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Originally Posted by eschwartz
This despite the fact it was only ever created to be what is best for the public?
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Exactly, copyright isn't a reward for authors, it creates rights where there were none for a very specific purpose.
And in any event, individual authors are likely better served by having a limited copyright. They lose out by not being able to help maintain a stream of income for their far-future descendants, but gain by being able to remake, remix and transform the works of past authors.
Even Disney, who pushed for copyright extension, has made great use (and countless millions) from public domain works.
Edit
Here's a succinct quote from The Economist (
here) that sums things up:
Quote:
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The moral case, although easy to sympathise with, is a way of trying to have one's cake and eat it. Copyright was originally the grant of a temporary government-supported monopoly on copying a work, not a property right. From 1710 onwards, it has involved a deal in which the creator or publisher gives up any natural and perpetual claim in order to have the state protect an artificial and limited one. So it remains.
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Tubmonkey and others are arguing from emotions rather than logic, they want intellectual property to be physical property, despite the fact that: (i) the two things are completely different; (ii) that difference has been settled for hundreds of years; and (iii) there's no "natural right" outside of the law to control what others do with your expressions (what copyright provides a monopoly for) once you disseminate it.