Re: CNI-COPYRIGHT digest 1287

Hello Joseph,

I create with the expectation and hope that my work will someday enrich my heirs.
Without that expectation, I'd have to be very selfish to devote myself to such a
difficult path which has required sacrifice from every member of my family. I hope
and expect that Congress will keep extending the term. If I didn't have that expectation, I would probably have to stop creating and devote myself to tracking
down infringers and seeking licensing opportunities. Term extensions are the carrot
that keeps me producing new work so my kids will have more works to license if I
don't manage to get around to it myself.

Creators are often driven by their muse which means everyone in the family has to
take up the slack to allow Mom or Dad time to finish a new work. The children and
spouse of an original creator often have to make financial sacrifices while s/he
produces work which may not sell because the world isn't quite ready for it.. For
whatever reason success evades a creator, the family probably did without just so
s/he could keep on pursuing a creative career that never did pay off.

Thank goodness the heirs inherit the copyright because the heirs may be even more
determined than the creator to build his/her reputation and to see that the works which
the whole family sacrificed for were not done in vain. The act of creating is fulfilling,
but that's a selfish benefit - not one that extends to the rest of the family. So in my book,
the heirs deserve to benefit from their sacrifice and their marketing efforts just as much
as the creator does.

I understand your point that longer term limits means more competition among licensors,
due to an expanding base of creators, but that's nothing compared to allowing everyone
in the world to market works after they've entered public domain. Longer term limits also
means that heirs may be able to pursue opportunities that were not available to the
creators while they were alive. Just to show how times have changed, I include the following
quote from "Art Licensing 101" © 2002 Michael Woodward:

"The licensing industry is a $175 billon industry, and growing. That's a huge increase from 20 years ago, when it was estimated to be a $10 billion industry worldwide."

A 20 year term extension may be worth a lot when markets are expanding at that rapid pace.

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

On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Dodi Schultz <SCHULTZ[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> Linda Gruber writes,
>
> >> The CTEA was a good thing. The Supreme Court made a wise decision.
>
> She goes on to explain why she feels that strong copyright protection is,
> by and large, necessary and desirable. What she says, IMO, recognizes both
> the original spirit of the enabling clause and today's technology; as a
> self-employed writer, I'm inclined to agree with her (although I'm not sure
> that life+20 is the optimum term). I'm also inclined to concur with most of
> what Ivan Hoffman has said here.

Joseph Pietro Riolo wrote:

Although the rest of your post is all correct, I don't think that you as well as Linda and many other alive authors and artists have the correct grasp of the decision. Very large majority of authors and artists who are still alive do not obtain any substantial benefit from the decision. It is the heirs, corporations and their stockholders, entities (such as universities and organizations), and very small number of lucky authors and artists that gain from the decision.

Moreover, the longer copyright term makes it more difficult for your copyrighted works to stand out of many billions of copyrighted works. Every year, there are many thousands of new writers and artists and every year, they produce some hundred thousands of new copyrighted works. As the number of works that still have valid copyright increases, the chance that your copyrighted works will stand out decreases.

If parents happen to be very famous writers or artists, heirs are lucky to have them so that they can exploit their parents' copyrighted works. And this is where the decision really benefits them because they have 20 more years to exploit the works while doing nothing. For the rest of the heirs, the copyrighted works will languish in basements and be forgotten and forsaken.

Your copyright protection will not be stronger as the result of the decision. Allow me play devil's advocate for a moment. It is DMCA that makes your copyright protection stronger. Also, you should support Digital Rights Management (DRM) to make your copyright protection even much stronger. Just imagine how rich you will be when you charge readers a penny for each page that they turn.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> Received on Tue Jan 28 2003 - 17:51:02 GMT