Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Do you want to discuss piracy or copyright?
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We're discussing copyright piracy (as opposed to piracy of ships at sea).
This was the reason for my 'welcome to the discussion' line earlier.
They are not separate issues.
The simple answer to twowheels is:
"Copyright law allows for it, it's not a fringe case, it's copyrighted, so sharing it without permission is against the law. End of story."
The slightly longer answer is, if you feel the copyright law is doing society a disservice there, work to reform the law. I'm all for that.
There is also a less clear (to me, as I'm not an IP expert) issue concerning orphaned works, works where there is no way to determine who to ask for permissions, but I don't think that's an issue for Mark Twain's works.
On the other hand, Mark Twain, in his own copyright reform advocacy, said something like he wanted to protect his copyright for himself and his children. His grandchildren 'could fend for themselves.'
So maybe he meant to release his works to the public domain after his children passed....?