| William H. Magill on 17 Jun 2004 15:49:02 -0000 |
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On 17 Jun, 2004, at 10:16, Jeff Abrahamson wrote: The problem, of course, is that copyright law in most countries is now so restrictive that the moment you doodle something on a napkin, you own it, you have copyright, and no one may use what you doodled without your explicit permission. Nice if you are working for profit, but society is built on top of the past works of others, and not all of those works deserve to be kept in a lock box for a century for lack of licensing terms. I believe that this concept (you own the doodle) is the preferred implementation / interpretation of the most recent International Copyright conventions. It coincides with the change in US Law that you no longer need to explicitly send stuff to the Library of Congress in order for it to be copyrighted by you. I think that the US is alone in its definition of the extraordinary length of time a Copyright is "owned." (something like 90 years now? ... except in the case of Corporate owners, in which case it is in perpetuity.) Note that this problem applies to researchers / writers in general -- While originally intended to "protect" writers of "original works," try to write a history book including the correspondence between two dead people!!! You have to track down the heirs of BOTH correspondents and get their permission to include the material in your book. I am aware of several cases where relevant material has been omitted simply because no permission could be obtained. (Or required large payments for use.) So-called "Fair Use" (ignoring the fact that the concept is contested) simply does not apply here, as the end work is in fact a "Commercial Work" -- i.e. one that is itself Copyrighted. [Simply because a letter is written to someone and that someone deposits their papers with, and gives title to, a Library, does not cover the writer, only the recipient. It has become an interesting problem ... think of "Presidential Libraries."] It is one of those "unintended consequences," the implications and significance of which the Academic / Research / Writing communities are just now beginning to encounter and comprehend. We may be seeing a situation where there will be a vast "hole" in the history of the 20th century because of this. T.T.F.N. William H. Magill PM University Lodge 51, GLPA Pennsylvania Lodge of Research Philadelphia, PA magill@mcgillsociety.org magill@acm.org magill@mac.com ___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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