[Upd-discuss] #2 Copyright Brief History

[Michael Hart]

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On Tue, 7 Sep 2004, Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:

>
>
>
>
> Le 7 sept. 04, à 18:35, Michael Hart a écrit :
>
>> 
>> On Mon, 6 Sep 2004, François Briatte wrote:
>> 
>>> (Quotes were cut down.)
>>> 
>>>>> "Much of the U.S. criticism of the UN stems from the fact that the 
>>>>> United States pays a disproportionate percentage of the 
>>>>> organization’s budget. That is not the case with the WIPO. Despite 
>>>>> the fact that as, a hightechnology leader, the United States 
>>>>> benefits directly and substantially from strong intellectual 
>>>>> property protection, it pays less than 1 percent of the WIPO 
>>>>> operating budget."
>>>> Simply because there are 175 member nations, who, en masse, pay only 
>>>> 7%,
>>>> so it would be literally impossible for one member nation to pay 1 
>>>> percent.
>>>> So what is the point of the above tirade, other than being misleading?
>>> 
>>> The point is : governments have encouraged WIPO to live on its own 
>>> funds.
>> 
>> FALSE:
>> 
>> You sound as if you would like to confuse the issue into a sort of
>> "which came first, the chicken or the egg" question. . . .
>> 
>> However. . .it is obvious to anyone who takes a look at the origins of
>> our copyright system that the entire thing originated NOT with gov'ts
>> encouraging businesses to create copyright laws, but with. . .
>> 
>> BUSINESSES ENCOURAGING GOVERNMENTS TO CREATE COPYRIGHT LAWS.
>
> So once again, we need to stress the fact that copyright laws don't protect 
> the authors, nor the public, nor the creations... they protect businesses.

I'm not going to say this is 100% the case, but probably way over 90%,
which is good enough to make a very solid case!


> We need to propagate "desenchantement" about this because everybody take for 
> granted that copyright laws protect artists...

Yes. . .the artists/creators get VERY little protection, and this is evidenced
by the fact that so many of the more successful ones start their own publishing
houses to avoid the "one for you 19 for me" syndrome. . . .


> So :
>
> current application of copyright laws tend to protect businesses against 
> authors whenitshould aim at protecting creations and developing the spread of 
> culture throughout the public
>
> Am I right ?

They give lip service to this, but really nothing more.

They always want 1% more, and to give you 1% less,
and eventually it breaks the camel's back. . . .
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