Re: [d@DCC] Copyright reform by stealth...

From: "Wallace J.McLean" <ag737 _-at-_ freenet.carleton.ca>
To: General Discussion <discuss (at) digital-copyright.ca>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:24:36 -0400

----- Original Message -----
From: Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>
Date: Thursday, October 21, 2004 11:03 am
Subject: [d@DCC] Copyright reform by stealth...

>  - Do talk about privacy rights, and that these should trump any 
> rights 
>    relating to copyright.  Who the owner of copyright is should 
> have no
>    bearing at all on whether, for instance, "Boudoir photos"  
> should be
>    published without the clear (written?) permission of the subject.


Boudoir photos, schmoudoir photos! 

What people should be asking themselves is, should a stranger have the 
exclusive right, for the rest of his life and for fifty years in the 
grave, to control and publish an image of MY child or MY family, and to 
assign that right to any further stranger?

This is what's fundamentally at issue here.

More philosophically, just because commercial photographers "buy" the 
rights that they can, under the Act, in 99% of the cases, does it mean 
that we, as a society, should GIVE them 100%?

Even more philosophically, where should the benefit of copyright truly 
lie; with the "creator", or with the person who provided the impetus 
for the work to be created? In most cases, these are one and the same 
people. There are, however, exceptions. If you write a letter, as an 
amanuensis, for someone else's signature in the course of THEIR work, 
not yours, should you or they have the right to that letter? Russell 
already raised the "here-take-my-picture" example. And the commisioned-
photos situation is another one.

A Sears or Josten's photographer isn't taking little Johnny's picture 
because he (the photographer) had an artistic impulse, a visit from 
Kodaka, the Muse of Photography, or a flash of creative insight into 
little Johnny's soul. He takes it because John Sr. and Mary put Johnny 
in a sweater-vest, comb his hair, come into the studio, and plunk down 
$69.99, plus tax, for the "Extended Family" pack. Yes, there is a 
degree of skill etc. in composing the picture, but at least in my 
philosophical world, that doesn't mean that the photographer, his heirs 
and assigns, should have exclusive and assignable rights, for many, 
many, decades, in the image of Someone Else's Child -- in most cases, 
until that Someone Else's Child is themselves long since dead.




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