Re: ELDRED

Hello Linda,

In your email you refer to 'original' creations. Just a question. How 'original' are works today when most authors use others' research and published information to expand on their research before publishing (and those other authors did the same when doing their research)? It is analogous to a coral reef where layer upon layer creates something new - i.e. research building on research building on research, etc. etc. and each 'new creation' includes something from some one else's works. How does one define 'original' in this context? So who and what does copyright (and its extended terms) really protect?

D.Nicholson
SA

>>> linda[_at_]novelart.com 01/21/03 11:06AM >>>
Hello Ivan,

I completely agree with you. The CTEA was a good thing. The Supreme Court made a wise decision.

In most cases, incredible effort and money is spent on creating and marketing original creations for only a little return. Volumes of creations are produced by a sole creator before one may finally make an impact in the marketplace. It takes a lot of incentive for creators to keep plugging away on their challenging career paths.

In this digital age, there are abundant ways for a work to be infringed before a creator has a chance to market it successfully. There is precious little in the way of prevention or help provided when an infringement occurs. It's not like I can call a policeman and swear out a complaint. I can't call up my insurance agent and report the damage either. Pursuit of infringers generally depends on the time and the funds available. I have to be both detective and enforcer. It comes down to a choice between spending my efforts and money on tracking down infringers or creating and marketing more work. And as you said, the digital age has introduced new venues for revenue which creators and their heirs ought to be entitled to exploit. Current copyright holders should be given a chance to release their works in eBook format or on CD etc. before anyone else gets to capitalize on their creations in those markets.

Personally, I shudder to think of Disney's Cinderella, Peter Pan, etc. entering the public domain at all in today's climate. Famously successful copyrights such as Disney's will have thousands of digital publishers and manufacturers eager to flood the market with republished works, remixed animations and films, revised stories, and rehashed merchandise. Furthermore, I think it is outrageous that publishers and manufacturers could both capitalize on and compete with Disney's current and ongoing creative and marketing efforts while paying nothing for the product which they got only because of Disney's efforts. In my opinion, such rampant distribution wouldn't further progress much at all. It would drastically reduce the incentive to create new, original works in the children's genre because the marketplace would be so jammed full. If there were already forty remixed children's movies being released by filmmakers who have used Disney's animations from the public domain, who would want to compete with an original, expensively produced, new animation? Prices would be far too depressed while demand would be nearly non existent.

Linda Gruber
Novel Art
http://www.novelart.com

on 1/20/03 9:03 PM, : Ivan Hoffman <ivan[_at_]ivanhoffman.com>wrote:

I completely support the decision. Intellectual property is today's means of production and the source of wealth in the world today. You just have to look at the top 10 richest people in the world to see that. A hundred years ago, the source of wealth might have been steel mills etc. Later, the source of wealth might have been real estate and the like. Today, the source of wealth is IP. Ownership of IP rights is essential if your goal is to be successful and wealthy. That is the reason I constantly stress the need to "own everything."

Thus, any laws that protect the creative process, even well into the future, I support. In today's world, and presumably in tomorrow's, media has many diverse formats. A quick scan of cable television, as but one example, reveals the long term potential of IP rights of old television shows, music etc. Rights of creators should be viewed with that diversity in mind. What level of protection might have existed 50 or so years ago seems to me to be irrelevant. As both a creator myself and an attorney who has represented creatives throughout all of my over 29 years of practicing law, I believe that if you do not at least wake up every day believing that what you are going to create is going to have that kind of potential, it makes it hard to justify the act of creating the same. Clearly not everything is going to have those "legs" but if any of us knew what was or was not going to last, we'd be in another line of work. Thus, those creating creativity should make the assumption that what they are creating is going to be valuable for a long time and thus the longevity of protection should be at least part of the motivation for such creation.

Those interested can read "What Business Are You In?,"

(http://www.ivanhoffman.com/business.html) "Private Laws"
(http://www.ivanhoffman.com/private.html) and "The Need for Vision"
(http://www.ivanhoffman.com/vision.html) on my site.

IVAN HOFFMAN, B.A., J.D.
Attorney at Law
Lawyering With Integrity
Internet Law, Publishing Law, Copyrights, Trademarks, Fine Art Law, Corporate Training and Online Education Law, Web Design Law, Music Law. *A 7 Times Award Winning Site.* http://www.ivanhoffman.com Received on Wed Jan 22 2003 - 08:07:44 GMT