RE: [dvd-discuss] Must Copyright terms be uniform?

[microlenz(at)earthlink.net]

Good point... ultimately everything enters the public domain only 
upon such time as somebody abandons it or they can't afford the 
fees". I suppose you still need to put a time limit here..if so why 
not just skip the rest and just put the time limit....50? (No .002 
alias John Z....let's not start this one again....yet) I'm beginning to 
appreciate Macauley. His argument was monopoly is an 
abomination. I will give you a good devils bargain but NO MORE!

The other problem with monetary schemes is how do you 
distinquish between a short story, a novella, or a novel for copyright 
purposes? They tend to sell for different amounts in the market 
place. Do you normalize by page count, words, or letters? Don't 
forget that most people also buy a work for the creator's name and 
reputation. So you are also penalizing authors who have managed 
to create reputations that create more profit or income either one. 


But the point was that why should the term for DIFFERENT 
categories of copyrighted items be the same? 

A start....

Books, Motion Pictures, Recordings, artworks, sculpture - 50yrs 
(OK .002 now! :-)

Chip masks -10yrs
executable software images -5yrs (Win 95, win97, win ME, 
win2000, win XP ....abandoned in 2 yrs...5 yrs is truly the devil's 
bargain with Uncle Bill)
OK whatelse is there...
Software...?????


NOw where I'm having a problem with it since software gets 
copyright protection for what? Is there any significant idea being 
expressed when I program up bubblesort? WOW this guy uses 
long names and that guy likes AA, AB, CC, or that guy uses 
iooiiioi or xxxoooox (get a life!) ...WOW this guy used a do until 
and that one used a do while and this one used goto's! I use bubble 
sort as an example because how many have code up it? I've done 
it enough when I've needed to soft a small amount of stuff quickly 
but I haven't wasted my time even keeping my "library" copy 
around...why bother, a waste of time. But probably hundreds of 
thousands of people have written their own bubblesort routines...its 
software and copyrighted...how much difference is there? with that 
many people I can bet that taking out blanks, comments and 
spaces, there's probably a few thousand "copyright" infringment 
cases that could be lodged (birthday paradox comes to intellectual 
property)...OK so what is the fixation of idea in software that gets it 
copyright...how is the language so significant?

Date sent:      	Wed, 7 Nov 2001 21:52:48 -0500
From:           	Kurt Hockenbury <khockenb@stevens-tech.edu>
To:             	<dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
Subject:        	RE: [dvd-discuss] Must Copyright terms be uniform?
Send reply to:  	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu

> On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, John Galt wrote:
> 
> > I constantly reread works
> > by Heinlein and Azimov all the time even two decades after their
> > death and may very well have to obtain a new copy some time, as my
> > copies are showing much wear.  So where is long enough for both
> > cases?  A short renewable copyright may very well be the way to go,
> > with the cost of renewal based on the formula above such that it's
> > more trouble than it's worth to renew a copyright on a non-useful
> > work, but trivial to renew a work that the copyright holder is
> > playing by the rules.
> 
> Even with a short, renewable copyright, I'd want a fixed, absolute,
> upper limit -- 50 years??  Less?
> 
> Otherwise, the only things that will ever enter the public domain are
> items that are viewed as unprofitable.  Why should being "valuable"
> prevent something from entering the public domain?
> 
> -Kurt
>