Re: Photographic Reprod

At 9:49 AM 3/2/96 -0500, Spectrum Press wrote:
>
> Christopher Hamel-Smith wrote:
>>
>> This is unnecessary. You have said that they are wrong and that is
>> sufficent. Do not suggest dishonesty, without some serious basis please.
>
> I'm not suggesting dishonesty, I'm suggesting closing of ears. And the
> reason I'm suggesting closing of ears is that all the counter-arguments
> to thin copyrights that have been presented here by myself and others
> have not been addressed by proponents -- the counterarguments are merely
> avoided.
>
> To wit:
>
> 1) We have been told that print copying is more expensive for publishers
> than electronic copying -- but the facts are otherwise.

I can suggest with some confidence that digitally reproducing and distibuting a digital work is easier and less expensive than reproducing on paper and distributing on paper a work originally available on paper. Its the difference between command-C (copy) and command-T (transmit) versus re-keying, calling the printer, paying for the copies, paying for the mailing, etc. I also publish, Dan; and the reason that Computer Law Reporter (of all things) is not available electronically is that I can't enforce my copyright except by making it costly and inconvenient to infringe.

> 2) We have been told the absence of thin copyrights in public domain
> works discourages publication -- but history shows otherwise.

This is unclear. We've never had "thion copyright." So its impossible to tell what kind of publications we'd have had or not had if there was one. We are all guessing.

> My remarks quoted above by Hamel-Smith are an indication of my
> frustration, not an indication of my questioning of anyone's honesty. I
> apologize to anyone if they think their honesty has been questioned. I
> would merely like to hear some substantive arguments for thin copyrights
> of public domain works. If there are no substantive arguments, we can
> agree such thin copyrights would be a bad policy for the public community.

Would that we could all agree, but I think the question is closer than you allow.

J. Noble
<jnoble[_at_]dgs.dgsys.com> Received on Tue Mar 05 1996 - 02:39:51 GMT