[kictanet] COPYRIGHTS (AND WRONGS)]

[alice]

Dear All

Re-thinking copy right laws....interesting developments.

best
alice


http://www.physorg.com/news125154432.html

#PhysOrg News search

COPYRIGHTS (AND WRONGS)

Some of the most important copyright documents ever written are being made
available online for the first time, reflecting growing public interest in
authorial rights in the wake of the internet revolution.

Original papers charting the contributions of thinkers such as
Machiavelli, Martin Luther, John Locke, Daniel Defoe, Immanuel Kant,
Wordsworth, Balzac and Victor Hugo to the development of copyright law
will be available through the Primary Sources on Copyright History
Project, which is being launched in London this week.

The website, http://www.copyrighthistory.org 
<http://www.copyrighthistory.org/> , will offer users anywhere
in the world the chance to examine more than 10,000 pages of rare legal
papers, some of which date back to the invention of the printing press
itself. It has been compiled by an international team of lawyers and
historians, led by experts from the University of Cambridge and
Bournemouth University.

Many of the documents, which include writings by some of the greatest
scholars of the past 500 years, have until now been stashed away in
obscure libraries all over the world. The new digital resource will mean
that for the first time anyone who wants to read them can do so at the
click of a button.

The website's creators say the resource reflects growing public concern
about copyright issues raised, in particular, by the advent of the
internet revolution.

"Copyright law used to be a topic that only affected authors and the
industries that exploited their works," Professor Lionel Bently, from the
University Cambridge and one of the project's general editors, said.
 "Today, everyone who uses a computer, operates a web page,
 accesses online materials, or downloads music from the internet
 needs to be wary of copyright rules.  While in the past copies
 were made by the exploiters - publishers, broadcasters or the film
 and record industries - now they are being made by individuals on
 computers, in their offices or at home."

The documents in the collection will be available both as facsimile images
and in transcribed and translated formats. The earliest is Johannes of
Speyer's monopoly, awarded to the German craftsman by the Venetian
Signoria in 1469, and the first known record of a printing privilege
granted by a European government. From there, the history of copyright law
in Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the United States is traced up to
the 1886 Berne Convention - which broke through the national boundaries
restricting copyright law.

Notable among the British papers is the original parchment copy of the
Statute of Anne of 1710, the world's first general copyright law, and a
model for much subsequent legislation. The Statute granted authors and
their publishers an exclusive term of 14 years (today the duration of
copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years). In order to
receive copyright protection, all books had to be registered at
Stationers' Hall, London, the livery hall of the ancient guild of printers
where the digital archive will be formally opened on Wednesday (19 March).

Users can also examine Martin Luther's indignant Admonition To The
Printers, written in 1525 after one of his manuscripts was stolen by a
typesetter, who then reaped the profit of having it printed overseas.

The father of Protestantism compares his actions to those of "highwaymen
and thieves", adding: "God will see to it that the profit you make on this
will just suffice for you to smear your shoes with it!"

The archive also features prints and privileges by the German Renaissance
artist Albrecht Drer, William Hogarth's intervention that led to the 1735
Engraver's Copyright Act, the philosopher Denis Diderot's letter on behalf
of the Paris book trade (1763), and the constitutional clause of the
United States (1789) that gave Congress the power to legislate in the
fields of patents and copyright in order "to promote the progress of
science and the useful arts".

The editors hope the digital archive will not just prove useful to
scholars and legal historians, but inform legislative debates, such as the
Government's current review of exceptions to copyright law, and the push
by record company executives to extend the European copyright term in
sound recordings from 50 to 95 years.

History suggests that legislators should be wary when industrial interests
become concerned with the "natural right of authors over the products of
their mental labour", as the publishers expressed their argument for the
1710 Statute, and in the subsequent "Battle of the Booksellers".  More
often than not, this argument has been shown to be a smokescreen for
market control.

"History provides useful insights into why copyright was thought to be
desirable and how it has expanded," said general editor Professor Martin
Kretschmer of Bournemouth University. "The primary sources in this
collection show that there are many more ways to reconfigure copyright
norms than surface in current debate. The regulation of an information
society quite urgently needs a wider perspective."

The archive can be pre-viewed at http://copyright-project.law.cam.ac.uk 
<http://copyright-project.law.cam.ac.uk/> .
Its permanent web address is: http://www.copyrighthistory.org 
<http://www.copyrighthistory.org/> .


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