tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35428618.post7866769352505654664..comments2024-01-20T00:59:08.689+00:00Comments on Brave New World: A Rights Business With No Rights RegistryMartyn Danielshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02134633193540004531noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35428618.post-5594909870804642872010-11-30T21:36:19.410+00:002010-11-30T21:36:19.410+00:00You've touched on my main gripe with the Berne...You've touched on my main gripe with the Berne Convention, it's open hostility to any mandate for owner registration after as well as before publication. Legally, ethically and practically, that makes little sense.<br /><br />"Real" property (land and buildings) has a centuries-old, government-maintained system of recording ownership, with probate courts taking care of inheritance issues. That's why there's rarely a debate about who owns land, despite the fact that the buying and selling of land is far common than that for book rights.<br /><br /> Intellectual property, while it should not last forever, needs something similar. The lack of an IP registry makes life difficult for those who create and publish. And that 'something similar' shouldn't be run by a private entity with corporate ties that might distort its policies i.e. Google. That makes as much sense as having GM handle auto registration.<br /><br />The real failure of the last thirty years is that the Berne Convention hasn't be revised since 1979. Given the enormous changes that have taken place in the media since then, that makes as much sense as having laws intended for the era of horse and buggies in place unchanged in the U.S. as late as the 1950s.<br /><br />A revised Berne would also give all parties, here and abroad, a chance to have their say. The result wouldn't be something that was worked out by a small group of American lawyers meeting in secret like both the first and revised Google Settlement.Michael W. Perryhttp://www.InklingBooks.com/noreply@blogger.com