Re: Copyright & The New World Economic Order

On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
> >
> > (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.
>
> I think the notice was a U.S. innovation not shared
> by the rest of the world. Isn't that why it was
> dropped when the U.S. signed Berne?

Yes. But then the U.S. has a fundamentally different concept of copyright than our brethren in Europe, don't we? (As always I am not sure whether to include Britain in Europe either as a matter of geography or as a matter of philosophy , but then I don't think the British are sure either<g>)

I do not pretend any expertise in Continental law, but as I understand it, the root of their concept of copyright is the idea that the expression is the property of the author as the result of creation. He made it. It is his.

Despite our use of terms like "intellectual property", and a recent strong push to adopt the Continental view of things, I think our root concept is different. No one owns an expression. It is incapable of ownership and is in the public domain. The act of creation gave the author nothing save perhaps pride.

We elect as a matter of policy to grant the creator a monopoly for some period of time to encourage more expressions for public benefit, but he does not own anything as a matter of right.

Indeed the Constituion makes it a matter of election whether Congress decides to extend the monopoly benefit at all. This is much different than the definite protection of property rights elsewhere in the Constitution.

Indeed, to my mind, the First Amendment makes very tenuous the copyright power. One must fiercely split hairs to conclude that a copyright law is not prohibited by "congress shall make no law...abridging freedomn of the press". I think that for a modest copyright scheme, the hair splitting can be done without traducing intellect.

It is quite another matter when one reaches the point of saying:

"Without a license, no one may repeat any other's expression for a very long and , if recent history repeats, perpetual period of time after its creation , or face civil and possibly criminal sanctions."

Fair use could be expressed as:

"One may avoid the penalties if, after risking them, one is able to convince a court that one should be exempt from the prohibition based on a complicated subjective test.In doubtful cases the factors are not easily determinable absent extensive expert research."

That statement of present copyright law is an exaggeration, but not, I think, too much of one.

Regards,
John Lederer
<johnl[_at_]ibm.net> Received on Sat Jul 31 1999 - 19:03:32 GMT