Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 02:42:27PM -0700, kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 06:43:03PM -0700, Jon Noring wrote:
> > ....
> > I recall it being said here and on misc.int-property (a Usenet newsgroup)
> > that prior court rulings seem to suggest that what constitutes "limited" is
> > within the power of Congress to decide. That is, Congress can specify a
> > copyright term of 1,000,000 years, and since that is "limited", it would
> > be valid, even if in any real sense it is forever. (Eric Eldred can
> > certainly shed light on this since I think his lawsuit centers on this
> > very issue.)
>
> The appropriate context IMO is:
>
> "for limited times to authors and inventors".
>
> Not:
> "to authors, inventors, and their heirs"
> "to authors, inventors, and their employers"
> "to authors, inventors, and their agents"
> "to authors, inventors, and their publishers"
> "to authors, inventors, and their recording labels"
> "to authors, inventors, and their bandleaders"
> "to authors, inventors, and their consulting houses"
>
> ...but that's just IMO. The Eldritch Press judgement was typically
> idiotic in this regard. But that's just IMVAO. Could we see the legal
> gloss on this?

Help in the OpenLaw discussion at
http://eon.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno
(the court papers, briefs, etc. are online there)

I am rather embarrassed that modest Eric Eldred now seems to be a public enemy of the combined weight of (judging from the amicus brief) the MPAA, RIAA, ASCAP, AAP, and the U.S. government! I don't see any authors complaining.

There is a particular irony today (9/7) with this matter. The MP3.com case has been decided in NY district court and held that up to 10,000 CDs were copied from Universal by MP3.com. MP3.com had argued at the last minute that Universal did not actually own copyright to all those CDs, but instead was relying on an obscure change in the U.S. copyright law that allowed the recording industry to treat artists as "workers for hire". The decision of course went where the money was, instead. No doubt the artists would be screwed either way--they had contracted their rights away. (Congress appears to be rather ashamed to have been caught out in this fiasco, and is likely to change the law back, as quietly as it tried to do before.)

I think if you read the history of copyright law you will find that this trick by big publishers to use "authors' rights" as a front dates back to before 1700. They never stop. Received on Thu Sep 07 2000 - 07:56:53 GMT