Quote:
Originally Posted by bevdeforges
Interesting discussion, but from what I understand, the original reason for patents and copyrights was in order to assure that inventions and works of art would return to the public domain in a reasonable period of time. [...]
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Huh? Where did you get that idea? I suggest you read about copyright, for example see
Wikipedia, before making too many assumptions about why it was introduced. From that article we get:
Quote:
The British Statute of Anne of 1709 was the first act to directly protect the rights of authors.[1] Under US copyright law, the justification appears in Article I, Section 8 Clause 8 of the Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause. It 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."[2]
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization the purpose of copyright is twofold:
"To encourage a dynamic culture, while returning value to creators so that they can lead a dignified economic existence, and to provide widespread, affordable access to content for the public."
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If you look at that article you will see links to the philosophy of copyright, that will give you some of the arguments on both sides, and to the history of copyright that gives some (very limited) idea of what was happening before. People look and see what they don't like about copyright now, what they fail to understand is what went before - as if "in the good old days" everything must have been perfect. Yeah, right.