Fwd: HEADLINES FROM Kansas City ITEC - NOVEMBER 7-8, 2007

[Leo Mauler]

--- "Monty J. Harder" <mjharder at gmail.com> wrote:

> I didn't need to register the copyright I hold 
> on that logo, which is automatically mine as of 
> the day I published it, and thanks to the MPAA 
> will belong to my children when I'm safely dead.

On the one hand, very good for us that you've got 
long-term copyright protection on the KCLUG logo.

On the other hand, not very good for the U.S.
taxpayer. 

Didn't copyright start off as a transaction rather
than as an entitlement?  I was always given to
understand that the copyright holder received
government protection for a limited period in exchange
for their copyrighted work entering the public domain
at the end of that limited period.  Or in other words,
the copyright holder received life + 25 to control his
or her work and receive royalties for its use, and in
exchange the taxpayer received the high-quality work
after life + 25 to use for free.

The new copyright laws seem to suggest that a person
who is born the same day that the copyright holder
dies, will die of old age before the copyrighted work
enters the public domain.  This to me seems more like
an entitlement than a transaction: the copyright
holder gets free government protection for a nearly
unlimited period of time, and when the work finally
enters the public domain its value to the taxpayer is
nearly exhausted.

I do volunteer page proofreading for "Project
Gutenberg" so I am a little upset about the seemly
continuous successful attempts to extend copyright
protection duration closer and closer to infinity
every year.  It is almost as bad as the excessive
software patent protection duration.  Everyone seems
to want to create *one* successful work and then let
their family/business live off the royalties unto the
seventh generation.


       
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