On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Craig J. Lindstrom wrote:
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'm not sure where you're getting this information from, but I'd be very interested to find out ... by "extended" do you mean filing for a "renewal of copyright" or are you talking about something else?
The only thing I can find that might apply here is non-copyrighted, *non-published* works created before 1978, which can be copyrighted if published now.
If these works were already copyrighted, then Public Law 102-307, so far as I can make out, makes renewal automatic, meaning these works wouldn't go into the public domain for at least dozens of years hence ... unless they were originally copyrighted before 1964, in which case they would have to be renewed 28 years after their copyright date, which would have long passed (1964 + 28 = 1992).
I realize there are a lot of nuances and strange exceptions in copyright law, but perhaps that's why I'm so curious as to this "can only extend if they are in use" idea you keep talking about, as I've never seen anything like that before.
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.
So then what's the point? If they're not trying to make money off the copyrighted works, and they're not trying to keep them secret, then renewal of the copyright doesn't really seem even "more important than music and the latest video driver," however insignificant those issues might be.
Just because you don't agree with a law does not make it OK for you not to obey it.
I agree with this, but I don't agree with the implication that simply because something is a law means that you *should* obey it. From early Church history to the civil rights movement, I think most people recognize that it is sometimes morally imperative to disobey an unjust law.
But hopefully you just meant what you said and not what I felt it implied :-)
~ Ross
--
This sentence would be seven words long if it were six words shorter.
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