To me, there's an obvious difference between a living artist whose creations
certainly ought to be copyrighted, and corporations who make billions
because of copyrights on scientific research for which they are always, only
partially responsible or arttists' estates, which do not benefit the artist.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bonnie L.
Sherrell
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2017 10:11 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: How Rich Would Bill Gates Be Without His
Copyright on Windows?
How much money it would cost to take an aspirin tablet, you say, Carl? The
German chemist who created aspirin and patented it made plenty of money on
his new chemical derivation of salicylic acid, believe me, for himself and
his company! Have run into him three or four times lately in my reading.
He worked for the Bayer company, which may seem to be a ubiquitous American
concern, but started out life in Germany between the two World Wars.
Hoffman, I think his name was. When the patent ran out, Bayer tried to sue
to keep the name "aspirin" for the product proprietary, but didn't win the
suit. So, aspirin it is wherever it is manufactured now. But you will
notice that Velcro is no longer called by that name, now that its patent ran
out--now it's "hook and loop" since many companies can produce the material.
And as one whose works appear on the Internet, I am concerned for copyright
infringements of my writing, even though I myself may not make any money on
the enterprise since that's the way Christopher Tolkien set up the Trust
that governs what we fanfiction writers who primarily write Tolkien fanfic
can get from our avocation--monetarily, nothing. When illegal mirror sites
began copying the FanFiction.Net site and inserting their own advertising,
we fanfiction writers began inundating those who govern such actions with
complaints and protests. We're not here to have our work used to help
everyone make a buck off our creativity.
And imagine what professional writers would get if their work weren't
copyrighted, if any press who liked the work could produce their own copies
without making any remuneration to the original author--they'd get nothing.
It's one thing when the original writer is dead and gone; but when a writer
is alive and a starving artist and the press he's contracted with can be
scooped by any other publishing house who doesn't have an agreement to pay
royalties to the original author, most people will go with those who either
charge less per copy or who produce fancy collectors' editions. If they,
too, don't pay royalties the author remains a starving artist.
Bonnie L. Sherrell
Teacher at Large
"Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very
wise cannot see all ends." LOTR
"Don't go where I can't follow."
We gave the Goblin King control of our nation!
