Quote:
Originally Posted by squawker
Why does the copyright exist?
By selling a written work, the author is placing it in the public forum. Our society gives him a "copyright" - a wholly artificial monopoly - on the work, because it wants to give him an incentive to create more. This monopoly is *entirely* a creation of law. There is no natural copyright.
The benefit of the copyright bargain for the society is that the work becomes free for all to make use of once the limited period of monopoly runs.
The more limited monopoly periods which the U.S. had in the past did not stifle literary creativity.
So why did the Congress extend the period of monopoly for authors? To view it generously, I suppose you could argue that since the US generates a large number of works of entertainment, the Congress was trying to protect an important industry in the US. On the other hand, you could view it as the Congress selling out the people's benefit of the bargain.
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Aren't you forgetting that in the past (before ebooks) copyright didn't matter to the general population? You still had to buy the pbook, you couldn't get a free copy. So all comparisons with the past make no sense on that basis alone. Obviously copyright wasn't created to give the public access to free material (after the period of protection had expired) because at the time copyright was written you couldn't even get your Shakespeare for free.
And another question, do you owe the people anything "extra" because they protect your private property? We all, including authors, pay for police and law enforcement (and IP rights are enforced a lot less than general property rights!), so why should an author be expected to do more than pay taxes to have his or her work protected?
There is no bargain between copyright holders and society. Just society doing what is right to protect a valuable group of citizens. And exactly as you mentioned, millions of jobs to protect are worth a lot more to society than a few freebies.