Re: The Eric Eldred Act

From: Tyler Ochoa <tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:58:48 -0800

I like it; except that we had such a system before in the renewal provisions of the 1790, 1831, 1870 and 1909 Acts; and Congress expressly scrapped the renewal provisions at the behest of owner interests in the 1976 Act. So I imagine the odds of getting Congress to agree to such a tax are pretty long. (Perhaps roughly comparable to the odds (ex ante, not ex post) of getting the Supreme Court to overturn the CTEA!)

Tyler T. Ochoa
Professor and Co-Director
Center for Intellectual Property Law
Whittier Law School
3333 Harbor Blvd.
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 444-4141, ext. 243
(714) 444-1854 (fax)
tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu

>>> ericeldred[_at_]usa.net 01/26/03 10:46AM >>>
In response to the stunning decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft, we have come up with an idea that we would like discussed here.

It is for a tiny tax on works in the 50th year of copyright. If the tax is not paid, the work would enter the public domain. Thus works with no commercial value would enter the public domain much as they would earlier when the term expired. Works with commercial value would be paid for and would enjoy the current copyright term. The tax could go to support the registration process.

Maybe 50 years of copyright is too long. The Economist has spoken out for a 14 year renewable term. But we recognize we have to make significant compromises with the strong copyright interests in Hollywood in order to persuade Congress about the benefits of this proposed act.

For more information, please see
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/archives/EAFAQ.html

What do you think?

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"Eric" Eric Eldred mailto:ericeldred[_at_]usa.net http://www.eldritchpress.org "Eldritch Press" Received on Mon Jan 27 2003 - 19:02:48 GMT