Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

On Wed, Oct 28, 1998, Bob Cumbow <cumbr[_at_]perkinscoie.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 1998, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > 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.
> >
> > What did these heirs do to deserve compensation?
>
> Actually, I don't buy the argument that an author's heirs don't
> deserve to make money off the author's work. I don't expect either
> of my daughters will become a lawyer, but I hope to give them a good
> start in life with the money I've worked hard to make from that career.

Bob, you plan to leave your daughters your savings, not your law practice. They won't have to do anything (relatively speaking) to maintain your legacy. However, Albert, homesteaders left the land itself to their heirs and this land required continued work by the heirs to derive compensation.

If one leaves a business to one's heirs, be it farming, a law firm, or authorship, isn't it expected that the heirs will have to put in some sort of effort to keep the enterprise going and only then reap the rewards of something they didn't struggle to create themselves? And if one leaves the money acrued over a lifetime to the heirs, isn't it expected that the heirs will probably spend it to make their own lives more pleasant (giant generalization, I know!) ?

So why should copyright fall into the second category and not the first?

Jayne Sebby
Nebraska ETV
jsebby[_at_]unlinfo.unl.edu Received on Thu Oct 29 1998 - 16:06:21 GMT