RE: The good fight

Tim Arnold-Moore>>>
If you want to see what benefit joining Berne gives the US take a look at the bottom line of companies like Disney, Time Warner, Microsoft and Oracle. A very significant portion of their income is based on royalties on sales outside the US. Do you think the foreign revenue growth would have been as high if the US had remained recalcitrant?

Me:
Actually, yes. I think if you look at the revenue growth for works more than 50 years old, you'll find that it is relatively insignificant. The benefit of Berne can only be shown by looking at the benefit of the change itself, excluding any benefits that already existed. US works were not completely unprotected before we joined Berne, after all. My understanding of the 1909 Act is that it extended protection to authors from other nations only if those nations also protected US works. Reciprocal protection was pretty common even without Berne.

Laureen C. Urquiaga
Associate Director for Access Services
Law School Copyright Coordinator

urquiagal[_at_]lawgate.byu.edu Received on Wed Oct 09 2002 - 16:18:42 GMT