[corroonb]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

That is a strawman argument. The fact that there is a moral argument for something doesn't mean that it is the only argument, merely that it is *an* argument, which can be balanced with other arguments. In fact, we *do this all the time*; societies work by balancing moral imperatives against each other and against practical concerns.

Remind me again what a strawman argument is, please? If you are going to use such terms like insults you would do well to define them or explain yourself. How is my argument a strawman argument?

It is in fact a reductio ad absurdum. I'm not sure how I'm misrepresenting an argument here. Some did suggest an author had a moral right to be rewarded for their labour. I asked some questions about the implications of such an argument. I took the argument seriously and drew out the unintended logical implications of such an argument. I did not say that the person actually believed these consequent implications.That is not a strawman.

The explicit argument was made in the other piracy thread just below and perhaps this argument should have gone in that thread but both threads had common participants and a similar sort of moral argument against copyright infringement (it's theft).

Proposition 1 = An author has a moral right to be rewarded for their labour . This is a basis for copyright law.

Propostion 2 = Copyright law should extend beyond death.

Conclusion = an author has a moral right to be rewarded after death for their labor.

I simply made the point that if one bases arguments for copyright law on an author's moral right to be rewarded, then it is incoherent to both extend this right beyond death and to limit this right to 100 years. If the author has a moral right to be rewarded after death, why should it end after 70 years? Why 70 years? Why not 20 years?

I made the not unreasonable assumption that a moral argument trumps all other arguments as a basis for decision making for an individual. I said nothing about practical considerations and neither did the person making this argument.

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

There is a moral claim for punishing burglars. That doesn't mean that we are torn between executing them or not punishing them at all. There are lots of countervailing claims.

Not a fan of irony I see but at least you understand what a strawman argument is.

There is a moral claim for punishing burglars when they are alive. It makes little sense to punish them when they are dead or to punish their heirs.

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

There are at least two good reasons for extending copyright beyond death. The first is to allow the purchaser to have some certainty about what he's buying: otherwise, you might hesitate to buy the rights to a work produced by an older person or a person with a disease, out of fear that if the person died, the work would suddenly be in the public domain and you would have wasted your money. The second, related reason, is that it insures that even elderly writers can get a decent amount of money for their works...otherwise, publishers might just hold off on buying anything from someone 70+, on the theory that it would become free soon enough.

Good reasons?

Have people suddenly stopped buying public domain books since ProjectGutenberg? Wouldn't publishers make nothing from publishing public domain books if your first point was correct?