Re: [ARSCLIST] Correspondence with Lawrence Lessig

[stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

<Lengthy thread on copyright duration/renewal not quoted>
Actually, I have what might be a better solution (this can be
debated). What if a legal entity could only hold copyright while
a particular item (I am mainly concerned with sound recordings)
was being made available in a form matching current technology
(presumably a CD, though microgroove records might also qualify).
This way, items which have essentially stayed in the catalog
permanently (i.e. recordings by Elvis Presley, Glenn Miller or
Caruso) would still be under copyright, and thus couldn't be
pirated...but any recordings dropped from the catalog would
automatically fall into the public domain. Likewise, recordings
whose copyright holders "died intestate" (i.e. the companies
were wound up and any copyrights weren't legally transferred,
like many small record companies of the 1920's and the post-WWII
era) would be in the public domain, since their recordings would
be no longer in production.
Steven C. Barr