TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: MPAA CacheLogic Announcement

Re: MPAA CacheLogic Announcement

John McHarry (jmcharry@comcast.net)
Sun, 19 Mar 2006 23:27:31 GMT

On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 20:00:37 -0800, hancock4 wrote:

> I do believe the property rights granted by a copyright--which is
> explicitly provided for in the US Constitution--are very important. I
> do not think it is right for people to download such works for free.
> That is stealing. I am no fan of "greedy corporations", but they do
> have very legitimate ownership rights.

> On the other hand, the US Constitution provides that copyrights are to
> last only a "limited" time. Recent changes in the law have extended
> this limit. (I don't know exactly the terms). In one sense, I can
> understand this because of the enormous cost and risk to create modern
> motion pictures.

I don't think copyright was intended as property as such, but since it
can be bought and sold, it might as well be.

What galls me is that when the terms of copyrights were extended, they
made that apply to unexpired rights granted for shorter terms. That is
simply stealing from the public domain. The costs and risks to create
such material were already assumed under the original terms, and most
of the expected or hoped for rewards reaped. I don't find the
"ownership rights" to such material legitimate at all.

I think the current term for copyright is something like the life of
the author plus 70 years, or 95 years for corporate works. Nobody
determines whether to invest money or effort on expected returns that
far out. This is closer to a perpetuity than a limited time.

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