RE: The good fight

On Tuesday, October 01, 2002 4:32 PM, M. Pollack [SMTP:mpollack[_at_]memphis.edu] wrote:
<snip>
> As for Bern, IMHO the USA should never have joined Bern. The basic
> philosophy is in extreme tension with the Constitutional
> Copyright/Patent Clause.

Or the United Nations? or Planet Earth?

Like it or not, Berne is the international convention regulating the exchange of copyright material. It certainly has its faults. But in a globally-networked environment, isolationism was never a realistic option, even for a nation as powerful as the USA.

(Although the cynic in me suggests that base mercantilism has always been the driver of international policy. The USA did not join Berne in 1886 because it was then an agro-industrial nation, a net importer of IP. It was only with the rise of the software industry that the interests of its IP exporters began to outweigh those of its importers. Mercantilism is an economically fallacious argument, but as the current steel tariffs show, it retains enormous political power...)

Edward Barrow
New Media Copyright Consultant
http://www.copyweb.co.uk/
***Important: see http://www.copyweb.co.uk/email.htm for information about the legal status of this email *** Received on Wed Oct 02 2002 - 07:39:49 GMT