Re: Re: Copyright Expiration ?

On 02/08/2012 4:11 PM, Beth Young wrote:
>
> I am intrigued by the idea of taking into consideration how long a 
> book has
> been out of print as well as life of the author plus X years.
>
<snip>
>
> (Plus that creates an incentive for works to not get published during the
> copyright period).
>
> But it's an interesting idea that helps tackle the orphan works problem.
>
> Beth
>

Beth,

One point I often make is that each of us knows only a tiny corner of 
the publishing industry. It is vast and varied and exists in most 
countries in the world. It is also international and the 
inter-relationships complex. Though some corners have seen dramatic 
changes in delivery and price systems and levels the industry, 
fundamentally, is not that much changed.

Also it is a sad truth for authors that most works never used to get 
published, and that may still be true for the majority.

But what worries me most is an assumption, following very intense 
campaigning by Google, that there is some "orphan" problem. The reason 
it worries me is that the only protection for creative writing is 
copyright. Copyright only gives each originator control over the copies 
of their own works. Undermine that and copyright is dead, and incentives 
for creators all but disappear.

The problem over  "orphans" is that it is impossible to define them; 
because of that it becomes easy for one who wishes to take another's 
work to claim he thought it was an "orphan". I do urge you, and others 
who think there is some problem over works not available at a particular 
point, to think very carefully about the implications of any "orphan" 
permissions.

Joseph Harris


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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