Re: [dvd-discuss]Long Term Copyright just invites lawsuits

[microlenz(at)earthlink.net]

On 4 Feb 2003 at 9:29, johnzu@ia.nsc.com wrote:

Date sent:      	Tue, 4 Feb 2003 09:29:09 -0800 (PST)
From:           	johnzu@ia.nsc.com
To:             	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject:        	Re: [dvd-discuss]Long Term Copyright just invites lawsuits
Send reply to:  	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu

> 
> >http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/03/film.welles.reut/index.html
> >
> >HOLLYWOOD, California (Variety) -- Beatrice Welles, the daughter of
> > Orson Welles, has filed a lawsuit claiming she is the owner of the rights to
> > film classic "Citizen Kane." 
> 
> >Ironically this may be another posterchild for shortening copyright...after 60
> >yrs even the original contracts may be dust.
> 
> I'm not so sure.  In the public policy debate, the ability for an artist and
> their heirs to win the "hit work" lottery and enter the ranks of the new "landed
> gentry**" complete with a perpetual sinecure for the heirs will be argued as
> needed incentive to create.

True. All you need to read is the CTEA testimony and the resolution of congress 
regarding Eldred v Ashcroft (we've determined that it's right and proper that 
we create the copyright haves and have nots with the haves having for ever and 
the have nots never having any use...)

> 
> The difference in rights (speech, privacy, search and seizure, self-help) and
> the like are that for nobility vs. peasantry.  The land of course is the
> "intellectual property" -- a state grant of apparently perpetual title for
> charge rents to the serfs (complete with stiff penalities for the poachers).
> 

Oh but this is so much better than land....it's treading on thoughts.."Oh no it 
isn't" intones Justice Ginsberg, "there's always the expression/idea dichotomy" 
NOnsense....its the expression of the idea dissemination monopoly. Don't tell 
me that I could ever right a book on Electromagnetics anywhere NEAR Stratton's 
of 1940 which still is a valuable text.

> That it bears no semblance to a means "no more restrictive than necessary" and
> yet has received a constitutional pass further shows that their are now two
> (again) two distinct legal classifications of persons.  "Landed" copyright
> holders (those with a critical mass of value to support their private armies of
> lawyers) and the rest of us poor slobs.
> 

Haves and Have nots...The real beauty of the landed copyright holders is that 
not only did they not have to create it, there is nothing to do about 
maintaining it unlike land.

> That the film in question is "Citizen Kane" about the excesses
> and abuses of power of one in the copyright industry and the reality that
> none of the power had the meaning or enduring value of simple childhood
> pleasures and the warmth of family ("Rosebud...") is deliciously
> ironic.

I've heard different interpretations of "Rosebud". The last gift he ever 
received..longing for innocence...but no matter what the irony is particulary 
delicious

> 
> .002
> 
> Two men walking by a rich man's tomb
> Man one: "How much money did he leave behind?"
> Man two: "All of it."
> 
> 
> 
>