[Upd-discuss] #3 More Copyright

[Michael Hart]

Why are copyrighted works the ONLY way a person can
make a living for the rest of his/her life with ONE
single piece of work?

Whether it might be a poem, a painting, a book, the
big picture is that there is only ONE way anyone in
the world can receive payments for entire lifetimes
from one thing. . .and THAT is because it is a

GOVERNMENT SPONSORED MONOPOLY

Why is it our Robert James Waller of Madison County
can received royalties long enough to support whole
families of descentants after his death, while that
person who invented the greatest product ever would
only get 17 years of patent protection and years of
that might be gone before the first products sell?

I'll tell you why.

It is because copyright laws have always been made,
written, lobbied, etc., by the publishing industry.

Patents have no such unified industry to lobby from
century to century to extend their monopolies, so a
patent is still about 17 years, depending on detail
structures only a patent attorney could understand,
while copyrights, which started out at 14 years and
could have been extended for another 14 years, ONLY
if the author was still alive, are now averaging on
the order of an entire century before anyone may be
able to freely reprint them.

Even though copyright extensions were hardly used--
about 90% of all copyrights were never extended--it
it no longer required to renew, it is automatic.

Simply because copyright laws are generated by book
publishers, movie moguls, music companies, etc. NOT
by the governments, as are patent laws.

Everyone else in the world other than the copyright
holders, has to go back to work if they want to get
more checks in the mail.

If David Beckham wants more millions, he has to get
out there and do some hard work, unless he is going
to be satisfied with the much lesser millions he is
going to get just doing advertizing after a career.
When is the last time you saw Michael Jordan?  If a
person isn't seen, you can be sure they are not hot
enough to be making all those millions any longer.

But Robert James Waller will continue to get checks
from The Bridges of Madison County for as long as a
breath continues in his body even if in a coma, and
his heirs and/or his estate will continue for years
and years and years, far longer than if he invented
a real car that gets 100 miles per gallon.

Why is it so much more important that we get rights
to build our own "super-sonic toasters" 17 years in
the history of a technological product, than we get
rights to print our own copies of books, movies and
records 17 years into their lifetimes, as we did in
the past?

It is simply because we have allowed the publishing
industry to write the rules about publishing, since
the days after the Gutenberg Press, when they first
lost their monopoly on the book.

WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization,
has only one real goal in mind, copyright; and yet,
it is now part of the United Nations, writing laws,
laws that dominate the whole world of publishing in
nearly 200 countries around the world.

WIPO does not represent the people, it represents a
worldwide cartel publishing industries.

WIPO is not strictly government, either, as it will
not accept money from the United Nations, but wants
to preserve its independent status so no one should
be able to complain as I am now.

WIPO became part of the United Nations at the times
many other copyright powers were be solidified, the
same decade saw the extension of most United States
copyrights to 75 years, and the destruction of that
copyright renewal clause mentioned above, which had
protected us from continued copyrights on materials
that were no longer making enough profit to spend a
few minutes and dollars to renew.

Copyright renewals were hardly ever used, yet today
they are mandatory and automatic, without any fee--
thus they WIPOUT 90% of what would be public domain
when the copyrights expire.

What has been created here is an aristocracy of the
publishing world, in which generation in generation
out, will be the owners of inherited wealth just as
were every one of the aristocracies of all history.


We are now ruled by:


THE LANDED GENTRY OF THE INFORMATION AGE


who not only continue reaping the wealth of the age
of information, but keep the peasants from reaping,
even though their is no incentive to keep us from a
world of 90% of copyrighted information that is not
of any cash value. . .the value is in keeping their
serfs ignorant, because, as every aristocracy knows
. . .it is easier to keep the peasants in line when
they don't know anything.

The major impact of these copyright laws is not the
great profits to be reaped by the aristocracy of an
information age, but rather is reaped by keeping us
away from any information not provided to us by the
aristocracy itself.

The aristocrats fear what goes in our minds. . .not
just what goes into our wallets.

Every society is based on the well-being of society
as a whole, not just on the upper crust, but now it
is obvious that our civilization is being run by an
aristocracy as far from reality as those of history
who created the greatest revolutions of all time.

This civilization has kept more books OUT of minds,
OUT of libraries, OUT of circulation by copyrights,
than have ALL the examples of book burning from now
all the way back to the Library at Alexandria. . .

and they have done it without hardly anyone seeing!