Quote:
Originally Posted by latepaul
If it becomes impossible to implement a third party API due to copyright restriction then that discourages rather than encourages creativity - which is the intent behind copyright.
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Well, the purpose of copyright is to encourage that sort of thing BY MEANS OF SEVERELY LIMITING IT FOR A SHORT TIME. So it wouldn't theoretically go against the intent of copyright. Encourage the development of clever and useful APIs by means of ensuring a period of exclusivity, then afterwards it's availble to benefit all. Yay.
But even aside from the fact that copyright has been corrupted into an indefinite profit protection scheme in violation of it's intent and so doesn't even serve it's intended function for traditional material, I still don't think it should apply to APIs because their nature and use is too different to be served well by copyright as it exists (even if it wasn't corrupted).