Pope troubled by "excessive zeal" over copyright protection

While authors have the right to be recognised and rewarded for their work, the purpose of intellectual property protection is the "promotion of literary, scientific or artistic production and ... inventive activity for the sake of the common good", Vatican officials said.

A delegation of the Holy See told a gathering of the World Intellectual Property Organisation that Pope Benedict is troubled by the "excessive zeal" with which rich countries have been protecting their intellectual property rights, especially when it comes to health care in developing countries, reports the ZeroPaid website.

"On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care," Pope Benedict says in an Encyclical Letter quoted by the delegation at the 48th World Intellectual Property Organization General Assembly last month.

The report said copyright holdings have become the bedrock of profits for an array of business interests, multinational corporations like those in the movie and music industry in particular and there has been an increasing push to protect them at all costs, even to the detriment of society and culture.

"The raison d'être of the protection system of intellectual property is the promotion of literary, scientific or artistic production and, generally, of inventive activity for the sake of the 'common good,' said the delegation.

"Thus protection officially attests the right of the author or inventor to recognition of the ownership of his work and to a degree of economic reward. At the same time it serves the cultural and material progress of society as a whole."

"Also, people like you are what make it so difficult to join the conservative movement, with statements like, “It’s not my problem if Stephen Foster didn’t handle his finances...” What a cold vicious statement. He was the embodiment of America’s very heart, and he died in anguish and poverty because there weren’t laws to protect his authorship."

As I said, you have a VERY active imagination. Stephen Foster died LONG after the establishment of the Constitution, and the passage by the Congress of copyright laws (The First U.S. Copyright Law Signed in Script Type by George Washington Appearing in The Columbian Centinel of July 17, 1790). Foster was BORN in 1826.

http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/copyright/

To state that "he died in anguish and poverty because there weren't laws to protect his authorship" is simply a ridiculous assertion. The laws were in place. Why he failed to take advantage of them, I couldn't guess. But those are the facts. I suggest more clear thinking and looking up facts, and less emotionalism.

"You don’t seem to have any feeling function or connection with real life.or even the ability to understand that your plodding literal interpretation of a statute has no application to reality. The modern day concept of copyright didn’t exist then. There were no performance rights organizations to protect writers. Everyone should care about the life and work of one of country’s seminal writers."

LOL, more imagination. Look, I base my actions on FACTS, not emotions. The "concept of copyright" hasn't changed AT ALL in the time since the Congress passed, and Washington signed, the first copyright act. The only major changes have been very modern ones to reward non-creators like the motion picture and music industry....NOT the individual artists. LOOK IT UP.

"Performance rights organizations" aren't a function of government, nor the copyright laws, nor anything other than the free association of artists. They are irrelevant to this discussion, which is about copyright LAW.

As to "caring" about the life and work of one of the country's seminal "writers" (I thought he was a musician, not a writer)....under the existing copyright laws of his time, many other authors and composers managed to succeed. Foster failed. Why were others successful in their endeavors and he not??

I don't know what your emotional attachment is to Foster, but don't expect me to follow suit. But if you can't summon up the rationality to examine the situation on any other basis than emotion, perhaps "the conservative movement" would be better off without you.

Actually, I think the conservative movement urgently needs more people from the arts and culture and has way too many heartless phiistines - how many angels can dance on the head of a pin — types.
You miscast the conversation when you keep harping on what you call facts — really just a bullying way of not allowing new information into the dialogue. You seem not to even know who Stephen Foster was when you say you thought he was a musician not a writer. (He was both — how is that for a fact.) To me that disqualifies you to even have a dialogue about him. He was and remains, one of the most important Americans, ever. Cities should be named after him. Your attitude about him in this exchange — cold, unfeeling, uninformed and disparaging — exemplifies all that is wrong with the conservative movement and why more people from arts and culture who don’t want to be on the left don’t come over to the right.

The conversation was not only about law — it started with the posting of a statement by the pope and went on to the reason for and ethics of the idea of ownership and use of material and the protection of artists. Performance rights, which are linked to copyright, were not protected in the 19th century the way they are now. Music is different from other types of arts because it is a pie with 200% — the author’s rights and the publishing rights. There was a huge change in the law when the author’s rights became non-transferable — the publishing can be sold over and over again. Prior to this change, thousands of authors /musicians were cheated out of their rights.

"You miscast the conversation when you keep harping on what you call facts — really just a bullying way of not allowing new information into the dialogue. You seem not to even know who Stephen Foster was when you say you thought he was a musician not a writer. (He was both — how is that for a fact.) To me that disqualifies you to even have a dialogue about him."

Actually, YOU seem to be the one not well qualified to talk about Foster. I've bothered to take the time to check into biographical information, and here is a quote:

"While he had substantial royalties from his publishers in New York, his debt increased along with his dependency on alcohol."

So, it appears that Foster was "substantially successful" in spite of the so-called "limitations" on copyright law.

I'm afraid that, despite your fantasies, the story of Stephen Foster is a VERY old one, and continues in the "musics and the arts" culture that you are so fond of. Alcoholic son of an alcoholic father, initially achieves great success. Triggered by either that success, or some downturn in success, the addiction to alcohol (add "recreational drugs" today) increases, leading to an inability to succeed and making bad judgments, and ultimate destruction of the artistic career, and sometimes death. This goes on even today, in spite of the improvement in copyright law.

One doesn't know how much alcohol contributed to the incident that actually caused his death. Supposedly he "suffered from the ague" fell down in his hotel room. Hit his head on a ceramic washbasin, which broke and caused a substantial cut. Unconscious, he had almost bled out, before being found by the chambermaid who was bringing him towels. Despite being taken to a hospital (or perhaps because of it), he succumbed to his injuries.

"Your attitude about him in this exchange — cold, unfeeling, uninformed and disparaging — exemplifies all that is wrong with the conservative movement and why more people from arts and culture who don’t want to be on the left don’t come over to the right."

LOL, more fantasies. I appreciate Foster's music as much as anybody. No, I wasn't "up" on his whole life history. I'm a scientist, so "artsy" bios are of not much interest. But Foster's story pretty much parallels that of Nicola Tesla, which I am familiar with.

But the difference is that "I" took the trouble to actually check the facts, something the "arts and culture" types fail to do, cruising along on their "feelings", and what they hear at their "artsy" group parties.

"There was a huge change in the law when the author’s rights became non-transferable — the publishing can be sold over and over again. Prior to this change, thousands of authors /musicians were cheated out of their rights."

Now, I'll ask this question....was this "change in law" due to the passage of actual legislation, or due to some artist successfully suing a publisher and getting a legal precedent set. Those two situations ARE just slightly different. I'm talking about written law as passed by legislatures....not legal precedent.

And finally, the term of copyright I favor WOULD HAVE PROTECTED Foster's situation..that being "the author's lifetime or seventy-five years, whichever is longer", if his problem was actually legislated law and not legal precedent.

As I said, I base my opinions on facts, not fantasies, and not emotions. You see that as "cold and unfeeling". Too bad...you're wrong.

And I'll offer this observation about the "science culture" vs the "arts culture". If you check into the careers of top scientists, you will pretty much inevitably find that they are also artists of some significance, and so understand the arts. The opposite is NOT true.

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