Two great quotes from two great articles from two heavy hitters:
Thomas Macaulay told us copyright law is a tax on readers for the benefit of writers, a tax that shouldn’t last a day longer than necessary. What do we do? We extend the copyright term repeatedly on both sides of the Atlantic. The US goes from fourteen years to the author’s life plus seventy years. We extend protection retrospectively to dead authors, perhaps in the hope they will write from their tombs.
Since only about 4 per cent of copyrighted works more than 20 years old are commercially available, this locks up 96 per cent of 20th century culture to benefit 4 per cent. The harm to the public is huge, the benefit to authors, tiny. In any other field, the officials responsible would be fired. Not here.
...The idea that greater control, for example, is always better...or the way we only ever internationally harmonize rights upward. Fundamentally, though, the views I have criticised here are not merely stupidity. They constitute an ideology, a worldview, like flat earth-ism. But the world is not flat and the stupidity pact is not what we want to sign.
Professor Lawrence Solum also wieghs in with this gem:
Because of the (Copyright Term Extension Act), virtually no works will pass into the public domain until the year 2019. That’s because when Congress extends copyright terms, it usually does so both prospectively to works not yet created, and retroactively, to works that are already in existence.
...Only a tiny fraction of the works that are covered by the CTEA have any commercial value at all. Almost all of the films, novels, magazines, newspapers, sound recordings, and other works from the 1920s are entirely dormant. Indeed, many of these properties now have fragmented or untraceable ownership. But the CTEA effectively prevents these commercially worthless works from being digitized and stored for posterity...This is a crime against human culture. It is shocking and even evil.
The ever impressive Larry Solum - calling a spade a spade.
Posted by Justin Levine at April 25, 2005 04:47 PM | TrackBack