Friday, January 31, 2003

Sobre o domínio público e o caso Eldred
De Linda Gruber
Novel Art
http://www.novelart.com
If your goal is to nudge languishing copyrighted works into the public domain
sooner, why not petition Congress to offer a tax incentive for donating works
that copyright holders don't plan to exploit themselves rather than thinking of
ways to unfairly push creators into giving up copyrights. Creators' heirs already
give more than other citizens. Who else in our capitalistic society is forced to
give up valuable holdings to the public domain without any compensation for
the loss of income their unique property can potentially produce?
Minha resposta:
The issue is lost when you suggest that a tax incentive should be given to induce authors to donate works to public domain. Economic analysis (it would seem to me) would think that proposal quite a paradox.

The Government incentive already exists. Copyright in itself is an artificial (although necessary) Government interventive action to induce authors to create. If public interest advises that works should remain in public domain, just cease or limit the incentive already granted. Can you imagine a Government subsidy to plant wheat, and a second one to pay for the fuel for burning the same wheat? Oh, that happened in Brazil with coffee, but then , as Charles de Gaule said, Brazil is not a serious country.