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

On 19 Nov 1998, Timothy Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
>
> Under U.S. law copyright holders have always been considered to have
> public obligations. The 1976 law obscures this principle by applying
> copyright from the moment of fixation, to unpublished and published
> works alike. This provision might make it seem as if the copyright
> monopolist has no obligations to the public. But as I have said
> elsewhere, this rule is mainly for the law's administrative convenience.
> The formal copyright in a work which never becomes part of the public
> record in any way is all potential, never actual. Furthermore, even
> the copyright-from-fixation provision incorporates the notion that
> copyright is an exchange, since the copyright always (in theory) expires.
> If an author fixes a work, and the author and heirs fail to destroy
> all trace of it, then under the 1976 law the unpublished work becomes
> as much a part of the public domain as a published work would.

Yes, but until the copyright expires or someone destroys all copies of a work -- destruction needn't be intentional or authorized -- the work is protected. This gives the author full control and a position from which to negotiate. It also protects the authors' privacy in letters and other personal matters.

This is IMHO much more than "the law's administrative convenience."

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Tue Nov 24 1998 - 22:30:26 GMT