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Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Well lets remember that ultimately it is the choice of the author if he or she wants to let a work fall into obscurity. Any author, at any time, can choose to forgo the protections that copyright offers and place their work into the public domain or at least make it more public than the default (via the creative commons license for example).
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Authors have this option
before they sign a contract with a publisher, but usually not afterward. And the Creative Commons concept hasn't been around long enough to have been an option for the vast majority of works that are out of print, with rights tied up and often unavailable to authors
or functioning publishers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Ultimately there is one reason, and one reason only why people in a democratic company have to put up with such ridiculous copyright terms; we let them get away with it.
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Freudian slip?
Again, I'm not trying to justify piracy. But when you talk about undermining social contracts, I think you should take into account that considerable erosion has already occurred at the hands of large content conglomerates.