XPost: rec.arts.tv, rec.arts.sf.tv   
   From: kilroy@elvis.rowan.edu   
      
   Somebody wrote, of copyrights:   
   > The current 105 year span (likely to be expanded again by Disney   
   > lobbying) is ridiculous.   
      
   "Jim Gysin " replied:   
   > Why?  Because it's not what you want?   
      
   The original justification is "to promote the progress of science and   
   useful arts", and I don't think a copyright term longer than the   
   average life expectancy does that.   
      
   I think the current copyright terms do the exact opposite: they   
   undermine creativity and useful arts.  Consider that Disney's animation   
   studio had produced drek for years, and the only way they were able to   
   rejuvenate themselves was to buy Pixar and let the Pixar people run the   
   place.  They hadn't had a decent original idea in years, because they   
   didn't NEED to: they are still profiting off Walt Disney's original   
   work, even though he's been dead for over 40 years.  He's not going to   
   produce anything new, and he's no longer getting any reward for his   
   work.  The only people earning money on it now are people who had   
   nothing whatever to do with its creation and aren't actually doing   
   very much that's useful.  So letting them hold copyrights on Walt   
   Disney's work doesn't seem to be consistent with the purpose of   
   copyrights.   
      
      
   Some who object to copyrights are, quite likely, trying to get   
   something for free which they should pay for.  Artists have to eat,   
   and while maybe in some perfect world we could do without any form of   
   patent or copyright protection, we don't live in that perfect world.   
      
   I'm 100% in favor of copyrights and patents.  But they are a kludge:   
   you can't own an idea.  You get exclusive right to benefit from it   
   because society works better that way, but it's a balancing of different   
   kinds of problems.   
      
   Copyrights that last 105 years seem to be unbalanced, because it's not   
   clear that 105 years provides any extra benefit to the creators.  And   
   so you have to ask "If Walt Disney gets no benefit from that 105-year   
   term, who does benefit?"  So far as I can make out, nobody who does   
   benefit from the extended copyright term had anything to do with the   
   creation of that art, and so it's not clear to me that the term does   
   anything worthwhile.   
      
      
   Darren Provine ! kilroy@elvis.rowan.edu ! http://www.rowan.edu/~kilroy   
   "I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six.  Mother took me to   
    see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."   
                                                     -- Shirley Temple   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)