Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

On 29 Oct 1998, Vance R Koven <vrkoven[_at_]world.std.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Derric Oliver <doliver[_at_]jazz.fantasyjazz.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 27 Oct 1998, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > What did these heirs do to deserve compensation?
> >
> > They [heirs] did the exact same thing as recipients of any other assets
> > that come their way by virtue of a will.
>
> I hope others here will have noticed the circularity in the reasoning
> that supports this position. The heirs have something only by virtue of
> the fact that the law permits them to have it. They have no "justice"
> or "fairness" interest in it at all. The law allows some things to be
> inherited, and not other things (tort claims of the decedent, for
> example, which is why there are wrongful death laws). This leaves the
> policy question of whether heirs *should* inherit intellectual
> "property" completely open.

Inheritance rights bring order to our society. Justice and fairness may be less important than the promotion of investment, development, and maintenance of property.

The abandonment of real estate is a social blight of the worst order, encouraging occupation by drug addicts, criminals, and vermin. We call abandoned personal property "garbage" and dump it at considerable expense.

The limited term of copyright -- contrasted with the unlimited term of real estate and personal property ownership -- only reflects the limited value placed on intellectual property by our political system of laws.

I am not so sure than the abandonment of copyrights does good. Important works now in the public domain might have commercial value and be in print if they had sponsors with secure copyrights. The abandoment extends to library collections. As it is, most scholarly publications cannot be found even in the largest university libraries. [C. A. Schwartz, Publishing Research Quarterly, 10, 2 (Summer 1994): 29-35]

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Fri Oct 30 1998 - 14:22:28 GMT