Re: benefits of the public domain and limited copyright terms?

On Wed, 10 May 2000, Peter Groves <peter.groves[_at_]virgin.net> wrote:
>
> On Sat, May 06, 2000, Lance Purple <lpurple[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> > [ Perpetual copyright would have stopped Shakespeare's _Hamlet_,
> > Disney's _Snow White_, Webber's _Phantom of the Opera_, etc. ]
>
> No, it would probably have required them to pay dues to the people
> who did the creative work on the back of which they took something
> of a free ride (though in each case there is clearly some original
> input on the part of the second teller of the story: less with
> Disney, more with Shakespeare).

They did pay dues: they created new works to fall back into the public domain for future penniless artists and authors to use as starting material. True, Disney's corporate heirs would now like to get perpetual copyright enacted, and weasel out of their dues; but we can't directly blame Walt for this misbehavior since he's no longer with us (ignoring cryonics rumors to the contrary).

Lance Purple
<lpurple[_at_]netcom.com> Received on Thu May 11 2000 - 12:54:12 GMT