Re: droit de suite

On Sat, 1 Apr 2000, Pat Sloane <patsloane[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> On 04/01/2000, Larry Weiss <pgw[_at_]idt.net> wrote:
> >
> > The "high dudgeon" is because the proposed legislation would form
> > a compulsory partnership between the owner of the work and the
> > person from whom he thought he bought it.
>
> I don't see how this differs from the licensing of computer software,
> which establishes a compulsory relation ship between buyer and seller.

It's easy: The software license is a result of a contractual relationship between the licensor and licensee, it is not imposed by a law that defeats the expectations the buyer had when he bought the property.

The rest of Mr. Sloane's argument can be boiled down to an observation that "art is different" and it would be very unfair to deprive the world of its beauty. The responses to this is also easy:

1. So what? What has any of this got to do with droit de suite. Indeed, the logic of the argument is contrary to droit de suite, as the doctrine would operate to reduce, not expand, the dissemination of art.
2. The same argument can be made for any type of work covered by copyright or patent law. Isn't it important to make a new drug freely available? Or a new technology that improves the user's standard of living? Are you proposing to do away with all patent and copyright protections because they create monopolies for limited times? Remember, the Constitution specifically contemplates such protections to encourage the useful and other arts.

Larry Weiss
<pgw[_at_]idt.net> Received on Mon Apr 03 2000 - 17:03:13 GMT