From kfogel Mon Jul 17 00:31:59 -0500 2006 Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 00:31:59 -0500 Message-Id: <87odvolru8.fsf@floss.red-bean.com> From: Karl Fogel Bcc: jimb@red-bean.com To: themail@newyorker.com Subject: Re: The Injustice Collector. Reply-To: kfogel@red-bean.com Karl Fogel 832 Dolores Street, #4 San Francisco, CA 94110 USA Phone: (415) 642-4623 Email: kfogel@red-bean.com To the Editor, D. T. Max's excellent, disturbing article "The Injustice Collector" (June 19th) was rich in details of how Stephen James Joyce holds his grandfather's books hostage, and Max even raised the dreaded C-word: censorship. ("Joyceans find it especially galling that the estate representing one of the most censored writers of his day -- 'Ulysses' was banned in America until 1934 -- has itself become a censor.") But Max chose not to offer any deeper history or analysis of the system that makes this situation possible, saying merely that copyright "has its origins in eighteenth-century English law", and pointing out that copyright terms are gradually lengthening, thanks to the increasing value of film and recording rights. More's the pity, for Max missed out on the nicest irony of all: copyright is a direct descendant of censorship. In sixteenth-century England, the government concluded that the most efficient way to control the printing presses would be to charter a guild, the Company of Stationers, to become a private, for-profit information police force. The Stationers were given, more or less, the exclusive right to own and operate printing presses, and concomitantly the right to seize and destroy unauthorized presses and books. In return for this monopoly, they ensured that what they printed passed the crown's censors. A century and a half later, the post-Restoration government had less need of censorship, and let the Stationers' charter lapse. Faced with the loss of their profitable monopoly, the Stationers went before Parliament and made a then-novel argument: that authors have a natural right of ownership in their works, and that furthermore, this right -- the exclusive right to make copies -- is transferable by contract. Thus was born the modern copyright, fixed in the secure ground of property rights, and intended more to subsidize distributors than to pay for the creative act itself. Stephen James Joyce no doubt views himself as a defender of James Joyce's literary integrity, but sadly, his actions have much more in common with the censorship function from which copyright springs. -Karl Fogel Editor, www.QuestionCopyright.org