Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

Alan Ragueneau <raguenea[_at_]student.law.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Michael Bradley <michael[_at_]vision-soft.com> wrote:
> >
> > Dan L. Burk <burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > The point of property ownership in intellectual goods is to prompt
> > > the creation of a resource that will be inexhaustible once it comes
> > > into existence, militating in favor of relatively short, limited
> > > periods of ownership.
> >
> > Taking this argument, for the moment, as the starting point, the
> > next question would seem to be, how long is long enough?
> >
> > Short of a well-designed scientific experiment, that question
> > can only be answered by IP creators, and in Congress, both individual
> > and corporate creators lobbied for the longer term. So I would say the
> > question has been answered: the longer the better.
>
> The problem of the duration of copyright is underlined by policies
> arguments such as economic arguments and moral arguments.
> One of them is to reward authors for creating a work. It brings
> progress and knowledge to society in the sense that the public
> benefit the creativity of this author. It is interesting to make a
> connection between how creative or original is the work and how
> long it should be protected. We may think the more a work is
> original the longer it should protected. Following that statement it
> would appear natural that a book or an art painting must benefit the
> longest protection as possible. But what about computer softwares
> which are very often obsolete after two years or so and which do
> not require a similar of creativity. It seems more difficult to
> justify a long period of protection for that particular kind of work.
> On the other hand it is possible to argue that a computer or database
> copyrightable work requires considerable investment, much higher
> than makimg a painting or a photograph. That leads us to consider
> the concept of originality. What is this concept, is it the sweat of
> the brow doctrine or the de minimis principle as defined in the the
> Feist case. Starting from the first concept, the sweat of the brow
> doctrine, we will reach an opposite conclusion to the first one
> namely that computer software should benefit a longer period of
> protection than books or paintings since they require bigger
> investment. In conclusion I would say that that question is not as
> simple as it appears at first glance. You have to take into account
> all the type of work that copyright law covers and all the different
> concept of originality.
>
> Indeed it is self evident that any work whatever original it is, must
> benefit the same duration of protection.

I can't agree more!

Moritz Roettinger

Dr Moritz Roettinger LL.M.
European Commission, Brussels
Universities of Vienna and Saarbruecken
moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be Received on Thu Aug 27 1998 - 07:59:27 GMT