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Posted by Bob Quintal on 12/19/06 00:02
"Colin B" <Colin B@cb.org> wrote in
news:4585e164$1@clear.net.nz:
>
> Because the copyright holders MUST be aware that large numbers
> of persons are publishing all or part of their work on
> internet, then they need to get together to devise ways of
> stopping this illegal behavior.
It's only illegal because John Q. Public has let the Publishers ram
the nonsense of Intellectual Property into assenine variations on
Copyright law.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/39.html#f
1332
Clause 8. Copyrights and Patents
Scope of the Power
This clause is the foundation upon which the national patent and
copyright
laws rest, although it uses neither of those terms. So far as
patents are
concerned, modern legislation harks back to the Statute of
Monopolies of
1624, whereby Parliament endowed inventors with the sole right to
their
inventions for fourteen years.
1331 Copyright law, in turn, traces back to
the English Statute of 1710, which secured to authors of books the
sole
right of publishing them for designated periods.
1332 Congress was not
vested by this clause, however, with anything akin to the royal
prerogative
in the creation and bestowal of monopolistic privileges.
1333 Its power is limited with regard both to subject matter and to
the purpose and duration of the rights granted. Only the writings
and discoveries of authors and inventors may be protected, and then
only to the end of promoting science and the useful arts.
..
The leading case bearing on the nature of the rights which Congress
is authorized to secure is that of Wheaton v. Peters. Wheaton
charged Peters with having infringed his copyright on the twelve
volumes of ''Wheaton's Reports,'' wherein are reported the
decisions of the United States Supreme Court for the years from
1816 to 1827 inclusive. Peters' defense turned on the proposition
that inasmuch as Wheaton had not complied with all of the
requirements of the act of Congress, his alleged copyright was
void.
Wheaton, while denying this assertion of fact, further contended
that the statute was only intended to secure him in his pre-
existent rights at common law. These at least, he claimed, the
Court should protect.
A divided Court held in favor of Peters on the legal question. It
denied, in the first place, that there was any principle of the
common law that protected an author in the sole right to continue
to publish a work once published. It denied, in the second place,
that there is any principle of law, common or otherwise, which
pervades the Union except such as are embodied in the
Constitution and the acts of Congress. Nor, in the third place, it
held, did the word ''securing'' in the Constitution recognize the
alleged common law principle Wheaton invoked.
The exclusive right Congress is authorized to
secure to authors and inventors owes its existence solely to the
acts of Congress securing it,
1358 from which it follows that the rights granted by
a patent or copyright are subject to such qualifications and
limitations as Congress, in its unhampered consultation of the
public interest, sees fit to impose.
The Court's ''reluctance to expand [copyright] protection without
explicit legislative guidance'' controlled its decision in Sony
Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 1360 in which it held that the
manufacture and sale of video tape (or cassette) recorders for home
use do not constitute ''contributory'' infringement of the
copyright in television programs. Copyright protection,
the Court reiterated, is ''wholly statutory,'' and courts should be
''circumspect'' in extending protections to new technology. The
Court refused to hold that contributory infringement could occur
simply through the supplying of the devices with which someone else
could infringe, especially in view of the fact that VCRs are
capable of substantial noninfringing ''fair use,'' e.g., time
shifting of television viewing.
If the copyright holders don't
> do this, it sends a message to the illegal uploaders that the
> copyright laws are toothless, or that nobody really cares
> about it.
It sends the message that the public is "NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY
MORE"
> So, until the law is changed to make website owners
> jointly responsible along with the uploaders for publishing
> "illegal" material, then the copyright holders are going to
> lose out.
Since Copyright was established in the US Constitution "To Promote
the Progress of Science and useful Arts" the law needs to be
changed to remove copyright protection from works that don't
promote the progress of the one or the other.
>
> This recent news article talks about how internet brings
> together the small contributions of millions of people and
> makes them matter. But as long as the web site owners continue
> publishing material that has not been copyright cleared, then
> this practice will become even more prevalent than it is now.
>
> http://news.com.com/Time+magazine+names+you+Person+of+the+Year/
> 2100-1025_3-6144371.html
>
Knowledge is Power, and the Capitalists want to keep you from
gaining the Power through Knowledge.
It's about the people finally doing what's right, instead of having
the Capitalists stealing their rights to Knowledge.
--
Bob Quintal
PA is y I've altered my email address.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
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