The duration of rights conferred by copyright

• Author: Cornelia Dumitru
• Position: PhD candidate, Faculty of Law, 'Nicolae Titulescu' University of Bucharest (e-mail: cornelia_dumitru1973@yahoo.com).
• Pages: 52-69

LESIJ NO. XXIII, VOL. 1/2016

THE DURATION OF RIGHTS CONFERRED BY COPYRIGHT

Cornelia

DUMITRU



Abstract

The duration of copyright protection has been a contro versial issue. And yet never completed. It

was and is the key issue of copyright, the same as a re those concerning the recognition of their na ture

and content. If the first law to protect a new creation, gave the exclusive right for the author a s long as

a year , today its duration is, ba sically the whole life of the author’s plus 70 years for the heirs. Some

argue tha t it is unwise. Others that should not be a s such at all.

In r eality, the copyright in the widest sense of the term of copyright for the purposes o f la w

complex that regulates the rela tions between the author with his work and of the relations between the

authors and other s on his work, this right never ceases. The oldest sculpture (Venus Wilfredo),

paintings of Ardeche, Vezere and Altamira, even if you do not know who created them, will belong

forever, not just in the consciousness of humanity as a whole, but also according to unwritten rules of

law before the law was cr eated by humans, to whose who created them. Even if you do not know who

created them and say that they belong to the universal culture. As everyone’s works that were created

right after the r ules of law were crea ted by humans, but before the recognition of copyright by special

laws, will belong forever to the universal culture as well.

As for the right cr eated by and after recognizing and codifying copyright notice that he is tr ying

to har monize the inter ests of authors and those of the public and to make pea ce between the author

with his audience in a more general interest, and the solution for reconciliation and / or har monization

was limiting the length of some of the a ttributes of copyright. A solution tha t makes copyright law

without a r ight to have the benefits after a while, that every owner ha s of his property. F urthermore,

the link between the author and his work remains eter nal because none other tha n the author may not

claim ever to be the author of and ha s a copyright on that work. But neither the author ca n claim ever

to have a r eal ownership of the work that still belongs to him and him only. Copyright proves to be a s

different from any other category of rights.

Keywords: Exclusive right, right limited by time, ownership, monopoly operating.

1. Time limitation of the rights of

the author

Referring to the duration of protection

of works under copyright disputes

(political, legal, doctrinal and

jurisprudential) which were long, even after

it was admitted that the economic rights are

the first to be recognized whereas the moral

ones are due much later for the authors.

 PhD candidate, Faculty of Law, "Nicolae Titulescu" University of Bucharest (e-mail:

cornelia_dumitru1973@yahoo.com).

Moral rights, within the protection system

of the Berne Convention, we believe,

rightly, honestly, that precede the

ownership in their existence conditional on

the property. B ut after the economic rights

were afforded to the authors, they were

severely limited in time, and the opposition

against extending the duration of their

protection continues to manifest today. And

it is noteworthy that during the nineteenth

century, personal prop erty rights were

Cornelia DUMITRU 53

LESIJ NO. XXIII, VOL. 1/2016

afforded to the authors, were resumed and

disputes were made on the nature of

copyright and qualification copyright as

ownership was brought to the date of

merchantability rights, the growing interest

including creators, to p atrimonial aspect

of copyright, moral rights passing from the

point of view of immediate interest of

authors in the background.

Arguments against the recognition of

copyright have always existed since ancient

times, the movement copyleft was only

apparently new, because nowadays it does

not make opposition known to history only

as to the means and arguments used not in

its substance, which it's the same. The Pirate

Party today is manifested even in the

parliaments of Western cou ntries which

cannot be said to be opponents of copyright.

The Pirate Party today is manifested even in

the parliaments of Western countries which

cannot be said to be opponents of

copyright

1

. More fair to say that the

movement copy left is new only in the

designation adopted recently by opponents

of copyright, i.e. the position of quasi-

majority, which recognizes the right of

authors in their own works, to be suggestive

and impact greater public debate it causes.

In fact, copyright has enemies since

ancient times. Recall that b oth Plato and

Confucius believed that people are born

with all her ideas, ideas that come to us from

the past and not our own, and our

knowledge is a gift of the gods, so we

cannot claim any rights over them.

Francoise Chaudenson tells us that Socrates

and Plato „artists do not deserve any special

considera tion because beauty that

expressed in their work, was outside and

dictated by a divine force, they a re merely

messengers r ather th an" crea tors "nor the

1

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2

Chaudenson Francoise, „A qui appartient l`oeuvre d`art”, Armand Colin, 2007, p. 19.

owners of their work. Socrates, even

"hunts" countr y poets because they were a

threat to the future of the city, as later

church fathers condemn the seductions of

art and will delay and hinder th e city

enriching divine.”

2

Aristotle, a disciple of Plato, was also

influenced by the d esign of his master, of

creations and creators, and its concepts,

which were the basis of education in Europe

for hundreds of years, including the most

famous university of the Middle Ages, that

of Padova, marked course all those who

were formed at the school of Aristotle. For

the ancient Greeks, Socrate s, Plato and

Aristotle, artistic creation were nothing

more than an imitation of nature, or an

imitation of imitation. In ancient Greece,

the man could not claim to be the creator,

the actual meaning of the ter m, since the

ideas, inspiration and words were

transmitted artists gods or nine muses, and

art imitates nature only. And d uring the

Dark Ages, no matter how genius, he had,

he could claim creator, because it clashed

with the Church, which claim to be the

creator could only be blasphemy of the

author and his work were purified by fire.

Some consider that the rights belong

to the author as long as the work has not

been made public. With the disclosure of

her work, it would become of all. Not true!

Because if it is true that after being

informed, their work has its own destiny

and can survive its own author (it happens

to all valuable works), one cannot attribute

the authorship of the work to another. And

it could not do it even when the cop yright

was not protected by spec ial laws, but with

the risk of becoming the target of public

opprobrium.