Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick




How Dare You Share The Public Domain! You're Fired!

from the so-this-is-what-they-call-free-speech dept

It appears that, once again, the entertainment industry's efforts to educate everyone on their distorted view of intellectual property law is causing some problems. According to Copyfight, a radio host was recently fired for airing materials he had recorded off C-SPAN. C-SPAN, of course, makes no claim to the copyright on the audio they broadcast from Congress as it is, in fact, in the public domain. However, the radio station didn't seem to care, and assumed that it was a misuse of the material and promptly fired the radio host. And some wonder why there are people afraid of the ever-disappearing public domain.

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Apr 12th, 2005 @ 6:48pm
  • And I assume that host's first step was...

    by Michael Vilain

    was to file a wrongful termination complaint with his local labor board. Failing that, I'm sure an enterprising attorney is just ready to educate the company, a judge, and jury on the definition of "public domain"

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Apr 13th, 2005 @ 3:58am
    • Re: And I assume that host's first step was...

      by acb

      There is no such thing as "public domain". The idea that such a thing exists is Communist propaganda.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Apr 13th, 2005 @ 3:01pm
      • Re: And I assume that host's first step was...

        by muse

        For the person that thinks there is no such thing as "public domain", explain that concept to the 65 yr old retiree who just had his boyhood home "stolen" from him because the "public" needs more airport runway space (or highway lanes, for that matter) to connect their "domains" together.
        Capitalism and Democracy are opposites just as 'private' and 'public' pretend to be.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Apr 13th, 2005 @ 6:31am
  • No Subject Given

    by Chomper

    No, we're just more afraid of stupid people like the managers of that radio station.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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