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

On 2 Sep 1998, Bernard Katz <bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca> wrote:
>
> Mr. Henderson, with all due respect, persists in ignoring the points
> that have been made in earlier posts to his repeating views re a
> perpetual term of copyright and to his continually advocating
> significant parallels between real property and IP.
>
> Re the former, I and others have pointed out that in those countries
> that derive their legal systems from English law it was the Act of
> Anne that put an end to perpetual copyright for published works when
> it introduced statutory copyright protection (and ultimately confirmed
> by the Law Lords several decades after passage) - which was a *boon*
> for authors, since it gave back to authors their ability to bargain
> with publishers - who theretofore would purchase the "right of copie"
> outright as a condition of publication and hence controlled the work
> from that point on, forever. It has also been noted more than once,
> that in the U.S.A. there is constitutional authority for enacting
> laws governing copyright only when these convey a limited term of
> protection.

No one has convinced me that laws, even the Constitution, cannot be amended. Indeed, I don't see where the Constitution allows for "fair use" permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act.

> Re the matter of IP vs. real property, parallels simply do not exist
> on very many levels. For eg., land when sold off in small pieces
> absolutely diminishes in value and this does not follow with IP.
> Further, the older common law treatment of "right of copie" was much
> closer to ownership of land, and as I noted above, this led to severe
> abuse on the part of those who bought the right and ultimately became
> owners.

If "land when sold off in small pieces absolutely diminishes in value," why do developers so treasure the art of subdivision?

The old common law probably did not contemplate such things as environmental impact, zoning and building codes either. This does not mean that the basic principles of ownership need be thrown out.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Tue Sep 08 1998 - 13:30:50 GMT