By Susan Aker

While the title of a car is in the buyer’s name, it is held by the financial institution that bears the lien until the loan has been paid back. Therefore, GMAC, Ford Credit, SunTrust, the Federal Employee’s Credit Union, or some other lending agency has some real proof to offer in attempts to reclaim the property if the buyer defaults on the loan.

Imagine, if you would, a buyer who, after paying faithfully on the new car he purchased 5 years ago, receives, instead of the title, a letter similar to this:

Dear Buyer,

Last year (your financial institution) began a new policy of extending our 5 year payment period on car loans to 7 years. Because your loan is still active, you must continue to make payments for the seven year period instead of the old 5 year period.

Thank you.

Very few people, if any, would allow such a thing to go unchallenged. Payment periods are fixed, based on the amount of the loan, the interest rate and other factors which do not translate to arbitrary extensions. Once the car is paid for, the loan repaid in full, the buyer expects to receive his title in the mail and not a letter informing him that a change in policy equates a 2-year extension of the payments.

A work of literature, when published, is exchanged for the terms and conditions of the existing copyright law. The work becomes the property of the Public to which it was sold, and the author takes possession of the copyright.

In 1923, under the 1909 copyright act, the term limit was 56 years. The author who published at that time was willing to exchange his work for a 56 year payment period. The copyright, like the title of a car, was his to retain, proving his rights to collect the payments.

In 1976, and again in 1998, Congress decided to extend the copyright term, to give authors a longer period during which to collect payments. Now, those works from 1923, which should have been transferred to the Public in 1979 under the terms existing when they were published, have been extended to 2018, allowing the copyright owners to collect from the buyer for an extra 39 years.

People would raise a ruckus loud enough to be heard around the world if financial companies extended the period during which they could collect payments, for even so little time as 2 years. In most cases, even changing the interest rate is forbidden. This is not so very much different from what has been done to copyright term. Not only has the interest rate increased with inflation (i.e. book prices, CD vs. vinyl and cassette prices, movie theatre tickets,) but they are also forcing the public to keep paying long past the original terms of the contract.

Maybe, and I’m skeptical on the Constitutionality of extensions that go beyond human lifespan, but maybe Congress has a right to increase the term limit on new works. Like a financial institution who decides to change car loan limits from 5 to 7 years in order to enable more people to buy new cars, an extension to copyright term might convince more authors to publish their works. Existing works, however, were already promised to the public at a certain time. Extending the payment period on those works is the same as a lender extending the terms on their payment period. It is wrong and should not be allowed to stand.

Until the advent of the copy machine, the tape recorder, the VCR, and the computer, most people were not very much affected by copyright laws. College students were warned about the proprieties of copying, what is permissible and what isn’t when they go to write their graduate thesis. Some consideration to copyright law would be given by organizers of plays and other public performances. Businessmen, restaurant owners, those who might like to have music in their businesses, were required to heed these laws. But the rest of the people affected by copyright were mainly just the authors and publishers.

Neither college students, nor their professors, seem to have very much influence with Congress. The restaurant owners asked for, and received the exceptions they wanted. And, since publishers and authors[i] benefit from the new terms, they aren’t going to complain.

But we should. Congress has demanded the Public continue to make payments on property that should be ours, free and clear. If you wouldn’t let your bank cheat you this way, you shouldn’t let Congress do it either. We’ve faithfully made the payments required on these works, for more than the original period on anything from the 20’s or 30’s, it’s past time we took full ownership on OUR property.

Some people say that Intellectual Property is a misleading term, that it gives the copyright owners a claim to ‘Property’ they didn’t have before the term attained common usage. I disagree. It is property – property that has been sold to the public. These companies have no right to protect their Intellectual Property because it isn’t theirs. All they own is the copyright, the work exchanged for that bundle of rights at the moment of publication. And the copyright is the lien they hold, the title to the works they publish. But, like the buyer of a car, it is the public’s name on that title to be held only until the term of payment has passed. If the public defaults on the agreement, infringing upon the terms of the exchange, then the copyright owner still has the title and can pursue reparations in court.

But for works from the 20’s through the 60’s, it is Congress, on behalf of the copyright owners, who have defaulted on the agreement. Eric Eldred, and some other plaintiffs, their businesses damaged by the extension, have brought suit against Congress, challenging the 1998 extension. Where it concerns works already in existance before the 1976 extensions, we should add our voices, demanding the transfer of property rightfully ours at the end of the period originally contracted. We should not accept the added cost of retroactive extensions, ever. If the contract were not acceptable, the author would not have published the work. We’ve paid for it and now it should be ours.