[Coco] Republishing Magazines

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 11:48 PM 12/26/03 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
>I would like to see a copyright made non-transferable.  Regardless of 
>what else they do to make it last the life of the composer + another 
>1000 years or whatever, we should retain that the copyright is the 
>author/composers in perpetuity.

There are some problems with that. It leaves out the family and heirs, who
may have no pensions or other benefits they can expect from the work of
their mother/father. Also, it leaves the creator unable to profit from what
is, after all, legally considered property. It would be a blanket
restriction against transfer more stringent than selling children. :)

>I'd also like to see the period reduced back to the time limits as 
>existed in say 1950, and because the amount of info available rises 
>almost exponentially, there are some fields where I'd like to see 
>copyright terms reduced in order to facilitate progress by way of the 
>accelerated free use, like to maybe 5 years for software.  Thats an 
>eon in software time.

Right. I agree the term has been made too long, especially after the Mickey
Mouse extensions went into force a few years ago. The original idea was to
balance reward to the creator with benefit to society, for which this
special protection was devised, and from which the source material is
derived. It has become skewed -- Disney can use earlier stories at will,
but no one can use Disney stories for a century. Under those terms, we'd
never have had a Goldberg Variations, and even now the sampling artists are
struggling with the determination of how small a sample is legal to use. It
becomes absurd. (Look up 'illegal art' and 'negativland' for more info.)

But distinguishing one field from another is quite challenging, and
probably cannot be successful. Already the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
is mired in controversy because of what appear to be simple distinctions --
such as broadcast vs. streaming. So trying to separate fields will be an
even worse mess.

For example, Is that a musical composition? An algorithm? A program? If I
rewrite the program as a composition or article to gain longer protection,
who decides if I'm being arbitrary? Is it in print, or only in sound? What
sort of protection does it get in the first place? Who decides that?

I brought this up years ago in my article on software copyright in 1980
(the one for which I interviewed dozens of authors, including the
then-very-young Bill Gates), where I proposed that the simple rotation of
content made it unreadable in human terms (then a very important concept to
copyright before software was accepted in machine-readable form) and thus
unacceptable for copyright, but easily un-rotated to restore the original.
Was it a translation or not? In subsequent times, the ROT-13 became
popular, yet in those intervening years, no one has claimed that the ROT-13
version is more than or different from a mere translation, and thus covered
by copyright.

There's also the question of sampling, but that's a whole 'nother story in
how it extends or doesn't extend copyright. :)

>IMO music should be longer in order for the author to have realised 
>the maximum income from the sale it it, so 25 years seems reasonable 
>to me.  Music doesn't get stale if its good, but why are we still 
>paying somebody a royalty everytime somebody sings Happy Birthday?
>IMO thats dumb, and we're even dumber when we allow it.

But let's put it another way. If this still has value -- if it's still
worth singing -- why is that value handed freely to the singer, but not to
the author's heirs, owners of the "Happy Birthday" property? Yes, "Happy
Birthday" is the extreme example, some 120 years old, a simple melody. But
the area gets grayer and grayer, and exception-granting becomes more and
more arbitrary (though it is always granted to, for example, churches). So
how about "How Great Thou Art?" An ancient and public domain, hymn
obviously. Not! This copyright is owned, and recent.

So if it is performed, it reveals its value, and payment is due. I have no
problem with that.

"Staleness" is to me not at issue -- the lack of staleness is made
immediately manifest by the use of the copyrighted material. If it is not
used, no payment is due; that's the simplest course. And copyright law
already carves out many generous exceptions for educational and personal use.

>That wouldn't preclude the copyright holder from entering into a 
>contract with the Joe Schmoe Publishing Company for their exclusive 
>right to publish his work in whatever media is the current media, 
>deriving x dollars of profit etc etc.

If you mean publishing of the printed version, you are right. But
performing the music? It can't be exclusive. Copyrighted music can be
performed by anyone (and payment becomes due). That's why licensing
agencies like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC exist -- to find and collect the
payments due as agents for the composers. (I'm an ASCAP member, thank
goodness.) Copyright is *federal* law, not tort law. Publishing contracts
cannot void the terms of the law itself, though it can use them in
sometimes tortuous ways.

>To me, the actual sale of a copyright is a bit like taking your 
>firstborn son to the mountain, along with 2 donkeys carrying panniers 
>full of firewood.  Only I wouldn't count on the burning bush speaking 
>to me at the last second.

After having created over 2,000 copyright-protected works, I have not quite
the attachment I might to a firstborn son. :)

Dennis