Re: Constitutional Challenge to (C) Code

From: Bernard Katz <bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca>
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 17:26:30 -0500 (EST)

On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Amy Stoller <redherring[_at_]tuna.net> wrote:
>
> If you have produced any intellectual property, your heirs will have
> control over its disposition and will be able to benefit from it for
> seventy years after you die. Lifetime plus seventy years is by
> definition a limited time. The extension from fifty to seventy years
> brings the US in line with the rest of the signatories to Berne and
> gives artists a chance to leave something to their children with a
> reasonable hope that those children may benefit thereby. It is a
> sensible provision, given increased life expectancy. I hope it is not
> your position that creators and owners of intellectual property should
> be unable to leave anything of value to their spouses and children, or
> that their heirs should have to endure without remedy uses of their
> spouses or parents' life work which are repugnant to them.

This position does not take into account that it is already *lifetime* plus 50 years. In other words, the increased life expectancy is already part of the existing law! If an artist/author lives to 100, her/his works will be protected protected for quite a long time as it stands right now, and there certainly will be something to leave to one's heirs! The real battle for a 20 year extension is coming from the major corprations who control the really lucrative copyrights. it's a question of "business".

Cheers,
Bernard Katz, Head, Special Collections and Library Development

	      McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON
	  and Chair, Ontario Library Association Copyright Task Force

bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca // (519) 824-4120 X2089 // FAX: (519) 824-6931 Received on Tue Mar 31 1998 - 22:26:33 GMT