Re: [dvd-discuss] Copyright Renewal Amendment

["John Zulauf" <johnzu(at)ia.nsc.com>]

So what about just clause I

> > The Copyright Renewal Amendment
> >
> > "(I) The 'limited times'  for 'exclusive rights' 
> >      granted to authors and inventors shall not 
> >      exceed 20 years.
> >

Joshua Stratton wrote:
> 
> Sounds like an extremely bad idea to me. I don't like the idea of
> too-explicitly written powers in the Const. It denies us flexibility that
> we might need later on. Imagine if the framers had written the 1st Amend.
> with the specificity to ensure what the situation was for them then:
> 
> Congress, we're not talking about states here, shall make no law ...
> except for libel, slander, treason ...  religion, if it is a Protestant
> religion, etc.
> 
> Over the vast majority of the Republic's history, the Courts and Congress
> have done a good job with respect to copyright. Even the 1976 Act and its
> immediate amendments have had _some_ good in them. We just need to move
> back to what's proper. An amendment is overkill, would not be likely
> to garner support for such a wierd issue (though there was that temperence
> thing, admittedly) and would invite sabotage that would _really_ screw us
> over.
> 
> On Thu, 17 Oct 2002, John Zulauf wrote:
> 
> > Maybe the answer is to end the temptation of Congress to meddle with
> > copyright is a Constitutional Amendment to "renew" the original intent
> > of the founders.
> >
> > The Copyright Renewal Amendment
> >
> > "(I) The 'limited times'  for 'exclusive rights' granted to authors and
> > inventors shall not exceed 20 years.
> >
> > (II) The 'exclusive rights' granted shall not include more rights than
> > exclusive rights of commercial making, commercial use, or commercial
> > distribution of the writings or inventions. Technical, legal, or
> > contractual control over personal or noncommercial making, use, or
> > distribution shall be prohibited by law.
> >
> > (III) Publishers shall not be granted, or allowed to hold or control
> > these exclusive rights, unless the publisher is the actual author of the
> > work and a natural, human person.
> >
> > (IV) 'exclusive rights' shall be granted to unpublished works only if
> > such writings or inventions are deposited with the Librarian of
> > Congress. 'exclusive rights' shall be granted to unpublished writings or
> > inventions not longer than 'limited times' from its creation.
> >
> > (V) Copyright shall be granted to mechanically derivative works such as
> > computer programs, phonorecords, films or other or works based on source
> > material, only if the source material is deposited with the Librarian of
> > Congress."
> >
> > Comments:
> >
> > (I) Let's all be clear on limited times, shall we?
> >
> > (II) Let's all be clear on the limits of the "exclusive rights".  This
> > solves huge problems with both educational use of copyright material and
> > "humanitarian" use of patents.  This would also cover "free (as in
> > speech or beer) software" -- it's non-commercial -- i.e. Mozilla
> > wouldn't have to pay for patents, but AOL/Netscape would.  If a drug is
> > patented, but made and distributed only for charitable use, then there
> > is no claim.  Post first sale restrictions on use *prohited* -- the
> > "death of post-first-sale DRM/TPM" clause
> >
> > (III) this is essentially an "author keeps the rights to their work"
> > clause.  It also implies that publishers and rights holders must be
> > distinct -- yielding a in effect a mandatory license scheme.  One
> > exception, the natural human author can publish their own works
> > exclusively.  Not I specifically left out patents here.  Most patents
> > are the collaboration of a large group within a commercial entity.
> > Perhaps with a shortened term this isn't an issue... I dunno.
> >
> > (IV) unpublished works copyrights are a mess today.  This makes things
> > clearer.  If you want to protect a work and not publish it, it still
> > will become part of the public domain.  If an unpublished work is
> > discovered, it term is limited based on it's creation date.   Thus
> > "found works" are not granted longer terms than published ones.
> >
> > (V) The last section is to ensure that the source code, master
> > multitrack tapes, computer animation data files and the like are
> > preserved.  I know for a fact the that the unpublished models of classic
> > early computer animation are rotting ( the tape has only a 10 year life
> > ) in the file cabinets of places like Lucas and Disney.  In 95 years,
> > the Tron database will be lost forever.  In 95 years, the DOS code base
> > will be lost forever.  Finally, the "mechanically derivative" works
> > clause is an honesty clause... software that in 20 years old can't just
> > be commingled with new code and gain new protection.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thought, comments.
> >