Re: Snooze/lose (Was: Academics and coursepacks)

On Tue, 25 Aug 1998, Michael Scarpitti <mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> wrote:
>
> No, this was in support of longer copyright periods. Your previous
> point was that extending copyright terms was unjustified. I was
> providing a context for that justification, which was that by extending
> the time a publisher has to recoup his investment, he can offset the
> inevitable losses that otherwise would increase the price of the book,
> because the time to recoup was so short.

Clearly Mr. Scarpitti does not understand how the publishing industry operates. Very, very few titles are kept in print by publishers for the current term of protection (life + 50). A further extension of 20 years would do zilch to help a publisher "recoup his investment...[and] offset the inevitable losses that otherwise would increase the price of the book." In fact, it has already been argued persuasively in this regard that opening up the potential for publication by bringing works into the public domain at a *earlier* stage than life + 50 is much more likely to result in more titles becoming available to the public than by extending the term of protection still further!

Cheers,

Bernard Katz, Head, Special Collections and Library Development McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph, Guelph ON Canada N1G 2W1 and Chair, Ontario Library Association Copyright Action Committee bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca // (519) 824-4120 X2089 // FAX: (519) 824-6931 Received on Wed Aug 26 1998 - 23:12:55 GMT