3 Comments

1. Robert Smits says:

   September 12, 2009 at 11:03 am

   Writers Guild just doesn’t get it
   Thanks for posting these submissions, Michael.

   As usual, though, the Writers guild just doesn’t get it. Their sole focus is that the purpose of copyright law is that the creator of a work has the exclusive right to control the copying of a work and by extension the right to earn revenues from that work.

   Their “whole me, me, me” completely ignores all the other purposes of copyright, including having copyright extend only for a LIMITED term – giving the creator some time to exploit the work, but not forever.

   Copyright is not there to give creators a lifetime income and we’d all be much better off to use a term of say 20 years, like patents do.
2. Joe says:

   September 12, 2009 at 11:45 am

   Exactly Robert
   It seems the idea of copyright to protect and foster creativity has given way to to a model which encourages a single creative work. I still can’t wrap my mind around how or why an author’s grandchildren should be making money off a book he wrote.
3. 3937873 says:

   September 12, 2009 at 10:24 pm

   Berne must be renegotiated
   It’s that Convention which was the great theft. It was that convention that set the copyright terms at a minimum length of 50 years after the author’s death. And it was that convention which was written by lobbyists, and not by industry or by the public. Funny that.

   Joe:
   Grandchildren don’t own the works, any art is owned by the publisher as the author has to sign away his ownership of it if he wishes someone to sell it. A minimal set of corporations are the ones who benefit.