[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by petrucci

If they truly had no value then people would not be interested in them. However, people are interested in copying/saving them. Thus they have value.

Not true. It is valueless to the publisher since it would cost more to publish than they would make in sales. But there would still be sales, because people still want it.

Publishers are trending more and more towards only publishing the latest and "greatest".

I readily admit that copyright can negatively effect the availability of some works. It is my opinion that things which are out of print should not be copyright. In this day and age, it is trivial to publish things, so it would not be much of a burden on the copyright holder.


I am not exactly sure at this point how central it is to capitalism. I suspect that it is very central. I will add that it has never been easier to copy works than it is today. My understanding is that copyright/printing rights came into being in the sixteenth century, not long after the printing press changed the economy. With today's technologies that are capable of copying both electronic and some physical items very inexpensively, copyright is a very important part of capitalism.

You still haven't proven anything, you have merely made a claim.

There are arguments on both sides of this issue. If there were no patents then there would be no incentive to put work into creating something, when someone else can take it for nothing. This would also lead to stagnation. I think that it is very important that things which have value, also have a cost associated with them. Without such a cost, there would be little incentive to try to make something different. You would have to constantly make something that was not only better than the previous thing, but also something that was better by a large margin, as the old thing would be free.

No one has said abolish copyright/patent altogether, we are debating the eternal copyright/patent.

It is also important for artists to be able to benefit financially from their efforts. Without copyrights of sufficient length, it simply does not pay to create works of art. This is especially true if those works are not immediately recognized, as has been the case with so many great artists.

Thus we are debating what that sufficient length is...

Go on... say something meaningful...

Nothing is stopping people from making such stories for personal edification, as it would probably fall under fair use. However, there is an issue if you wish to profit from the stories. In that instance you would need to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Unfortunately, it cannot work both ways. If the author wants to profit from their work, then copyright of sufficient length is needed. (the length is dependent on the demand and value) Granted that there is copyright, then we cannot just take large parts of other peoples' creations, even if we want to make something new from them.

Then isn't it fortunate that Ninjalawyer was merely arguing for shorter copyrights giving people the legal right to do so...

Why do you keep trying to confuse the issue? No one is arguing for NO copyright. Everyone is arguing about HOW LONG copyright should be.