Re: Florida Pre-paid v. College Savings Bank

On Fri, 2 Jul 1999, Lynn Winebarger <owinebar[_at_]free-expression.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 1 Jul 1999, Nick Zales <zales[_at_]execpc.com> wrote:
> >
> > I submit our copyright laws as they now stand are wholly
> > inadequate to meet the demands of digital information. If they
> > do anything, it is to cause great confusion. This is not desirable
> > for anyone.
>
> This is certainly a provocative statement. Could you be more
> specific?

Copyrights were conceived in a time when it still took a considerable investment to copy a work, especially in large quantities, and only few could afford to do so. The copyright worked well to deter people from investing large amounts in duplicating (in large numbers) copyrighted works, while the few people who desired to copy for themselves (think of writing down a book yourself) didn't bother most publishers much, nor where most people aware that very important rights were taken away from them, when copyrights were introduced, because, at that time, no publisher would think of sueing people for copying a poem from their favourite album, or singing their favourite song at a come together.

For me, their are two justifications for copyright, first, to give an incentive to make more creative materials available to the pubic, by allowing authors a monopoly on their creations, and second, to protect the good name and integrity of an author and his works.

Technological advance has made it very easy for individuals to copy works at home at a very low cost, and people are doing so, and often don't feel they commit a criminal act. Less even do they feel it is wrong to lend your favourite CDs to a friend for a couple of days, or to take a snap of a building, including your own house, or design, except if it is extremely old.

Some people may try to revert to the old situation, by using all kinds of technological measures (a mostly futile action), or by enforcing copyright laws to the maximum extend possible, against everybody, which will also not be tolerated in the long term. I think a law that turns almost the entire population into offenders for something they don't feel or agree is a terrible bad law, and think it would be better to allow for broad and more clearly spelled out fair use clauses, that will make legal that which most people feel should be legal anyway (like making a copy at home for your own use, taking a causual snap of a building or statue, lending a work to a friend, etc.).

Some of the recent changes in the copyright law, strangely enough motivated by the advent of the digital age, are extended copyright terms, both in the US and EU. I fail to understand how these extentions can better support the purpose of copyright law, as think even the previous life + fifty years is a very long time, given that the economic life of most copyrighted works is well below 10 years, and that often heirs, certainly after many years, have interests quite opposed to what the original author whould have wanted. I certainly do not understand how extentions of these terms can be an answer to the digital age.

As I am in the EU, I am especially irritated (to say the least) by the recent extention of the term to life+70 years, especially where it revived copyrights on works already public domain. I feel these works have been stolen from the public. I would also like to hear the opinion of legal experts in the field, whether this is against the European Directive on human rights, which, as I believe, contains a clause against taking away rights without proper compensatio (just as the US constitution).

I would also vote for a concept of abandonment in copyright law -- if a work has been unexploited for, say, ten years, you loose it. The initial period can be longer, for example 25 years. This was basically the idea of the extention of copyright in older laws.

Jeroen Hellingman
<jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> Received on Sat Jul 03 1999 - 16:37:24 GMT