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

[Jean-Baptiste Soufron]

By the way Michael...

you repeat that the position on copyright extensions has always been 
towards longer and longer copyrights, but don't you think that we will 
begin to witness a reduction of the scope of copyright in the next few 
years.

That is what we're working on in France with the Association of 
Audionautes. Since it sounds difficult to obtain legislative limitations 
to copyright, we think that we should represent copyright exceptions 
like "fair use" or "private copying right" as the translations of civil 
liberties in the domain of copyright law, and thus give judges ideas and 
tools for broader interprations favoring the public.

As of today, it's going quite well since database law is getting more 
and more limited, same thing for "para-copyrights" like the right to get 
revenues from the picture of a PD work (the Bridgeman case in the 
US...), or the right to get revenue when a copyrighted work is featured 
in a broader picture (French case law now refuses to grant any right on 
this when the copyrighted work is not the object of the picture...)

And of course, we're getting more and more case law about downloading 
where judges obviously favors the public.

Michael Hart wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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