Re: copyright under stress

On Wed, Jun 07, 2000, Timothy Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
>
> However copyright also suppresses creative endeavor, as when some
> British schoolchildren found they couldn't produce "Oliver!" as
> their school play because it was playing in the professional
> theaters (or "theatres") in London, and the London theaters feared
> competition from schoolchildren. (David Lister, "West End rules
> force 'Oliver' off school stage", The Independent (London),
> January 31, 1994, page 3.) Any copyright law will suppress or at
> least delay some creativity. This is in the nature of a monopoly.
> The question must be, how much supression are we willing to tolerate
> in order to get the benefits of the law?

While I agree that the reaction of the professional theatres was tragic in this case, I have some difficulty with equating this to stifling creativity. Is it creative to put on a play? Yes. Is it more creative to write a new play which doesn't infringe a copyright and then put on that non-infringing play? Almost certainly. I would submit that this second from of creativity (which patent jargon would call "inventing around the patent") is really the only one that copyright is concerned with, for better or for worse.

Later in your post you mentioned that copyright terms have become too long -- this is probably a direct result of society / Congress placing too much emphasis on the creating of new (non-derivative) works function of the copyright law to the exclusion of other valuable social goods which may be served by a shorter term. The above example, on average, would be helped by a shorter term (the school children still might not be able to do Oliver, but the realm of available works would be greater at least). On the other hand, giving the school children more choices reduces their incentive to invent around. It's a two-edged sword.

-David

David Hale
<dhale[_at_]aggt.com> Received on Thu Jun 08 2000 - 13:55:04 GMT