Re: public domain copyright -- public domain Internet

On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 22, 2000, Sylvie Fodor <s.fodor[_at_]akg.de> wrote:
> >
> > Copyright (or authors' rights in Europe -- this is not quite the
> > (same is the only way that have been found up to now to have artists
> > make a living -- also after their death (for their heirs/ relatives)
> > if the work was not that famous while they were living.
>
> I wonder how those artists, authors, and inventors were able to
> make a living while creating their works for so many centuries
> without the benefit of copyright then?

well, in the united states, even after federal copyright was instituted, it was a couple of generations before any authors could become "professional" and make any sort of living from sales of serious books (i don't mean journalists or teachers).

there is something to the claim that Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" (1850) was the first U.S. novel that allowed the author to live (for a time, between government jobs) from the proceeds -- and even then, the work was "pirated" by British publishers immediately--so Hawthorne had to reside in England long enough to publish and copyright "The Marble Faun" ("Transformation" in the U.K.) though he didn't get enough royalties from it to make it worthwhile.

hawthorne's publisher, J. T. Fields, became successful by publishing British authors such as Thackeray and Dickens -- and he paid them royalties from U.S. sales even though he didn't have to. and hawthorne's son-in-law George Parsons Lathrop was a leader in attaining an international copyright treaty. still, there was no particular outpouring of great literature, nor any leisure class of professional authors generated by the new laws.

what i am trying to say is that there is no necessary connection between copyright and sufficient royalties to allow professional authors to live from proceeds of serious literature. in the united states, this is not the reason that works are copyrighted, at least if you read the Constitution. U.S. law does not recognize your European "moral rights." in fact, if you read statements by the Framers, they didn't approve of novels at all. benjamin franklin wrote that he didn't want to receive a patent for his invention of the enclosed fireplace stove, but rather wished the public to benefit from it (does that mean he recognized the "public domain"?)

if you think about it, what the Framers wanted to do was encourage publication as freely as possible. it took practical bankruptcy and poverty before Hawthorne and great writers such as Scott were motivated to write so many fine works and publish them. perhaps if they lived in today's "free market" that recognized "author's rights" they would not have that motivation?

if you look at the big picture, i think you will see that very few authors are rewarded enough by publication to live independently. sure, there are stephen kings, but about the same number as there are pedro martinezes in the baseball world. in books as in music the publishers have control, and they can pay legislators for the protection they desire. yet the same laws give them control over all the books that are not by the stephen kings and are not published freely.

in the world of science, publication proceeds for reasons quite independent of monetary reward. copyright in the sense of recognition and the right to be credited with one's own original thoughts are enough. scientific publishers, however, certainly consider the revenue stream generated by copyrights to be essential to their economic well-being.

the internet is showing that authors no longer need publishers in order to publish--the cost to publish is low enough that anybody like me ("Eldritch Press") can publish in an instant to everyone in the world with a computer on the Internet. (do you believe that publishers are tremendously afraid of this occurrence?) what we have to consider is whether the print publishers can reassert control and use the laws to instantiate their obsolete business models, and use technology just as pedro martinez does to prolong what amounts to a monopoly. certainly today the media are more concentrated and more powerful than ever. i would like to think that authors could use the internet to reclaim some balance, but i am pessimistic that publishers will permit this.

i reiterate that the argument from author's rights is a practical fallacy that is being used by publishers to seize control of rights and works, and that this does not today benefit authors and inventors.

i don't think we need to return to the patronage system. the system of copyright the U.S. had before the recent changes to benefit publishers would be something we should strive to return to, i believe. whether or not authors can get a "decent living" from that is irrelevant--copyright has never promised that at all.

one might argue against your proposed system of rewarding authors this way: an author sells rights to a book to a publisher; the publisher publishes it, but as usual today it goes out of print very quickly and is not reprinted; the copyright lapses; someone else publishes the book at her own expense and it becomes a success-- now does the author/heir really have the right to re-enter the process at this date and reap all the benefits of the work of the second publisher? i think one could argue that this is similar to the noxious practice of those who patent everything in sight, then wait for somebody else to develop a successful product, then sue them to make money from it. is this what you want intellectual property law to do?

-- 
"Eric"  Eric Eldred  Eldritch Press
mailto:Eldred[_at_]EldritchPress.org
http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf