Re: Copyright & The New World Economic Order

On Tue, Jul 20, 1999, Bruce Hayden <bhayden[_at_]ieee.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 16, 1999, Lance Purple <lpurple[_at_]netcom.com> wrote:
> >
> > It isn't possible for the average citizen to determine whether
> > they are breaking the law, unless (a) they never copy anything
> > or (b) they fork over several hundred dollars to an attorney
> > before -each- act of copying.
>
> I think that this is a real problem. One reason is that the party
> stepping into this void is invariably the copyright holder, who
> will invariably have an extremely expansive ideas of how far his
> copyright reaches.

I don't think that the average citizen gives two thoughts in her lifetime to copyright law. She will copy a CD onto a cassette, use software purchased by someone else, photocopy a newspaper article to send to a friend, etc., etc., without ever worrying whether she is violating any copyright. And the fact is that, regardless of whether she is violating the law or not, it is so de minimis (practically, if not legally), that her lack of concern is justified.

But, if the same average citizen is engaged in a commercial enterprise, or if her occupation in some way involves copying others' work, then I don't think it unreasonable to expect her to either engage in some self study, or hire a lawyer for an opinion, to determine whether she's within the bounds of the law.

> There are definate advantages to a system where the law is pretty
> much black and white.

Maybe, but the black and white laws don't have as much longevity. I mean, the Bill of Rights is one of the more non-specific set of laws you can imagine, and it is so significant today precisely because its prescriptions and proscriptions can be applied to situations never dreamed of by the Framers.

> As noted above, this is esp. true when you haven't gone to law
> school, which on the average only about 1% of the population
> actually do go (in the U.S.).

I think, actually, current statistics are that everyone in the US is going to law school <g>

Patrick W. Begos
Begos & Horgan, LLP
NY and CT
begos[_at_]ibm.net Received on Wed Jul 21 1999 - 13:03:23 GMT