Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
There's been quite a lot of discussion on the matter since the Constitution. 
That link I included goes into it.
The idea of the PD, in my way of thinking, is implicit in what happens AFTER the "limited" time that all copyright laws I'm familiar with give, otherwise, as someone said, why limit the time at all?
In any case, the fact of the "how" does not change the "why" anymore than the fact of the "why" means we can ignore the "how."
So I think Hitch and Sgt. Stubby are both wrong.
ApK |
Strictly speaking, copyright doesn't create the public domain. The public domain is the default: before copyright, everything was public domain. Rather than create the public domain, copyright merely suspends work entering the public domain for a limited time. There is no other reasonable explanation for the limited time of copyright except for the work to enter the public domain. A patent isn't eternal, and isn't meant to be and the same clause allows both patent and copyright. Both allow a limited time, government granted monopoly, and at the end of the period, the monopoly ends.