Re: The good fight

And although the life plus 50 regime may be necessary to comply with Berne, the CTEA certainly is not. If I recall correctly, the majority of Berne states have a life plus 50 copyright.

kwg

<<< mpollack[_at_]memphis.edu 10/ 3 12:16a >>> Yes, I fully recognize that what I want is incompatible with Bearne and may hurts some business' profits.

        We have hit the basic philosophical disagreement. I simply do not believe that some firms getting money abroad should be the central concern of USA copyright policy. (The money, furthermore, may never be returned to the USA; FYI the "copies" sold abroad are often manufactured outside the USA).

          Calvin College said that "the business of America is business". I disagree emphatically, the business of America should be Americans. The CTEA makes the persons living in the USA (i) pay royalties longer for "american" works, and (ii) pay royalties longer for "non-american" works. It ties up access to works which are no longer commercially exploited by any copyright holder-- the super majority of works in existence are not commercially exploited for the full term. A would-be-user must expend time and money trying (often without success) to find a copyright holder (or a maze of holders of many different rights under copyright) in order to get an ok to use a work which no longer has any "commercial" value.
  I do not really know whether the extra money obtained by "american" copyright holders abroad counter balances the extra royalties paid by american residents. I have never seen a convincing empirical analysis of the issue. But in my (on this point not at all humble) opinion, the Copyright Clause of the Constitution is about protecting the general public's access to works -- not about profits for copyright holders.

        At this point, I am running out of time for list discussion. Please do not construe my period of silence as lack of arguments in response to later disagreements.

	Long live the public domain.
                :-)

RCumbow[_at_]GrahamDunn.com wrote:
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-- 
Malla Pollack
Visiting Associate Professor
University of Memphis, Law
mpollack[_at_]memphis.edu