From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2016 00:58:07 -0600

You seem to be implying that publishers were responsible for the
extension of copyright. In fact, the Association of American
Publishers did not support the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension
Act. In popular mythology it is blamed on Disney, but the larger
driving force was copyright harmonization of US law with European law,
which had been extended under the European Directive and would have
put US authors at a disadvantage had Congress not matched that
extension.  The Act was also upheld by a unanimous decision of the
Supreme Court.

Sandy Thatcher


From: Eric Elmore <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2016 17:20:49 +0000

Does it really though?  Or has copyright become just another tool for
the for-profit publishing industry to extract ever increasing fees
from the academic market?  Copyright started out as a limited right to
authors, but how long does it extend now? 150 years? Longer? That
doesn't sound like a right a human author would realistically need.
It's not an especially large leap of logic to see copyright as having
been subverted and warped, only benefitting the large corporations who
wield it like a bludgeon against the very academics who do the actual
research, and writing, and editing of the materials they "publish".


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Eric Elmore                                                             |
Electronic Resources Coordinator                     |
The University of Texas at San Antonio            |
One UTSA Circle                                                     |
San Antonio, TX.  78249-0671                             |
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