[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

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

microlenz@earthlink.net writes:

: Basing it upon income is not a very equitable solution. 
: Furthermore, is copyright a TAX? That's exactly what basing it 
: upon profit or income is. I don't think one should debase the notion 
: of copyright by making it one other way for the government to 
: squeeze money out of citizens without even giving them the ability 
: to file an income tax return on. Furthermore, the purpose is to 
: promote not to generate income.(OH that's great that it has done 
: so nicely but that is secondary). The purpose of copyright is to 
: promote progress equally. If the other forces change the equality, 
: change the forces.

There is good authority that copyright in its traditional form is a tax:

   In 1841, for example,  in  a  House  of Commons debate over the extension of copyright from 
   28 to 60 years, the Irish peer  Lord  Thomas  Babbington  Macauley  called  copyright  "a  
   private tax on the innocent pleasure of reading" and "a tax on readers for the purpose of 
   giving a bounty to writers" that should not be allowed to  last  a  day  longer  than  
   necessary for the purpose of remunerating authors enough to keep them in business.

Quoted from Wendy M. Grossman, Downloading as a Crime, in Scientific American
<URL: http://www.sciam.com/1998/0398issue/0398cyber.html>.

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
 EMAIL: junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu    URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu   
        NOTE: junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists