Re: Fair Use Question?

>Yes, I bring a different perspective perhaps, but the "com" aspect may
>not be what it appears... I have spoken on panels noting that the
>technology is moving far more quickly than IP law and that digital data
>wants to be freely copyable. As a long-time developer / publisher of
>software, I also wish to keep people from infringing my livelihood.
>I view IP as a double edged sword that is VERY sharp in both directions...

We get so involved in the mechanics of copyright law that we fail to distinguish the means -- control of the right to copy -- from the ends -- protecting the creator's financial interest and artistic integrity. Sometimes new technology forces us to look at first causes. The constitutional IP clause was for the purpose of making ideas available. Since the networking age makes copying virtually impossible to prevent and a million copies as easy as one, and since those copies do spread the ideas, perhaps rather than trying to limit the copying, we need to find other ways to protect the creator's interest.

We could do an ASCAP type of thing, tax net access, and divide the royalties according to the number of times a file is accessed. Sites could provide optical archives for creators who want to make sure that an uncorrupted version of their work is always available. We could program listservers and ftp servers to refuse postings that do no include a mandatory "created by" field. We could ....

Instead of trying to force this bubbly new wine into an old container that may explode from the force, we need to be developing new rules that will enable us to exploit this new medium properly (just like copyright law has already done with music, movies, chips, architectural plans, etc.

Buford Terrell
<terrell[_at_]sugar.neosoft.com> Received on Mon Apr 11 1994 - 14:38:17 GMT