FSF's May Criticizes Pro-Fair Use Letter; Public Knowledge Responds
The “fundamental emphasis” of Monday’s letter to Congress by pro-fair use groups and law experts was “misplaced,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May in a news release Wednesday. The letter’s signatories included the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Electronic…
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Frontier Foundation, Internet Association, Internet Infrastructure Coalition and Public Knowledge (see 1503090038). The letter “studiously avoids mentioning ‘property,’ ‘intellectual property,’ or ‘property rights,’” May said. He took aim at the letter’s use of the phrase “public domain,” which it characterized as a “core component of creativity and knowledge.” The "most important attribute of private property is the ability of property owners to exclude others,” May said: “‘Public domain’ is just the opposite.” While "there is a place for a properly delimited public domain, in general, government-mandated ‘free’ access will not encourage creative content, nor will it allow creators to allocate their works in the manner of their choosing or lead to economic benefits for society as a whole,” he said. “We’re not talking about property, because we’re talking about copyright,” Sherwin Siy, PK vice president-legal affairs, said in an interview. “The question of whether or not [copyright] is property is kind of irrelevant when it comes to what the law is,” he said. The letter sought to address the “balance between the holder of the domain and the public,” because there are “values in both private and public property,” Siy said. It’s not a “mischaracterization” to refer to copyright as “regulation,” as May suggested, he said. Copyright is “regulation,” he said. CCIA and EFF didn’t comment.