Re: Copyright & The New World Economic Order

On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Bruce Hayden <bhayden[_at_]ieee.org> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Robert Cumbow <rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com> wrote:
> >
> > I find it astonishing that so many people on this list apparently
> > believe that the law should be clear and pat and exactly the same
> > for every person and situation, instead of flexible enough to
> > accommodate different sets of facts, circumstances, and points of
> > view. The flexibility inherent in a common law system of justice
> > like the one Americans inherited from the British is precisely
> > what separates a free people from an autocracy.
>

[snip]
> Also, I think that it is brash to equivalance our common law with our
> freedom and indicate that without it, we would have an autocracy. I
> think in particular our foreign brethern on this list are probably
> shaking their heads over this.

The Swiss and the Swedes, whose copyright statutes are quite concise, as are their codes generally, do not seem to have brought tyranny upon themselves as a result. By contrast, the extraordinarily detailed style of the Australian Copyright Act or the recent U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to take a pair of truly Baroque examples of Anglo-American legislation, is not exactly user-friendly. In any event, I believe it to be a mistake to impose the same legislative style on different types of issues: exempting transformative uses, like parodies, might call for a differently formulated provision than, say, classroom uses. Of course, it is hard to underestimate how difficult, and ultimately unavoidable, it will prove to be to revise copyright exceptions, especially to govern copyright on the Internet, where any use might face laws worldwide. Do not look for guidance in the international conventions: Article 13 of the TRIPs Agreement is more open-ended than our fair-use provision!

     Paul Geller
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~pgeller/
<pgeller[_at_]law.usc.edu> Received on Wed Jul 21 1999 - 17:23:21 GMT