Copyright, both in the US and internationally, is JUSTIFIED as protecting creators and ensuring they get some of the value they bring to the world. It’s ACTUALLY standard politics and balancing what big lobbyist corporations want and what lawmakers think won’t get them recalled by the public.
If it were possible to have a sane system, it would NOT be one-size-fits-all. The duration would be variable based on multiple dimensions of legible value given and received. Everything gets, say, 5 years. Then perhaps a bidding process to extend 5 or 20 years (with additional later bids if the full term isn’t bought), with some discount or advantage to the current holder.
Dagon, yes that seems like a reasonable setup. Its pretty amazing that world and life altering inventions gets a protection for a maximum of 20 years from the filing date where as if someone doodles something on a paper get a protection that lasts the life of the author plus 70 years. But… maybe the culture war is more important to win than the technology war?
Anyways, with the content explosion on the internet I would assume that pretty much every permutation of everything that you can think of is now effectively copyrighted well into the foreseeable future. Will that minefield prove to be the reason to reform copyright law so that it fits into a digital mass creation age?
Note that patent and copyright limit different kinds of use, and apply to different things, so there’s no reason to compare them, and no real reason they should have similar terms. In both cases, though, there are very different circumstances, different investment levels, and different re-use (and expansion) possibilities for the idea or expression, and there should be variable terms. Oh, and variable enforced-licensing and fair-use regimes.
yes, they are in some ways oranges and apples but both of them put a limit on your possibility to create things. One can argue that immaterial rights have been beneficial for humanity as a whole, but it is at the same time criminalizing one of our most natural instincts which is to mimic and copy what other humans do to increase our chance of survival. Which lead to the next question, would people stop innovate and create if they could not protect it?
Sure, the point is to legibilize and monetize (“protect”) the creation of valuable expressions and inventions. The fact that some of the motive is to make it visible enough to tax transactions around it is kind of irrelevant. I can’t think of a way to do that except by limiting the ability of others to copy/reuse them.
I don’t have a strong opinion on when or whether it’s a good mechanism for fostering innovation. I suspect there are better ways, but probably not enough better that we’ll find and implement them through the headwinds of inertia and currently-mostly-OK.
I DO have a strong opinion that we overgeneralize and apply the same rules and limits to very different types and scales of thing, and the current setting is too much in duration and coverage.
Copyright, both in the US and internationally, is JUSTIFIED as protecting creators and ensuring they get some of the value they bring to the world. It’s ACTUALLY standard politics and balancing what big lobbyist corporations want and what lawmakers think won’t get them recalled by the public.
If it were possible to have a sane system, it would NOT be one-size-fits-all. The duration would be variable based on multiple dimensions of legible value given and received. Everything gets, say, 5 years. Then perhaps a bidding process to extend 5 or 20 years (with additional later bids if the full term isn’t bought), with some discount or advantage to the current holder.
Dagon, yes that seems like a reasonable setup. Its pretty amazing that world and life altering inventions gets a protection for a maximum of 20 years from the filing date where as if someone doodles something on a paper get a protection that lasts the life of the author plus 70 years. But… maybe the culture war is more important to win than the technology war?
Anyways, with the content explosion on the internet I would assume that pretty much every permutation of everything that you can think of is now effectively copyrighted well into the foreseeable future. Will that minefield prove to be the reason to reform copyright law so that it fits into a digital mass creation age?
Note that patent and copyright limit different kinds of use, and apply to different things, so there’s no reason to compare them, and no real reason they should have similar terms. In both cases, though, there are very different circumstances, different investment levels, and different re-use (and expansion) possibilities for the idea or expression, and there should be variable terms. Oh, and variable enforced-licensing and fair-use regimes.
Dagon thank you for follow up on my comment,
yes, they are in some ways oranges and apples but both of them put a limit on your possibility to create things. One can argue that immaterial rights have been beneficial for humanity as a whole, but it is at the same time criminalizing one of our most natural instincts which is to mimic and copy what other humans do to increase our chance of survival. Which lead to the next question, would people stop innovate and create if they could not protect it?
Sure, the point is to legibilize and monetize (“protect”) the creation of valuable expressions and inventions. The fact that some of the motive is to make it visible enough to tax transactions around it is kind of irrelevant. I can’t think of a way to do that except by limiting the ability of others to copy/reuse them.
I don’t have a strong opinion on when or whether it’s a good mechanism for fostering innovation. I suspect there are better ways, but probably not enough better that we’ll find and implement them through the headwinds of inertia and currently-mostly-OK.
I DO have a strong opinion that we overgeneralize and apply the same rules and limits to very different types and scales of thing, and the current setting is too much in duration and coverage.