Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

Pat Sloane <patsloane[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 04 Aug 1998, Karsten M. Self <kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> > While I'd argue for a significant time period before permanent lapse
> > of copyright to an author, preferably several years, my general
> > feeling is that if the author cannot find a publisher willing to
> > publish a work, then there probably is little or no commercial
> > interest in it.
>
> Not so. I had a manuscript I tried very vigorously to sell, and nobody
> wanted it. I put it away, and twenty years later a publisher wanted it.
> This kind of thing is more common than not.

This is a different situation. The manuscript was produced. It was solicited but not accepted and never published. Twenty years later, it was requested (and published?).

The case we're discussing would require that your MS was published, then dropped from publication, while copyright was retained, for 20 years. This would effectively block anyone from making a copy of the work, though the holder of that right refused to utilize it. Most people on this list see this as an inequity.

Original term of copyright was 28 years, so if your example was of a 30 year latency, and the work had been published in the first year, the publisher's copyright would have lapsed. Under current copyright law, the term of copyright would not expire until 50 years after your death.

You wouldn't want your younger fans wishing you ill so that they could actually read your works before *they* died, because a copyright holder refused to publish?

-- 
Karsten M. Self (kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com)

    What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
    Welchen Teil von "gestalt" verstehen Sie nicht?

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