Re: droit de suite

On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, Howard Johnson <johnson[_at_]cardiff.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> what is so dramatic about this new right apart from the screams of
> the london auction houses whose practices have recently be shown in
> some cases to be extremely dubious -- after all every additional
> copy of a popular book, video etc produces additional royalties for
> the author over a substantial period and for heirs for a further
> seventy years -- this is in effect simply giving a payment for the
> popularity of the picture which in an economic sense cannot be
> reproduced like a book so to benefit the artist in the future

I don't care whether some people wish to pay ridiculous high prices for unique pieces of art, and I am not defending the interests of large auction houses, what bothers me is that this undermines the concept of exhaustion of copyright, and with that, the whole concept of copyright itself. Unlike royalties on *copies* made, which means you cannot make copies, this means you cannot even trade copies without having to pay a private tax, often to distant relatives, up to 70 years after the death of the original creation (this long term is also rediculous, and has no justification in the real purpose of copyright law, that is to promote creativity).

Even sculpture and painting can be reproduced, although it will remain a copy, and large income can be derived from the sale of reproductions of popular art already. There is no need to add more to that, and destroy the whole balance of power in copyright. If people don't want their works to be reproduced for some reason, they should not have the income also, because copyright was not meant to limit availability of works...

Jeroen Hellingman
<jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> Received on Sat Apr 01 2000 - 13:19:16 GMT