RE: digital-copyright Digest 28 Jan 2003 16:00:00 -0000 Issue 138

["Varvel, Virgil" <vvarvel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If a publisher is worried that a 50 year old textbook would be competition
for their current version, then they should probably worry about the fact
that they haven't updated anything in 50 years.

Just a thought

Virgil Varvel
Vvarvel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Illinois Online Network

As written earlier....

The fee, as proposed, imposes no requirement that the work on which
copyright has been retained be published or made available in any way. The
$50 could be vviewed, in some cases, as insurance to prevent competition
from free but unprofitable works. For example, a publisher may have no
desire to publish a previous edition of a textbook, but would willingly pay
the $50 to prevent its becoming competition for the current edition.

It is therefore likely that the imposition of a $50 copyright tax would have
any appreciable impact on the number of works being released into the public
domain.