Re: An alternative to levies on copyright

Hi João,

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 08:48:20PM +0000, João Miguel Neves wrote:
> The idea is simple: don't allow the author to sign away exclusive
> rights. Any contract on copyright related rights would have to be on a
> non-exclusive basis.

It's a good idea, but would need some fine tuning to prevent
abuse through loopholes:

 - if the publisher is the copyright holder, any law forbidding
   exclusive licensing would be moot; the publisher would
   grant himself a non-exclusive license and simply omit to
   grant licenses to anyone else.  You'd need to prevent
   publishers from demanding that copyright be signed over lock,
   stock & barrel, instead of merely being licensed exclusively.

 - there's also nothing to prevent the author from simply not
   granting further licenses. Maybe under pressure from the
   publisher (compare with Microsoft's pressure on PC makers
   not to supply systems with alternative OSes).

> Downside: Works whose sales depend on huge marketing won't happen (no
> one will want to risk a huge investment if another intermediary can just
> come and collect the profits).

You could permit a limited-time (say 5 years) exclusive deal, after
which the contracts become open again.
You could also insist that a work enters the public domain
if for a period of (say) 5 years it hasn't been continually
"in print" in some form (not difficult to do in these days of
e-books etc.)

However, all this is simply patching and shoring up an already
seriously broken system. What's really needed is a complete
overhaul of copyright laws with emphasis on the public good, not
on private gain for a few publishers. That means: shorter duration,
fewer privileges for rightsholders, and the complete abolition of
pseudo-copyrights. However, short of outright warfare, I don't
see that happening any time soon. Too much money flows into
the coffers of political parties.

Dave

BTW If anyone doubts the economic viability of the public domain:
I bought a copy of Alice In Wonderland a couple of weeks ago. The
bookshop I went into in Erlangen didn't have one in stock, and
offered to order one. I lost count of how many different editions
were available, but there were at least 10. The cheapest was around
3 EUR and the most expensive was around 25. I eventually settled on
a paperback volume with Wonderland & Looking Glass for about 8 EUR.

-- 
David Haworth                                            [email protected]
Baiersdorf, Germany.                     http://home.graffiti.net/pogue/