Quote:
Originally Posted by speakingtohe
I know you did not mention squatting, but it seemed to be implied. If exclusitivity is removed from a house for example, you or your heirs still own it, just not exclusively. Someone else could go live there too.
Not the way the world works at present, and I am sure that some would argue that most homeowners would work hard and build or buy houses just from the overwhelming desire to do so, whether or not they got any long term benefit from them. Probably a few hundred would.
Helen
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No, it's not implied. Let's go back the Copyright Clause again. "The Congress shall have Power ... 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."
Copyright, as well as patent, is similar to a lease. The author gets exclusivity for a period of time. The exclusivity isn't "taken away", it expires. No one could take away the exclusivity for a house, as it doesn't have an expiration.
If I build a new type of house, no one could take that house from me. I may be able to patent that type of house, and during that time of patent exclusivity, no one else may build another house of that type without my permission. After the patent expires, I still own the house, the only thing that has changed is that other people are now free to build houses of that type without my permission. No one could use the Copyright Clause to claim that physical property has an expiration date.
What rights squatters have, if any, are a reasonable subject for debate, but they have nothing to do with copyright.