Letter to The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss. In response to an editorial: Is the Internet to be a
freeway, a toll road Date of editorial: 6/11/98 To the editor: The editorial entitled "Is the Internet to be a freeway, a toll road . . . or a dead end?" is an unfortunate misguided, and perhaps mischievous attempt to mislead readers into thinking that opposition to the administration's attempt to enact the provisions of the White Paper is tantamount to undoing the rights of copyright holders. The administration's bill dangerously empowers copyright holders with the ability to seize, for their own interest and, potentially, against the interest and good of society, rights granted to them only with reservation. If enacted, the administration's copyright legislation will wipe out the traditional rights of fair use given to education, to critics, to commentators and even to newspapers in their quest to serve the public good. Further, I wonder what kind of mind is it that takes Samuel Johnson's snide and misanthropic remark ("No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.") as a motto by which to live. Were it not for literature written in the service of one or another great idea and for other volunteer services rendered to mankind, the world would be a poorer place, indeed. How unfortunate it is that Samuel Johnson's unkind remark is used in this editorial as a smokescreen with which to mislead readers into thinking that the current copyright legislation will guarantee that creators will get paid for work which otherwise might be stolen from them. This issue is not in contention, since the rights of intellectual property holders are guaranteed by both bills before congress. What is in dispute is the future of our system of balancing the rights of creators (more rightly said today, the corporations that hold rights acquired from creators) against the legitimate rights of society to use these works without permission under specific limited conditions. Tell me, among the blockheads who wrote for free, are we to include Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Erasmus, the Framers of the United States Constitution? How much does The Sun Herald pay the authors whose letters to the editor are published? Are we all blockheads, too? Or is it possible that The Sun Herald is blind to the existence of other compensations for creative work besides money. Too bad the Sun Herald doesn't realize that a vibrant creative society depends as much on rewarding the creators of intellectual property as it does in making certain that society has suitable access to the creations of mankind. Robert Baron Previous Letter | Letter Index | Next
Letter The editorial: Is the Internet to be a freeway, a toll road . . . or a dead end? At first, the congressional debate over updating the country's copyright law to accommodate cyberspace seemed as simple as siding with local librarians on the Gulf Coast against the media moguls on the West Coast. Then it dawned on us that The Sun Herald is itself a member of "the content community" that has banded together as the Creative Incentive Coalition to preserve the integrity of copyrighted material on the Internet. The Creative Incentive Coalition includes the Newspaper Association of America, to which we belong, as well as other publishing, broadcasting, software, cable, recording and motion picture associations. The Creative Incentive Coalition has been branded as "Hollywood and friends" by the American Library Association, a member of the Digital Future Coalition, formed in 1995 in response to the Clinton administration's "White Paper on Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure." That document disturbs the Digital Future Coalition because, in its view, the document views the information superhighway as a toll road rather than as a freeway. Congress is now considering legislation that would give much of the "White Paper" the force of law. It is, like so much that has to do with computers and cyberspace, a complicated matter. But one aspect of it is quite simple, at least for those in the "creative community." Prosperity has motivated more writers than posterity "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money," said Samuel Johnson, realizing that prosperity has motivated more writers than posterity. There are plenty of blockheads on the Internet, using computers to spread their thoughts free of charge to every wired corner of the planet. But others depend on the products of their minds - whether in the form of prose or song or picture - to make a living. And those products, in whatever format, must remain protected under the copyright clause of the Constitution. The only 'right' in the Constitution As Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said on the floor of the Senate earlier this year, "In the body of the Constitution as originally ratified, the word 'right' appears only once and that is with regard to the protection of intellectual property. "From our beginnings as a nation, the Constitution has included within Congress' enumerated powers, authority 'to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.' "The importance of protecting and encouraging the intellectual creations of our citizens has always been a fundamental priority for our country and a responsibility of our national government." It is a responsibility that is growing more and more complex. To explore the more technical aspects of the pending legislation, we recommend the two Web sites highlighted in the box above. As for the information superhighway, if we expect our best minds to travel on it, we had better come up with some way to compensate them for the effort. Otherwise, the Internet will be left to blockheads. Abraham Lincoln said that copyrights and patents supply "the fuel of interest to the fire of genius." The Internet needs both the fuel and the fire. The editorials above represent the views of The Sun Herald editorial board President-Publisher Roland Weeks Jr., Executive Editor Michael Tonos, Editorial Director Marie Harris, Associate Editor Tony Biffle and Managing Editor Dorothy Wilson. Previous Letter | Letter Index | Next
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