!@!Re: [Upd-discuss] Response from Sabine Nuss to Stallman Re: Paper:"Digital property" By Sabine Nuss, NY, NY, April 12-14, 2002

[Michael Hart]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Richard M. Stallman wrote:

> I was talking about different ways that capitalist societies can be
> organized.  Consider the US in the 1920s, the US in 1940, the US in
> 1960, the US in 1975, and the US today.  All capitalist, but quite
> different variants of capitalism, with different positions on
> many issues.  Copyright is one of the issues on which different
> variants of capitalism can take different positions.

However, the position on copyright extensions has always been towards
longer and longer copyrights, with three power such extensions in the
last 100 years. . .no real "different variants of capitalism" to
"take different positions" in evidence there!

In each of these cases the copyright extensions were simply to defeat
a new technology from bringing information to the masses.

The means is simply to knock the teeth out of the public domain each,
and every, time such a new technology appears, and that has been the
case since the very first copyright laws of 1557 which were designed
ONLY to defeat the effects of the Gutenberg press.

The US Copyright Act of 1909 was ONLY designed to defeat electric presses.
The US Copyright Act of 1976 was ONLY designed to defeat xerox machines.
The US Copyright Act of 1909 was ONLY designed to defeat the Internet.

So how can one as erudite as Richard M. Stallman say "copyright is one of the
issues on which different variants of capitalism can take different positions."

There has never been any "different position" other than that copyright should
continue to be extended, and the US Supreme Court decision that was originally
slated as "Hart v Reno" and became "Eldred v Ashcroft" recently paved the way
for continuing extensions that we can only expect to stop any further copyright
expirations from occurring.

The only "different position" is that they are now willing to say out loud
that the public domain is legally a thing of the past.

If you think this is only happening in the US, just look at the pressures
exerted by the US on Australia, where the Parliament resolved just four
years ago not to extend copyright, but gave up the fight last year.

No one is proposing fixed copyright terms in governments any longer,
the only question on THEIR agenda is how long to wait between each
copyright extension.


Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg