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

On 26, August 1998, Bernard Katz <bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>
> 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!

Why, then, is there a push to extend the copyright terms if the publishers do not "use up" what they have now?

Michael A Scarpitti
Assistant Editor
Materials Evaluation
1711 Arlingate Lane
PO Box 28518
Columbus, Ohio 43228-0518
800 222-2768 Ext 207
614 274-6003 Ext 207
Fax 614 274-6899
<mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org> Received on Fri Aug 28 1998 - 13:32:32 GMT