Re: Copyright

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

There are two separate questions here: 1) What do the present copyright
laws permit? 2) Are these laws just and equitable? As to 1, the old law
permitted libraries and scholars to make a limited number of copies of
out-of-print or otherwise unobtainable works that were not yet in the
public domain, simply to keep a copy in existence and to satisfy the
reasonable needs of scholarship. I believe that the Millennium Copyright
Act, as first introduced, abridged that right somewhat, and the libraries
screamed Foul! Whether their objections were accommodated in the final
version, I do not know. It would be helpful to find out.
2) The fairness of the current copyright laws in indeed under serious
discussion in various fora. In particular as it applies to computer code,
but even as it applies to creative works, Richard Stallman and his
followers have been arguing for some time that current copyright law does
not serve the purposes intended by the framers of the Constitution, or
the public good. (Stallman will be speaking in New York City next
Wednesday evening, under the auspices of the New York Computer Club
.)
 	Looking at the issue from a historical perspective, I must point out
that copyright was unheard of in the ancient and medieval periods. It
came in with the printing press and, in England at least, the
establishment of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. So we're not talking
about unalterable natural law, or even customary law "from the time
whence the memory of man runneth not." We live under a form of government
in which the people's right "to alter or to abolish" laws that they find
"destructive of [the]...ends" of government is guaranteed in its
foundational documents, so we certainly have a right to discuss and
propose changing laws than no longer make sense (if they ever did).
	It would seem that a rational discussion of the question would take
account of the following:
1. The difference between a creative work of art, which exists on its
own, and a tool, such as a piece of computer software, which exists in a
matrix of use and adaptation. Treating such dissimilar things as subject
to the exact same provisions is on the face of it irrational and unjust,
amd the burden of proof is on those who support doing so.
2. Profit, attribution, and protection are likewise separate issues. Who
profits from the present copyright laws, the authors or the publishers?
And to what extent? Would it be better for an author's works to circulate
without monetary benefit to him or for them to moulder in obscurity
because no one was willing to make them available? (I should certainly
prefer the former.) On the other hand, writers (or painters or musicians)
should certainly be protected--for ever--from having their works
attributed to someone else. Or from having their works rewritten,
translated into another medium, or "edited" in such a way as to negate
their original intentions. Computer code, one the other hand, would, in
the open source model, be freely subject to modification. (But how do the
open sourcers prevent the embedding of worms, viruses, and Trojans in
previously useful code? One of the things I hope to learn next
Wednesday.)
3. Abandonment is a real issue, and the law apparently takes no notice of
it. I recently found a computer sitting on the curb on trash day. Now PCs
have a lot of polysyllabic bad stuff in them that should not go into the
landfill, and we needed some hardware at the office, so I took it. It
turned out to be a perfectly usable Compaq Deskpro: fairly old (pentium
MMX at 166 MHz, 64 Mb), but perfectly adequate for the dedicated use we
needed. The Windows CAb files had been copied to a separate partition on
the hard drive, so I was able to reinstall, and get rid of all the games
and other stuff on it, and to download the setup, diags, and docs from
Compaq's Web site. If that didn't break any laws (and I don't believe it
did; even Microsoft says you can transfer a "to be sold only with a new
PC" copy of Windows--pre XP, anyway--if you also transfer the hardware it
came with), why should making a photocopy of--or even scanning--a manual
be so horrendous?
Patricia