Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
Not at all. Maximizing the economic potential, both for the creator, and for the people who will benefit from the existence and use of the creation, is the point of copyright. Having a valuable creation available to be purchased and used is considered (in the long view) to be of economic benefit to the public.
This idea assumes, of course, that the public "benefits" from being able to read Harry Potter or watch a Disney DVD. It does not assume that the public has been "disadvantaged" because they had to pay for the product... supposedly, the enjoyment from the product should equal (or surpass) the cost of the product, making the net transaction positive, or advantageous. Whether it does, or not, is a marketing issue.
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That would imply that with all the orphan works still covered by copyright but not printed and not available to the public for years, and authors like J. K. Rowling using the fact that they have copyright to keep the books away from e-readers, copyright is currently harmful to the public?
Perhaps there should be some addition to the copyright law that would make the copyright owner lose the copyright, if he tried to use this right to make work unavailable to the public.