Right on law, right on facts, but it raises a more difficult problem. How do we balance social policy needs?
Public performance of plays is clearly an important element in the incentive to write new works. And Chicago is hardly so old that we can say it should have gone into the public domain years ago. (Yes, it would have under the original 7 year copyright, but it doesn't fall into the catagory of things like "Happy Birthday" that have been extended so many times that it becomes a windfall to the author). Allowing public schools to do free performances like this would, indeed, have a significant impact on both the incentive to write plays and the incentive to create distribution systems.
So the copyright law is functioning properly, right? Well, but we have another strong public policy of wanting to encourage high school and elementary school drama. It is educational. It has positive beenfits. And it provides a cheap alternative to those who cannot afford the Broadway tickets.
This does not excuse breaking the law, but it gives rise to a question of policy. "The law" is, after all, a creature of the legislature, created to balance policy interests and goals. We have in the past altered the expectations and repayments of copyright holders for what we consider good reason. Mechanical licenses to foster the development of new technologies is the classic example.
The school here may be clueless. But just ignoring the issue of how do you make public performances for high schools affordable doesn't go away. The harder question is -- what do we do for policy?
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Date: 2006-05-11 09:09 pm (UTC)Public performance of plays is clearly an important element in the incentive to write new works. And Chicago is hardly so old that we can say it should have gone into the public domain years ago. (Yes, it would have under the original 7 year copyright, but it doesn't fall into the catagory of things like "Happy Birthday" that have been extended so many times that it becomes a windfall to the author). Allowing public schools to do free performances like this would, indeed, have a significant impact on both the incentive to write plays and the incentive to create distribution systems.
So the copyright law is functioning properly, right? Well, but we have another strong public policy of wanting to encourage high school and elementary school drama. It is educational. It has positive beenfits. And it provides a cheap alternative to those who cannot afford the Broadway tickets.
This does not excuse breaking the law, but it gives rise to a question of policy. "The law" is, after all, a creature of the legislature, created to balance policy interests and goals. We have in the past altered the expectations and repayments of copyright holders for what we consider good reason. Mechanical licenses to foster the development of new technologies is the classic example.
The school here may be clueless. But just ignoring the issue of how do you make public performances for high schools affordable doesn't go away. The harder question is -- what do we do for policy?