Re: droit de suite

On Wed, Apr 12, 2000, Pat Sloane <patsloane[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> On 04/11/2000, Jeroen Hellingman <jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> > copyright is a means to secure that creators of works can have
> > income, but should it do so for their distant relatives in a far
> > away future. I don't think so.
>
> Harold Bloom is the author of many books. He's mentioned in
> interviews that he has a disabled son who will never be capable
> of living independently. Like all parents in that position, he's
> concerned about ensuring care for his son when he himself is no
> longer living. What I'm sensing in your ingenious but self-serving
> arguments, Jeroen, is a lack of any respect for artists as human
> beings who have needs as do other human beings. Sure, you're
> veiling it by pretending your contempt is only for hypothetical
> "distant relatives." But you've not explained why the "distant
> relatives" of artists and writers should be regarded as any more
> despicable than the distant relatives of anyone else.
>
> Fifty or seventy years is not as unreasonable as it seems, especially
> if the intent was to allow the creative person to provide for
> reasonably foreseeable immediate needs. It would allow for, say, the
> education of an orphaned grandchild, which is not an unreasonable
> thing for anyone to want. The point is, Jeroen, you keep insisting
> that royalties bequeathed by writers would fall into unworthy hands,
> or unworthy according to you. Yet you've not explained what makes
> your own needs so important, and I certainly feel sceptical of any
> claim that you're speaking for "the public" or any constitutency
> besides yourself. If I have a house I choose to leave to a distant
> relative, or to a person who's not even a relative at all, what
> business is it of yours? What makes you a more worthy recipient, in
> your opinion?

I think what is forgotten in the whole discussion about copyright is that no equivalent rights exist for somebody who earns his living for example by building a house, or doing some other menial job. He gets his pay for it, and has to safe out of that for whatever care he wishes to provide for his children. Why should authors be treated any different from that.

It is my opinion, that all I want to provide for my children is a fair starting point in society, and after that, hand them over their own responsibility of earning their own living -- I have no need for any copyright lasting longer than that myself.

It is easy to come up with many tear jerking examples that may have a point, but I don't believe in copyright as an alternative for welfare, restricted to those lucky enough to have very creative ancestors

A much more rational approach would be to make a clear cost-benefit analysis of copyright, and choose a balance of copyright duration and the costs of their maintenaince. (in terms of unavailability of many materials) -- AND to provide for a reasonable welfare for EVERYBODY through a decent social security system.

Copyright is very different from tangible properties -- it doesn't need maintenance, it cannot be stolen, and can be infringed without you ever being aware of it -- it has a very different nature -- let put it another way, what gives you the right to forbid me to make a copy of a book you wrote long time ago, and I cannot buy anymore, not even from you, in my own home, with my own sweat, on my own paper? I definitely refuse to equate a copyright with a property right in a tangible object.

Another, and very important, point is that most works do not earn money for even a fraction of those life+70 years, so what is the purpose of protecting them? Most books are economically dead within 10 years after their publication -- nobody earns from it any more. There is probably only a marginal interest in the work, which cannot pay enough to warrant the high costs of licencing, etc.

Of course the extremely low cost of copying and distribution on the internet has changed the picture quite a lot.

I sometimes things, publishers are also happy to have long copyright terms, because it reduces the competition they will have from public domain works. By the time works become PD nowadays, they are mostly only of historical interest.

Jeroen

Jeroen Hellingman
<jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> Received on Wed Apr 12 2000 - 21:32:21 GMT