[WikiEN-l] Copyright dispute

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 18 May 2007 at 01:34:33 -0700, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> 
wrote:

> If there is a documented assignment of rights this should pose no 
> problems.  In the long term, however, we need to be more open and less 
> bureaucratic when rights are claimed by inheritance.  Books that were 
> written long ago are often forgotten when wills are written, or if there 
> is an intestacy.  Things can get worse when we are two of three 
> generations removed, or there are large families.

...which is a good reason why it was a bad idea to extend copyright 
terms to the degree they are now (70 years after the death of the 
author in the U.S. and many other countries, still only 50 years 
after the death of the author in some countries; no renewal 
requirement); it causes a very large number of works to fall into 
copyright limbo where they're still not public domain, but the actual 
ownership is difficult to determine or prove.  The old system of flat-
length terms (28 years renewable for another 28) were much better for 
letting "orphan works" become public domain before it's been so long 
that all copies of the work are crumbled to dust anyway.

-- 
== Dan ==
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