MESSAGE
| DATE | 2001-12-22 |
| FROM | marco
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [hangout] A Cd's Natural Price is $2.00
|
mystor wrote:
> This is another bad idea of Europeans. It speaks to the trouble of
> corporation ruinning over peoples feet, it fails to address the
> question of when something just becomes part of us, like the Mona Lisa
> or Cyril Debergiac (spelling?).
I found this statement a little categorical, so ...
First, in France, dead people can't exersize their Droits D'Auteurs.
But mostly one has to realize that the issues addressed by the Droits
Auteurs are far less comprehensive than those which copyrights can cover
(or smother). Under the French system, you have rights over what you
have written, painted, the photograph you took, etc. but you can't have
these same rights on the idea of 360 degree spherical panoramas, though
you could, I believe, on the sofware you wrote to manipulate them.
Just because you wrote the first book about death, you can't ask
every other author who decides death might be a good subject to license
the rights to this subject, but you can refuse to allow the Black Death
Gang who specialize in killing small animals from saying their practice
was influenced by your book. (There are other completely different laws
in France governing company/trade secrets etc. Publisher/author
royalties cannot be established contractually, they must be in
accordance with a national law ) (1)
Obviously in the case of software development there are many new
issues concerning the laws on both sides of the Atlantic.
It seems that there have been quite a few journalists on these lists
defending copyright law, from the one narrow angle from which they view
it. This particular angle in France is an inalienable right. Copyright
Law in the US, however, is a huge bohemouth (sp?) trying to cover much
to many situations. I don't think anyone can deny that. I just ask
that somewhere people are more specific in what they are attacking.
(1) The European system is under constant pressure from American
consultancy groups. These groups pressure the large european
corporations to imitate the American model and to force their government
to adopt a system much closer to the American Copyright system. This
creates some animosity towards Americans in Europe. We of course realise
this is only a certain kind of American. But Fair Use and Open Source
movements have much popular support in Europe, and I feel it is
important to realise that.
I unfortuantely have already pushed this discussion about as far as
I can, as don't know European or American Law in very much detail, but I
think it is interesting at least for the perspective to see how other
cultures are dealing with these same issues, rather than always assuming
the American way is obviously the better one and the only innovative one.
Copyright law as it is exists in the US and as it is being developed
in the US is not well liked in Europe at all. There is a wealth of
commentary over there which might be interesting to look into.
____________________________
New Yorker Linux Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
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