Actually copyrights do expire and they can only be extended if you can show they are in use. To retain the copyright these documents were imaged and are available in a collection. I think it costs around $1500. So no, it isn't really a secrecy thing. It is to retain the reproduction rights to reproduce or not is the copyright owner's choice. Sure people can violate those rights, but that is true with any law. It is only law abiding folks that obey them. Just because you don't agree with a law does not make it OK for you not to obey it. Also just because something is legal does not make it moral, and that will be accounted for.
As one who has authored software it is comforting to know that if you stole it, I have some sort of legal recourse against you. I am neither pro open source or against open source be it software or music or writing. I believe it is the author's choice, and that choice should be protected by law. Having said that, I have written software that is public domain (what open source was called before the current open source craze), and software that is patented. I chose. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jason Holt Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 12:55 PM To: BYU Unix Users Group Subject: Re: [uug] Copyright On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Craig J. Lindstrom wrote: > other things runs commercial digital cameras. One of the uses of this > software was to digitize a large collection of books, journal and > manuscripts for the Church History Department so they could publish some > material that the Copyright was about to expire. The current law is > something like; "if you don't use the copyrighted material then the > copyright can not be extended". The church desires to maintain ownership > (copyright) of these documents, without copyright law all these documents > would be public property now. Remember there are more important things than > music and the latest video driver when considering copyright law. This is somehow confused. Copyright law, unfortunately, doesn't say anything about "using" material in order to hold on to copyrights; they stick around essentially forever. Even if it's vintage movies rotting on their reels, if they were created after the cutoff (1920-something), they'll be copyrighted indefinitely. Secondly, you're saying the church is publishing them to keep the copyright? Publishing implies that secrecy is *not* a goal. Even if it were the goal, copyright law doesn't offer /secrecy/ as a feature: people can reproduce copyrighted works for purposes of analysis, education, criticism and parody without permission from the copyright holder. Eg., check out the transcriptions of simpsons episodes online -- they intersperse the script with commentary, making the reproduction totally legit. -J -------------------- BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
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