YOu may want to put this example at TWIKI. I started a thread there comparing and contrasting the "life+N" [maybe that should be "life+N(t)" with N'(t)>0] vs N.....it's also funny because that twit from the studios that wrote the self serving sloppy scholarship ad hominem piece of puke for Loyola's Law review claimed "I've investigated hundreds of copyrights..it's easy" and doesn't get how stupid that sounds when you can simply pick up the book/whatever and read the copyright notice. If it's out of copyrigth no need to find the owner. Right now NOTHING can be known to be out of copyright unless the status of the author is known (Ala Monty Python "This is a dead author.","not 'es not 'es just sleeping"....)
Hey...here's another funny thing that could happen...suppose an author disappears and is declared dead after 7(?) years. His estate sells of all his belongings, gives them away or whatever and distributes his assets to heirs. Then the author shows up (Not implausible. Bierced disappeared. Traven of Treasure of the Sierre Madre reclused to Mexico). Who owns the copyright? Copyright is a FEDERAL right. Being declared dead is a state or local one.
How about "Copyright for somewhere between 28 and 50 yrs. Period." Although, I will confess that I'm thinking that the first 28 should be as painless as possible with minimal fees but the next (no more than 22) should be a big tax. "OK, this is really worth that much for you to keep it out of the public domain...well....then economically you must have a real gold mine....in exchange for those years of nearly free copyright WE want our cut because the administration of YOUR copyright is now costing society. I hope it's worth it too you"...All the justifications I've heard for extending copyright to include spouses and children etc etc are amply satisfied by a 50 yr term PERIOD. So even those poor misguided who want longer terms still don't seem to understand that 50 yrs is enough even for their special interests so they should have been happy with that....but they want MORE....it's really just about greed.
"John Zulauf" <johnzu@ia.nsc.com> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
12/09/2002 03:34 PM
Please respond to dvd-discuss
To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
cc:
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Specific ironies of the CTEA
There is an embedded irony in the first. Sir John Tenniel 1820-1914
created the most famous set of illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.
Because of Tenniel's longer life span, Disney acquired the rights the
the drawings (the English Copyright being life + 50 at that time?) in
order to allowed for them to "borrow" from the style.
So... because the illustrator lived longer, *his* successors in interest
profited, while the authors did not.
These ironic vagaries are no way to "Promote progress"
.002
"Copyright for 28 years, period."
John Zulauf wrote:
>
> I just stumbled over a specific irony of the CTEA. The 1951 Disney
> adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (it's beloved, but IMHO a hatchet job,
> no flames please... it's just my opinion) would have not be possible
> without Charles Dodgson's estates approval. Given the general
> unfaithfulness of the screen adaptation vs. the book this permission
> might have been difficult.
>
> Are there any other specific ironies like that? Anybody done a survey?
>
> .002