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Originally Posted by Timboli
I would argue, that it is totally about perspective, and history has many variables in what used to occur. Some would say, that what happened in the past is irrelevant, and that we live in a more considered and enlightened world now, and that fairness is the key.
Certainly many authors and publishers, who would like to leave a legacy to their family, don't agree with Public Domain. I guess a good number of them would see the situation as theft sanctioned by authority.
At the end of the day, a bunch of other people, made up some rules about Public Domain, essentially based on public opinion. Because of that, those law makers have come up with a bunch of criteria, which often varies from country to country, and can change over time. That criteria being a justification and or an imperative.
My own view, is it isn't a black & white situation. So I kind of agree with elements on both sides.
But it does kind of suggest, that a good portion of the Public Domain status, is about critical mass ... one side over-riding the other due to numbers and public interest justification.
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Well, gosh, as a programmer, I would love it if I could copyright my code and get paid everytime it gets called. Doesn't mean that my particular desire to get rich has any real moral obligation on society.
Originally, copyright was the right to print books and had nothing to do with the author getting paid. The copyright holders were the printing companies, not the author. Queen Anne's law did assign the copyright to authors, but it was still a compromise between the monopoly of printers and authors. In the US, the Constitution makes it a bit more explicit in that copyright was assigned for a limited time with the idea of promoting the useful arts.
The current idea of copyright as property comes from the Berne Convention, basically written by a rich French author (Victor Hugo, who actually used ghost writers a lot) in the 1880's who felt that it was unfair that copyright didn't equate to property and that copyright should be standardized according to his wishes. The US ignored the Berne Convention until US music, movies and TV shows started to generate significant sales in other countries and thus in 1988, the US signed on.
In general, artists like public domain. It allows them to climb on the backs of previous generations and "borrowing" is most common in music and movies. For very common examples are MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" whose beat is almost an exact replica of Rick James "Super Freak". Up until 1988, most artists were fairly open about borrowing. Currently, rappers like to mix in beats and extracts from other artists. In the US, this is considered fair use.
Authors seem to be a bit more caught up in the idea that copyright is property, perhaps because while music and movies is general a collaborative effort and the creator may not be the performer, authors are both the creator and performer, assuming you ignore the work done by editors and the like.
Once again, I suspect that the vast majority of the public are indifferent towards the idea of copyright, just so long as they can get their books, music and movies at what they perceive as a fair price. To a great extent, copyright as it currently exists, is driven by the small group of companies that benefit from it and ignored by everyone else.