Ginsberg conveniently ignored the issues and cited the expression/idea platitude. As you point out what of TWDG? The Church of Scientology? Herbert Armstrong? Or the hiers who use copyright to prevent unauthorized (and true) biographies of their cash cow ancestors.
We like to believe that all judges are wise and learned in the law but the fact is that most are political appointees or get them through elections....i'm not even certain if you have to be a lawyer to be a judge in all places..so WRT to TWDG, the original judge was probably some political hack without a clue about the law...
Of course the whole notion of having "derivative rights" after the creator's death seems a little flakey too...other than Babar and possibly Uncle Walt, I don't know of too many creations that have outlived their creator..or rather someone has managed to continue the work nearly as well (e.g., Mel Blanc's son does a good job but he's not his father)...we've discussed the fact that there is no reason for a uniform term for copyright material (e.g., computer codes, chip masks), maybe there also needs to be limited terms for the rights of copyright as well. If one is going to have these arrogant and foolish terms then the right to prevent copy can be inherited by the heirs but not the right to prevent all derivative works
"Richard Hartman" <hartman@onetouch.com> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
01/28/2003 08:49 AM
Please respond to dvd-discuss
To: <dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
cc:
Subject: RE: [dvd-discuss] various reactions to supreme court travesty
Ginsberg relied heavily on the expression/idea dichotomy.
If that was being taken seriously, then the "The Wind Done
Gone" case would never have been allowed in court ...
--
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com
186,000 mi/sec: not just a good idea, it's the LAW!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeremy Erwin [mailto:jerwin@ponymail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 1:04 PM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] various reactions to supreme court travesty
>
>
> Oops, Siva's commentary is at
> http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/01/17/copyright/index.html
>
> Lessig has a FAQ on the Eric Eldred Act here.
> http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/archives/EAFAQ.html
>
> On Saturday, January 18, 2003, at 03:20 PM, James S. Tyre wrote:
>
> > I would urge folks to read Larry's blog entries since the decision,
> > http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/. Some of what he
> blogs is
> > very technical, lawyerly, some is quite personal. And if
> you've not
> > seen it already, do be sure to click on his link to the Reason
> > "interview" of Mickey after the decision, it's an instant classic.
> >
> > At 02:53 PM 1/18/2003 -0500, Jeremy Erwin wrote:
> >> Lawrence Lessig:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/opinion/18LESS.html
> >> Siva Vaidhyanathan:
> >> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/opinion/18LESS.htm
> >>
> >> And yesterday, PBS's "Now with Bill Moyers" had an interesting
> >> documentary on copyright law.
> >> http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/copyright.html
> >>
> >>
> >> Jeremy
> >
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > James S. Tyre mailto:jstyre@jstyre.com
> > Law Offices of James S. Tyre 310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
> > 10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512 Culver City, CA 90230-4969
> > Co-founder, The Censorware Project http://censorware.net
> >
>
>