Re: Re: will everyone concerned about copyright please read this

On 22/09/2011 04:29, Lee Passey wrote:
> On 9/21/2011 8:02 PM, joseph harris wrote:
>
>    
>> Books are of so many types, and enter so many niches, that it is
>> extremely difficult to see trademarks offering much protction [sic].
>>      

Lord, forgive us our typos... :-)

>> Especially where the point is that the form of words used does have
>> value - this applies to both fiction and non-fiction - and only
>> copyright, so far, offers protection of that. We might consider poetry
>> in that light. Apart from the endless sagas of long ago most poetry is
>> fairly short and succinct - that is in fact largely its point.
>> Trademarks would offer no protection.
>>      
> You have apparently missed the point, which is not that trademark law
> and copyright law are alternatives, but that they each deal with a
> certain scope of the problem. If you want to profit from controlling
> publication of a work, use copyright. If you want to profit by selling
> your "brand" to a game company, use trademark. Figure out what you want,
> then choose the right tool to do it. Licensing your copyright to a game
> company so they can build a game from it is like driving a screw with a
> hammer: you can do it, but you may not like the results.
>    

I had missed you were offering a 'horses for courses' approach; but I 
had moved onto that ground. Did I not make my awareness of it clear?
<snip>
> Ahh, but luckily I live in the United States, so I don't have to worry
> about Berne. In the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 the U.S.
> Congress declared that the Berne treaty was not self-implementing, and
> that they deemed the provisions of that act to completely satisfy the
> demands of the treaty. So long as I satisfy the requirements of U.S.
> law, I'm golden. If citizens of other countries don't like our laws,
> that's their problem, not mine.
>    

You are factually wrong. Since 1960 US copyright laws have been brought 
more or less into line with Berne; Wikipedia gives decent overviews, and 
there is plenty on it elsewhere. As an example of grabbing the spirit of 
Berne and running with it is the Bono extension of term to life plus 70 
years. A very big change from the pre-1978 position. That last was on a 
long trail from short periods renewable once and only by registrations.

US law already accepts the fundamental of Queen Anne and Berne - 
automatic copyright to the creator; that was a major change.

Your contempt for other countries is alarming. But again you are wrong; 
the copyright law of other countries, for works covered by those laws, 
is recognised in the United States. I think in the past couple of years 
registration became no longer necessary in order to sue for breach for 
non-US works.

And, are any conventions or treaties 'self-implementing'? They all have 
to be subjected to the normal legislative processes of a nation. The 
minimum terms of Berne have been more than met.
> [snip]
>
>    
>> I agree that a sequel would hardly be a derivative work if it was the
>> product of the same author. Fan fiction is, however, breach of
>> copyright;
>>      
> A conclusion unsupported by evidence, and therefore inadmissable. Can
> you point me to a United States court decision that supports that assertion?
>    

Er... If it hasn't been to court there can be no court decision. If, in 
twenty odd years, and in a litigious country, it has not been challenged 
that may be because it is open and shut.
<snip>
>> It is a pity that the US clung to registration, especially as
>> it tied the right to go to court and a timely condition on damages to
>> that registration.
>>      
> It's a pity that the U.S. had to give up registration just to comply
> with Berne, as the U.S. courts, in a long line of cases, have uniformly
> praised registration and notification requirements as part of the
> balance between the rights of copyright holders and the rights of
> copyright consumers. Non-registration and non-notification seem to me to
> be a recipe for either anarchy or tyranny.
>    

ER... The US has not given up registration; were you intending something 
different? And not all works are registered; it is a very fallible 
system, and restrictive of free trading.

Perhaps you can point to this anarchy or tyranny in the UK and its 
Commonwealth that has had copyright and no registration for 300 plus 
years; or  in the countries of Europe that have followed Berne for well 
over a century? My impression is their output has been prodigious, and 
their originality has been praiseworthy.

>    
>> The real goal of writers is to receive decent payment for their efforts,
>> without having to bow to any form of patronage.
>>      
> Well, you don't always get what you want. U.S. law is not designed to
> assure that writers receive decent payment for their efforts, it's
> designed to give writers the incentive to continue producing by offering
> them a limited, artificial monopoly on publication in the hope that they
> might be able to exploit it effectively.
>    

You quote the US Constitution, not the laws. You also, as did Chris, 
take my sentence out of context and without due regard to its 
sub-clause. Constitution is about principle; laws are made to deal with 
the situations as they are. Nor did I even say the law was designed for 
that. I referred to the goal of writers. The object of the laws of 
copyright are to give writers a playing field on which it is possible 
for some, at least, to reach that goal.

The possibility actually does fulfil the principle of the 'incentive' of 
the US Constitution.
> In the 21st century, the effectiveness of that limited monopoly may no
> longer be sufficient to prompt writers to write (although there seems to
> be no shortage of new writers even in this brave new world).

People will write, to some extent. Writers and authors are those who 
move towards, or achieve, a very professional way of writing. Copyright 
covers both because it cannot work otherwise.
> If so,
> perhaps some alternative to traditional copyright may need to be enacted
> (although I cannot support further criminalizing infringement, and
> pressing unsuspecting third parties into service as gendarmes). I
> suspect that there is no shortage of creators who would gladly give up
> copyright for /any/ form of reliable patronage. Maybe we need some sort
> of social safety net where taxes are used to subsidize authors. But I
> don't support inventing some new sort of property right so authors can
> claim that a story is just like a car.
That's a mish-mash Lee! As an attempt at bypassing past discussions to 
early foot-stamping it works :-) . Restate it in unemotional and 
reasonably logical terms and I'll respond.

Joseph Harris


------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    [email protected] 
    ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/