Klarinet Archive - Posting 000152.txt from 2000/08

From: charette@-----.org
Subj: Re: [kl] Stoker`s Unfortunates
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 11:10:32 -0400

Lest anyone think I am a "copyright authority" - I am most assuredly not! I do read up a lot on it for a number of reasons, and recently received permission to reprint an article from the Duke Law Journal about music & copyright on the Sneezy Web site. Copyright law is long, complex, and in many cases either obscure or with conflicting decisions (at least in the US Circuit Courts).

Lest anyone also think I am anti-copyright - if you'd care to look at the archives you'd find that if anything I'm a "nit-picker" on upholding the copyright laws. I practice what I preach, too - every article or piece of music on the Sneezy Web site has explicit permission of the authors for publication.

Reasonable people may reasonably disagree over the terms and length of copyright (or keeping "droit de suite" out of the USA) and may lobby the courts to change the law - as Disney supposedly did to protect the copyright on Mickey Mouse (The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998). The way the GATT and WIPO treaties read there is no way to reduce copyright terms after they are extended, so we're pretty much stuck with what we have. I am actively lobbying not to have the copyrights extended past their current limits.

Copyright in the US started with a term of 14 years (in 1790) - it's been extended significantly since then. Thank goodness patent law hasn't followed suit, or you'd all be paying a whole lot more for things than you do now ...

mark C.

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