Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

Peter Grove <petergroves[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> Surely they are protected throughout the EC as literary works for
> 70 years pma, although it hardly makes a difference: as far as the
> development of new software is concerned, a copyright term of anything
> more than a few weeks is a potential obstacle, and no coputer program
> needs 50 (or even any) years pma.

I agree, we don't need 70 years pma protection for software, but what are the potential obstacles?

> Of course, the matter of the development of new software is dealt with
> extensively in directive 91/250, by the exclusion of ideas (including
> interfaces) from protection (incidentally, what action is being done
> about the UK's failure to implement this requirement of the directive?)

Did the European Commission sue the UK? Mr Reinbothe, head of the copyright department in DG XV of the Commission, should know more.

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Moritz Roettinger

Dr Moritz ROettinger
European Commission, Brussels
Universities of Vienna and Saarbruecken
moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be Received on Thu Aug 27 1998 - 13:20:26 GMT