Re: Pluto's OK
- From: Brett Paul Dunbar <brett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:25:23 +0100
In message <QLmNg.3487$726.1871@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Scott Hedrick <dinehnmKILLSPAM@xxxxxxxxx> writes
"Brett Paul Dunbar" <brett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:DDGHy2urS1AFFw+L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
That would violate the Berne convention, as the treaty prohibits requiring
any kind of formality to establish or retain copyright on the general
principal that copyright should not be lost accidentally or due to
ignorance of a specific legal system.
You misunderstand- we weren't saying that copyright would be lost without
registration. The registration was to give notice of the most current
copyright holder, to avoid a copyrighted item from becoming an orphan, thus
making it impossible to legally get permission to copy. There's currently no
process to get permission to copy or reprint something in copyright where
the current holder cannot be found, essentially making such an item useless.
There are thousands of items currently in copyright, but for which the
current owner is unknown. The registration process we were describing
involved items which have transferred ownership- if someone buys or
otherwise knowingly obtains the copyright to an item, then they should be
required to register that change of ownership, so as to allow the public to
contact them if it is desired to duplicate an out-of-print item. One way to
ensure this is done is to require registration within a limited period of
time of the change of ownership. The penalties for not properly registering
could be as drastic as losing the copyright, or it could be that the item is
treated as an orphan if a duly diligent search cannot uncover the proper
owner, and thus the item could be legally reprinted at the standard
government-issue rate, with the royalties thus held in trust until the true
owner comes forward. Thus, orphans can be legally reproduced even without
the permission of the copyright holder, *unless* the current holder declares
at the time of registration that the item is not to be reprinted without
permission.
Actually I didn't misunderstand. Virtually any penalties for failing to register would violate Berne, loss of copyright certainly would it is absolutely forbidden to impose any formalities for the retention of copyright. In practice if a publisher has made a good-faith effort to find the copyright holder and places a reasonable royalty in an escrow account they should be OK, as they have clearly demonstrated an intent to pay.
Suitable rules would allow registration after the deadline, but would not
allow such registration to cancel projects involving the no longer orphan
item that were started during the time of orphanhood, nor would it allow a
change in royalties for anything done before proper registration. If the
copyright is considered valuable to the owner, then the owner should take a
minimum step to protect it.
It's not an attempt to get something for nothing, rather, it's an attempt to
prevent something from becoming nothing simply because the owner cannot be
found.
It would breach the Berne convention. A simpler approach would be allowing an explicit good-faith defence, i.e. that a good faith attempt to locate the copyright holder has been made and reasonable royalties placed in escrow, that would be permissible.
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