!@!Re: [Upd-discuss] a longer term strategy for promoting the public domain?

[Michael Hart]

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On Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Marc Lavallée wrote:

> Le 24 Août 2004 20:51, David Basskin a écrit :
>
>> We take a great deal of care to monitor the PD status of musical works,
>> and regularly advise those seeking licenses for a PD work that they
>> don't need to do so.
>
> Hi Mr. Basskin.
>
> As a copyright worker, what do you really think of the public domain? Is it
> basically a cemetery of planned financial obsolescence?  We all understand
> why creators should be paid, but at the same time many on this list think a
> robust PD is far more important and valuable than a stronger copyright
> system.

Is no one willing to consider them as equal?


> Most of what we learn comes from PD knowledge. The skeleton of human culture
> is made out of PD knowledge. What's not in the PD is only available to those
> who can pay. Copyright is therefore most often used as a means of exclusion,
> and the reason invoked is "because creators must be paid". Right...

This I have to agree on. . . .

Example:  While the Wright Brothers' patents on their airplane of 1903
expired at the start of The Great Depression, their blueprints under
the current US copyright law would not have expired until 1998. . . .

Of what possible value is that kind of conservatism to anyone. . .???

> You might argue that without copyright there would be no creation at all.
> therefore no public domain. I don't believe we'd be stupid enough to stop
> creating and sharing...

Our kind of copyright is still relatively new. . .will only be 300 years old
6-7 years from now. . .virtually all the great literature precedes it. . .
but it's obvious that THEY would prefer to be able to copyright Shakespeare,
The Bible, The Koran, etc., even today. . .even though these were all done
over a hundred or thousand years earlier.

The real point is that the current copyright powers want EVERYTHING  to be
copyrighted. . .everything PAID for. . .everything censorable. . . .

Everything has to have their stamp of approval, just like ye olde
Stationers' Company. . . .

{I'm wondering if I've said too much or too little. . .]

Michael
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