"Emily L. Ferguson" <elf@xxxxxxxx> writes:
And actually, I see no reason that the creator should ever have to part with his/her copyright. Just because Disney is one of the world's creators doesn't mean that permanent copyright is a bad concept.
But there are plenty of *other* reasons it's a bad concept!
First of all, the whole bargain of intellectual property is broken by making it permanent. That bargain is, protection for a period in return for disclosure.
Sounds good to me. The sooner we break that bargain the better for the creator. And maintaining ownership permanently doesn't take disclosure off the table. It just makes it not for free.
Second, the chain of ownership almost always gets broken or lost somewhere in the first 100 yeras. One of the major difficulties in preparing certain kinds of anthologies for publication is locating the rights owners.
Sure, but if the law provided for permanent ownership, the owners would have more of a reason to make sure they could be located.
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Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxx 508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf/
