Re: [dvd-discuss] 1790 Copyright Act

[microlenz(at)earthlink.net]

One thing that today's USSC and COngress is not likely to understand about the 
FIrst COngress was that those were mostly self made men and they expected their 
children to do well or even better. The idea that Arnold Schoenberg's grandson 
would go boo-hoo infront of congress for a term extension of copyright probably 
would have gotten him a smacked with a walking stick had he done it in the 
first COngress. (Remember Adams and Dickinson got into a stick fight ond the 
floor during the Continental COngress of 1776). That's an attitude that was 
taken for granted then but not now.

On 31 May 2002 at 16:13, John Schulien wrote:

Date sent:      	Fri, 31 May 2002 16:13:44 -0500
From:           	John Schulien <jms@uic.edu>
To:             	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject:        	[dvd-discuss] 1790 Copyright Act 
Send reply to:  	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu

> >> Anything granted beyond an author's lifetime
> >> is being granted to someone else.
> >   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> Roy Murphy wrote on 5/29/02:
> > It's a doomed argument.  SCOTUS gives special
> > consideration to the acts of the First Congress.
> > Since the members of that Congress were largely
> > the same people who wrote the Constitution, the
> > Court presumes that their actions were constitutional.
> > Since the First Congress passed the 1790 Copyright
> > act with a 14 year term (and a 14 year extension upon
> > renewal if the author is still alive and renews), terms
> > exceeding the lifespan of the author are presumptively
> > constitutional.
> 
> I think that the significance of the original copyright
> terms is not whether a copyright term can constitutionally
> endure past the death of the author -- it's whether
> a copyright extension, or even a copyright /renewal/,
> can be constitutionally granted "to Authors" when
> the author is dead.  The First Congress seemed to imply
> otherwise in the first copyright act.
> 
> The First Congress explicitly denied even the prospect
> of a copyright /renewal/ on works whose authors had
> died, much less a retroactive /extension/ of copyrights
> on works that are so old that hardly /any/ living authors
> remain.
> 
> The availability of a renewal term was part of the original
> "package" offered to the author in the quid pro quo.
> Apparently, the framers considered even /the granting of
> a renewal/ as a new "grant", and restricted such grants
> to living authors, as opposed to the estates of dead authors.
> This appears to be evidence that the framers placed
> particular significance on the words "to authors", and
> considered them a restriction on their legislative authority.
> 
> 
>