[Amps] Heath copyright

[Glen Zook]

There are no "eternal" copyrights.  Basically, under the Copyright Law of the United States of America an individual copyright is for the life of the author plus 70 years.  For works "created for hire" (and the Heath manuals fit into this category) the length of the copyright is 95 years.  There are other lengths of copyrights but those two are the most prevalent.

Now trademarks are a "horse of a different color".  If a trademark is defended and maintained then it will be in effect so long as the company exists.  But, for copyrights, there is definitely a length of time before the document (etc.) passes into public domain.

The Berne Convention has been in effect since 1886 and the world has survived without any major problems.  Many of the people who object to copyright laws want to profit from the works of others without having to pay for the material.  Although an individual may not think that they are profiting by ignoring copyright law, every single person who ignores the copyright law contributes to the loss of income rightfully due the holder of the copyright.  It is up to the holder of the copyright to decide if they want to profit from the copyright or if they basically want to allow free use of the material and/or put it in public domain.

Glen, K9STH

Website:  http://k9sth.com


--- On Thu, 5/20/10, Jeff Carter <amps at hidden-valley.com> wrote:

One of the things that really bothers me about current day America is how much we talk about freedom and then think talking about it is equivalent to actually having it.
 
If freedom means being free from arbitrary government interference and free from protection/promotion of corporate interest over individual liberty, Americans are not free.  I have had this pointed out to me by Russian hams, who love to tell Americans that they should come to Russia so they could be free.
 
Lest any of you scoff, here is what freedom looks like in Russia:
 
http://www.cqham.ru/sch_eng.html
 
Nothing there is of any use to you unless you already own the hardware.  From my perspective, once you own the hardware, and have paid for it, it should be yours to do with as you please.  If you want to mod it, or dunk it into the nearest toilet, you should have the freedom to do so.  As far as I can determine, just myself and the Russians believe this nowadays, or at least we're the only ones saying it out loud.
 
I am not a believer in eternal copyrights.  I'm thinking that the lifetime of the author is plenty, and 25 years for a corporation is plenty.  The direction that "Intellectual Property" law is headed into will eventually mean that all advances made by the human race will belong to some corporation in perpetuity, which in turn will generate engineering lockdown in the West outside of corporate R&D and signed NDAs.