Re: droit de suite

On April 7, 2000, Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu> wrote:
>
> To the contrary: virtually all of the changes made in U.S. law from
> 1976 to the present have been inspired or justified, directly or
> indirectly, by the natural rights view. In particular, all of the
> changes made to help "harmonize" U.S. law with European law have been
> in the direction of making U.S. law more "natural rights" oriented
> and less "incentive" or "utilitarian" oriented.
>
> Examples: The change from a registration-and-notice based system to
> automatic protection from the moment of fixation; the change from
> registration-based renewal to automatic renewal; the change from a
> fixed term to a term based on the life of the author; the Sonny Bono
> Copyright Term Extension Act; protection for architectural works;
> restoration of foreign copyrights; anti-bootlegging legislation;
> digital public performance rights for sound recordings; and moral
> rights legislation.

     Alternatively, these changes -- albeit expansions of copyright -- arguably have little to do with the natural rights of the author. Rather, in the context of the historical trichotomy of "author/publisher/consuming public," all of the above changes seem to benefit the "publisher," that is, the studio, producer, internet company.

     Under the 1909 Act, many motion picture companies lost rights because of technical failures to renew or to include proper notice. The 1976 Act's abandonment of these formalities inures to the benefit of the company. Moreover, the change from a fixed term to a period that ends decades after the author dies likewise tends to favor the corporate distributor, not the deceased author. The most publicly visible works affected by term extension are famous characters (especially animated characters) and classic motion pictures and songs -- works often owned by large entities. I would think that anti-bootlegging legislation, digital performance rights, and restoration of foreign copyrights benefits the corporate "publisher" as much as the author.

     Finally, although I agree that moral rights legislation arises out of a natural rights theory, the United States has not yet adopted legislation that has an impact on mass produced works. Thus, something other than the "natural rights" theory is at work.

     Robert Rotstein
     <bob.rotstein[_at_]gte.net>