How Crass Can A Legal Theory Be?
I am fully aware of the ostensible purpose and justification of the attempts to "reform" copyright so as to remedy the so-called "orphan works problem". I regard it as dishonest.
You, on the other hand, seem not to be perspicacious enough to look beyond the "orphan work problem" rhetoric.
However, the statements you use to frame the situation are themselves dishonest:
"To be honest though, the whole idea of copyright is to allow a reasonable monetization of a work by the author or their agent." Nothing "honest" in this statement! I have NEVER heard nor read of any copyright theory (at least, prior to Google buying themselves various venal academicians) that states that the benefits meant to be enjoyed by copyright holders are limited to "reasonable monetization". Perhaps you would care to inform us as to what degree of monetization must be reached for that monetization to become "unreasonable" and the work to lose its copyright protection. Or how much that work has to earn in order to be entitled to copyright protection in the first place!!
As for your ideas that a copyright holder should have to defend their copyright, or be obligated to anything at all with it, they reveal you to be either a shill or a dupe of the tech companies who are attempting to free themselves from the obligation to pay for content. Having created something and obtained a copyright, you want the creator to now spend the rest of his life having to defend his right to be protected by that copyright. He needs to keep heaven only knows whom constantly apprised and informed of his whereabouts and ways to contact him. And he must be prepared to legally contest any number of fraudulent (or even mistaken) "orphan declarations" in who knows how many jurisdictions - a task that would quickly bankrupt most copyright holders. In the end this would only play into the hands of large media conglomerates, as being the only entities that could possibly monitor both the internet, and all legal jurisdictions, for improper uses of the "orphan declaration", and then contest them.
In fact, it is easy to imagine Google or similar thieves setting up (many) entities with the specific task of declaring works to be "orphans" - and applying this to both as large a number of works as possible, and to any given work as many times as possible, because they have nothing to lose, and eventually, most copyright holders will have to choose between going bankrupt or surrendering their rights to any number of avaricious and dishonest entities. And of course if the rights-holder does not find out about and can not contest, or is not informed (either intentionally or by oversight) of just one such "orphan declaration" then he loses his rights. So once again, this can only work to the detriment of the copyright holder and in favour of the tech companies and media conglomerates.
Note particularly that I have not even mentioned any legal procedures and attendant expenses that would be needed to *overturn* such an false "orphan declaration".
At any rate, we have the following bizarre situation: a brand of utopianism that is built on expropriating the creator for the benefit of media conglomerates and tech companies.
"Sitting on a work that is no use to you should not be permitted." Who are YOU to say what should or should not be "of use" and therefore "permitted". As an example, movie rights to stories, novels, magazine articles, etc, are frequently purchased many years after publication. Those rights should now be made available to the production companies for free? Why is that, exactly?
Even if you are so crass as to consider "monetization" to be the only purpose of copyright, you seem to think that monetization either occurs within some set timeframe, or it doesn't occur at all.
There is no reason why the rights-holder's possibility for future income should be foreclosed at any time at all, for the sake of someone elses income now.
A copyright holder is entitled to decide what is to be done with his work. And if that includes refusing to maximize and realize its income-generating potential, well you know, that is his legal and moral right - and needs to remain so. If a rights-holder decides to refuse to sell the movie rights to his story, the movie production company should be allowed to simply appropriate the story for itself? Why?
"It was never intended that copyright should be used to restrict the use of the work in other respects such as banning it from use by an organization that you don't like. That is a fairly recent abuse of the copyright idea." This is simply wrong, and stupidly so. That was exactly its purpose. An "organiztion I don't like" is an organization that wants to take my work without my permission and make money with it - regardless of whether that reduces my ability to profit from my work or not. But actually, the idea of "an organization you don't like" does not even appear in the matter. In the US Constitution, the passage states that copyright is for "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". Do you see anything about "organizations you don't like" there? I don't. Nor is there anything there about "purposes you don't like". In fact, if you look at it, it pretty much says that the author has "exclusive rights".And there is no language indicating that the author needs anyone's approval for the rights to be legitimate and enforceable. It seems to me to indicate that "mere whims, caprices, and fancies" are quite legitimate.
Here's an example: if some recording artist, songwriter, or has-been rock star wants to prohibit a politician from using his recordings or lyrics, that is his prerogative - irrespective or whether I, personally, like that politician, or has-been rock star, or not. But imagine that - if you cant: someone spurning "exposure" for the sake of their political or moral views.
Hopefully you have learned something from this little excursus. Let us now look at the matter a bit more closely: copyright was intended to give the holder the exclusive right to dispose of a work. Full stop. Even if the right was only given for the sake of monetization, there is NO legitimate reason for the copyright holder to face the choice of either monetizing it himself, or having it taken from him and given to someone else (tech company, or parasite website, just as examples) who thinks that they can make money from it. The idea that a copyright holder needs to meet any standard of use other than his own whims is stupid. The idea that a rights-holder shouldn't be able to withhold the right to use the work, for any reason whatsoever, is also stupid - unless you think that having courts adjudicate the "probity" of a rights-holder's decisions is a "good idea" - but it is only good for the tech companies, as it makes it yet more expensive for the rights-holders to maintain their rights.
How crass can a legal theory be?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
