Re: digital-copyright Digest 24 Jan 2003 16:00:00 -0000 Issue 136

[informania@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Sorry, I only get this list as a digest, and as a result have let a few days
go by since Balasz Barany wrote.

Let me tackle the often-repeated and superficially plausible but
nevertheless absurd idea that rights stretching beyond an author's life
cannot impel creativity. "How could dead authors be motivated to write more
books?" as Balasz puts it.

There are very many examples of authors writing solely so that they can feed
their families after they die. Anthony Burgess claimed that he only started
writing his books (Clockwork Orange perhaps most famously) because a doctor
told him he only had a year to live. Of course dead authors cannot be
spurred to new creativity - this is a straw horse - but living authors can
certainly be motivated to write by the prospect of their works earning
something after their deaths.

So, for that matter can business people, tightrope walkers and dictators be
impelled by future money or fame. People create puzzles, set up school
funds, hide time capsules to create some effect after their deaths - and
authors write so that their families will have some kind of pension fund
which operates even after the writer earns a fine tombstone in a prestigious
cemetery (which is all that Lessig offers in this new proposal of taxation
without representation).

There is thus a reason to grant some posthumous rights to a creator. After
all, his or her family probably had to put up with a miserable wretch
scribbling away for years in abject poverty only to hit the jackpot on
his/her deathbed or shortly thereafter - it is only fair that they get
something for their forbearance at least.

Of course a continuous sequence of extensions of copyright into an
indefinite horizon cannot be justified by this argument - and I am against
the present excessive term. But a term of life plus the life of a long-lived
descendent seems amply defensible.

Moral rights are not guaranteed at all in the US, barely in the UK but
strongly in most of the rest of Europe. Thus Lessig's proposal probably won'
t effect an uneven (and, to many authors, inequitable) situation that much.

Balasz's final point seems to suggest that the ethics of caring for authors'
descendents and the ethics of people not being able to access the authors'
writings for free are somehow  comparable. It is, he says "unethical that
the public had no likelihood of knowing that the copyright term will be
extended to the insane lengths it is now". Well there's ethics and ethics.
Not to get too melodramatic about it (but why not?), Balasz, do you mean
that an authors' kids should starve to death just so you can read the dead
writer's novel for free? I take it to the extreme to make the point.

On a related topic, we should distinguish between information that is
essential to human development, including academic research literature
(access to which should never be barred by cost and rights restrictions) and
whatever can be sold. Information is not a monolith, but copyright treats it
as if it is.

Chris Zielinski
Director, Information Waystations and Staging Posts Network
Currently External Relations Officer, HTP/WHO
Avenue Appia, CH-1211, Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: 004122-7914435 Mobile: 0044797-10-45354
e-mail: zielinskic@xxxxxxx and informania@xxxxxxxxxxx
web site: http://www.iwsp.org

----- Original Message -----
From: <digital-copyright-digest-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 5:00 PM
Subject: digital-copyright Digest 24 Jan 2003 16:00:00 -0000 Issue 136


> Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 18:02:13 +0100
> To: digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Bal=E1zs_B=E1r=E1ny?= <balazs@xxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: Lessig in the NY Times
> Message-ID: <20030123170213.GJ8670@xxxxxx>
>
> > From: informania@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
> > families of all dead authors would lose their rights to works that had
> What "rights" do the families of dead authors have? E.g. in contrast to
> the public?
>
> The families of dead authors can pay the 50 $ if they think that their
> profit of the work will be higher than that. But for the huge majority of
> works, this won't be the case - the public will win if lots of works fall
> into public domain.
>
> Remember, the idea of copyright (= a temporary monopoly) is to provide
> incentives for creativity. How could dead authors be motivated to write
> more books?
>
> Copyright as a personal/moral right as (partly) seen in Europe wouldn't be
> harmed by the Lessig proposal. Shakespeare's works are in the public
> domain, but nobody alleges that s/he him/herself wrote them. Those rights
> (protection of author and title information) could even be protected
> separately from the economic monopoly rights.
>
> > This proposed loss of rights by people who have no likelihood of knowing
> > that they are losing them strikes me as unfair and, indeed, unethical.
> The public had no likelihood of knowing that the copyright term will be
> extended to the insame lengths it is now. Also, the public had no
> likelihood of knowing that the circumvention of copyright protection
> mechanisms will be illegal and therefore access to works will be denied
> long before they fall into public domain. This is at least as much unfair
> and unethical in my view. Lessig (and lots of other people) just try to
> reduce the harm done by bad copyright legislation.
> --
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Balazs Barany       balazs@xxxxxx        http://tud.at       ICQ 10747763
>
> A good engineer will make considerable effort to avoid additional effort.