Re: Copyright & The New World Economic Order

On 7/29/99, John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
>
> It seems to me that the concept that copyright laws do not infringe on
> the First Amendment is starting to get pretty tattered:
>
> (1) I find it difficult to apply the "idea" 'expression" dichotomy to
> the Scientology cases, where it seems to me that Copyright was actively
> used to prevent discussion of ideas. Indeed, any time the expressions
> of an author are used to discuss the author the idea/expression concept
> seems very tenuous to me.
>
> (2) Fair use has become so uncertain a concept that it leaves one in
> perpetual doubt whether one is covered by its mantle or not. This
> doesn't work in the area of free speech.
>
> (3) The loss of a requirement for a notice of copyright made a major
> transformation in the law from "all is permitted that is not forbidden"
> to "all is forbidden unless permitted". The result of course is
> widespread disobediance -- intentional, inadvertent, by necessity, or
> by commonsense -- of the law.
>
> (4) The extension of terms to increasingly long periods in the midst
> of technological,economic, and social changes that argue for shorter
> periods merely increases the tension.
>
> Copyright enforcement has already started to become a matter of bluster
> and threat and selective enforcement. Few public agencies are willing
> to take the political heat of enforcing the law, so its enforcement
> increasingly becomes a matter for private associations formed by those
> who benefit from the law.
>
> I think the system will eventually collapse. The chief reason, of
> course, is that it no longer accomplishes what it was designed to do.
> It doesn't promote the dissemination of knowledge . It retards it,
> and does so for the benefit of a very few.

I'd like to thank John Lederer for his crystallization of the dilemma of copyright in a world that has a "copyright industry." I also agree that hard political and judicial decisions will have to be made in order to free ourselves and our ability to think for ourselves from bondage to that industry. I don't, however, prejudge whether those decisions will in fact be made.

Vance R. Koven
<vrkoven[_at_]world.std.com> Received on Fri Jul 30 1999 - 13:39:38 GMT