"Rahul Dhesi" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
"amicus_curious" <[email protected]> writes:
Why would anyone really care unless there were some benefit to be
obtained by the author due to the right to control the distribution?
The copyright act contains language such as "...to distribute copies or
phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of
ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;", all clearly implying a
financial value of the work and direct financial benefit to the author.
It is silly to suppose that the the purpose of a copyright is to lock
up the author's work and deny the public access.
Presumably you, like most of us, simply skip past the numerous case law
links that Rjack posts, having realized that they seldom help us
understand how free software licensing works. Once in a while, though,
he posts something useful that has a significant bearing on how and why
copyright law is actually designed for the same purpose as free software
licenses. Here is an excerpt from one of his numerous links.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=fedclaim&vol=1999/97476c
The enactment of copyright legislation by Congress under the terms of
the Constitution is not based upon any natural right that the author has
in his writings, . . . but upon the ground that the welfare of the
public will be served and progress of science and useful arts will be
promoted by securing to authors for limited periods the exclusive rights
to their writings.
* * *
In enacting a copyright law Congress must consider . . . two questions:
First, how much will the legislation stimulate the producer and so
benefit the public, and, second, how much will the monopoly granted be
detrimental to the public? The granting of such exclusive rights, under
the proper terms and conditions, confers a benefit upon the public that
outweighs the evils of the temporary monopoly.
--
The issue, again, is that the copyright will protect the author's benefits
obtained and so motivate the author to create. Benefits are directly
related to the harm suffered if they are not protected. No harm, no foul is
the conventional wisdom.
It seems curious to me why you would cite this case. As far as I can tell,
RT Computer Graphics sued the Post Office on the basis that their copyright
was violated due to the Post Office's failure to attribute the source of the
graphic used on some stamp to the original author. The finding was that the
Post Office had not violated the copyright since the requirement to
attribute was not a "condition precedent" which is the issue in the JMRI
case, too.
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