Re: [dvd-discuss] [openlaw] Government takes more extreme line in second"Eldred" case

["D. C. Sessions" <dcs(at)lumbercartel.com>]

On Thursday 10 January 2002 23:01, you wrote:
# After being thrown off the term extension track onto the piracy track
# about a dozen times while reading the government's brief, I began to
# wonder why are they making such a big stink about piracy.  Then I found
# it:
# 
#   As infringement becomes easier, the potential for authors
#   to lose out on the benefits of their creations becomes more
#   serious, and the value of copyright protection goes down.
#   See William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, An Economic Analysis
#   of Copyright Law, 18 J. Legal Stud. 325, 363 (1989).  One way
#   of correcting for the declining value of a copyright is to
#   lengthen its term.  The longer a copyright exists, the longer
#   an author may exploit his work, and the better chance he has
#   to recoup his expenses.
# 
# The brief associates strongly the ease of infringement (piracy) with
# improvements in technology.

I really like this.  It's now become almost impossible to detect patent
infringement in a number of areas (e.g., software and industrial
processes).

This reasoning argues that the USA should extend patent terms to
make up the difference.  As a patentholder, I think a retroactive
extension of patents from the 1960s would be about right, and
as a Philips stockholder I think that extending Philips' patents on
audio recording technology (the basic CD patents are due to expire
soon if they haven't already) would be utterly wonderful.


-- 
| I'm old enough that I don't have to pretend to be grown up.|
+----------- D. C. Sessions <dcs@lumbercartel.com> ----------+