Re: droit de suite

On 04/03/2000, Jeroen Hellingman <jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, Pat Sloane <patsloane[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > There's plenty of precedent for bequething intangible rights, as
> > in leaving one's heirs a large block of General Motors stock.
>
> They are quite different from copyrights, as they represent a share
> in real hardware, not in an abstract, non-physical entity. I do not
> want to equate those two things, as they are quite different in
> nature.

They may not be as different as you assume.

1. What's copyrighted is a manuscript, which is neither abstract nor non-physical. No manuscript, no copyright. That's why one can't copyright an idea for a book that one never writes. The reason there are postal charges for sending books and manuscripts through the mails is that they aren't as "abstract, non-physical" as you're assuming.
2. When a stockholder is said to "own" a fractional part of General Motors, the usage is only nominal. It bestows no right to directly control the company. The only control a stockholder has over a company is indirect, exerted by voting the stock. All the stockholder really owns, in the sense of being able to directly control it, is the stock... either a paper certificate or an entry in somebody's ledger.

Holding stock is very similar to holding citizenship. One might say a nation nominally "belongs" to its citizens. But that doesn't automatically bestow on each individual citizen the right to directly control a pro rata share of the nation's land, wealth, natural resources, or whatever. All the citizen has a right to do is vote, an indirect means of controlling "his" or "her" nation.

When people create wealth, it's not a bad idea to allow them to bequeath that wealth to their heirs... whether the wealth consists of a company that was established, paintings bequethed to heirs by an artist, or royalty producing properties of any kind. Why is it OK to bequeath an oil-well (which produces royalties) but not the rights to a book manuscript (which produces royalties)?

Actually, the price of books is rather low, and nobody is seriously arguing that we need to eliminate copyright to spare the public any harm done or hardships suffered by the price of books being "too high." Royalties paid to a writer are rarely more than 5% or 10% of the cost of a book, a mere piffle no more burdensome to the book-buyer than sales taxes. Also, nobody seriously argues that there's any public benefit to be gained by eliminating copyright -- that, say, if we could get the price of books down by 10%, then people might do more reading.

So what drives the raging against copyright, if it isn't any kind of desire for the public good? Seems to me it's the larcenous lust. Eliminate copyright and you deprive the writer of the opportunity to profit from his work. But you've correspondingly opened the door for anyone other than the writer to profit from the writer's work. The T. S. Eliot estate makes a million dollars a year from the literary properties he left. Knock out copyright, and that million dollars is up for grabs. Anyone, even you, could print and sell his books without paying royalties and get a piece of the action. What I'm not understanding is why you regard it as obnoxious if the money goes to the writer or his heirs, and preferable that it go to anyone other than the writer or his heirs.

pat sloane
<patsloane[_at_]aol.com> Received on Mon Apr 03 2000 - 10:43:15 GMT