Re: Knight and Public Domain

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

Bob Tess writes:
 > > Seriously, copyright law has got totally out of control.  There's
 > > a revolution coming, folks.
 >
 > There will be a revolution - the day the Rockefellers, Gates, and
 > other billionaires of the world are only allowed to pass their
 > property on to their descendants for 75 years after their death and
 > then it gets distributed to the public - then artists' property
 > rights will finally be equal.

I'm sure you don't need to have the pointed out, but just for
avoidance of doubt: the two situations are not at all analogous,
because if I copy the AMNH's painting, they still have the painting,
whereas if I take Bill Gates's car, he doesn't have it any more.

Of course, it doesn't immediately follow from this that I should be
allowed to copy whatever I want; but it does show that any analogy
with the law of physical property is at best uninformative and usually
actively misleading.

I might also remind you that "The sole interest of the United States
and the primary object in conferring the [copyright] monopoly lie in
the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors"
-- as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in itsa comments on Fox Film
vs. Doyal.  That understanding goes right back to the Constitution,
which states that "[Congress shall have the power] to PROMOTE THE
PROGRESS OF SCIENCE AND THE USEFUL ARTS, by securing for limited times
to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective
writings and discoveries" (emphasis mine).  In other words, copyright
was never about benefitting the artist, but about benefitting society
as a whole through striking a bargain with artists giving them a
short-term monopoly on copies of their work.

That principle is now so routinely ignored and overlooked that most
people don't even seem to realise that it exists.  But it does: go and
look it up for yourself.

Now there is no possible way in which denying me the right to
reproduce Knight's 1897 painting promotes the progress of science and
useful arts -- in fact, it actively hinders science.  So copyright is
being abused to achieve the exact opposite purpose from that for which
it was established.

Like I said, totally out of control.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Any fool can know.  The point is to understand" -- Albert
         Einstein.