Re: Florida Pre-paid v. College Savings Bank

On Fri, 09 Jul 1999, John R. Allison <allisonj[_at_]mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> And remember that, with respect to copy shops, the immunity only
> applies to (state) university-owned ones. I remain convinced that
> most universities do not want the reputation of being thieves, and
> universities can certainly tell their own copy shops what to do and
> what not to do. And, as I noted previously, a majority of state
> legislators in any given state are also not likely to want the public
> universities in their state to have such a reputation, and legislatures
> can do many things to any of their public universities who might decide
> to be rogues. As I said before, "Won't happen."

I think it goes very far to call people thieves, if they do something that is fully allowed by the law, and confirmed by court. I strongly believe that copyright is NOT a carte blanche to try and make money out of every use people may wish to make of copyrighted works, how much owners of the copyrights may wish to do so. Many things you can do with a copyrighted work should remain allowed, otherwise, what is the point of a copyright at all, which is supposed to promote creativity and the *availability* of works to the public. Copyright is very different from property rights, only property can be stolen, real property wears out, copyright can be infringed, copyrights don't wear out, copyrights expire. Real property is "real", copyright abstract.

Jeroen Hellingman
<jehe[_at_]kabelfoon.nl> Received on Sat Jul 10 1999 - 10:01:29 GMT