Klarinet Archive - Posting 000025.txt from 2010/07

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Sheet music copyright
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:51:38 -0400

On 07/02/2010 06:00 PM, Oliver com wrote:
> I relaxed a little as it began to dawn on me that alleged owners of intellectual property eagerly put copyright symbols on everything they publish.

Indeed -- such false claims of copyright are known as 'copyfraud' and it
is a serious problem:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=787244

> The long title of the Statute of Anne, as passed by parliament, was "An
> Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed
> Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times
> therein mentioned". The coming into force of the Statute of Anne in April 1710 marked a
> historic moment in the development of copyright law. As the world's first copyright
> statute it granted publishers of a book legal protection of 14 years
> with the commencement of the statute. It also granted 21 years of
> protection for any book already in print. The 14 year copyright term could be renewed for another
> 14 if the author was still alive after the first term expired.

The Statute of Anne is a fascinating document, not least because of what
the various drafts it went through reveal about the disagreements
present in determining the way the law should recognize works of
intellectual creation. For example: one draft referred to creations of
the mind as their creators' "undoubted property", but this was deleted
in the final version; finally, the early 18th century lawmakers were not
willing to countenance the idea that ideas could be 'owned'.

The other thing about the Statute of Anne is its prescience in granting
copyright to creators, not to publishers. The commercial lobbying at
the time was very much about granting _publishers_ a unique right to
print a given book, and it's striking how perceptive the lawmakers of
the time were in recognizing that instead it was authors' interests that
needed protecting.
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