[pp.int.general] where is the manifesto?

[Reinier Bakels]

This is the kind of situation that the protection of property (NOT "intellectual property") is supposed to solve. I don't know whether you understand any Dutch or german, but they talk about "vermogensrechten" or "Vermögensrechte". Words that do not remind of intellectual property. 

  I slightly understand German, and -if I am not wrong- vermöge translates as patrimony or good -in the sense of ownable good-.

  Well, I refer to a very specific concept in private law, which is perhaps hard to explain to non-lawyers, but I don't suggest changes to it. Patrimony is not a proper explanation/transformation, I guess.

  In PIRATA, it is commented as a possible solution to prevent commercial author's rights from being transferable at all: that is, if Reinier is the author and Rick the publisher, Reinier can license Rick -until the commercial rights expiracy, i.e., prior to entering public domain- commercial usage of his works; the commercial usage can be settled by a fixed amount or by a variable one -i.e., a percentage of sales-; even, Reinier can allow Rick some specific cases of relicensing -i.e., if Rick's label is a holding, it may have several firms (one for luxury editions, one for low-cost editions, etc)-. However, if you have paid attention to my example, Reinier is always the one who licenses, as he would always be the rightholder -he is the author, and UDHR talks about "moral and material interests of authors"; of authors, and of nobody else (if we don't deal carefully with this issue, the spirit of such provision would be perverted again)-; the editor, thus, would not be rightholder anymore -he just uses a license-.

  Even, the worrying case of the author's own expiracy -i.e., dying before the 5/10/20/30-year commercial term- generates a debate, as:

  - if you allow the author's heirs to behave as rightholders until complete expiracy, in some way you're allowing rights inheritance, thus giving arguments to the lobby

  - if you don't allow the author's heirs to behave as rightholders -it would happen if commercial rights were defined to expire if the author dies prior to the end of the commercial term-, the property fallacy would be contained; however, it would truly become the van Gogh paradox that Reinier talked about last day

  - maybe there can be a third solution: UN ESC talks about ensuring authors an "adequate standard of living"; this can be solved in many ways without exclusively thinking of fixed terms; variable terms, and exclusive and non-exclusive (i.e., everyone being able to commercially exploit intellectual works not belonging to public domain, as long as those who exploits commercially the works pay royalties to the authors) commercial exploitation scenarios; I think that UN conditions give us a considerable margin to act

  Authors rights (in the continental tradition) are divided in to moral and exploitation rights. Exploitation is economic. For existing copyrights, the government should respect justified expectations it created. That's all

  Finally, Reinier, retaking my unanswered question -you have avoided twice to answer it-: would you consider, in the light of PPI proposed reforms on the author's rights framework, commercial rights as property? 

  No, I did answer it, but you thought I did not.  IIRC PP proposes a 5 year (exploitation) copyright. Then it is unavoidable to consider it a property right. Only full abolishment allows it not to be considered as such.
  reinier

                                                                                             Carlos Ayala
                                                                                             ( Aiarakoa )

                                                                       Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman



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