'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'

Subject: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 11 Feb 00 - 11:54 PM

This month, on February 22, falls the 226th anniversary of the decision by Lords of England in the case of Donaldson v. Becket, 17 Parl. Hist. Eng. 953 (1774) in which the lords utterly rejected the absurd notion, which had been brought by the London publishers' lobby, that copyright was rightly perpetual under the common law, even after the passage of the "Act for the encouragement of learning" in the 8th year of Queen Anne. The lords voted twenty two to eleven to dissolve an injuction that had been brought against an Edinburgh publisher on the basis of the stationers' notion of common law. In effect, the lords rescued what we now call the public domain from oblivion-by-sophistry.

Among the 22 lords voting on the side of freedom (against perpetual copyright) was one Earl Spencer, presumably an ancestor of the late Princess. Voting to keep mankind in perpetual intellectual serfdom (i.e. for perpetual copyright) were the Archbishop of Canterbury (shame on him!) the Duke of Northumberland, and 9 others.

Some of the residents of Edinburgh received the news of the decision with "great rejoicing...upon victory over literary property: bonfires and illuminations, ordered though by a mob, with drum and two pipes." (I assume the "pipes" were bagpipes, though they might have been tabor pipes.) And in fact, the lords of the Scots Court of Session had anticipated the English lords' decision, finding in the case of Hinton v. Donaldson (July 28, 1773) that there was no copyright in the common law of Scotland, and hence the only copyright in Scotland was the limited copyright provided by the statute law.

These cases were only a temporary setback for the monopolists. Their centuries-long quest to restore the Star Chamber and the Stationers' monopoly will have nearly succeeded in the U.S. if the Database bill and UCC2B become law. On the other hand, if we can roll back the scope and duration of copyright to more reasonable levels than at present, we will make the world safer for the folk process. That would give us reason to celebrate our own "victory over literary property" with a bonfire and bagpipes.

T.

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 05:49 PM

Okie,

Query:

Database bill and UCC2B

????

New here.

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 06:27 PM

Praise, I think it might be easier if you'd check a few of the Mudcat in Trouble and Copyright threads. You'll probably learn more than you wanted to know.

And T.......If you throw on a banjo, it'll light faster and an accordion will keep it burning longer.

Spaw

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: sophocleese
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:12 PM

Shawms make good kindling too. You can use trombones as toasting racks.

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: GUEST,Dave Swan
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:27 PM

No, no, no. Research reveals that the bagpipes are to be used as bellows to accelerate the fire under the dulcimers. Catspaw, you've got to come to California soon for remedial revisionist music history. Cheers, E.S.

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:36 PM

OK, guys, I get it

I think my newbie status must be about worn off now, darn

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:38 PM

Geeziz...how weird...I just sent you an e-mail El S. See how you do with WW, Susan A-R, and Guy Wolff first. If you can teach them anything, then maybe you have about a 1 in47 chance of getting anything thru to me.

I was just thinking though that if you used the pipes as fire dogs it would be more efficient.

Spaw

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: GUEST,Okiemockbird
Date: 12 Feb 00 - 09:53 PM

Who was the Wag who said that the Bodhran should be played "with a penknife" ?

I rather like banjos. Accordians, however are not an improvement on portative organs.

T.

Subject: RE: 'bonfires, with a drum and 2 [bag]pipes'
From: GUEST,Okiemockbird
Date: 13 Feb 00 - 02:00 PM

Praise, a good place to check for UCC2B and the Database Bill is Charles Mann's article, Who Will Own Your Next Good Idea ? from the September 1998 Atlantic Monthly. It is available on-line in three parts:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98sep/copy.htm

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98sep/copy2.htm

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98sep/copy3.htm

The discussion of UCC-2B and the so-called "Collections of Information Antipiracy Act" (Database Bill) is in the third part.

The short description, if you don't want to look through Mann's article: some versions of the proposed article 2B of the Uniform Commercial Code would allow Max to sell you the Digital Tradition with a shrink-wrap license. This "license" could oblige you to pay Max even for use of the public domain components of the DT.

The Database bill is harder to describe, but it too (at least in the last draft I read; it may have been revised since) could subject to an additional layer of legal uncertainty the use even of public domain components of large collections of music.

T.