vinegar. If people take it into their lives and use it and it changes to suit the needs of the people and gradually divests itself of the name that was on it, THEN it becomes a folksong and we own it all together." and then he goes on to explain that since we own it together we're gonna sing it together, boring or not!

Subject: RE: 1/24 Quote on value of Public Domain
From: GUEST,Okiemockbird
Date: 30 May 00 - 10:56 AM

The Yochai Benkler paper quoted above is available on-line at http://www.nyu.edu/pages/lawreview/74/2/benkler.pdf.

The quotation above corresponds to the last paragraph in the article.

Utah Phillips's national-forests analogy, like all analogies, has its limits, but the comparison of the public domain to public lands (implicit in the phrase "public domain" itself) is still one of the better analogies around.

T.