2) we take Steamboat Willie away from Disney, making it valueless
to everybody
If it has value to Disney, then it has value to the public once it moves
into the public domain. For example, several universities had planned
courses and books around the early Mickey Mouse material; clearly, they
expected that material to be valuable to them, and to their customers.
When Congress extended Disney's copyright, those universities filed suit,
calling it an unconstitutional taking. The suit is still going on.
Clearly, allowing people to generate their own value is going to improve
the global lot moreso than mugging the IPR barons.
Copyright is not a right; it is a bargain. You create something, society
gives you a monopoly on it for a fixed length of time, and then society
gets it when that time is up. If you get your copyright extended
indefinitely (or put your materials under copy protection, which amounts
to the same thing), then you are getting that monopoly for nothing; you
are reneging on the bargain. In my opinion, this should mean you lose
your copyright.
/===========================================================\
|John Stracke |Principal Engineer |
|jstracke(_at_)incentivesystems(_dot_)com |Incentive Systems, Inc. |
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own. |
|===========================================================|
|Sleep is for wimps--healthy, well-adjusted wimps, but wimps|
|nonetheless. |
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