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

On Fri, 5 May 2000, Jon Noring <noring[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
>
> On another mailing list a very pointed question was asked, the gist
> of the question being "why is the Public Domain necessary -- what's
> wrong with perpetual copyright terms?"

As far as heirs granting permission goes, a useful reference is Teresa Ou, "From Wheaton v. Peters to Eldred v. Reno: An Originalist Interpretation of the Copyright Clause," at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno/OuEldred.pdf which footnotes this statement of Augustin-Charles Renouard, in "Theory of the Rights of Authors" (8, 1839):

  "...Should the author's rights be divided, to infinity,   among all his heirs?. . . How shall one unite so many   divers consents, when it may be necessary to treat?   Who will undertake to find so many scattered individuals,   to regulate their respective interests, and to bring   their different wills to agree? . . . When the habitual   course of human transactions shall have brought a work   into the hands of speculators, and concentrated all the   copies of it in their possession, . . . [n]ot only will   it become lawful for the avarice of every heir to   paralyze the circulation of a work; not only may his   avidity retard or promote its propagation; but every   powerful party every jealous government, every rival   author, every speculation of competition, will have the   power, by the aid of a little money, to destroy it   entirely. . . . The works of genius will no longer belong   to humanity; they will become mere merchandise, to be   quoted on the exchange."   

-- 
"Eric"  Eric Eldred  Eldritch Press
mailto:Eldred[_at_]EldritchPress.org
http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf