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Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
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.
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Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
So, if you build a house, the government should take it away from you after 28 years? If you start a business, the government should take it away from you after 28 years? If you buy shares in a company, those shares should disappear after 28 years?
Why should copyright be different?
While I think 28 years is too short a period, the government doesn't take anything away when copyright expires, the granted period of exclusivity simply expires.
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Ah I was arguing the exclusivity that you mentioned should not be applied only to copyright if applied at all. Generally you have exclusive rights to your house. Well if we disregard insects and rodents etc.
In some countries, if your property is uninhabited for a period of time, vacation, working out of country, sabbatical etc. squatters have a pretty strong ability to squat, thus negating your exclusive use of your home and squatters can actually gain legal possession of it.
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...049946,00.html
Modern copyright laws were inacted mainly to protect the rights of authors and publishers (primarily publishers I suspect) upon the invention of the printing press, not to allow people free access to knowledge, but to ensure that there would be new knowledge and entertainment to access.
http://www.historyofcopyright.org/
And like HarryT I feel that authors works deserve the same rights as anyone else, whether it be a home they bought or built, a business or anything else acquired honestly.
Helen