Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> Obviously, such publishers rarely paid royalties to authors for
> public domain works. It seems to me a pity that the heirs of
> Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Melville, etc. and modern writers have
> been treated less respect than homesteaders whose property rights
> were were better protected even from earliest times.

Once again, I think it is very improper of you not to recognize the importance of the freedom to copy. These writers could not exist if they were not allowed to copy anything from anyone. In fact, these old writers had more freedom to copy than in our times. We are blessed to read their works because people in the past used the freedom to copy, as embodied in the public domain, and thus, were able to propagate the old works.

We already covered that before.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> Received on Thu Oct 29 1998 - 00:54:18 GMT