[Upd-discuss] #2 Copyright Brief History

[Yannick Delbecque]

On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 11:09:40AM -0700 or thereabouts, sandor wrote:
> Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
> 
>    As Michael states - the concept of the necessity of the law was 
> first advanced by biased interests. I should think a critical analysis 
> might start here - and first determine the validity of this thinking.
>    The artist is currently renumerated based on the artificial 
> framework we have created - so to analyze whether one could be 
> successful without this framework, we must consider this without 
> ourselves being constrained. I am unsure if this is even possible... To 
> enact legislation as a preventative measure seems a bit poor... So 
> unless we define an existing issue that requires legislation, and this 
> issue must exist wholly outside our current system, we have no rationale 
> for legislation? I am curious to people's reasoning on this initial 
> question...
> 

I asked more or less the same question on this list recently:

(Summerised) Should

1) The author be granted some special control over the distribution of his work by default
2) The work of an author receive no particular protection, but
parternity is protected.

Some here seems to belive that 1) is necessary for authors (creators) to
make a living. I argued that 2) combined with a truly public distribution system can create a system where authors are have numerous means of being
compensated. I cited free software programmers, scientific authors (not a
perfect example because distribution was until recently partially
controled by a scientific establishment) and the fact that some artists
are able to make a living event is they use licences that force
themselves into a situation similar to 2). I might add to that list the
case of greek philosophers and thinkers, who made a living by teaching,
and the more reputation they had, the more students were willing to pay
to learn from them. As far as I know, all student were allowed to
"redistribute" what they had lerned from their masters. Some historians
argued that this situation shaped the way greek thinkers interacted
(even in what we would call today  astronomy or medecine): every one
constently attacked severly the others points of views to lessen their
reputation. 

Since the democratisation of internet access, we now have a real public
distribution system in competition with the old corporate controled
distribution systems. 

I also argued that 2) is simpler and mose likely cheaper that 1) for the society: less rules leads to less administrative tasks to be done, etc... 

If you agree with what I said about compensation being possible under
2), what other principle can you invoke to say  1) is preferable to 2)? 
I'm also looking for some principle to justify 1).  


Note: there a possibility that 2) can be "improved" by also forbiding false
atributions of a work to someone who never got involved in its creation. 
This situation seemed to be a huge concern to many creators I talked to.
It would also "protect the reputation" of the author. 

Yannick Delbecque