Re: [dvd-discuss] OT: copyright term thought

["Michael A Rolenz" <Michael.A.Rolenz(at)aero.org>]

Interesting Gedanken Experiment. 

In the first case the answer is no because there is a limitation on 
unpublished works.

The second case is more interesting...The work is in the public domain yet 
can't be published because of copyright infringement. It's another problem 
with administering copyright using the author's lifetime rather than 
publication. I put a TWIKI thread on copyright administration at OPENLAW. 
Why not add this to it?




Charles Ballowe <hangman@steelballs.org>
Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
03/27/02 03:20 PM
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        Subject:        [dvd-discuss] OT: copyright term thought


While not strictly related to any of the DVD cases, the validity of the 
current length of copyright terms often comes up here. I was just having
thoughts related to the "limited time" aspect and am curious what others
think:

If, based on some piece of material, a person were to come up with a 
brilliant derivative work, but due to the copyright terms, end up unable
to publish that work and benefit from their own creativity before the time
of their death, isn't the term effectively infinite for them? 

And my most recent thought -- suppose a person has a stroke of brilliance,
inspired by a copyrighted work and sets out, for their own personal 
pleasure,
to produce a derivative work. Now, suppose that person dies the day after
they finish. Due to the length of the term, that work would enter the 
public domain 70 years later. It is possible that the author of the first
piece was only say 20 at the time of it's production, and due to the 
wonders
of modern medicine, lives to be 100, 10 years past when the derivative 
enters
the public domain. Now, a group had discovered the unpublished works of 
the
long deceased creator and on the 70th anniversary of his death wishes to 
release a commerative collection of the unpublished works. Does that 
particular
work not qualify as public domain because it was based on something that
hasn't entered the public domain yet?

-Charles Ballowe