Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On Thu, Sep 07, 2000 at 01:23:11PM -0400, Dodi Schultz wrote:

>... 

No I haven't. I notice that no literary authors group has joined the amicus brief in our case. However, some songwriters have joined it. It has been pointed out on this list that the CTEA discriminates against European songwriters because the CTEA unfairly allows U.S. bar and restaurant owners to escape paying royalties. I think songwriters in general would not accept the tradeoff of the CTEA if they were asked--the tradeoff offers 20 more years of copyright term after an author's death, and takes away the royalty protection from these public performances forever. Of course, the songwriters could simply visit some bars, request their songs, then refuse to pay their bar bills unless the owner paid them for the license to perform. I've discussed all this with one Hollywood music composer but no results. I like such demonstrations--anybody want to stage some fun I can join?

A literary author's trust is represented in the amicus brief in favor of the CTEA. The Sherwood Anderson trust wants to prevent me from republishing on my web site the 1923 collection of Anderson short stories, "Horses and Men." They argue that their trust finances a year in residence of a writer at a college at which one of the trustees teaches. And the income from Anderson royalties finances the trust.

I respond that the writer in residence ought to finance her own living expenses as every other writer does, by writing, publishing, and selling new works of her own, instead of living off Anderson's royalties. Or, if financing authors' livelihood is such a public good, then it should be paid from general tax revenue or general charity instead.

The Anderson trust has a tidy business in publishing new "critical" editions of Anderson's works. He was not a good English student and could not spell worth a darn, so he relied on the publisher's editors. However, the professors of the trust claim that they know what Anderson intended to write, and have made thousands of changes to the texts that he published, and then they slap new copyrights on them.

The trust has never reprinted "Horses and Men" since 1923 and has no plans to do so. I offer to scan the book and publish it for free if they wish. Instead, they sell a new anthology of his stories. I assert that readers today deserve to read the work as Anderson first published it. It seems strange to me that the non-profit organization that is supposed to represent and present Anderson to today's readers feels that it must not do so directly, but must control and censor his writings in order to insure a continuing income for their enterprise.

Dodi, if you can represent me to some authors' group, I would be glad to present my case as best I can. But I am just an amateur; nobody is paying me for this, and I will never profit--all I ask is some bus fare and I'll talk to anybody who will listen, then it is their job to present their own case to the courts and Congress. Received on Fri Sep 08 2000 - 22:26:59 GMT