NOW with Bill Moyers had a segment on the
ongoing battle regarding copyright/patent law/intellectual property that is
worth your time. At the following
URL is a brief chronological table that is helpful.
Introduction to Copyright in America: “Copyright law protects the expression
of an idea. Almost any expression
can be copyrighted, and copyright attaches as soon as the expression is fixed
in some tangible form. As our
society has become more attached to information as the source of American
jobs, there has been more emphasis on a rigid set of rules to govern
intellectual property rights.
Some cite book trade in Greece in the
5th century BCE as the first example of the concept of intellectual
property, viewing it as the buying and selling of on information. However, copyright law as we know it
today has developed bit by bit starting in the 18th century, when
the precursor of modern copyright, the Statute of Anne, was passed in England
in 1710. This act established
author’s ownership of copyright under a fixed term. The history of copyrights in the
United States follows”: http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/copyright.html
If you are interested in this, the segment
transcript, although not as fully provocative as when speaking bodies provide
drama and nuance, was an excellent coverage of the questions to this
debate: Tollbooths on the Digital
Highway @ http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_copyright.html
Can’t say that I’m a grad level student on
the subject now, but certainly knew much more than I did yesterday.
I thought the proposal to institute a
“relicensing fee” on expiring original copyrights sounded reasonable.
Karen
