Re: [dvd-discuss] Eldred Amicus

["Michael A Rolenz" <Michael.A.Rolenz(at)aero.org>]

Tom <tom@lemuria.org>
Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
05/30/2002 12:17 AM
Please respond to dvd-discuss

 
        To:     dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: [dvd-discuss] Eldred Amicus

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 10:24:14PM -0700, microlenz@earthlink.net wrote:
>> copyright but freedom of speech has had millions already. Copyright is 
a form 
>> of property in that it can be sold but unlike property they are not 
real or 
>> personal. It sits twixt and between the two. 
>
>We agree on that.
>
>> Creators have moral rights over 
>> their works (e.g., the NAME of who created it) but if they choose to 
sell their 
>> legal rights (<D/A> assuming a fair market place. If not then that is 
another 
>> problem that should be corrected rather than attempting band-aids.), 
attempting 
>> to restore them is as well intentioned but misguided as the restoring 
copyright 
>> to works in the public domain (see Golan v. Ashcroft) for those poor 
>> unfortunate people who couldn't figure out how to copyright things in 
another 
>> country or just were stupid (e.g., Night of the LIving Dead)
>
>No discussion there, but that wasn't the point.
>
>Here's my point: Copyright being treated as a property is a major
>source of trouble. The MPAA wouldn't be that posessive if it were
>clear that their (C) isn't a posession, hm? :)

I agree with you there. The problem is that by calling copyright, patent, 
trademark "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY" rather than "holding a CPT", a lot of 
people have begun to think that they have the attributes of real and 
personal property which it does not. Possession of a CPT does not mean 
that you and your heirs hold the rights to it ad infinitum. That's why the 
silver tongued Jack is so persuasive in COngres.
IN some sense anytime somebody debates this and uses the phrase 
"intellectual property" or lets their opponent use it unchallenged they 
lose the debate.

>
>Like a right, (C) is assigned. A whimsical change in copyright law and
>you lose it, or it changes. That ain't true of property, my bread is a
>bread no matter what some legal eagle says.
>
>

Or the KEY point is that your bread is your bread when it turns to dust 
but at the end of a fixed term, your C or P is no longer yours. You raise 
an interesting question. If Eldred is overturned, then will Disney etc 
come back and now sue claiming the state has seized valuable copyrights 
and deprived them unjustly of their use. (My response, is that a trial for 
bribery of the high execs there might stop that nonsense)

>
>>