| Copyright isn't public property. It's a public protection (or removal of protection) of private property rights.
Duration of copyright is a totally arbitrary number of years, supposedly arrived at by balancing public and private interests. Coincidentally, as Congress has become more and more beholden to private capital, copyright duration has lengthened. And lengthened. And lengthened. This is not healthy for a vibrant intellectual economy.
An analogy would be the estate tax. It theoretically prevents large concentrations of capital from accumulating. Forcing people to give up their copyrights after a certain amount of time effectively does the same thing. Instead of tax revenue, it gives ideas back to the public.
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Duration of copyright is a totally arbitrary number of years, supposedly arrived at by balancing public and private interests. Coincidentally, as Congress has become more and more beholden to private capital, copyright duration has lengthened. And lengthened. And lengthened. This is not healthy for a vibrant intellectual economy.
An analogy would be the estate tax. It theoretically prevents large concentrations of capital from accumulating. Forcing people to give up their copyrights after a certain amount of time effectively does the same thing. Instead of tax revenue, it gives ideas back to the public.
- tom moody 1-16-2003 9:32 am