Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Joseph P. Riolo" <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:
>
> 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.

Invoking the phrase 'freedom to copy,' of course, suggests that somehow this freedom, rather than an incident of the uncovered portions of the Copyright Act, somehow arises to the level of a right.

There is no impropriety here. The fact that under certain cicumstances you may enter my property for various reasons does not mean that in a discussion of my property rights to exclude I must take account of your "freedom to move on my land."

And, quite frankly, modern impingement on the Riolo "freedoms to copy" certainly hasn't measurably diminished either the volume or quality of works of authorship or scholarship of all kinds in any sense that I can measure. I believe a strong argument can be made for the opposite position.

Andrew C. Greenberg
<werdna[_at_]gate.net> Received on Thu Oct 29 1998 - 14:38:25 GMT