Re: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress

On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> On 28 Oct 1998, Joseph P. Riolo <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> These fellows were noted for their originality of expression,
> not copying. They certainly did not engage in the uninhibited
> sort of behavior observed near the Xerox 914 and its offspring.
>
> I would be interested in your evidence supporting, "these writers
> could not exist if they were not allowed to copy...."

I admit that my statement ("these writers could not exist...") is very wild and cannot be supported with the hard evidence. It should not have been said at the first place.

The point that I seem to try to show is that these writers were the product (or result) of their own times. If we transport them to our times, they might have written differently due to the constraints as imposed by the current copyright law.

Although there is no hard evidence, it is very likely that these authors did copy something from the population. In the past, the illiterate rate of the population was very high. It could be as high as 95% which means that they would not be the authors in the modern sense, in spite of the amount of songs, stories, and plays they created. When Shakespeare, for example, went to a local theater and watched a play, he might have seen some interesting characters there and copied some of these characters for his plays. If he did the same thing in this modern time, we will find him in the court for copyright infringement.

Since these old writers were at liberty to copy anything or something from the population and we in this modern time did not have the same liberty, I do not see any valid reason why the heirs of these old writers should have more respect than us. It is only more equitable that since these old writers copied something from the population, we should also copy their works without paying any royalties to the heirs.

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> Received on Fri Nov 06 1998 - 02:42:26 GMT