Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Sorry, why would anyone want to "register" a copyright? You AUTOMATICALLY have a copyright on anything that you write, unless you specifically state it to be in the public domain. You don't even need to put a copyright message on it.
|
Harry, do you automatically get a patent just by deciding you invented something, a trademark just my saying "it's mine", or a piece of land just by squatting on it and saying "it's mine!" (some of the worst range wars in the old west were over people who squatted on land that another had legally filed and paid for.) Why should copyright be different? (It currently
is different, and look at the systemic abuse that has occurred because of it.)
I file for format copyrights (in the US) on items I wish to preserve formal ownership on. I can then state (if necessary), you have violated copyright -------, formally filed at the copyright office (which has date and ownership information.) This would make a lawsuit over I.P. much easier. Things I don't copyright, I consider not worth the bother, and won't defend. Doing this costs money (TANSTAFFL).
SHRUG. In the history of
Homo Economicus, anything free gets wasted and abused (it's called "the problem of the commons" by economists). It doesn't matter whether we're talking copyright or CO2 emmissions. I.P. used to not have this problem very much due to the short-term and wasting aspect of I.P. (40 or 50 years and it was gone.) Since the Berne Convention, a great lobbying effort has been put into copyright to make it approach perpetual property in nature, creating the same "commons" problems of other properties. The traditional answer is to provide ownership (and ownership costs) to the "free" item. That's what I was trying to point out in this thread.