Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On Sun, Aug 06, 2000 at 12:09:47PM -0500, Linda Gruber wrote:
>
> The public domain is not the presumed origin of creations by seasoned,
> professional creators. I guess I can imagine doing a work based on
> an old work with the specific intent of commenting on how times had
> changed. Maybe rendering something familiar with a new idea or
> employing a new style of art on an old piece to make an interesting
> point. I can think of such exceptions, but for the most part, I see
> the public domain as a great training ground for students gaining
> technique, knowledge of style, and rendering skills. The
> professionals creators I know generally try to be original. That's
> how society is pushed into the future.

No, the public domain is OFTEN the origin of creations by seasoned professionals. Were the Walt Disney Corporation's recent remakes of "Beauty and the Beast" or "Hunchback of Notre Dame" the work of untrained students? Or Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical production of "Phantom of the Opera"?

> In this new digital age the public domain poses a threat to creativity
> as never before. Anyone can decide to become a publisher of recycled
> public domain works by doing nothing more than reformatting them in
> electronic form.

Yes, and I do exactly this (see <http://home.purple.texas.net/etexts/> ) How on earth is making _The Night Land_ or _The Emancipatrix_ or _Lumen_ available to readers again, after sitting out of print for many decades, a threat to creativity?! Any would-be creators who read these works are exposed to MORE ideas, ideas and concepts they might not find in modern literature.

> Congress has a duty to promote more original creation and thwart the
> recycling of public domain works which depress the market for creators
> of original content. Emerging authors should not be forced to compete
> with familiar titles and authors for a buyer's dollar in a fledgling
> eBook market.

If Congress were foolish enough to enact perpetual copyright, I assure you the result would be far, far LESS original creation, prehaps none at all. Why would the publishers and studios pay emerging authors for new content, if they owned perpetual, exclusive rights to all of the time-tested stories familiar to the public? You'd simply get endless reruns of copyrighted material, without any creativity at all. Received on Mon Aug 07 2000 - 11:59:17 GMT