Re: actuaries and copyright extension

At 03:19 PM 4/18/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
> On Wed, 17 Apr 1996, Karjala, Dennis wrote:
>>
>> Paul Heald writes (after cogently showing the absence of any
>> increased present value to a current author from an additional
>> 20 years of copyright):
>> >
>> > So, what's the 20-year extension all about? Imposing 20 more
>> > years of monopoly costs on consumers without any countervailing
>> > public benefit. In some circles this is called "SUBSIDY."
>>
>> The 20-year extension is about works as to which incentives play
>> no role whatsoever, namely, those about to go into the public domain
>> because they have been paying royalties to their copyright owners for
>> 75 years. If the proposed extensions were prospective only, I am
>> certain that support for them would disappear overnight.
> [snip]
>>
>> Dennis S. Karjala
>
> So let's say I am a major motion picture production company with a movie
> in my inventory first released in 1928 (just for example). By today's
> rules, my copyright will expire 75 years later, in 2003. Today is 1996.
> I have 7-plus years remaining. If we send that example to the actuaries,
> will the added 20 years now look monetarily significant?
>
> But let's be charitable. Some people in this discussion have used the
> term "greed." How should Congress react when I come before the hearings
> to say that money is irrelevant here? The real issue is the ability to
> control uses of that 1928 film, which has been a high-profile piece of my
> historic inventory, and free use of it will diminish public perception of
> my company and its creative work. Or so I would say. Any takers?
>
> Kenneth Crews
> Indiana University
> Indianapolis
> <kcrews[_at_]velcome.iupui.edu>

The problem is that when the movie was created in 1928, your monopoly interest in that movie was only 75 years (simplifying greatly), and you knew it at the time. You have fully exploited everything that was in it. After the monopoly expires, you can still exploit the movie, but not exclusively. If you had a famous racehorse that you had been exploiting at stud for 20 years and built your stable on his reputation, you would be losing that asset soon through attrition, but would have no recourse from congress. What's the difference?

Even from a natural rights standpoint, your natural rights would be in the movie, which you could still continue to exploit in the same way you could have done in a state of nature; your natural rights are not in the artifically created monolopy.

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     Buford C. Terrell                             1303 San Jacinto
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