[ARSCLIST] Copy...right? was: The Incompetence at ENHS

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Miller" <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Mike Loughlin wrote:
>
> > Has anyone ever been prosecuted under any of these "laws"? No. They are just
> > an excuse used by archivists to horde their collections.  Playing these
> > recordings is protected by the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
>
> I do believe some archivists like to horde their collections. One rather
> well known archivist explained his perspective to me..."if we make our
> holding readily available (he spoke of photocopies), it diminishes the
> value of what we own." Well so much for the value of research.
>
> As for the copyrights...feel free to look at my many posts where I
> complain about the conflict between the right to access information and
> the copyrights. I have often wondered if some archive that held a unique
> copyrighted sound recording were to make a copy available off site to a
> researcher if the copyright owner would actually sue the archive. Let's
> just say your archive holds a copy of an unpublished broadcast of the
> Denver Symphony, a broadcast which your archive has reformatted and
> preserved. You make a copy for some qualified researcher to use off
> site. Is the Denver Symphony going to sue the archive? Is there still
> a Denver Symphony? What would they gain? Most audio archives are grossly
> underfunded, so you sue them...you put them out of business and then what
> happens to your recordings...well, with most orchestras, they don't even
> care. So, how about getting a court to issue an injunction prohibiting the
> archive from doing such a thing again? Can you imagine the bad
> press the orchestra would get from such an action...an non-profit tax
> exempt organization (the Orchestra) limiting research. I would love to see
> it happen...and I am, in general, very supportive of copyrights. I do
> believe that one has the right to maintain ownership, but I believe that
> with that right of ownership comes the responsibility of providing access
> at a fair price.
>
Okeh...first, the word y'all were trying to use is "HOARD!" To hoard
something(s) is to collect as many as possible, with no intention of
making it available until it/they become incredibly valuable. A
"horde" is a whole bunch of people (or other entities) which is
what the owner of the HOARD will materialize and pay his prices!

That said, the original intention of the concept of "copyright"
was to make it punishable to make and sell copies of a creation
during the time the creator was selling the creation him/her/itself!
This is why copyrights, like patents, had limited terms of
applicability...the assumption is/was that the value of the
creation diminishes over time, and at some point there is no
need for protection (presumably the creator is no longer able
to sell a significant number of copies...?!).

However, the recording industry seems to assume that the value
of THEIR creations remains fixed and never diminishes...and thus
they need a near-eternal copyright term on sound recordings!
What this means is that, with a few exceptions (one of which
inspired a flame war!), the general public (insofar as they
have any interest at all!) are forcibly isolated from the
audio portion of their past.

So...is this a good thing?

...stevenc