A Modest Proposal - Eternal Copyright

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by wodin

My search if the US Constitution failed to find the text "copyright", please cite the article/amendment you are referring to.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution empowers the United States Congress:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

[wodin]

Thanks!

[Giggleton]

I suppose you could believe the written history of copyright if you choose to. But for most of copyright's history it was used as a tool of censorship. To think that the purpose of copyright magically changed once it reached the United States is bit foolish if you ask me.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I suppose you could believe the written history of copyright if you choose to. But for most of copyright's history it was used as a tool of censorship. To think that the purpose of copyright magically changed once it reached the United States is bit foolish if you ask me.

Well, copyright only predates the Constitution by less than 100 years. And define censorship? If you are defining it as the owner of a piece of a work preventing others from printing it, then yes, they do, but that is not censorship.

--
Bill

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I suppose you could believe the written history of copyright if you choose to. But for most of copyright's history it was used as a tool of censorship. To think that the purpose of copyright magically changed once it reached the United States is bit foolish if you ask me.

I will most certainly believe the well-documented history of copyright, as would any rational person. Copyright has not been used as a tool of censorship. It is not censorship to require people to pay for books.

No one said or in any way, shape or form implied that the purpose of copyright had changed when it reached the United States. Copyright came about because of the ease of printing meant that authors weren't getting paid for their work; publishers could simply print up copies of the work without paying the author. The intent of copyright was to ensure that authors had an incentive to create. If the ease of the printing press created a need for copyright, the need for copyright surely still exists when even easier means of copying exist.

[plib]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution empowers the United States Congress:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

I guess one can expect the Progress of Science to change a bit over 200 years or so.

If only the poor Inventors had invented something really useful, like a big-eared mouse, then they wouldn't be stuck with only 20 years of exclusive Right, and we could look forward to a period of massive scientific, medical and technological changes?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by plib

I guess one can expect the Progress of Science to change a bit over 200 years or so.

If only the poor Inventors had invented something really useful, like a big-eared mouse, then they wouldn't be stuck with only 20 years of exclusive Right, and we could look forward to a period of massive scientific, medical and technological changes?

That much maligned big eared mouse has created a lot of jobs in the US and lifted many out of poverty around the world. Too bad your grandfather didn't think of something like that.

As for the massive changes, compare our world of today with the world 20 years ago. Forgot that Al Gore invented the internet?

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

That much maligned big eared mouse has created a lot of jobs in the US and lifted many out of poverty around the world. Too bad your grandfather didn't think of something like that.

As for the massive changes, compare our world of today with the world 20 years ago. Forgot that Al Gore invented the internet?

That big eared mouse was utterly dependent on the public domain for its very existence.

[plib]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

That much maligned big eared mouse has created a lot of jobs in the US and lifted many out of poverty around the world. Too bad your grandfather didn't think of something like that.

As for the massive changes, compare our world of today with the world 20 years ago. Forgot that Al Gore invented the internet?

No doubt. More jobs than software and internet based corporations, or automobile companies, or genetic engineering and pharmaceutical companies without question. And much better for alleviating worldwide misery than polio vaccines, anti-malarial drugs, oral contraceptives etc.

No question that the mouse deserves monopoly protection at least 350% longer than the unimportant patents which protect such irrelevant inventions and companies. And Al Gore is in trouble - his internet patent just expired!

(BTW - I think your sarcasm meter needs servicing. Maybe the patent on that has expired also?)

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by plib

No doubt. More jobs than software and internet based corporations, or automobile companies, or genetic engineering and pharmaceutical companies without question. And much better for alleviating worldwide misery than polio vaccines, anti-malarial drugs, oral contraceptives etc.

No question that the mouse deserves monopoly protection at least 350% longer than the unimportant patents which protect such irrelevant inventions and companies. And Al Gore is in trouble - his internet patent just expired!

(BTW - I think your sarcasm meter needs servicing. Maybe the patent on that has expired also?)

You keep forgetting that, due to companies like the one with that mouse, people in countries like China and Vietnam where there stuff is produced enjoy living standards 100 times better than as little as 10 years ago. And they can now afford the vaccines and drugs. Unlike the places that haven't been touched by the Mouse and its companions which still rely on handouts.

[QuantumIguana]

Once they start making enough to afford medicines, the mouse packs up to some country where the people will work for less.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Once they start making enough to afford medicines, the mouse packs up to some country where the people will work for less.

That the mouse did in the past (and it worked out very well for countries like Taiwan, HK, Korea, etc --- they upgraded the industries and can offer their people very high standards of living, but they all started with shoes, bags, garments, and toys) --- but where will they go? China has 1.4 billion people. All the alternatives that are left, combined, can't provide half the workers. That is why wages in China have been going through the roof.