Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Persichetti Serenede No. 12


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Posted by Rick Denney on June 26, 2002 at 11:18:44:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Persichetti Serenede No. 12 posted by Thomas on June 25, 2002 at 18:04:27:

Simple. The copyright owner calls his lawyer, who sends you a cease-and-desist letter plus a bill. Maybe he wouldn't do it for just one guy. But the "just one guys" add up. Brian handled the problem that results.

I know that is not the question you asked, but it is still the answer. Copyrights are fully enforceable even when the publication is out of print.

Let me offer an example that stays within the realm of art but takes it outside our world. The great photographer Ansel Adams announced in 1976 that he would stop making prints on order (except for a very few special cases, such as the Special Edition prints available at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite). The prices for the prints that exist have skyrocketed since. So, if you want an Ansel Adams print that isn't one of the exceptions, and it isn't published in a book, then you have to pony up the tens of thousands that it takes to buy one from a collector or gallery.

Let's say I own one, and a photographer friend wants a copy of it. It isn't available anywhere, but I know my friend would greatly benefit from studying this print. (We could even go further and say that I'm a photographer teacher and he is my student.) So I scan it for him at high resolution and make a reproduction that is much better than he could get in a book, and I justify it to myself because it is for educational purposes. Let's say I'm good enough with a scanner so that my copy is nearly inditinguishable from the original. Let's say I run a few more off for other friends and students.

Where's the harm? Ansel Adams is dead, and he didn't benefit from the resale of his prints anyway. You may have a hard time figuring out where the harm is. But that wouldn't keep the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust from suing you. Why? Because the copies you made eat up the potential market for the reproductions made by the Trust. They'd be worried that the reproduction I made is too good--good enough not to appear to be a reproduction, but not good enough to be the real thing. Thus, the reputation of Ansel Adams will be diminished a bit, which lowers the value of all future projects undertaken by the Trust. Part of their purpose is to promote and protect the reputation of Ansel Adams for the benefit of the trust beneficiaries (Adams's heirs and charitable beneficiaries).

There is another issue, too, which most folks don't understand. Part of protecting one's copyright is enforcing it. If you don't enforce it, you run the risk of losing it by allowing copies to leak into the public domain without resistance. Copyrights must therefore be protected. Therefore, copyright owners sometimes make enforcement decisions that don't seem fair or proportional, but they must do it to protect themselves against the case when someone really is ripping them off.

Rick "who doesn't really own an original signed Ansel Adams print" Denney


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