The law deals with missing and presumed dead by getting someone declared as dead after they don't show up and there are no records for them. For example, if you disappear and no one has any record of you for 7 years (I believe that's what it was in Ohio) then you can file a motion to declare someone as legally dead. There will be noticed published in the papers asking if anyone has knowledge of the person etc has seen them etc and after all that comes back NADA, the courts may delare the person legally dead. If they hadn't found Chandra Levy's body she'd have been declared dead eventually. As for Amelia Earhart, she didn't make her rendezvous for fuel and maintainance. Good chance she went down into the ocean. After 7 years if she's not found then chances are she'd drowned or dead on some desert island. OF course the whole legal proceedings have be started, otherwise the person is NOT dead and the copyright clock hasn't started until they are declared legally dead which is NOT something that the states do not the Feds. But the Feds control copyright.
But lets face it...missing and presumed dead is a rare event so there's no reason to distort the system to handle it when it can be done ad hoc and should be based upon the facts of the case (That's why we have courts so that they can examine facts and see the applicability and occassionaly "wing it" when they aren't certain).
John Galt <galt@inconnu.isu.edu> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
12/10/2002 10:53 PM
Please respond to dvd-discuss
To: dvd discussion list <dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
cc:
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Specific ironies of the CTEA
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
What about missing-and-presumed-dead? Is the copyright clock ticking, for
example, on some of the POW/MIAs? Amelia Earhart? AFAIK, nobody's ever
signed a Death Certificate on Amelia Earhart...
On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Michael A Rolenz wrote:
>The corpsicle argument, doesn't pass muster since the definition of death
>is a legal one-and very well established over many years.
>
>If the author is legally dead and then thrown into the vat. He's Dead and
>the copyright expiration clock starts ticking.
>If he isn't legally dead, then when thrown into the vat of liquid helium
>they will be dead because after being pulled out of the vat of helium the
>corpsicle starts to putrify once it thaws out. And if the author was still
>very much alive when thrown into the vat that's called homicide and they
>are legally dead. And if they threw themselves it's called suicide and
>they are legally dead so legally So the copyright expiration clock starts
>ticking after being thrown into the vat of helium. ...A corpsicle is still
>a corpse by the legally accepted definition of DEATH.
>
>SOmeone can define an info-theo defn. of death but that doens' mean that
>it's a legal one. IN this case, the info-theo defn. of death has no
>meaning either.
>
>The real question is not when the author dies legally but how do you
>determine it?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Jolley <tjolley@swbell.net>
>Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
>12/10/2002 03:57 PM
>Please respond to dvd-discuss
>
>
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> cc:
> Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Specific ironies of the CTEA
>
>
>Michael A Rolenz wrote:
>>
>>
>> "information-theoretic death depends on presently unknown details of
>> how the brain works." has no meaning. What that says is X is defined
>> by something unknown...
>>
>
>Exactly! The current length of copyright has no meaning. X, the
>current length of copyright, is defined by something unknown, when
>the author dies.
>
>
>
- --
EMACS == Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping
Who is John Galt? galt@inconnu.isu.edu, that's who!
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76