Re: copyright by successors of Barrie J.M.

On Jul 28, 2000, Mike Holderness <mch[_at_]cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote:
>
> {about J.M. Barrie & the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond St}
>
> On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Jeroen Hellingman <jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> wrote:
> >
> > Isn't such a regulation against the copyright directive of the EU,
> > and one of the idosynchrosities the "harmonization" of copyright
> > tried to get rid off? It seems to me a most insane law, to have
> > special regulations for specific works.
>
> Culture clash. In the tradition of joined-up Europe of course it's
> crazy --because not rational. Them Anglo-Saxon empiricists seem to
> enjoy these little quirks though :-)
>
> See the State Fairs exemption in United States Code 119... and a
> bunch of other special interest exemptions.
>
> I don't see anything in the EU Directive that rules out such one-off
> oddities. It's difficult to see how the EU Commission could argue
> that this one hinders the free movement of goods and services within
> the Union, or that various now-faintly-bizarre but utterly-rational
> clauses adjusting terms of authors' rights to allow for Occupation
> in 1939-45 do. So there's not a lot the Commission can do about them.
>
> Hunting for examples that might be proposed in the future, I came up
> with a perpetual copyright in national anthems, royalties to be paid
> to a fund to counter xenophobia by any means necessary. Hmm...

Dear Subscribers

Reading the interesting exchange of opinion on the EU harmonisation of copyright in Europe -- it came to my mind that there seems to be much more need for harmonisation than is the case at present. Here is an example:

In Europe in general the length of protection period is not related to the exploitation of the work or the means/way of exploiting it. However UK has by tradition been holding a different wives by which an original work, which is protected under copyright law, in case of reproduction by "an industrial process" e.g. more than 50 copies made, will be regarded as "industrial design" and protected for 25 years from first sale only.

This means that any original work which is reproduced commercially will be reduced to a protection period of 25 years rather than the normal life + 70 years.

It is debated whether this is covered by the EU Directive 93/98 or not -- and the opinions seems to be split between UK and the Continent which calls for a clarification from the EU.

There are other arias also where the tradition creates differences in copyright in Europe and a complete harmonisation has by no means been established yet.

Calle Ostergaard
<info[_at_]troll-company.dk> Received on Fri Jul 28 2000 - 13:11:44 GMT