Pornography featuring 18- and 19-year-old models. It is "barely legal" because it is very close to being child pornography, which United States law considers obscene and therefore not protected under First Amendment guarantees of freedom of the press.
OR...
The latest
crackpot project from Pin Eight Group (www.pineight.com).
The year was 1923. Copyrights had a maximum 56-year term. Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse were created.
The year was 1976. The copyrights on Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse were due to expire. Disney lobbied for (and got) a 19-year copyright term extension to a total of 75 years.
The year was 1998. The copyrights on Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse were due to expire. Disney lobbied for (and got) a 20-year copyright term extension to a total of 95 years and a ban on devices that allow fair use of legitimately purchased copies.
These unthinkably long copyright terms do not protect authors; they protect only publishers and other immortal entities whose sole motive is profit at any price. How do we keep a similar travesty from happening in 2018, when Pooh and Mickey are due to expire again?
The last fascist dictator was Benito Mussolini. The next will be Jack Valenti. He already owns the legislative body of the United States; otherwise, we wouldn't have DMCA or the Bono Act.
BARELY LEGAL engages in militant non-violence against corrupt and oppressive use of government-granted monopoly (GGM) rights. (GGM is thought to be a more accurate term than "intellectual property" for how copyrights and patents are handled under United States law.) Recall that Americans of color won their civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s through civil disobedience. Ethnic minorities got several unconstitutional laws overturned through passive resistance, and so will we.
By now, horny readers have been bait and switched. But see know_no_bounds's writeup below.
BL's Tactics
Reduction of copyrights and patents to trademarks. We find prior art for copyrights and patents, through heavy paraphrase and other methods; destroying their originality destroys their enforceability. Even though trademarks are perpetual, they are also much easier to circumvent than copyrights and patents; simply change names and faces and you're legal.
BL rides on the coattails of these successes:
Creating and distributing derivative works of original works created between 1923 and 1944 inclusive. Congress has made copyright terms for such works effectively perpetual; however, had Disney not lobbied for and got retroactive copyright term extensions, they would be in the public domain. This is actually unlawful, but common law recognizes valid reasons for being a scofflaw by giving juries the right not to reach "liable" verdicts if they believe the law is unconstitutional or otherwise unjust.
Successes:
- Strong dissenting opinion in Eldred v. Reno heading into a potential Supreme Court battle. It turns out that the appellants lost the appeal on a minor technicality rather than any major point of law.
- Representative Rick Boucher is working on taking a bite out of the Bono Act.
Fair use is what keeps copyright law from violating free speech. 17 USC 107 states that "the fair use of copyrighted work for purposes such as ... criticism, comment ... is not an infringement of copyright." The conditions for fair use that weigh in our favor include
- the purpose of use (mostly non-commercial parody),
- amount copied (very little; mostly character names and stereotypes), and
- effect on value of work (very little considering that publishers are more interested in selling new works than old works and further that what Congress giveth, Congress taketh away).
The "nature of the copyrighted work" likely counts against us, but courts have ruled that one condition does not generally trump several others.
Successes:
- In a case involving MAD Magazine, the Supreme Court has ruled that parody leans heavily toward fair use.
Remember, you're not breaking the law if the law is unconstitutional. Only nine people know if BL's activities are lawful or not; hence the name BARELY LEGAL.
And should it fail...
All BARELY LEGAL participants should join to EFF. Consider it liability insurance on your free speech. If some big corporation uses a frivolous threat of "we'll sue just so that your legal defense can bankrupt you; all your money are belong to us," the EFF may back you up.
Planned Projects
Want to help? /msg me.
The Doll and the Nanny
A fanfiction that takes place between Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night by Filmation and Knock On Wood by Frank Thomas Smith (http://www.barcelonareview.com/12/e_fs.htm).
The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo "Collodi" Lorenzini is PD in the US (and mirrored here) because it was written before 1923. Had the 1976 extension not passed, Mary Poppins by Pamela L. Travers would be PD. Time for a little civil diso-fucking-bedience.
The story "The Doll and the Nanny" will feature the adoption of orphaned former puppet Pinocchio Baccigaluppo by retired nanny-for-hire Mary Poppins. It will also feature characters from Enid Blyton's post-1923 TOYLAND universe (also foreshadowed by TAOP), who know Pinocchio only under the codename "Noddy" (no relation to E2's own Noddy Garcia).
More Precious
Even though PRECIOUS MOMENTS is copyrighted and trademarked out the rear-end even without the need for term extensions, BL has found a pre-1923 loophole: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. This novel (read it here) describes in great detail a race known as Eloi; the description matches PRECIOUS MOMENTS characters very well, stopping just short of the teardrop shape created by the eyelids.
Another angle: If PM is about "loving, caring, and sharing," let's see how they can enforce their copyrights while continue to preach "sharing." In this case, a nastygram represents pure hypocrisy.
Chinese Room
suggested by JerboaKolinowski
Oh, here's a (perhaps silly) BL suggestion - get a set of individuals to memorise a small part of the dcss algorithm (just one step) then have them agree to perform that step on any single byte they're sent via email (and return by email to the person who does the next step. (or appropriate person, if the step is a conditional). Since they don't automatically process the data (they do it in their heads) there's no code [or other device -- yerricde] to exhibit in court... (well, maybe it would be a bit slow to run ;-) (idea inspired by Searle's Chinese Room)
A Modern Gandhi
suggested by JCCyC of Slashdot
Buy a laptop with a DVD-ROM drive and a CSS-encrypted DVD from region 2. Make the laptop able to play the disc, thus violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now make a speech in the public place and play parts of the DVD. Distribute the software you used to get it to work, along with selections from the DeCSS Gallery (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/). Then repeat the process with Elcomsoft's Advanced eBook Processor.
Free Mickey
Copyrights on early MICKEY MOUSE cartoons by Walt Disney would have expired back in the early 1980s were it not for term extensions. You will see Mickey, and lots of him. You will see Mickey and other Disney characters in various BDSM positions. You will see old Mickey Mouse films on eDonkey and KaZaA. You may get arrested, but wasn't that how Mahatma Gandhi worked his changes?
Further BL activities will be noded as they are contributed. Send your proposals to
barelylegal (AT) pineight (DOT) 8m (DOT) com.
Remember, folks:
Copyright is the right to copy from a rich public domain and to enjoy a limited government-granted monopoly in return for having your work enter the public domain after a reasonable period of time.
COPYRIGHT IS THE RIGHT TO COPY.
Let's keep it that way.
Disclaimer: None of this writeup is legal advice.
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Kalandir> Until I actively run into a problem with copyright material I don't really want to think about it.
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yerricde> Then you must
bend the law.
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Kalandir>
I happily say yes to MP3s, but that doesn't mean I want to
smash all the laws.
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yerricde> Do you want to smash the fact that copyrights don't expire? Do you want to smash the fact that you can't freeze-frame a DVD to use a still in a film report? If so, you must smash the laws that place such restrictions on American citizens.
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Kalandir> I don't have a DVD. Don't remind me.
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yerricde> Now what if Beethoven's music were still under copyright? What if every time the four opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony were played, somebody got paid?
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Kalandir> Umm, and
everytime a bell rings an angel gets its wings...