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#5 Legal Rights for Nature and #6 Copyrights
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#5 Rights for Nature
Are humans the only ones harmed when a forest is clearcut? I'm Jan Edwards and this is the Tapestry of the Commons.
In the 1970's Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said "Trees should have Standing". What did he mean by that? Justice Douglas was suggesting legal rights for Nature.
In our system of government, to have legal rights means to be able to bring a case to court, to sue for damages and to benefit from any settlement. Now only so called "legal persons" have those rights.
Human beings and Corporations are both considered legal persons. So a human person or corporation can bring a suit, but not an endangered animal or wild river. To have standing to bring a suit, a legal person must be harmed.
If nature had legal rights, it would be much easier to protect the Natural Commons in courts of law. Of course a human person will need to file suit, but it could be on behalf of a part of nature that was being harmed, and nature could receive the settlement.
What would it take to give legal rights to nature? It would probably require an amendment to the constitution. That's how freed slaves and women got legal personhood. But first there were many years of education and action to change people's minds about slavery and the status of women.
So it begins with a change in how our society views the Natural Commons. As we are beginning to see nature as a living system with a right to survive, the legal change is starting.
The Tapestry of the Commons is made possible by the Alliance
for Democracy.
To learn more about the Commons and Legal Rights for Nature visit
our website at www.TapestryoftheCommons.org
I'm Jan Edwards
More Information on the Rights for Nature
#6 Copyrights
How many Disney movies have stories taken from the Commons? I'm Jan Edwards and this is the Tapestry of the Commons.
Snow White was a folk tale before it was a cartoon. So were Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Aladdin, Pinocchio, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas...in fact its hard to think of a Disney story not taken from the public domain. So how many stories has Disney given back to the commons? None
Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with Disney or any corporation using the public domain, every business does. But the original idea was to use the public domain to build something new, make a fair profit for the effort, and then return it all to the Commons again for the next person to build on. Growing the public domain was the goal. That's why copyrights were for a limited time...14 years originally, with one 14 year renewal.
But in the last 30 years, Congress has allowed copyrights to get longer and longer. They are now the life of the author plus 70 years. For corporations the copyrights are 95years. Of course this is not because longer copyrights are of benefit to the people ...quite the opposite. It is to keep Mickey Mouse and Casablanca the private property of corporations. The corporations are the ones that lobbied for and got these extensions. And our public domain is the poorer for it.
Many writers, artists and others are concerned about the shrinking of the Cultural Commons. They have new ideas on sharing and protecting works. Creative Commons and Copy Left provide licences to download free from the web, or people can put their work directly into the public domain.
The Tapestry of the Commons is made possible by the Alliance
for Democracy.
To learn more about the Commons and ways to protect them, visit
our website at www.TapestryoftheCommons.org
I'm Jan Edwards
More Information on Copyrights