[ARSCLIST] Fw: Re: [ARSCLIST] NYT Editorial: The Coming of Copyright Perpetuity

["Paul T. Jackson" <trescott@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

| The sad thing about these "perpetual copyrights" (which may indeed be the
| next step?)
| is that they apply universally, and all too often put corporate copyright-holders in the
| position to play "dog in the manger"...i.e. "we're not going to reissue (or
| whatever) this, but we have the copyright and will thus make sure YOU don't!" This makes an
| ever-increasing portion of our heritage inaccessible to anyone who might otherwise be
| interested in it, and thus places it in an effective permanent limbo. I have always thought
| that continuance of copyright should be dependent on the copyrighted material being
| made available to the public in some way...that is, for recordings, the copyright would
| expire upon the recording not being in the active catalog.
| ...stevenc
| ---
| comment ca?

It's possible (if enough pressure is brought to bear) that congress can update the copyright law to indicate that a work would be open to copying for certain purposes if it was not being commercially exploited, and that the companies involved would have to file with the copyright office that indeed they were pursuing commercial exploitation of their products -- otherwise they would be open to P. D. -- sort of a mandatory licensing like music, but for reproduction of the original.  DMCA initially had this type of necessary burden on the producer, but apparently it didn't make the final cut.