[ExtractStream] Re: My dangerous idea.

[steve bryan]

At 11:49 am -0400 6/29/01, sharkey@a... wrote:
>I agree that things have gotten out of hand with copyright law and that
>things have tipped too far in favor of the copyright holder in recent
>times, but the activities you are suggesting would break not only
>modern U.S. copyright law, but the 18th century versions as well.

Please note that 18th century copyright law, which was novel at that 
time (implying that most of the creative output of mankind has had 
nothing whatsoever to do with copyright law), was notable for what it 
did not cover as well as the few specific activities it did cover. 
Extending it to a new activity without any consideration of how the 
new activity differs from what was already covered would be 
simplistic.

I don't know how far we want to wander in this direction on this list 
since I imagine few, if any of us, are lawyers but we certainly have 
a stake in how these sorts of laws (pertaining to copyright) are 
framed for the future. One guideline I would suggest is to consider 
how the idea of a public library would be affected by one's ideas and 
similarly how private lending would be viewed. If one or the other 
would logically have to be made a crime then my own feeling is that 
such a law needs to be viewed with considerable reservations. In 
particular the DMCA is a police state law for which I have nothing 
but contempt. I fully expect it to be repudiated by the Supreme Court 
when it reaches there but its path so far has been disquieting.

Also when considering the Napster phenomenon please bear in mind that 
there was a Home Recording Act of 1992 which could be viewed as an 
unwise compromise reached by the copyright industry that made Napster 
entirely legal (the view of David Boies when accepting the job of 
counsel to Napster). But with sufficiently deep pockets it appears 
one is not held to deals that no longer appear attractive. Of course 
this is all part of the observation that current copyright law would 
not be put forward as a model of consistency.
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