Let's give another example...Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact has been published since the 1930's and was the leading SF magazine in the Golden years of SF. Something I would really like is a CD series of Analog, much like National Geographic CD's, with copies of every issue from the thirties on.
This was asked for some time back on their web site and the publisher replied that it was almost impossible to do this. Every writer and illustrator would have to be contacted; after 20 -30 -70 years many are dead or impossible to find any more. Even if you could find them the cost and time of arranging all the rights and paying them and arguing with their agents and so one is too high.
And then I suppose there would be gaps where the writer refused to let his article be published again.
And then what would you pay for this CD collection? Like National Geographic, probably no more than $100.
You see the problem?? If we are fair to the writers and their estates then things become so tangled in a mass of rights and payments and documentation that I will never see my CD of Analog.
And if I have to wait until 50 years after they are all dead - for copyright to expire - does this mean that you have to track the age of every writer or wait for 150 years after publication to be sure they are dead?
How long will all these Analogs - decaying swiftly on old sulphite pulp - survive? Is the legacy of copyright that it is too complicated to preserve the past, that we must let everything rot away and be forgotten?
We have to have some practical way to allow magazine articles to be displayed on the internet, even if this does trample some of the authors rights.
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This was asked for some time back on their web site and the publisher replied that it was almost impossible to do this. Every writer and illustrator would have to be contacted; after 20 -30 -70 years many are dead or impossible to find any more. Even if you could find them the cost and time of arranging all the rights and paying them and arguing with their agents and so one is too high.
And then I suppose there would be gaps where the writer refused to let his article be published again.
And then what would you pay for this CD collection? Like National Geographic, probably no more than $100.
You see the problem?? If we are fair to the writers and their estates then things become so tangled in a mass of rights and payments and documentation that I will never see my CD of Analog.
And if I have to wait until 50 years after they are all dead - for copyright to expire - does this mean that you have to track the age of every writer or wait for 150 years after publication to be sure they are dead?
How long will all these Analogs - decaying swiftly on old sulphite pulp - survive? Is the legacy of copyright that it is too complicated to preserve the past, that we must let everything rot away and be forgotten?
We have to have some practical way to allow magazine articles to be displayed on the internet, even if this does trample some of the authors rights.