[PEN-L:765] Re: FWD: Re: Mickey protected!

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:44 AM 10/30/98 -0600, you wrote:
>This is an exchange between my brother and myself.  My brother is a
>bit of a libertarian Republican who doesn't feel that the extension of
>the copyright laws are a big deal.  His response to the report I just
>posted is below, followed by my response to him.
>
>If anyone has any ideas on how to sharpen or extend my argument (or
>can point out flaws/weaknesses), I'd appreciate it.
>
>Also, why the hell didn't we know about this earlier?  We should have
>been protesting this.  Who's watching the criminals in Washington?
>

One point is suggested by the proposed amendment that was dropped: if
copyright protection is extended, the people who produced the product
should also benefit. After all, it wasn't the _Disney Corporation_ that
invented the "Ariel" persona in the movie "Little Mermaid." It was one of
their creative staff who I bet gets no residuals at all. (I didn't stick to
the Mickey example, because I think that bastard Walt Disney invented the
Mouse.) Similarly, it's engineers and scientists who develop new products
and production techniques and computer software -- but the corporation gets
the patent.

The actual benefitors from a patent, copyright, or trademark are usually
only those who provided the finance -- not the ones who did the work,
sweated the sweat, etc. That's capitalism.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html