Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Timothy Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
>
> My preferred view is that in works of authorship IN THEMSELVES it is
> no more appropriate to claim "ownership" than it would be for someone
> to claim to own the sun. Works of authorship are inherently SHARED
> creatures, ideally free to all who have the wit to percieve and use
> them. In the push-and-shove, workaday world we must compromise this
> ideal by awarding limited monopoly privileges over certain uses of
> works of authorhip.

Let me suggest, at least, that works of authorship are not inherently shared unless they are copied and distributed -- an author may keep a work hidden from the world indefinitely, or may simply refuse to reduce it to fixed form -- simply keeping it to herself. Indeed, that is in part why we have the Copyright -- to encourage folks not to keep such works to them.

Further, most property can be shared. I find it no odder to assert that I have a right to a parcel of land, particularly one I am not presently using -- that is to say, the right to exclude others from the use of that land. The point of property rights to exclude is to create incentives for the effective management of that parcel.

Understanding the difference between inherently noncapturable assets available for use by everyone, such as the sun and a lighthouse, and a plat of land, I note that a work of authorship is somewhere in the middle. It is possible and meaningful to prevent someone's exercise of a 106 exclusive right in a way it is not for a lighthouse. I do not find it suprising that there are differences between a parcel of land and a work of authorship and a copyright in or to that work. I do, however, find it suprising that some think that analogies are inherently imperfect whenever ANY difference between the things are found, and regardless of the nature of those differences -- all at the same time asserting other analogies in its place equally subject to such objections.

Andrew C. Greenberg
<werdna[_at_]gate.net> Received on Sun Nov 01 1998 - 15:42:22 GMT