Re: DeCSS Court Hearing Report (fwd)

[Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>]

----- Forwarded message from Craig Brozefsky -----

Subject: CDR: Re: DeCSS Court Hearing Report (fwd)
From: Craig Brozefsky <craig@red-bean.com>
Date: 04 Jan 2000 09:28:49 -0800

This assumes that copyright is protecting an authors rights, which is
not the case in the U.S., where copyright is for promoting advancement
of the arts an sciences thru granting of arbitrary monopoly to the
creator of an intellectual work.  There is no notion of authorial
rights in U.S. copyright code that I am aware of.  It is not done
because authors, or their estates, have some intrinsic right to
control their works after they are published.  It is provided to give
them an incentive to publish and make the materials accesable to the
public.  The ultimate goal is benefit of the public, not protection of
some phantasmatic authorial rights.

To call them rights protection technologies is wrong in light of the
purpose of copyright.

----- End of forwarded message from Craig Brozefsky -----

I'll have to disagree.

Copyright law is there to ensure that the authors of a work are allowed
exclusive access to any income from that work. it is compensation for their
efforts in developing the work. The laws express purpose is to prevent another 
party from taking such work and claiming it as their own and therefore 
depriving the original author from their just rewards.

The reason that copyrights are limited in time is that at some point the
needs of society to have access to ideas for developing new ideas (i.e.
Newtons' standing on the shoulders of giants if you will). In other words
your privilige to make an income is not completely superior to your
obligation to the works of those you used to develop your work and those who
will need your work to develop theirs. A quid pro quo if you will.

It is a right that is derived from the 'pursuit of happiness' right.

    ____________________________________________________________________

            The future is downloading. Can you hear the impact?

                                        O[rphan] D[rift>]
                                        Cyber Positive

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
       Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage@ssz.com
       www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
                           -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
    --------------------------------------------------------------------