[Solar-general] Fwd: [CopySouth] The Winston Churchill Archives Go Online

Jue Jul 29 16:24:02 CEST 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alan Story <A.C.Story en kent.ac.uk>
Date: 2010/7/29
Subject: [CopySouth] The Winston Churchill Archives Go Online
To: CopySouth Copyright Issues in the Global South <copysouth en copysouth.org>

Colleagues:

Below is a copy of a letter to the editor of the The Guardian
newspaper (UK) that I sent in today. ( I obviously have no idea
whether it will be printed).

I sent it in response to this article in today's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/29/winston-churchill-digital-archive-online

.........
Dear Guardian:

    The words “available online” in the headline “Complete Churchill
archive to be available online” conceal far more than they reveal (29
July, pg 11).

   Yes, it is true that more than one million items of Britain’s
often-quoted former prime minister will be posted on the Internet in
2012 through a digital privatisation deal with the publisher
Bloomsbury.  But in order to access them, every user will have drop an
undisclosed number of pounds in a Rupert Murdoch-like user pay toll
booth, with the profits going to the publishers and Winston
Churchill’s heirs. Why we should have to use a credit card rather than
a free library card to read the papers of a key public figure, Britain
leader during the critical World War Two years? Sixty years later, why
aren’t they part of the nation’s heritage rather than someone’s
private property?

  Indeed, why are having to pay to read something which many people
may think the British people already own? Yes, we did shell out £12
million in lottery funds in 1995 to purchase Churchill’s papers, but
what we foolishly did not obtain from the Churchill family was the
copyright to his papers. As a 5 June 1997 Guardian article,  headlined
‘Cashing in on Winston’ explained, “The Major government often showed
itself less than bright, but to buy the papers without buying the
copyright was an act deserving of stupidity.” In 2010 and for another
15 years, the public will be forced to keep on paying for access and
Churchill’s heirs --- who, after all, did none of the actual writing
and can only cash in again due to the birth lottery of who your
parents or grandparents happen to be ---- have been given a chance for
a second windfall, this time a digital windfall.

 And why for another 15 years? In 1995, the UK’s duration of copyright
was extended from life of the author, plus 50 years, to life of the
author, plus 70 years. Without this legal change, Churchill’s work
would have been in the public domain and freely available in the year
2006 as he died in 1955. The fact that this change also extended the
duration of already published work exposes the supposed justification
for copyright: to give an incentive to writers. How you can provide an
incentive to a deceased author is a question no one has ever been able
to explain to me.

 Additionally, because Churchill’s heirs still own the copyright in
these papers, they will also be able to decide if scholars and others
will be able to use these words --- and how many words are allowable
--- in their own historical analyses of Churchill and this key period
of British history.

  I suggest The Guardian should have repeated the same headline for
this article that you used in 1997: ‘Cashing in on Winston.’

Alan Story
Senior Lecturer/ Reader Intellectual Property Law
Kent Law School, Canterbury, UK.

 .........................
Alan Story
Senior Lecturer/Reader , Intellectual Property Law
Kent Law School
University of Kent
Canterbury Kent
United Kingdom      CT2 7NS
acs3 en kent.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1227 823316
"I have my principles, but if you don't like those, I have others."
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-- 
Diego Saravia
Diego.Saravia en gmail.com
NO FUNCIONA->dsa en unsa.edu.ar