On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 15:57:02 -0400, Terry Spragg
wrote:

Cool! Write a certified cheque for 1 dollar and send it to whomever
you think should get the royalties.

If they cash it, or not, you can produce it in court as a
demonstration of your good intentions. It's a lot more than a
legitimate owner might expect to get using a publishing company.

A co-op might pool the proffered funds, with the intention of
seeking an attourney to disburse the funds. CAPO might help. We'd
need an administrator. Copyclub.com should do.

That should assuage your concience, and Judge Judy.

Trade away! Publisher's agent's lawyers chase commercial printing
press bootleggers, not guys like you.

Your last point seems to be that it's alright as long as you don't get
caught? OK. I don't think I'll respond to that. It doesn't seem to
be a profitable avenue for discussion and I expect you didn't really
mean it that way.

This is mostly intellectual interest on my part -- I don't really care
what the OP does and I'm in no position to act holier than thou. I've
doubtless done worse things.

But I've at various times been a musician, a photographer, a writer,
and a programmer of commercial software. As such, I tend to identify
with the problems of the copyright owner more than the average guy
does. It's a little bit different when it's *your* copyright being
abused.

I will point out that there are hundreds of file traders being sued
here in the US as we speak by the studios. Sending a dollar to some
random individual affects your legal standing not one whit. When and
how a copyrighted work is released is at the sole discretion of the
copyright holder. "Good intent" and the state of one's conscience is
entirely irrelevant. In other words, Judge Judy would send you to the
guillotine. But you're probably right that the OP will get away with
it. I hope so, anyway. Right now, the punishment does not fit the
crime, IMHO.

Your co-op idea is interesting. It would only satisfy the legal
issues to the extent that studios, publishers, etc. decided to
participate. According to copyright law as laid down in the
constitution and reinforced by piles of legislation and international
treaties like the Berne convention, we don't get to dictate to artists
how their license agreements work. But it's hard to see how it would
be a bad thing for them.

I'm aware of at least one co-op run by authors to license electronic
versions of their out-of-print works at very reasonable rates. Seems
like a good idea. Studios should look into that. They'd get to make
a little bit of cash off their catalog without having to press dvds
and distribute them.

Right now the system is broken and being propped up by bad laws like
the DMCA and bad technology like MacroVision or the Sony root kits
that have been installed on some unknown number of PCs without the
owners informed consent. Oh yeah, and lawsuits.

Copyrights and patents are the basis of free enterprise innovation.
There needs to be incentive (readrofit) to create and publish
original works, but it makes no sense that the OP should be in
violation of federal and international law (enforced or not,
enforceable or not).

Wow, that turned into a rant. I've been thinking about this lately
and it all just spewed out. Sorry about that.

Obligatory cruising content: this discussion also applies to
copyrighted charts.

More Obligatory cruising content: under the DMCA, the shape of a
boats hull is now considered copyrighted material.


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