Book People Archive

Re: Copyright Term Extensions (was Re: RIP Jim Baen)

[Moderator: I'm not quite sure which bits exactly some of the points below
 refer to, but the submission I got message quoted in entirety Jose's post at
 http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive?year=2006&post=2006-07-27,6
 I've snipped it out of this reply, since it was quoted in whole without
 specific pointers, but you can see that and earlier posts in the thread
 in the archive.  - JMO]


On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Jose Menendez wrote:

Are you saying that there was no possibility of copyright extension
in the US to 28 years before 1831?

If not, could you please include where that change takes place?

My apologies about the mistake about December 31, are you sure that
one never was applied before 1962?  [If I recall your date right]

/

You seem to be ignoring my statement that not many US copyrights
were issued in the first 10 years of US copyright act of 1790,
and my statement as to that being one of the reasons for using
the more round figure of 1800 when calculating mass expirations.

/

As for the term "Merriam-Webster" and the date you stated,
I have many copies from before that date that use that term.

Whether or not that was the legal entity of publication is
merely more legal fine print that doesn't concern many.

/

As for your claim of the list of public domain materials
available circa 1800, I wonder why you didn't mention the
fact that these were not copyrighted in the US?

Thus no date would ensue from which they were public domain.

Didn't you also previously mention that no copyrights were
honored by the US in the early days?

Does that not cast out your own present day arguement?

/

However, please keep after me about all this, as it is a
wonderful learning experience, and I welcome opportunities
to learn more and more about US and world copyrights, and
how they developed and are/were viewed.

I particularly enjoyed the comments you related about the
copyright extensions being bad for the publishers. . . .

However, since most copyrights at the time were contracted
over to the publishers in toto when signed for publication,
I still wonder if the publishers then got the better deal,
just as Ted Turner got with Gone With The Wind and all the
other movies he has the rights to, just as the publishers'
olde boye networke did back then.

If you look at the copyright notice in those olde networke
bookes, you will find many with the publishers listed from
the position of copyright holder, not the author.

This continued for some time, as I understood it, but with
your POV I may need to re-examine these other POVs.


Again my HUGE thanks for all you have put into this.

You mentioned a second message, but I didn't see one.

If you could send me a copy directly, that would be nice.

More thanks!!!

Michael

PS  My trip was great!!!