10-13-2010, 02:35 PM
Gutenberg wrote:
I would think the copyright owner should have some control over how his property is used. For instance if he feels that the "fair use" distorts and misrepresents his property, he should be able to sue to have his content removed. It is still his property after all.
Actually, it's not "still his property."
Once the creator has sold a copy, that copy belongs to the new owner. The principle is called "first sale" and it's present in the Copyright Act. It's also, incidentally, the basis of civilization.
The new owner can do almost anything with his copy, except make further copies. Fair use spells out the limited circumstances under which the new owner can copy portions of the original.
If you think about it, you may see that any restriction on your ability to do any damned thing you want to (short of causing physical harm or maybe willful/reckless severe mental anguish) with something that you lawfully purchased and own makes absolutely no sense. It gives the seller a new and completely arbitrary property right to sell in something that he's already sold once before. Such restrictions do nothing but create artificial markets built around state-created monopolies and monopolies are almost never beneficial to anyone except the monopolist.
And that's copyright law in a nutshell.