Re: Abandoning property (Was: Copyright Extension Bill Passes Congress)

On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Lance Purple <lpurple[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
>
> Moritz Roettinger <moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> > if there is no value so why should any (copyright) protection be
> > harmful? Take the example of computer programmes which are protected
> > for 70 years p.m.a. in Europe. This does not harm the further
> > development although the programmes loose their value within few
> > years.
>
> How do you propose for scholars or researchers (or just the interested
> members of the public) to acquire a copy of a program which is still
> copyrighted, but hasn't been sold for 50 years? Or do you think that
> history older than that should be erased forever, in order to protect
> the publisher's monopoly on works they aren't even willing to publish?!

I'm not quite sure whether I got your point. If a reseracher wants to acquire a 50 year old computer program he may do so. He just has to pay for it.

Your second question is quite polemic. Anyway, it is not always the publisher who has the copyright, very often it's the author.

Moritz Roettinger
<moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> Received on Wed Nov 11 1998 - 13:50:30 GMT