Quote:
Originally Posted by meeera
And those expire in about 20 years, not life + 70.
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And that in general is the purpose of copyright and patents. A limited time monopoly so the author or inventor can profit, then into the public domain for the benefit of society. It's a two way street, rather than a one way street. In the US both copyright and patents have been stretched far beyond what they were originally considered, but in different ways. Copyright has been extended far, far beyond what was originally considered to be a fair exclusive period, at first 14 years. Patents were originally suppose to be very narrow in scope. Until very recently, you could only patent a specific working device, now it's common to patent very broad concepts that may or may not be actually tied to any specific mechanism.