Sci Journals, authors, internet

[Lucky Green]

Peter wrote:
> (Hmm, I wonder if it can be argued that making stuff intended 
> for public  distribution inaccessible violates the creator's 
> moral rights?  I know that  doesn't apply in the US, but in 
> other countries it might work.  Moral rights  can't be 
> assigned, so no publisher can take that away from you.

Peter has an interesting point, since in addition to common law applies
to a trend in copyright that is prevalent in Europe (and presumably some
other countries), but rather alien to the US, taking that trend further.

For those readers not familiar with this trend, there is the gist of it:

Everybody on this list knows that what buyers of bit strings may or not
do with such bit strings, under pain of incarceration and, should you
resist that effectively, death, is under global attack by the MPAA and
its cohorts.

 What US observers are frequently less aware of is that the same right
is as much under attack, albeit for very different reasons, by the
European cultural elite which has been as effective as the MPAA in
working on their shared goal of dismantling what in the US would be
called the doctrine of first sale. In brief, this doctrine states that
if you buy a book, painting, or DVD, you may read or watch it for as
many times as you please (including not at all), loan it to your
friends, donate it to a library, sell it to somebody else, or chuck it
out with the trash.

The MPAA desires to dismantle the doctrine of first sale for the easily
understandable reason that the MPAA's members would like to approximate
as closely as possible to a state in which each person watching a movie
has to pay the studios each time the DVD is watched. If the technology
existed at a cost acceptable for a consumer device to count the number
of people present in a room watching a particular DVD, the MPAA likely
would lobby Congress to mandate that technology's inclusion to permit
for the collection of per-watcher/watching licensing fees.

The other half of the shears cutting away at the public's right to
entertain themselves with the artwork they purchased in any way they
please is represented by parts of the art culture of significant
political clout, in particular in Europe. Bills are pending or have
already passed, that make it illegal for a buyer of a work of art to
simply dispose of the work, or use it as kindling in his fireplace, once
he no longer desires to own it. No, you can't just burn that painting
you bought from some street corner painter five years ago. Though you
are permitted to give the painting back to the artist. Without
compensation, of course.

Between the corporate objective of charging the readers of a book each
time they read it and the elitist objective of forcing the buyer to read
a book they bought at least on occasion, with both groups united in
their zeal to impose their respective view points onto the public by
force of law and the men with sub-machine guns the law employs, the
future of copyright proves to be interesting. But you already knew that
part.

While the European art circles clamoring for such moral right protection
acts would undoubtedly denounce the assertion that they are working hand
in glove with the MPAA's objective of dismantling the doctrine of first
sale to the detriment of society, the two groups in fact are natural
allies or pawns, depending on their level of awareness of the situation.
Undoubtedly this has not been overlooked by the MPAA, though I suspect
the European artists are blissfully unaware of how they have helped and
continue to help to grease the MPAA's skids.

--Lucky