Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Duntemann
The capital costs of print publishing made this impractical until very recently, but with services like Lulu and IUniverse now available, no work ever has to completely leave public access.
The notion that rightsholders might have to be forced to make money is an interesting one--but taxes pay for copyright's legal machinery. I think protection-for-availability is a damned fine trade.
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Actually, patent works that way. Once your are issued a patent, every few years you have to cough up more money to keep it in force. If you don't pay on time, the patent reverts to public domain, because it is considered to be abandoned, even if your 20 years aren't up.
The real problem is big business has hijacked copyright in order to convert a limited, wasting asset into a permanent asset. And they will brook no change that would deprive them of their assets....
Copyright and patent have historically been considered equal under the law ( and I posit equal under creativity as well), only since the 1920's law revision have they been treated differently.....