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Originally Posted by HarryT
With the greatest respect, Ralph, you're on very shaky ground trying to use the ideas of 300 years ago to justify today's laws. For one thing, we live far longer: average life expectency in the early 18th century was under 40; today, in most western countries, it's in the mid 80s.
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Right! Old ideas can't possibly have any bearing on modern life. Chuck out the Bible—nobody reads it anymore anyway. Oh, and dump the Constitution and Bill of Rights. How could the ideas of 200-300 years ago justify today's laws?
It's plain silly to think that the purpose of "securing
for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" no matter what the Constitution says. It's
really to make lots of money for the authors (and their descendants), and the "useful Arts" (which rely on having a thriving public domain from which to borrow materials) can just go hang. After all, what "progress" is promoted by extending the length of copyright for works written by writers who are already dead? Will it get them to write more?
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For another, there were virtually no professional authors at that time; today, many people make a living writing, and by other "creative" activities. I can honestly see absolutely no rational justification for considering the "work" of writing a book to be trated differently from any other type of work, in terms of being able to pass on its benefits to one's family.
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So let's say you make fine furniture and sell it. You get paid money for the furniture, you save it up, you pass the money on to your family after you die. But you can't actively
provide for your family after you die, because you can't go on making furniture after you're dead. (Unless you're, y'know, a zombie or something.)
Why should the "work" of writing a book be treated differently than the "work" of building furniture? Your family can't profit from your furniture after you're dead (unless they saved some back to sell then). Seems it's only fair that they not be able to profit from your book after you're dead (unless they save an unpublished manuscript to sell then), given that the "work" should be treated the same and all.